Topic Modelling

• crawl

• text preprocessing

• vector space model

• seleksi fitur

• topic modelling LSA

• SVD

• topik : bobot terhadap masing-masing term

• dokumen : bobot terhadap masing-masing topik

!pip install requests
!pip install requests-oauthlib
!pip install searchtweets

Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://us-python.pkg.dev/colab-wheels/public/simple/
Requirement already satisfied: requests in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (2.27.1)
Requirement already satisfied: urllib3<1.27,>=1.21.1 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests) (1.26.15)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi>=2017.4.17 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests) (2022.12.7)
Requirement already satisfied: charset-normalizer~=2.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests) (2.0.12)
Requirement already satisfied: idna<4,>=2.5 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests) (3.4)

Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://us-python.pkg.dev/colab-wheels/public/simple/
Requirement already satisfied: requests-oauthlib in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (1.3.1)
Requirement already satisfied: oauthlib>=3.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests-oauthlib) (3.2.2)
Requirement already satisfied: requests>=2.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests-oauthlib) (2.27.1)
Requirement already satisfied: urllib3<1.27,>=1.21.1 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests>=2.0.0->requests-oauthlib) (1.26.15)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi>=2017.4.17 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests>=2.0.0->requests-oauthlib) (2022.12.7)
Requirement already satisfied: charset-normalizer~=2.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests>=2.0.0->requests-oauthlib) (2.0.12)
Requirement already satisfied: idna<4,>=2.5 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests>=2.0.0->requests-oauthlib) (3.4)

Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://us-python.pkg.dev/colab-wheels/public/simple/
Requirement already satisfied: searchtweets in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (1.7.6)
Requirement already satisfied: requests in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from searchtweets) (2.27.1)
Requirement already satisfied: tweet-parser in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from searchtweets) (1.13.2)
Requirement already satisfied: pyyaml in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from searchtweets) (6.0)
Requirement already satisfied: urllib3<1.27,>=1.21.1 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests->searchtweets) (1.26.15)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi>=2017.4.17 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests->searchtweets) (2022.12.7)
Requirement already satisfied: charset-normalizer~=2.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests->searchtweets) (2.0.12)
Requirement already satisfied: idna<4,>=2.5 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from requests->searchtweets) (3.4)

from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import TfidfVectorizer
corpus = [
    'This is the first document.',
    'This document is the second document.',
    'And this is the third one.',
    'Is this the first document?',
]
vectorizer = TfidfVectorizer()
X = vectorizer.fit_transform(corpus)
vectorizer.get_feature_names_out()


print(X.shape)

(4, 9)

import os
import pandas as pd
from nltk.tokenize import RegexpTokenizer
from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import TfidfVectorizer
from sklearn.decomposition import TruncatedSVD

# Load Dataset
documents_list = []
with open( os.path.join("/content/drive/MyDrive/prosaindata/source/tasks/assets/article.txt") ,"r") as fin:
    for line in fin.readlines():
        text = line.strip()
        documents_list.append(text)

documents_list

["Barclays' defiance of US fines has merit Barclays disgraced itself in many ways during the pre-financial crisis boom years. So it is tempting to think the bank, when asked by US Department of Justice to pay a large bill for polluting the financial system with mortgage junk between 2005 and 2007, should cough up, apologise and learn some humility. That is not the view of the chief executive, Jes Staley. Barclays thinks the DoJ’s claims are “disconnected from the factsâ€\x9d and that it has “an obligation to our shareholders, customers, clients and employees to defend ourselves against unreasonable allegations and demands.â€\x9d The stance is possibly foolhardy, since going into open legal battle with the most powerful US prosecutor is risky, especially if you end up losing. But actually, some grudging respect for Staley and Barclays is in order. The US system for dishing out fines to errant banks for their mortgage sins has come to resemble a casino. The approach prefers settlements behind closed doors and the difference in size of penalties is never explained. Occasional leaks of the negotiating demands make the methodology appear even more arbitrary. Deutsche Bank was initially asked for $14bn (£11.5bn), but reached a settlement of $7.2bn on Thursday. Where is the rhyme or reason? There is also a strong suspicion that the roulette wheel is weighted against the Europeans. US banks, in the forms of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citi, were at the front of the queue for settlement for no obvious reason. If Barclays created and distributed far fewer toxic mortgage securities than its US rivals, which is what the bank argues, why shouldn’t its fine be proportionately smaller? Neither Barclays nor the DoJ is talking hard numbers. But Barclays, it is said, was asked for $4bn, versus its own analysis that a fair sum would be $1bn and $2bn could have been swallowed for the sake of certainty. When the gap is so wide, Barclays is entitled to take its chances in court – and yes, it probably has an obligation to do so. A board can’t let $2bn slip out of the door just for the sake of a quiet life. The case will be messy, inevitably. Barclays’ practices were “plainly irresponsible and dishonest,â€\x9d according to Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general. There is also a cache of ugly emails and documents. The DoJ lawsuit says Barclays employees called one parcel of securitised loans “craptacularâ€\x9d. Another was said to “look like shitâ€\x9d. However, that is almost par for the course in these cases. The central question is the right size of penalty. If Barclays thinks it has been singled out for unduly harsh treatment, the bank should try to prove its case. Staley will look like a fool if he fails, but the willingness to reject the easy option of settling is entirely legitimate.",
 "How big is Hillary Clinton's lead in the presidential race? It depends on the poll Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton now has an 11-percentage-point lead over her Republican opponent Donald Trump, according to a poll released by PRRI and the Atlantic on Tuesday. If that weren’t already reason enough for Trump supporters to worry, a poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal released on Monday put Clinton’s lead at 14 percentage points. But why the difference in numbers? If you want to follow polls in the 28 remaining days before the US votes, I strongly recommend you ignore the date that the poll was published – and focus instead on the dates that the poll was conducted. That PRRI/Atlantic poll was based on landline and cellphone interviews that took place on 5-9 October while the data for the NBC/WSJ poll was gathered on 8-9 October. Those dates are potentially significant given that on 8 October, a 2005 recording was released of Trump saying that, thanks to his fame, he was able to grab women “by the pussyâ€\x9d. It’s highly likely that a larger proportion of respondents were interviewed after the Trump recording was made public in the NBC/WSJ poll compared with the PRRI/Atlantic poll. That could mean a 14-percentage-point lead is a more accurate indication of Clinton’s current position in the race. But the crucial question is whether Clinton’s lead is temporary or permanent. We’ll need to keep an eye on numbers in the days ahead to understand that. In the meantime, though, it’s worth looking beyond the horserace numbers that appear at the top of the survey and digging a little further. In the PRRI/Atlantic poll, I was curious about a question that provided the statement: “These days society seems to punish men just for acting like menâ€\x9d – 36% of respondents agreed. Another 41% agreed with the statement: “Society as a whole has become too soft and feminine.â€\x9d Those attitudes could provide useful information for understanding why voters might support their respective candidates.",
 'Zika’s greatest ally is human intransigence The revenge of the viruses marches on. After bird flu and Ebola comes Zika, and the possibility of widespread child deformity in mosquito-infested parts of the globe. The impact of the disease is as yet unpredictable, but its spread is so far fierce and unstoppable, and the disease is incurable. While a precise causal link between Zika and small-brain deformity in babies is unproven, the precautionary principle clearly applies. Standing across the path of action are two massive and conservative bureaucracies, the World Health Organisation and the Roman Catholic church. The WHO, caught napping on Ebola, is trying desperately not to repeat the fiasco. But its message is the plodding one, that women should don insect repellent and not get pregnant. With over half of Latin American pregnancies unintended and mosquitoes endemic, it is like holding back a tsunami with a spoon. The Catholic church is equally unhelpful. It discourages birth control, opposes state contraception programmes and bans abortion. In El Salvador an infected woman who seeks an abortion goes to jail. Common humanity demands that this stop. Such is Zika’s virulence that a sizable proportion of the current generation of Latin American children could yet be born severely disabled. With Ebola the contagion was contained by ruthless isolation and, eventually, drugs. With Zika there is as yet no such remedy. Mass eradication of mosquitoes clearly holds the key, to Zika and many other insect-borne diseases, but that has been the case for decades. The mosquito has long held sway over humankind as the fittest, most adaptable and most vengeful of creatures. So far Zika is confined to Latin America – but what if it reaches Africa? One hope is that introducing new strains of genetically modified male insects holds the key. Early tests in Brazil are promising in reducing mosquito populations, but this has to be a patchy remedy and reports of bureaucratic obstacles suggest the usual delay. Women in these countries need reassurance and emergency help. Since the present danger lies in conception, the relief must lie in access to contraception and ensuring reproductive rights. Insect repellents and lab experiments are no use to an expectant mother, frantic with fear, whose government and church offer nothing but jail or despair.',
 "Fight for the right: Cruz and Rubio spar in Nevada to be Trump's challenger Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio arrived in Nevada late on Sunday with distinctly different pitches for why each should be considered the most viable challenger to the Republican presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump. The two first-term senators effectively tied in South Carolina’s primary at the weekend and are running short of time to stop Trump, who beat them both by a 10-point margin, from clinching the Republican nomination for the White House. Both senators vowed that they were uniquely positioned to defeat the real estate mogul, but whereas Cruz focused his efforts on firing up Nevada’s rural, religious right, Rubio underscored the need for a more diverse coalition of conservatives reflective of a new generation. Rubio, who spent part of his childhood in Nevada, a state in which close to half the population are minorities, talked about the support he received from South Carolina’s governor, Nikki Haley, and Senator Tim Scott. “I was on stage receiving the endorsement of an Indian American governor from South Carolina, who was endorsing a Cuban American senator from Florida, and I was standing next to the African American Republican senator from South Carolina.â€\x9d “This is the face of the new conservative movement,â€\x9d he told a couple of hundred supporters inside Texas Casino, a resort off the Las Vegas strip. “We are the party of everyone.â€\x9d Cruz, a senator for Texas, headed straight to hammer-shaped Nye County, which is over 90% white. In Pahrump – with 37,000 or so residents, the region’s population center – he made a play for the state’s rural conservatives by promising that if was sworn in as president “the persecution of religious liberty ends todayâ€\x9d. On a weekend that saw yet another mass shooting, Cruz also pledged to defend the second amendment while boasting of his support from the Gun Owners of America. He further warned, in a state with a sizable Latino population, of the need “to finally, finally, finally control the borders and end sanctuary citiesâ€\x9d. In South Carolina on Saturday, Rubio inched just ahead of Cruz to clinch second place by less than a percentage point. Both candidates nonetheless paled in comparison with Trump, who scored a second consecutive overwhelming victory after the New Hampshire primary on 9 February. Trump holds a similarly commanding lead in Nevada, with the caucuses less than two days away, although surveying in the state is notoriously unreliable. Trump’s success has left neither Rubio nor Cruz where they had hoped to be at this stage of the race. Rubio, despite bouncing back somewhat from a poor showing in New Hampshire, has yet to win a primary. And Cruz, despite coming out on top of the Iowa caucuses, now faces questions over whether his evangelicals are as loyal to his campaign as had been expected. However, the maverick senator questions the Republican frontrunner’s support base. “Donald Trump has demonstrated that he has a relatively high floor of support,â€\x9d Cruz said during a brief news conference in the back room of a smoky sports bar on State Route 160. “But he’s also got, I think, a ceiling.â€\x9d “For folks who are concerned that Donald Trump is not the best candidate to go head-to-head with Hillary Clinton, it is becoming clearer and clearer that we are the one campaign that can beat Donald Trump. Indeed, we’re the only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump, in Iowa. And we will continue to go forward and beat him.â€\x9d While he was consistently respectful of his billionaire rival, Cruz dismissed Rubio as an underachiever who had low-balled his prospects throughout the race. Cruz cited in particular an interview of Rubio’s with ABC’s This Week on Sunday, in which host George Stephanopoulos asked the Florida senator which state he thought he could win after losing all three early contests. “He said, ‘I think we could win Florida, March 15,’â€\x9d Cruz recounted. “Now that’s a fairly amazing admission that they don’t believe they’re gonna win here in Nevada. Apparently they don’t believe they’re going to win any states on Super Tuesday.â€\x9d “They’re writing off March 5. They’re writing off March 8. And they’re trying to wait, apparently, until March 15 to finally win a state,â€\x9d Cruz added. “And I would point out even in Florida, his home state, he’s right now polling in third place, behind both Donald and me.â€\x9d Rubio’s campaign sought to drive home the opposite message: that it was Cruz who had been left bruised after falling short in a state tailor-made for his evangelical appeal. “If Ted Cruz can do no better than third place in a state like South Carolina where 73% of the electorate described themselves as ‘born-again or evangelical Christian’, where else can he win?â€\x9d Rubio’s campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, wrote in a memo on Sunday. Rubio, for his part, charted a path to victory contingent upon winnowing the field and consolidating support behind his candidacy. With former Florida governor Jeb Bush suspending his campaign after South Carolina, Rubio said during an interview with CNN on Sunday, the dynamic was “beginning to shiftâ€\x9d. “That is what gives us an opportunity to coalesce and bring together Republicans who understand that we have to nominate someone who will unify our party, who will reach out to people that haven’t voted for us and grow our party and ultimately who can win.â€\x9d The Florida senator struck upon similar themes while rallying with supporters across three states on Sunday – with stops in Nashville, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, and finally Las Vegas. Framing himself as the most viable general election candidate, Rubio spoke defiantly of his ability to challenge Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. “If you nominate me, we will win this election,â€\x9d he said. This article was amended on 22 February 2016 to correct a statement that Marco Rubio was born in Nevada. He was born in Florida, but spent some of his childhood in Nevada.",
 'Voting day: America finally goes the polls Candidates sign off on 2016 election campaigns The long, bitter presidential campaign is finally over and the two historically unpopular candidates have handed off to the nation’s 225,788,000 eligible voters. At a monumental, final rally at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton, flanked by her husband, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama promised a better future for the country and vowed to “bridge the dividesâ€\x9d that emerged during the campaign. Obama, passing the torch to Clinton, echoed the themes of 2008 as he urged voters to “reject fear and embrace hopeâ€\x9d. The party was joined on stage by Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi. Meanwhile in Michigan, Republican candidate Donald Trump ended his campaign with a show of relative restraint: “We’re hours away from a once-in-a-lifetime change,â€\x9d Trump told thousands of supporters who waited until 12.30am to see him. “We’re going to have real change, not Obama change.â€\x9d Here’s a timeline of how we got here and check out our election day live blog for rolling coverage. You can also sign up for our groundbreaking mobile election alert: The new live-updating alert we’re launching will be one of the fastest ways worldwide to monitor US election results. Find out more here. Election polls open after Clinton and Trump make final pitches What’s at stake in Congress? All eyes are on the race to be the next US president, but the battle to control Congress may be almost as consequential. It is extremely unlikely that the Democrats will seize control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, owing to an overwhelming, 60-seat Republican majority in the lower chamber, but Democrats could overcome the GOP’s current majority in the Senate. Races to watch: progressive star Zephyr Teachout in New York’s 19th congressional district and California state attorney general Kamala Harris, touted as a future national star for Democrats. What’s at stake for Congress in the US election? Support our fearless, independent journalism More people are reading the than ever but far fewer are paying for it. And advertising revenues are falling fast. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The ’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too. Support the with a monthly payment, or a contribution. Election survival guide The candidates have spent what feels like 100 years locked in mortal combat, but several hours from now there will finally be a victor – probably. We take you through the basics: the electoral college, the “swing statesâ€\x9d, the delegate counts, the candidates’ respective paths to victory and what to expect as the polls across three time zones close … Your election night survival guide: what to expect as polls close – with cocktails! Trump’s legacy: GOP civil war “It’s a movement, not a campaign.â€\x9d Of all the outlandish assertions to emerge from Donald Trump’s mouth, this one is by far the most credible. Win or lose, Trump has catalyzed a movement that has destroyed the conventional wisdom – and the establishment – that has led the Republican party for a generation, writes Richard Wolffe. Whether he built the movement or simply rode its wave, Trump has profoundly reshaped the politics of the Grand Old Party. Win or lose, Republicans are heading for civil war after election day Standing Rock Sioux reject presidential politics Generations of broken treaties, discrimination, police harassment and poverty have led to disillusion with mainstream politics among the Native Americans at Standing Rock. No surprise, then, that activists at the North Dakota pipeline site say they have little faith in either presidential candidate to bring about the kind of change they hope for. “I don’t want to have a say in government,â€\x9d said Frank Archambault, a 45-year-old member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “I guess you could call it trauma. I don’t have faith in government, so I don’t want to have a say.â€\x9d Standing Rock protesters sit out the election: ‘I’m ashamed of them both’ Stock markets surge World stock markets surged on Monday as investors grew increasingly confident that Hillary Clinton will win the US presidential election, after the FBI said it would take no further action against the Democratic nominee over her use of a private email server. The three main US indices all ended the day more than 2% higher, following strong gains in markets across the world. The US dollar also strengthened and the oil price ticked up by more than 1% in further signs of traders’ confidence in a Clinton victory. World stock markets surge amid confidence Clinton will win US election Military introduces electrical ‘brain-tuning’ US military scientists have used electrical brain stimulators to enhance mental skills of staff, in research that aims to boost the performance of air crews, drone operators and others in the armed forces’ most demanding roles. The successful tests of the devices pave the way for servicemen and women to be wired up at critical times of duty, so that electrical pulses can be beamed into their brains to improve their effectiveness in high-pressure situations. US military successfully tests electrical brain stimulation to enhance staff skills Ghana’s museum on wheels A new project in Ghana aims to make moveable museums available to all corners of the country by taking a small kiosk-sized gallery on the road to showcase artworks and cultural artefacts. The “kiosk museumâ€\x9d is the brainchild of Nana Oforiatta Ayim, a writer and film-maker. In December, the curator will begin a mammoth journey with the kiosk, starting in the capital Accra and travelling across Ghana’s 10 regions. Ghana’s first travelling museum ready to hit the road In case you missed it … After local Democratic parties in six battleground states filed lawsuits against Trump adviser Roger Stone’s voter fraud monitoring project, the Republican operative released new rules for volunteer monitors and pledged to a Nevada judge that he “will not target voters based on their raceâ€\x9d. But election monitors remain concerned that voter intimidation could still occur. Stone, an informal Trump adviser, said he was concerned that the Republican party in Ohio would try to manipulate votes to undermine Trump, and said that the Stop the Steal fraud prevention project was a “neutral processâ€\x9d. Donald Trump ally swears vigilante poll watchers will not target voters by race',
 'Twitter U-turns over banning white nationalist Twitter has reinstated the account of Richard B Spencer, a self-styled white nationalist leader who was suspended from the service in the wake of a much publicised crackdown on hateful conduct. Spencer’s account was initially suspended on 15 November, as part of a sweeping move against leaders of the “alt-rightâ€\x9d, a far-right movement which has been resurgent in America since the election of Donald Trump. That same day, Twitter had announced new safety tools on its social network, including the ability to more easily report hateful conduct. It had also announced changes in how it trained its moderators to enforce the policies. The suspension of Spencer, along with the accounts of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute which he heads up and its journal, Radix, was widely seen as a consequence of Twitter putting those new rules in action. Now, however, it appears that Twitter suspended Spencer for other reasons. Twitter sent the a copy of the email the company sent to the white nationalist activist, which suggests that Spencer was banned instead for running multiple accounts with too much overlap. A Twitter spokesperson said: “Our rules explicitly prohibit creating multiple accounts with overlapping uses. When we temporarily suspend multiple accounts for this violation, the account owner can designate one account for reinstatement.â€\x9d The email Twitter sent Spencer reads: As referenced in our November 18, 2016 communication, creating serial and/or multiple accounts with overlapping use is a violation of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please select one account for restoration; the others will remain suspended. This account will need to comply fully with the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please reply to this email with the username of the account you would like reinstated and we will make sure to answer your request in a timely manner. In the weeks following his suspension, Spencer hosted a conference in Washington DC, where audience members gave enthusiastic Nazi salutes (Spencer later said they had been “done in exuberance and funâ€\x9d). But on 11 December, his Twitter account was reactivated, and its verified status was reinstated. Verification is a special account status the social network gives to notable users to confirm they are who they say they are, but Twitter emphasises that “a verified badge does not imply an endorsement by Twitterâ€\x9d. As one of his first tweets after being reinstated, Spencer said: “I worked on getting my personal reinstated first. Next will be Radix, NPI, _AltRight_ and WSP.â€\x9d But the understands that those accounts, as some of the “multiple, overlapping accountsâ€\x9d for which Spencer was suspended, are unlikely to be reinstated. When it banned Spencer for the first time, the company declined to comment directly on the suspended accounts, but said “the Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.â€\x9d What Gamergate should have taught us about the ‘alt-right’',
 "Ariana Grande's donut-licking cost her a gig at White House, WikiLeaks reveals Licking donuts and saying “I hate Americaâ€\x9d cost Ariana Grande a prime gig performing for Barack Obama at the White House gala last September, according to several email exchanges exposed by WikiLeaks. Amid the thousands of DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks on Friday was a 10 September 2015 response to a request from the DNC finance chair, Zachary Allen, to vet the former Nickelodeon star to perform at a gala for the US president. “Ariana Butera-video caught her licking other peoples’ donuts while saying she hates America,â€\x9d the DNC’s deputy compliance director wrote in response, referring to Grande’s real name. “Republican Congressman used this video and said it was a double standard that liberals were not upset with her like they are with Trump who criticized Mexicans; cursed out a person on Twitter after that person used an offensive word towards her brother.â€\x9d A few months before the email exchange, on 4 July, Grande was caught on security cameras (obtained by TMZ) licking donuts sitting on the top shelf at a donut shop in southern California. When offered a fresh tray of donuts by an employee of the store, Grande is heard saying: “What the fuck is that? I hate Americans. I hate America.â€\x9d The event caused the hashtag #DonutGate to quickly go viral. Though never charged by police, the pop star issued a public apology on YouTube, in which she said: “I’ve actually never been prouder to be American.â€\x9d Grande is meanwhile one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest celebrity endorsers: in April 2015 she tweeted a short and succinct message to her millions of followers that expressed her sentiment. This piece was amended on 26 July 2016; Ariana Grande was a child star on Nickelodeon, not the Disney Channel.",
 "Never mind John Lewis – here's the TV advert music it's impossible to forget One of pop’s biggest days of the year fell last Thursday, when John Lewis unveiled its Christmas ad. The soundtrack to that ad is considered one of the prime showcase slots in the music industry – as Eamonn Forde wrote in the in 2014: “Winning the ad is the holy grail for sync departments and the pitching process is as long as it is secretive, with all entrants silenced by hefty non-disclosure agreements.â€\x9d Yet so often the song that accompanies the ad, despite being inescapable for six weeks, is gone from our minds like melting snow in January (can anyone remember a single thing about Tom Odell’s version of Real Love in 2014?). But the music of adverts need not be like that: the adverts we remember might be accompanied by music we hate, but there is no danger of us ever forgetting them. These are the advert themes we can’t shake (or vac). What are yours? Rowntree’s Tots I’d love to tell you that my earliest memories are of some wonderful family holiday, or of the verdant loveliness of a childhood in the Yorkshire Dales. But I can’t: every last one of my earliest memories involves television. They start to crowd in from around the time I was three or four: Wizzard on Top of the Pops (I was terrified of Roy Wood), Robert Wyatt on Top of the Pops (I was intrigued by his wheelchair), the cartoon polar bear who shilled Cresta pop with the words “It’s frothy, manâ€\x9d, and the song from an advert for Rowntree’s Tots. I can’t remember the visuals that accompanied it at all, but a snatch of the melody and the lyrics inexplicably clung to me forever afterwards: “Candy Tots, something new / They’re dolly mixtures and soft to chew.â€\x9d It would, in the way of ad music, pop into my head unbidden at inexplicable moments, until the day in the mid-noughties when I was sent a compilation of the work of late 60s/early 70s pop journeyman John Carter, variously the lead singer of the New Vaudeville Jazz Band, the brains behind First Class’s fantastic Brian Wilson homage Beach Baby, and the co-author of Summer of Love cash-in Let’s Go to San Francisco by the Flowerpot Men. I was only half-listening to it (as you might expect, given his CV, the musical quality was a bit variable) when the Rowntree’s Tots advert came bursting from the speakers: it transpired Mr Carter knocked out advertising jingles as well, and Rowntree’s Tots had been such a success that a spin-off single with altered lyrics was released. A little pathetically, I literally shouted in excitement. It would be nice if I could tell you the song was great, but, alas, 30 years on, it sounded a bit twee and irritating. Moreover, hearing it again didn’t – as I hoped - expunge it from my mind. It’s still rattling around in there, and I fully expect to be plagued by a jaunty endorsement of the manifold qualities of Candy Tots (long discontinued) on my deathbed. Alexis Petridis Shake n’ Vac Ever since I first heard it as a schoolboy in the early 1980s, the irritatingly catchy Shake n’ Vac ad song has lodged in my poor brain like a virus, and despite not being on TV since 1989, it still pops into my head. A retro, 50s-style rock’n’roll backing accompanies the brutally effective jingle: “Do the Shake n’ Vac and put the freshness back / Do the Shake n’ Vac and put the freshness back / When your carpet smells fresh, your room does too …â€\x9d Argh, no! The advert itself now looks kitsch and dated: Jenny Logan plays a maxi-skirted, high-heeled, bottom-wiggling housewife who sings of the joys of a sinister white powder that resembles anthrax, which is sprinkled over a carpet and vacuumed up again to leave it sparkling clean. I’ve since resisted the tune’s demonic calling and marketing witchcraft in the only way I know, by installing laminate flooring. Dave Simpson Carphone Warehouse Poor old Stereo MC’s. Their legacy as British hip-hop pioneers, whose 1990 single Elevate My Mind was the first UK rap entry on the US Billboard 100, will forever be eclipsed by four little words: gonna get myself connected. Yes, the London four-piece were indeed the band who soundtracked those Carphone Warehouse ads with a funk loop nabbed from KC and The Sunshine band affiliate Jimmy “Boâ€\x9d Horne and some sub-Britpop swagger. Like Mansun and soul patches, Connected is a thing of pure Nineties naffness – not quite dance but not quite indie, despite frontman Rob Birch showcasing a meandering, karaoke Tim Burgess vocal style. Although this writer was born two months after its release, its role in the marketing of 10-tonne Motorolas during my formative years means that – pardon the pun – I shall forever feel a connection. Hannah J Davies Milky Way “The red car and the blue car had a race.â€\x9d Those words alone are enough to set a piece of music racing through the heads of TV viewers of a certain age – the music to the ad known as Red Car Blue Car, made for Milky Way in 1989, a tinny piece of country rock’n’roll written by Mike Connaris, and a song so infernally catchy that when the ad was revived in 2009, there were people who celebrated its return. Even more incredibly, when its lyrics were changed and the song re-recorded as Home for Christmas Day, it reached No 44 in the charts – in December 1991. Yes, even after two years of exposure to the ad, there were people who were not yet sick of it. (These, perhaps, were the same people who decided they needed to buy a copy of Brian May’s Ford advert, Driven by You. Or who cheered when John Farnham performed his Gillette razors track The Best in concert.) But Red Car Blue Car did its job. To this day, when I see a red car and blue car next to each other at traffic lights, I wonder if they’ll race, and if the red car will be able to do anything but stuff its face. Like “apples, hazelnuts, bananas, raisins, coconuts, sultanasâ€\x9d and “feed me! Feed me NOW!â€\x9d, Red Car Blue Car is now embedded deep within me. It doesn’t make me want to eat Milky Ways, though. Michael Hann Müller yogurt Yoghurt advertising is irritating enough as it is: whether it’s Nicole Scherzinger orgasming over a fruit corner or some French children being intolerably wholesome in the vicinity of a Petits Filous, the flogging of the stuff is a small universe of ridiculous commercial fiction. But maybe the industry’s biggest crime was to take the transcendent 1968 Nina Simone song Ain’t Got No, I Got Life, layer some cow sound effects over it, and turn it into a maddening earworm most closely associated with imbecillic milk-based joie de vivre. Another unfortunate side-effect of using it to soundtrack a series of farm vistas is that it makes you realise how much Simone’s voice resembles a sheep’s. And thus, an icon now exists as little more in my mind than bleating shorthand for a worryingly fanatical devotion to dairy products. Rachel Aroesti Huggies Pull-Ups Morrissey once sang: “The music that they constantly play / It says nothing to me about my life.â€\x9d That has long been the case for me and the song from the Huggies Pull-Ups advert, which has been constantly playing in my head now for at least two decades despite saying precious little about my life. A quick Google suggests it first seeped into my consciousness when I was barely a teenager. And yet, despite being free of the need to consider elasticated nappy/pant hybrids by, ooh, at least a year or so, the song has remained stitched to my eardrums like some kind of audio Celtic symbol. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most annoying jingles ever recorded. The lyrics are annoying, the tune is moronic and the kid’s voice instilled in me a deep loathing of all human beings under the age of five. And yet I’ve never felt truly free of its presence. Indeed, if its influence over my daily soundtrack had finally started to wane in recent years, then the arrival of my daughter this summer meant that it has since returned with a vengeance. Of course, now that I’m in a situation where I might actually need to buy “big kid pantsâ€\x9d, you could argue that the Huggies advert finally does say something to me about my life. And does that make it any less annoying? No. No it does not. Tim Jonze",
 'Innovations fund aims to save women and newborn babies in Africa Public health experts in east Africa have hailed an initiative that will fund research on the continent in the hope of fostering African innovation. The $7m (£5.7m) Grand Challenges Africa innovation seed grants programme – funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and coordinated by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the Nepad Agency Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (Aesa) – is calling for ideas from Africa-based innovators working in maternal and newborn child health. In a statement, AAS/Aesa said the five-year programme would provide seed grants worth up to $100,000 each, with successful researchers eligible to apply for further funding of up to $1m to scale up their innovations. “Solutions for Africa’s challenges do exist within the continent. As an African grant-making body, we are laser-focused on tapping the best minds on the continent to develop innovative local solutions to our health and development challenges,â€\x9d said Aesa’s director, Tom Kariuki. That view was echoed by Peter Waiswa, an associate professor at the Makerere University School of Public Health in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Waiswa, a specialist in maternal and newborn health, said it was good the Grand Challenges scheme now had funds set aside specifically for – and managed in – Africa. Although the grants are small, Waiswa said, they are “most likely going to respond to local needsâ€\x9d. A key problem for the continent’s scientists is the dearth of Africa-driven research. In Uganda alone, Waiswa said, maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths add up to about 85,000 deaths a year. “These are double the number of people who die from HIV and Aids in Uganda,â€\x9d he added, “but all the attention is on HIV. So I think it is good that they are funding into this specific area. But, as I said, they are still small grants and we have to compete for them as a region.â€\x9d Waiswa said researchers often faced a lack of money for scaling up innovations. This has meant researchers cannot do long-term work. He cited the case of Ugandan scientist Misaki Wayengera, who created a prototype for a quick test for Ebola, but failed to get funding even after writing to the Ugandan president. Only after the latest Ebola outbreak in west Africa that Wayengera received financial support, from Grand Challenges Canada. At Makerere University and Nsambya hospital in Kampala, researchers wanted to solve birth asphyxia (newborn breathing difficulties) by cooling babies to zero, but they lacked funding. “There is a good effort,â€\x9d said Waiswa, “but government and other partners must come on board to push the science to the rightful conclusion. Even us – we have come up with a couple of innovations but they just die.â€\x9d Pauline Irungu, the advocacy and policy manager at the health charity Path in Kenya, said maternal and child health in Africa suffered from a lack of investment relative to areas such as HIV and Aids, leading to limited innovation. The Africa-centred grants will challenge African innovators to address other continent-specific health problems, she said. “HIV came with a bang. It was killing [so many] people and therefore there was a huge focus on it – there was a lot of investment,â€\x9d said Irungu, who has worked in public health since 2000. “But I think because maternal and newborn child [mortality] has always been with us. I haven’t seen a similar impetus to put in resources and to push for innovation that can change the trajectory.â€\x9d Like Waiswa, Irungu hopes the new grants will lead to more Africa-led research. “Homegrown solutions combined with world-class innovation is what will solve the problems of Africa,â€\x9d she said. “We can’t stand back and wait for someone to design something out there and bring it to Africa, and then we adopt it.â€\x9d Irungu is in no doubt that African scientists can tackle the continent’s problems if given a conducive environment in which to work. “Why are we talking about brain-drain? Africa – we – are exporting brains to the west,â€\x9d she said, citing the use of antiretroviral therapy to prevent HIV infection, for which proof-of-concept was driven by researchers in South Africa. “We don’t only have the brainpower; we also have institutions that are conducting world-class research in Africa. The Kenya Medical Research Institute is currently undertaking a study for a malaria vaccine for children.â€\x9d Just as enthused about the “Africannessâ€\x9d of the grants was Betty Walakira, chief executive officer of the Ugandan NGO Health Child. She says that, in poor countries, research funding is not a priority for governments. Yet local researchers continue to show good potential to address such problems as post-partum bleeding. “All this new knowledge is useful in the sense that it can be used in a developing country context,â€\x9d said Walakira, whose organisation promotes maternal and child health. The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has been talking up the potential of his country’s scientists, despite the government’s approach apparently being driven more by politics than cohesive policy. At the end of 2015, he was quoted as promising to increase the government’s innovation fund from $49m to about $143m. In June, Museveni created a department of science, technology and innovations, and its new minister, Elioda Tumwesigye, has already called for a substantive innovation fund.',
 "Police search Santander's Madrid HQ in money-laundering inquiry Police have searched the headquarters of Santander Bank in Madrid after suspicions were raised that the bank was linked to money laundering and tax evasion on the part of some of its clients. Acting on orders of high court judge José de la Mata, agents of the central operative unit of the Guardia Civil began searching the bank’s offices in Boadilla del Monte in central Spain on Friday morning for information about specific accounts. Santander issued a statement saying it had “received a request for information about the movements of certain accounts between different entitiesâ€\x9d. It added that it was collaborating with the authorities and “supplying all the available informationâ€\x9d. The case involves the continuing investigation into the Falciani list of accounts from HSBC’s Swiss private bank in Geneva, leaked by IT worker Hervé Falciani in 2008. The list included the names of some 130,000 suspected tax evaders, 659 of whom were Spanish. The Spanish tax office believes that as much as €6bn was concealed in these 659 accounts. A large number of the 659 people named regularised their affairs with the taxman but several decided to fight in the courts on the grounds that Falciani had obtained the information illegally and it was therefore not admissible as evidence. De la Mata has been investigating whether HSBC helped clients to conceal and launder money from illicit gains. Sources close to the case say that 40 “individuals or family groupsâ€\x9d are under investigation. All 40 are said to have appeared on Falciani’s list. A tax inspectors’ report says that “there are indications that HSBC, either through its offices in Switzerland or its branches in Spain or third countries, offered Spanish residents the possibility of placing substantial sums of money in opaque accountsâ€\x9d. Emilio BotÃ\xadn, then chief executive of Santander, was the most prominent Spanish name on Falciani’s list, along with several members of his family. The BotÃ\xadn family has run the bank since 1909. BotÃ\xadn made a €200m settlement with the Spanish tax agency, which represented 10% of the sum involved, but tax evasion charges were dropped after he made the settlement. His daughter Ana Patricia became CEO when he died in 2014 – she previously ran Santander in the UK.",
 'Gilmore suspends campaign while Trump threatens to sue Cruz – as it happened As a slow mid-primary Friday winds down, let’s recap today’s biggest stories in #Campaign2016: Jim Gilmore, the Republican presidential candidate whose name you always forgot despite your handy mnemonic (“Help! Rabid Grizzlies! For Pete’s Sake, Call Someone! Please! Call The Police! Just Call!â€\x9d), officially dropped out of the race for the party’s nomination. “I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,â€\x9d Gilmore pledged, before joining Martin O’Malley’s touring rock band of former presidential also-rans. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!â€\x9d in a piece in the New York Times titled “My Undiplomatic Moment.â€\x9d (From now on, we’re calling every mistake we make “My Undiplomatic Moment.â€\x9d) Although that may come a little too late for Clinton, whose struggles with female voters were well documented in New Hampshire. Donald Trump threatened to sue fellow Republican presidential candidate and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz over the latter’s putatively questionable status as a “natural-born citizen.â€\x9d Can Trump actually do that? As usual, the answer to that question is secondary to the reaction the position will incite. Recent second-place New Hampshire primary finisher, Ohio governor John Kasich, told an overflow crowd in South Carolina that his presidency would be focused on Theodore Roosevelt-esque reform. “If you’re going to have power, use it to drive creativity, innovation and change,â€\x9d Kasich said. “And if you don’t do that, why don’t you get out and go do something else?â€\x9d Kasich also had a delicious recommendation for fellow presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “I think Bernie ought to be president – of Ben & Jerry’s for a year, because we’d all get free ice cream.â€\x9d Stay tuned for more dispatches from the 2016 presidential campaign tonight, tomorrow, the next day, and every day until the sweet release of Election Day. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire:“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!â€\x9d Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state, called the episode an “undiplomatic moment,â€\x9d in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Friday. I absolutely believe what I said, that women should help one another, but this was the wrong context and the wrong time to use that line. I did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based solely on gender. But I understand that I came across as condemning those who disagree with my political preferences. If heaven were open only to those who agreed on politics, I imagine it would be largely unoccupied.â€\x9d Feminist writer Gloria Steinem, who has endorsed Clinton, recently apologized for remarks about young women who support Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, writing in a post that she “misspokeâ€\x9d and did not mean to imply that young women were not “serious about their politicsâ€\x9d. Taken together, the comments offended female Sanders supporters, and highlighted generational divides in the feminist movement. “I am concerned by the tone of the debate about the many problems that specifically affect women,â€\x9d Albright writes in the op-ed. “We cannot be complacent, and we cannot forget the hard work it took us to get to where we are. I would argue that because of what is at stake, this is exactly the time to have a conversation about how to preserve what women have gained, including the right to make our own choices, and how to move forward together. I would welcome an informed dialogue that crosses generations. We have much to learn from one another.â€\x9d During Thursday’s debate, Clinton said theâ€\x9dspecial place in hellâ€\x9d remark was nothing new, and Albright has been using it for “as long as I’ve known herâ€\x9d. But she did distance herself from the implication that women who don’t support her candidacy are somehow wrongheaded. “I have spent my entire adult life making sure that women are empowered to make their own choices,â€\x9d Clinton said, “even if that choice is not to vote for me.â€\x9d The Washington Examiner is reporting that Jim Gilmore, who served as the governor of Virginia more than 14 years ago, is finally ending his campaign for the Republican nomination. “My campaign was intended to offer the gubernatorial experience, with the track record of a true conservative, experienced in national security, to unite the party,â€\x9d Gilmore said, according to the Examiner. “My goal was to focus on the importance of this election as a real turning point, and to emphasize the dangers of continuing on a road that will further undermine America’s economy and weaken our national security.â€\x9d “Nonetheless, I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,â€\x9d he said. “And, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that our next President is a free enterprise Republican who will restore our nation to greatness and keep our citizens safe.â€\x9d Gilmore, who had failed to qualify for all but two of the so-called “undercardâ€\x9d presidential debates, has consistently been at the very bottom of the crowded Republican presidential field, rarely registering with even a single point in national polls. (He never appeared in the Real Clear Politics aggregate poll, making his candidacy functionally invisible.) In the Iowa caucuses, a mere dozen Iowans caucused for Gilmore, who then received 133 votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary. For comparison, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders received 2,095 in the New Hampshire Republican primary, in which he wasn’t even running. 10 reasons why voters are turning to Bernie Sanders When James Walsh asked our readers who they wanted to see as Democratic candidate, we were deluged with responses – most of them in favor of Bernie Sanders: 1) He’s seen as a challenge to the status quo... What came through loud and clear was the fury at mainstream American politics, echoing the populist support for (the really rather different) Donald Trump on the Republican side. Sanders appeals to those who feel the entire democratic system has broken down. Sanders is representing my interests. For decades American politics have been a sham, elections bought and paid for by special interests and corporations. They have wrecked the environment, caused the biggest financial crisis in history and are using their deep pockets and for profit agendas to marginalize people’s needs even further. Shaz Plunkett, Los Angeles CA 2) ... whereas Clinton is viewed as more of the same Clinton paints herself as the pragmatist who gets things done, but after New Hampshire she may need to further emphasise her progressive credentials if she’s going to win over those turning to Sanders. I have no grudge with Hillary Clinton, but she had her chance eight years ago. She is old news, with plenty of controversy, baggage and history that will bring out Republicans in droves to vote against her. Steve Guion, Fairfax, Virginia 3) Sanders’ consistency is judged a virtue The phrase ‘flip-flopping’ may bring back memories of John Kerry’s doomed presidential campaign in 2004, but our readers were keen to attach it to Clinton. The consistency of Sanders’ views was seen as a major plus. I’m tired of the rich getting richer, and having to work harder for less. I saw my parents lose so much of their retirement in the Wall Street crash and no one on Wall Street paid for that. My college education has done me no good but I still have student loans, and none of my kids were able to attend college because of the recession. We deserve change in this country, from someone who has consistently fought that fight. Danielle Banz, Monroe, Washington Marco Rubio walked back his statement in Saturday’s Republican debate that women should be subject to Selective Service and potentially eligible for the draft, writes the ’s Ben Jacobs in Greenville, South Carolina: At the South Carolina Faith and Family Forum, the Florida senator said “I do not support drafting women and forcing them to be combat soldiers.â€\x9d This marks a shift from his rather definitive statement on Saturday “I do believe that Selective Service should be opened up for both men and women in case a draft is ever instituted.â€\x9d Instead, Rubio seemed to hedge with the emphasis “on forcing them to be combat soldiers. The Florida senator also said “I don’t think we need Selective Service,â€\x9d arguing that a draft would not be necessary in any future war. Rubio’s adjustment on this issue was first elaborated on an issues page on his website which seems to have first appeared on February 9, the day of the New Hampshire primary. The Rubio campaign confirmed that the issues page was not posted until after Saturday’s debate. However, he had not publicly addressed the topic until now. The statement comes after Ted Cruz has violently denounced the concept, which was also endorsed by Jeb Bush and Chris Christie in Saturday’s debate. In a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Cruz said “the idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think, is wrong. It is immoral.â€\x9d In the aftermath, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a conservative darling, has announced he will introduce a bill to make women permanently exempt from registering for Selective Service as well. A Rubio spokesman said Thursday that the Florida senator would cosponsor the bill to insure that Congress, not the courts, would make the ultimate decision about women being eligible for the draft. The spokesman insisted to the Daily Caller that his stance did not imply support for Lee’s bill. In December, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that roles in the U.S. military would be opened to women, without restrictions based on gender. However, women are still exempted from registering for Selective Service, which provides the database used by the government to implement any future draft. In a statement, Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign insisted “there’s no change here. In the debate, he said Selective Service should be opened to women. And today, he said women shouldn’t be drafted into combat roles. Two separate questions. In sum, Marco does not support drafting women of any age into combat roles - period.â€\x9d Donald Trump has threatened to sue fellow Republican presidential candidate and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz over the latter’s putatively questionable status as a “natural-born citizen.â€\x9d It’s the strongest indication yet that Trump aims to continue highlighting the fact that Cruz was born in Canada. The Texan senator was born in Calgary in 1971. Although his father, Rafael, was not an American citizen at the time, his Delaware-born mother, Eleanor, was. Article II of the US constitution requires that “no person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.â€\x9d However, legal scholars have long interpreted natural born citizen to refer to whether someone acquired their citizenship at birth, not the geographic location where they were born. As a result, Cruz, who was a citizen at birth, is a natural born citizen. The Democratic rivals clashed over race and immigration issues in last night’s debate in Milwaukee, writes the ’s Lauren Gambino - with votes Nevada and South Carolina looming: The battle lines have been drawn for the next phase of the head-to-head betweenHillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as they target race and immigration issues in an effort to court black and Latino voters in their bid for the Democratic nomination. The 2016 election race moves south and west – to Nevada, South Carolina and then a clutch of southern states as part of the sweep of Super Tuesday contests on 1 March. And as the pair met on a debate stage for the first time since Sanders crushed Clinton in New Hampshire, the focus on inequality in the justice system and on conditions faced by hard-working immigrant families was an unambiguous pitch for votes. John Kasich, fresh from a second place finish in New Hampshire, is widely seen as a flag-bearer of the Republican establishment but today showed his own rebellious streak, reports Washington correspondent David Smith from Columbia, South Carolina: “I watched them blow the whole surplus and I ask people, who do you think was in charge of blowing a $5 trillion surplus and they always say it’s the Democrats, and I say unfortunately it was a Republican House, Republican Senate and Republican president blew the whole thing,â€\x9d he told the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in Columbia. Reflecting on economic reforms he introduced as governor of Ohio, Kasich added: “If you’re going to have power, use it to drive creativity, innovation and change. And if you don’t do that, why don’t you get out and go do something else? I’m a big reformer. That’s why I’m not in the establishment lane because I always make them nervous.â€\x9d Visibly relaxed, a freewheeling Kasich also cracked a few jokes, including at leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders’ expense. “I think Bernie ought to be president – of Ben & Jerry’s for a year, because we’d all get free ice cream.â€\x9d He also referenced the movie Jaws as he described volunteers flocking to his campaign, saying: “We need a bigger boat.â€\x9d The governor said blue collar voters were moving his way but added: “My father was a Democrat. If I’d have said, ‘Dad, are you a socialist?’ he’d have kicked me out of the house.â€\x9d In another routine, Kasich recalled explaining to his 16-year-old twins what a payphone is and took an iPhone from an audience member to make a point about innovation. Kasich said he was determined to maintain an upbeat message and not be dragged into trading insults with other candidates. “I felt coming out of New Hampshire, even though they’d spent millions against me, and they’ll do it here as well, the light outshined the darkness of negative campaigning.â€\x9d But he added: “I will not be a pin cushion... I’m pretty scrappy, you know.â€\x9d Kasich recalled launching his campaign in July last year and operating in “total obscurityâ€\x9d. A friend asked him how it felt to be stuck at 1% for a hundred days. He said he did not read the papers. Around 60 people gathered in the chamber’s boardroom. Adeline Saint-Jour, 32, a physician and undecided Republican voter, who asked a question during the event, said later: “I thought he made a very good point about having young people understand their goals early in life. He made a good point about mentoring.â€\x9d One journalist commented afterwards: “Kasich is going to be vice-president.â€\x9d Lots of new ads out there – here’s one attacking Trump from Right to Rise, the Super Pac supporting Jeb Bush, employing a cool ice statue of Trump... ...and here’s one attacking Trump from the political action committee attached to the Club for Growth, the anti-tax group that has for years been calling out Trump for not being a true conservative: “There’s nothing conservative about Donald Trump: Trump, naturally, has responded to the attacks on Twitter: Watching the rise of Donald Trump from loudmouthed celebrity to serious US presidential candidate spurred illustrator and filmmaker Guy Larsen to produce a satirical children’s book in which Trump is controlled by a malevolent hair piece. Watch Larsen read his book here: N.B.: Trump does not wear a wig; that’s his “realâ€\x9d hair. Republican candidates Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, and Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, are speaking at a Faith and Family Presidential Forum in Greenville, South Carolina. Carson has just finished explaining how Jesus Christ is his role model: “Treat others as you would wish to be treated.â€\x9d Here’s a live video stream: The forum is hosted by the Palmetto family alliance and the conservative leadership project on the campus of Bob Jones University. Washington correspondent David Smith is taking in a rally with Ohio governor John Kasich, who finished second in New Hampshire, at the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. The cash-tight Kasich camp got good news Thursday, when it received a sudden pledge of support from Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot. “At South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in Columbia where around 60 people plus media have filled a boardroom to hear candidate John Kasich,â€\x9d David tweets: Kasich on presidential campaign: “I got in in July. I operated in total obscurity.â€\x9d Polls showed me at 1% but I didn’t read the papers. Kasich: In New Hampshire “the light outshined the darkness of negative campaigningâ€\x9d. We’ll have more from David on the event shortly. For its impressive display of strength and creativity here at week’s end, Ted Cruz’s media shop is not incapable of missteps. For example, an actress in a new campaign spot, “Conservatives Anonymous,â€\x9d used to do soft porn, which the Cruz camp was not aware of until the ad was cut and distributed. Then BuzzFeed figured out the porn connection: Amy Lindsay has appeared in films such as Erotic Confessions, Carnal Wishes, Secrets of a Chambermaid, and Insatiable Desires. “Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad,â€\x9d a Cruz campaign spokesman told BuzzFeed News. The actress in question is the one who says, “Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.â€\x9d The retraction of the group therapy ad comes after a string of ad successes from Cruz, who this week released two video spots attacking Donald Trump and one attacking Hillary Clinton. The ads have been praised for a witty allusion to pop culture, in one case, and a devilishly effective line of attack against Trump for his attempt, once upon a time, to use eminent domain laws to clear a widow’s house for a limousine parking lot in Atlantic City. While the Democrats next caucus in Nevada (on 20 Feb), Republicans next vote in South Carolina (the same day) – and then the parties trade states. So who’s running first in the South Carolina primary? While not quite the no-poll zone that Nevada is, voter surveys are sparse in the Palmetto State; Real Clear Politics’ average of three polls over the last two months puts Donald Trump at +17 on the field. A poll from Opinion Savvy for the Augusta Chronicle conducted after the New Hampshire result has Trump up about 17 points on Ted Cruz, 36.3-19.6, with Marco Rubio third at 14.6 points. (The Chronicle poll is baked into the RCP average.) So what? Owing to the confusing rules for allocating delegates to the national convention laid out by the South Carolina Republican party, a win of that margin for Trump, if it is consistent across the state’s congressional districts, could mean that he gets close to running the table of all 50 of the state’s delegates. The state awards 29 delegates to the overall winner and then three delegates each to the winner of each of seven congressional districts. See the gory details here. More catchy negative ads from Texas senator Ted Cruz, this one again hitting Donald Trump, with the tagline, “We wouldn’t tolerate these values in our children... why would we want them in a president?â€\x9d The ad features kids playing with a Donald Trump doll. “He pretends to be a Republican,â€\x9d one kid says and they all crack up. Then they smash a dollhouse bellowing “eminent domain! Eminent domain!â€\x9d What do you think of these Cruz ads? The two against Trump – “power for personal gainâ€\x9d and the one above – and the Office Space ad against Clinton? Pretty effective, no? Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders next square off in the Nevada caucuses. Who’s ahead there? Who knows – there’s not much polling. The Real Clear Politics average uses two polls in the last four months and shows Clinton up 20. But hold the phone: a new poll by a TargetPoint, a Republican polling firm, conducted for the Washington Free Beacon finds – a tie! at 45-45. Can it be true? What happened to Clinton’s Hispanic firewall in Nevada? To her local organization of DREAMers touting her record on immigration reform? Turn all eyes to Jon Ralston, the dean of Nevada politics journalists, who says the result “doesn’t surprise me.â€\x9d As for the Team Clinton work to lower expectations that Ralston mentions: in multiple venues yesterday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and spokesman Brian Fallon sought to erode the notion that the demographics of Nevada, with a significant non-white population, play well for Clinton. “There’s an important Hispanic element to the Democratic caucus in Nevada,â€\x9d said Fallon. “But it’s still a state that is 80 percent white.â€\x9d [Nevada: it’s basically Iowa, with more feather headdresses.] Which prompted Ralston to forcefully call bushwa: 80 percent white? What? [...] I understand the desire of Team Clinton to lower expectations in Nevada after being crushed by Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. But both Mook and Fallon know that 80 percent figure is ludicrous, and the attempt to make Nevada seem like Iowa and New Hampshire is a spin too far. The facts: Nevada’s Hispanic population is about 27 percent. African-Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders make up almost 10 percent each. That is, nearly half of the state’s population is made up of minorities. The Democratic caucus population was 35 percent minority in 2008, according to exit polls, and is expected to be as high as 40 percent in 2016, according to local Democratic sources. This is nothing like the 90 percent white caucus participation in Iowa, for instance. Read more Ralston here. The Cruz campaign is putting out so many catchy ads we can hardly keep up. Here’s a gem: an attack on Clinton over her use of a private email server, based on a scene from Office Space, the 1999 ballad of disaffected cubicle life: Here’s the scene from the movie (warning: some harsh language in there, if you’re offended by that kind of thing): Is there any aspect of politicking Trump can’t shake up? Signing a baby! What’s he going to come up with next? Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House, which is a peculiar kind of race, in that the point is not to get there first, the course is scattered, and instead of Gatorade the runners ingest lots of pizza. Did you watch the Democratic debate on PBS last night? Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tangled over immigration reform, being friends with Henry Kissinger and who’d done more to support President Obama. “One of us ran against Barack Obama,â€\x9d said Sanders. “I was not that candidate.â€\x9d Watch these video highlights: And read Lauren Gambino’s (@lgamgam) report last night from the scene in Milwaukee: “In what was easily her strongest debate performance in recent memory – and arguably her strongest since the campaign began – Hillary Clinton was calm, cool and collected at Thursday night’s debate,â€\x9d writes columnist Lucia Graves: Clinton could’ve been understandably on edge, as she was fresh off a resounding loss in New Hampshire on Tuesday and an effective tie in Iowa the week before. But it was Sanders who was oddly on the defensive despite what has been momentum in his favor, starting out the night more combative than Clinton and wasting his time on petty one-liners. (When Clinton talked about building political capital when she’s in the White House, for instance, Sanders began a rebuttal with “Secretary Clinton, you’re not in the White House yet.â€\x9d) Read the full piece here: There’s a lot going on today out on the trail, meanwhile, including the development of what looks to be a magnificently nasty battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to win South Carolina. Cruz has dropped what is being hailed as the first effective anti-Trump ad of the campaign cycle so far, called Parking Lot and telling the story of Trump’s attempt to take a widow’s home using eminent domain, literally to build a limousine parking lot: Trump’s firing back on Twitter, calling Cruz a “liar, crazy or very dishonestâ€\x9d: We have a lot more ground to cover today. Join us in the comments and thanks for reading!',
 'Manchester City pin hopes on key trio after West Ham expose flaws While José Mourinho picked the wrong moment to talk about fake results when Manchester City thumped Chelsea 3-0 in August, the recently unemployed one certainly made a valid point about how the final score can unfairly alter the narrative. Mourinho’s line came to mind after more ruthless finishing from Sergio Agüero rescued a barely deserved point for Manuel Pellegrini’s stuttering title challengers at Upton Park, leaving West Ham United with the rare sensation of feeling disappointed after failing to secure their first league double over City in 53 years. West Ham led twice, only for Agüero to cancel out Enner Valencia’s snappy double with two goals of his own, and there is a temptation to praise City for mounting spirited fightbacks from a goal down in both halves. Scoring an 81st minute equaliser at the home of a team who relish bloodying the noses of opponents with superior resources is usually interpreted as a sign of belief, resolve and togetherness. Scratch the surface, however, and City’s wide range of flaws soon begin to emerge. They were evident as early as the first minute, when Cheikhou Kouyaté tore past a half-hearted challenge from Yaya Touré in the build-up to West Ham’s opener, and they materialised again in the 56th minute, amateurish defending allowing Valencia to score his second after the striker muscled on to a huge throw from Michail Antonio. The beaten Joe Hart made no attempt to hide his displeasure with his defence. City badly miss the assurance of their captain, Vincent Kompany, and Pellegrini was unable to say when the Belgian centre-back will return from his latest calf injury. Nicolas Otamendi was embarrassed by Valencia for the second goal and MartÃ\xadn Demichelis was fortunate not to be sent off for a cynical challenge on Antonio in the first half. Playing alongside Fabian Delph, Touré’s failings were exposed by West Ham, who are sixth after a run of one defeat in 10 matches. Alex Song was dominant in midfield and Dimitri Payet’s skill took the breath away. Pellegrini’s defence of Touré was as convincing as Otamendi’s attempt to stop Valencia. “He played today as a defensive midfielder,â€\x9d Pellegrini said. “I think that Yaya played in that position without any problem.â€\x9d That was a generous assessment. Yet the defensive deficiencies do not tell the full story. In the league, City have not had consecutive victories since October and have won one of their past eight away games. For all Agüero’s opportunism, they drifted after going 2-1 down. David Silva faded after a promising start, Kevin de Bruyne could not shake off Sam Byram and Jesús Navas was shackled by Aaron Cresswell. Raheem Sterling’s impact as a substitute was minimal. At least Kelechi Iheanacho was bright after replacing Delph, his driving run leading to Agüero nonchalantly making it 2-2. “They put us under pressure,â€\x9d Slaven Bilic said. “We were under pressure but the good point is, let’s say second half, when we beat them at the Etihad 2-1, second half, it was the Alamo, it was like them, them, them. We were kicking the ball out. This was like, with our quality, we were also keeping the ball, we were stretching them.â€\x9d Yet, although City lacked hunger and purpose, they remain three points off the top. They are playing within themselves and they may only require a slight improvement to win the league, especially if Agüero stays fit. The best striker in England has started 2016 with six goals in six matches. “The last problem was when he was with his national squadâ€\x9d Pellegrini said. “He scored four times against Newcastle and I changed him as he was feeling some problems. Unfortunately he played for his national squad three or four days after and he had a muscle injury. So I hope now that he is 100% fit and he does not have any problem and it is very important that the team plays with him in every game. “In the first 23 games, in the 11 players who played the most minutes, we don’t have Agüero, Silva, Kompany. I hope that in the second part of the season they will be involved in all the games because they are very important.â€\x9d Man of the match Alex Song (West Ham United)',
 'Fans dismay as Premier League snubs cap on away ticket prices The Football Supporters’ Federation has expressed bitter disappointment that Premier League clubs failed to back a measure to cap away ticket prices at their most recent meeting, while Liverpool have expressed dismay at the news that some of their supporters are to stage a walkout from Saturday’s game against Sunderland in protest at the new Anfield pricing structure. It is understood that while no vote was taken on away tickets at Thursday’s meeting of all the Premier League clubs, informal soundings were taken that made it clear the proposal would not received the two-thirds majority required. Discussions are continuing about whether clubs, promised an £8.3bn bounty from broadcasting rights, will agree to an across-the-board cap on away prices or seek instead to boost the existing away fans ticket fund. The FSF chief executive, Kevin Miles, who has been leading its Twenty’s Plenty campaign for a £20 cap, said: “We are incredibly disappointed to learn that a proposed cap on away ticket prices was voted down by the Premier League clubs yesterday in a secret ballot. Supporters will not let them off the hook. “Football supporters are right to be angry about the Premier League clubs’ apparent reluctance to tackle the problem of ticket prices. Top-flight clubs have known since last year that they will be receiving a huge increase in their TV revenues. In the light of that windfall, Premier League clubs cannot justify maintaining high ticket prices, particularly for away fans.â€\x9d He added: “Despite clubs failing to agree a way forward yesterday, this issue will not go away and fans will continue to fight for fair ticket prices. We understand that the Premier League will be working with clubs over the coming weeks to find a way forward. That must result in meaningful action on away prices at the next shareholders’ meeting at the end of March. If clubs have the will to do this there must be a way.â€\x9d Arsenal fans this week complained that the club was asking season ticket holders for a surcharge of up to £30 for their home Champions League tie against Barcelona, although the club released a statement on Friday night which said they would cancel the charge given the outcry. It is understood that most clubs largely agree on the need for action on away ticket prices, having accepted that they are crucial to providing the atmosphere that helps maintain the Premier League’s broadcasting income. But some clubs are believed to be reluctant to agree a universal cap for fear that it will erode their ability to set their own prices or could lead to complaints from home fans who sit in equivalent seats but pay more. Instead, they favour an increase to the away fans fund, which currently stands at £200,000 per club per season and can be spent however each individual club sees fit. The FSF would like to see both a cap and an increase to the fund, as well as a commitment to continue to engage on wider ticket pricing issues. The matter will now be discussed again at the next meeting of Premier League clubs in late March, which will be their last before next season’s prices are set. Arsenal denied that they were among the clubs against movement on ticket prices, but are understood to favour an increase in the fund rather than a price cap. “We argued for the most extensive package of support for travelling fans and we are sure there will be a good solution,â€\x9d said a spokesman.',
 "Merkel can't afford Deutsche Bank crisis to get out of hand Tidjane Thiam, the former Prudential chief now running Credit Suisse, won’t be thanked by his counterparts at Deutsche Bank for saying so at this moment, but he is correct: big European banks are “not really investableâ€\x9d and the industry is in a “very fragile situationâ€\x9d. Look at the share prices to see that investors agree. In the old pre-crisis days, banks traded at a premium to their book value on the reasonable assumption that the business of lending would tend to increase profits over time. These days discounts to book value are the norm for big banks. Low interest rates, accompanied by piles of government debt trading at negative yields, has made lending fundamentally less profitable. Banks can shed staff and overheads, but that is not a cost-free process. Meanwhile, mergers – essentially grander cost-cutting exercises – are more or less forbidden because the world can’t stand more institutions that are too big too fail. The position is a mess. Put another way, big banks used to run on obscene levels of leverage and haven’t found a new model to allow them to plod through the era of near-zero interest rates. That is why it is wrong to regard the crisis at Deutsche as merely a standoff with the US Department of Justice over the size of the penalty for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities in 2005-07. Yes, a demand for $14bn (£10.8bn) – or possibly even half that sum – would probably trigger a need for more capital, as analysts say. But investors can also see that Deutsche is years behind even its peers in adapting to the new world. UBS rallied around its asset management division; Barclays sold its asset manager, shed many of its continental European business and is getting out of Africa. Deutsche, by contrast, has tried cutting costs but has not radically changed shape. Even now, the co-chief executive, John Cryan, talks about a restructuring that will take five years, a timescale that looks far too relaxed if he finds himself pleading with his shareholders to give him more capital at short notice. It is still quite possible that the DoJ’s demand could fall from $14bn to $4bn, which would allow everybody to breathe more easily. But, given what’s at stake, it would be amazing if German chancellor Angela Merkel and her officials are not working on contingency plans for Deutsche. She has to deny all such suggestions, of course, because there is no point fuelling the sense of crisis. But this crisis in confidence in European banks, with Deutsche at the centre, has been brewing for at least 12 months. If the German government and Frankfurt regulators weren’t paying attention, they weren’t doing their job. Germans won’t sit around in game of pass the parcel German companies still do the simpler business of delivering parcels well, which is why Royal Mail’s share price fell 3% on news that Deutsche Post, owner of DHL, is buying UK Mail for £243m. Deutsche Post is a €33bn (£28.6bn) titan and won’t be returning to the UK parcels industry simply to sit on UK Mail’s 4% share of the market. It will want to grow. The timing is cute from Deutsche Post’s point of view. It has waited for UK Mail to overcome teething problems at its new automated sorting centre. It is paying 43% more than UK Mail’s share price on Tuesday but well below the all-time high. From UK Mail’s point of view, you can understand why chairman Peter Kane, who started the business in 1971 as a taxi firm in Harrow, has decided to sell. Amazon, which is building an in-house delivery operation, is gradually become a competitor rather than a customer for the industry. For Royal Mail, the game won’t change overnight. It is still the dominant player and internet shopping in the UK is still booming. But 3% off its share price looks about right: Deutsche Post has very deep pockets. When any excuse for a thumbs-down will do Get ready for the European lobbying event of the year. The proposed £24bn merger between the London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Börse has been sent to Brussels for a full competition inquiry. Almost every EU finance ministry will have an opinion. Let’s hope somebody throws a large spanner in the works. This deal looks highly dangerous for the City of London if it encourages financial business to flow out of the UK, a risk that can only be assessed properly once the terms of Brexit are settled. The commission is worried about pan-European competition, not the UK’s national interest, but any grounds for a thumbs-down will do.",
 'How did email grow from messages between academics to a global epidemic? Ray Tomlinson, the man who literally put the “@â€\x9d in email, died on Saturday, but his invention, which allowed electronic messages to spread across the internet and fill our lives and our inboxes on a daily basis, will live on. Here is a brief look at what Tomlinson started and the evolution of email through the last half-century. The first electronic message - 1965 The very first version of what would become known as email was invented in 1965 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as part of the university’s Compatible Time-Sharing System, which allowed users to share files and messages on a central disk, logging in from remote terminals. Tomlinson and the @ - 1971 American computer programmer Tomlinson arguably conceived the method of sending email between different computers across the forerunner to the internet, Arpanet, at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), introducing the “@â€\x9d sign to allow messages to be targeted at certain users on certain machines. Emails become a standard - 1973 The first email standard was proposed in 1973 at Darpa and finalised within Arpanet in 1977, including common things such as the to and from fields, and the ability to forward emails to others who were not initially a recipient. The Queen sends her first email - 1976 Queen Elizabeth II sends an email on Arpanet, becoming the first head of state to do so. Eric Schmidt designs BerkNet - 1978 Eric Schmidt, who would later lead Google and oversee the introduction of Gmail, wrote Berkley Network as part of his master’s thesis in 1978, which was an early intranet service offering messaging over serial connections. EMAIL program developed - 1979 At the age of 14, Shiva Ayyadurai writes a program called EMAIL for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which sent electronic messages within the university, later copyrighting the term in 1982. Whether or not this is the first use of the word email is up for debate. Microsoft Mail arrives - 1988 The first version of Microsoft Mail was released in 1988 for Mac OS, allowing users of Apple’s AppleTalk Networks to send messages to each other. In 1991, a second version was released for other platforms including DOS and Windows, which laid the groundwork for Microsoft’s later Outlook and Exchange email systems. CompuServe starts internet-based email service - 1989 CompuServe became the first online service to offer internet connectivity via dial-up phone connections, and its proprietary email service allowed other internet users to send emails to each other. Lotus Notes launched - 1989 The first version Lotus Notes was released in 1989 by Lotus Development Corporation, which was bought by IBM in 1995. The start of spam - 1990 The rise of spam can be charted back to the very early days of Arpanet, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that it hit users across the internet, when it was aimed at message boards and later email addresses. April 1994 is the first recorded business practice of spam from two lawyers from Phoenix, Laurence Carter and Martha Siegel, who ended up writing a book on it. The attachment - 1992 The attachment was born when the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (Mime) protocol was released, which includes the ability to attach things that are not just text to emails. And so begins the painful exercise of trying to delete emails to make space after someone sends you a massive attachment in the days of limited inbox space. Outlook and Aol - 1993 The first version of Microsoft’s Outlook was released in 1993 as part of Exchange Server 5.5, while at the same time US internet service providers AOL and Delphi connected their email systems, paving the way for modern, overloaded email systems we struggle with today. Hotmail launches - 1996 Before Microsoft bought it for $400m, 1996 saw the launch of one of the first popular webmail email services called HoTMaiL developed by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. It was one of the first email services not tied to a particular ISP and adopted new HTML-based email formatting – hence the stylising of the brand name. It was bought by Microsoft in 1997, rebranded MSN Hotmail, then Windows Live Hotmail and replaced by Outlook.com in 2013. Yahoo Mail follows - 1997 Yahoo Mail was launched the year after Hotmail, which was gaining users by the thousands, and was based on internet company Four11’s Rocketmail, which was bought as part of Yahoo’s acquisition of the company. You’ve Got Mail, and so has everyone else - 1998 Email was cemented in the public consciousness with the notorious “you’ve got mailâ€\x9d sound of email arriving for AOL users, which formed the cornerstone of the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy, You’ve Got Mail. By the late 1990s spam was becoming a real problem – inducted to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1998 – as more and more marketers jumped on the practically zero-cost outreach proposition and inundated our inboxes. In 2002, the European Union released its Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, which included a section on spam that made it illegal to send unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes without prior consent of the recipient. The US passed similar laws in 2004, although neither have been particularly effective at reducing the load. Gmail launches - 2004 Google’s popular email service, Gmail, started life as an internal mail system for Google employees, developed by Paul Buchheit in 2001. It wasn’t unveiled to the public until a limited, invite-only beta release in 2004. It was made publicly available in 2007 and dropped its “betaâ€\x9d status in 2009. Fighting back against spam - 2005 The first email standard to attempt to fight the deluge of spam by verifying senders was published after a five-year development. Sender Policy Framework was then implemented by a variety of anti-spam programs. A standard of authentication to attempt to prevent email spoofing and phishing was also released called DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). Email goes mobile for casual users - 2007 Apple’s first iPhone was released in 2007, which began to introduce mobile email to the consumer masses. Until that point pre-capacitive consumer smartphones typically had limited email support, while RIM’s BlackBerry had brought the burden of work email to employee palms starting in 2003. Buried in email - 2015 From humble internal communications beginnings, email now dominates a vast proportion of everyday life. An estimated 4.4bn email addresses are in use worldwide with 205bn emails sent per day in 2015, according to data from market research firm Radicati Group. That number is set to increase to over 246bn emails a day by the end of 2019. What was the best (and worst) email you ever received? 12 things today’s gamers don’t remember about old games',
 "Markets relaxed as state aid looms for Italy's Monte dei Paschi – as it happened A surge in the banking sector has helped lift European markets, as investors once again shrugged off the Italian referendum result and the resignation of prime minister Matteo Renzi. Hopes that the country’s parliament might pass a budget on Wednesday provided some support, as did the continuing optimism that investors might rescue struggling Monte dei Paschi. If that does not happen, there was growing talk that a state bailout could take place this weekend. The idea that the bank would be recapitalised one way or another pushed the Italian banking index 9% higher, its best one day performance since 8 July. Monte dei Paschi itself added 1%, while Unicredit climbed 13%. Elsewhere Deutsche Bank jumped 8% while in the UK, Royal Bank of Scotland rose nearly 6% and Barclays 4.5%. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished up 33.01 points or 0.49% at 6779.84 Germany’s Dax rose 0.85% to 10,775.32 France’s Cac climbed 1.26% to 4631.94 Italy’s FTSE MIB jumped 4.15% to 17,757.80 Spain’s Ibex ended 2.64% higher at 8893.3 In Greece, the Athens market added 0.36% to 622.52 On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 19 points or 0.1%. On that note, it’s time to close for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Back with Boeing, and Donald Trump’s tweet saying the company was charging too much to build the new Air Force One - $4bn - and should lose the contract. Boeing has now responded with a statement, saying: We are currently under contract for $170m to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer. Ratings agency Fitch has moved its outlook on Italian banks from stable to negative for 2017, in the wake of the referendum vote and worries about their ability to recapitalise. Fitch said: The Negative Outlook for the Italian banking sector reflects its increased vulnerability to shocks following the asset-quality deterioration in legacy portfolios... A step-up in pressure from authorities and market participants on the sector to reduce the very high levels of impaired loans has increased urgency and risks for Italian banks. Profitability in the sector is frail. Disposals of non-performing loan portfolios could lead to losses that require additional capital. These are some of the factors driving the 2017 Outlook to Negative from Stable. Problems for a small number of distressed banks raising capital have added to these pressures The “Noâ€\x9d vote at the constitutional referendum has further heightened political uncertainty and possibly reduced the capacity to implement economic reforms. The risks from political instability were one factor that contributed to our revision of the Outlook on Italy’s ‘BBB+’ sovereign rating to Negative in October. The referendum result could also damage the recapitalisation plans of some Italian banks, most notably Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and UniCredit, and have negative implications for the broader banking sector, whose attractiveness with investors has already reduced significantly during 2016. The sector’s ability to access the institutional markets for funding and capital, which has become more difficult and expensive this year, could deteriorate further... Significant disposals that materially improve asset quality could be positive for ratings. However, the disposals are likely to result in further provisioning and possibly more capital shortfalls for the banks involved. Portfolio sales could also result in risk-weighted assets rising for the remaining loans if the sales affect loss-given-default estimates at banks using internal rating models. Capitalisation will remain under pressure in 2017 with a weak earnings outlook limiting banks’ ability to build capital. Low interest rates, tepid economic growth and fierce competition for healthy borrowers are challenges for earnings. Profitability could also be dented by restructuring costs as banks focus on cost-cutting. We also believe regulators could require higher capital buffers from Italian banks to compensate for the risk in their large non-performing loan portfolios and for the large portion of Italian sovereign debt held. This could result in additional capital requirements at some banks. The Italian referendum proved a non-event for markets, including emerging markets, because it had effectively been priced in, and at the same time suggested the European Central Bank might well extend its quantitative easing programme this week. So says David Rees of Capital Economics. But he adds: Nonetheless, the political situation in Italy, and indeed the rise of populism in Europe more generally, is something to keep an eye on in the months ahead. Italy’s economy and banking sector are weak, and if the Five Star Movement’s momentum continues to build, it may not be long before an exit from the euro becomes a more realistic concern for investors....Similar fears have rocked emerging market equities in the past, when the Greek debt crisis first came to the fore and Spanish and Italian bonds came under fire in 2012. Italy’s banking sector continues to recover, helped by talk that the country’s parliament might approve its budget on Wednesday, and there could be a state bailout of troubled Monte dei Paschi this weekend. The country’s banking index is currently up more than 7%, its best daily performance since the middle of July. The overall European banking index is up 3%, hitting its highest level since the middle of January. More fallout from Donald Trump’s election - this time affecting UK mortgage rates. Rupert Jones reports: The first evidence has emerged that the era of record-low fixed-rate mortgages may be coming to an end after HSBC withdrew its “cheapest-everâ€\x9d deal and increased rates on other products. HSBC had been offering a mortgage that allowed customers to lock in for two years at a rate of 0.99%, but this deal has been pulled with immediate effect. The bank’s new mortgage offers are coming in at up to 0.5% higher. The move follows warnings from mortgage brokers that a number of factors, including Donald Trump’s US election win, were set to push up the cost of new fixed-rate home loans. David Hollingworth at broker London & Country Mortgages said: “The bottom of the market may have been hit. This [announcement] and the broader changes from HSBC, which has been very aggressively priced in the fixed-rate market, could spell the end of the sub-1% fixed rate, but also signals a potential turning point for fixed mortgage rates.â€\x9d The full story is here: Donald Trump may be casting doubt on Boeing’s Air Force One order, but elsewhere US manufacturers are doing well. New orders for US factory goods rose 2.7% in October, the biggest increase for nearly a year and a half and just above expectations of a 2.6% improvement. The September figure was revised upwards from a gain of 0.3% to 0.6%. The latest figures mark the fourth straight month of increases. But there could be clouds ahead, given the strength of the dollar following Trump’s election victory. Paul Sirani, chief market analyst at Xtrade, said: US factory orders surged... in October, providing manufacturers with plenty of optimism in what has been a turbulent year. Uncertainty surrounds the sector, though, amid renewed strength of the dollar and the incoming president’s trade policy, particularly his approach to China. Donald Trump’s promised fiscal stimulus and the increasing likelihood of raising interest rates has fuelled a greenback rally, and that could starve off exports and hit US factories hard in the new year. And here’s a video clip of Donald Trump outlining his unhappiness with Boeing. Along with the Oval Office, the nuclear codes and the attention of the whole world, winning a US presidential election gives you the power to move the markets. And airline maker Boeing just saw that for itself. Shares in Boeing fell by 1% at the start of trading in New York, after Donald Trump declared on Twitter (where else?) that the firm was charging too much to build the new Air Force One, and should lose the contract. The suggestion that the next US president might take a tough line has worried investors in Boeing (after all, he does have his own Trump Force One). Over in Greece this morning there has been much merriment over the euro group’s decision last night to define the contours of a debt relief agreement for the country long at the centre of Europe’s financial crisis. Our correspondent Helena Smith reports from Athens For the first time since economic crisis engulfed Greece just over seven years ago, a sitting government in Athens has felt fit to describe a decision taken in Brussels as a “national success.â€\x9d The positive spin and brave faces that have greeted the three bailouts rolled out for Greece, so far, have today been superseded by a genuine sense of relief at the announcement of short-term measures to lighten the country’s mountainous debt load. Many in Syriza, the governing left-wing party, said the move by euro zone partners to shave €45bn euros off the pile – the equivalent of 22 percent of GDP – by extending the repayment period and adjusting interest rates - exceeded “every expectation.â€\x9d Addressing reporters today the government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos described the decision both as a “significant achievementâ€\x9d and “decisive step for the stabilisation of the Greek economy and complete restoration of confidence.â€\x9d But as Greece’s political opposition was quick to point out the victory was bittersweet. This might be the first time that the nation’s unmanageable debt burden has been addressed head-on – and as such can only be seen as rich reward for prime minister Alexis Tsipras - but it comes against a backdrop of calls for Athens to adopt yet more austerity once its current bailout programme expires in mid-2018. Amid signs of a looming showdown with the International Monetary Fund, which says further belt-tightening is the only way to plug the looming fiscal gap and thus ensure its own participation in Greece’s third bailout to date, the spokesman called the demands “irrational.â€\x9d Athens, he insisted, would neither accept the German proposal for Greece to achieve a primary surplus of 3.5 % through 2028 nor the IMF’s demands for extra measures in 2019 and 2020. Both are expected to dominate talks when auditors representing creditor institutions return to continue negotiating a second review of policy measures set as the price of bailout funds. “Greek society cannot endure more measures,â€\x9d said Interior minister Panos Skourletis hinting at the battle that is brewing. “The Greek economy can’t endure them either.â€\x9d Angelino Alfano’s prediction that Italy could hold a general election in February 2017 didn’t impress the markets, sending shares and bonds down from their earlier highs: But shares are now pushing higher again, following a report that the parliament might approve the 2017 budget on Wednesday, in a confidence vote. That’s sent the FTSE MIB index back up to its earlier highs, gaining 1.7% today. Over in Italy, a political leader has suggested that fresh general elections could be held next February. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, whose centre-right party is part of Matteo Renzi’s coalition, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that: “I forecast there will be the will to go to elections in February.â€\x9d Significantly, Alfano was speaking after having met with Renzi (whose resignation was put on hold by the country’s president last night). Here’s Reuters’ take: Alfano rose to prominence as a key ally of Silvio Berlusconi, before dramatically splitting from the former PM in 2013 to form a new party. Italian bonds are still looking stable as traders head for lunch: One fundamental problem with Italian banks is that there are too many of them, says Kathleen Brooks of City Index. She argues that closing some branches would help make the sector competitive, and free up capital for other uses: Italy has more bank branches than pizzerias, in the future it desperately needs more pizza and less banks! She also explains why Monte dei Paschi’s future matters, especially if its cash call fail this week. It’s certainly not as systemically important as other banks, for example Italy’s Unicredit, but Monte dei Paschi’s main problem is that it has become symbolic of Italy’s rotten banking sector that now relies on foreign capital for life support. If the Qatari’s decide against investing in it then it gives a terrible signal to the world about the ‘investability’ of Europe’s banks. Interestingly, in Europe it is not the systemically important banks that are the biggest risk to the financial sector, but the glut of mid-size banks that hold billions in bad debts that could endanger the health of the bigger banks in Europe, if contagion is to spread. Business confidence in Italy is likely to be hurt by the political uncertainty created by Sunday’s referendum result, and the struggles in the banking sector. Ana Boata, economist at trade insurance firm Euler Hermes, believes 0.3 percentage points could be knocked off growth next year, taking the annual rate down from 0.9% to 0.6%. She predicts that foreign investment will be hit, and Italian firms could suffer high financing costs if their banks remain weak: While there is no need to panic, the resounding ‘No’ result and political turmoil that has followed could cause a mild confidence crisis in 2017. Even without any spill over to banks or the bond market, we expect -0.3pp of Italian GDP could be shaven off, leaving the economy with the prospect of a mere 0.6% growth next year. “It will be Italian companies that bear the brunt of a confidence shock, albeit a mild one, which are already contending with some of the worst cash flow conditions in the world – businesses are waiting on average for 88 days for payment for goods and services. We are likely to see divestment from abroad and tougher financing conditions mean that inward investment levels will stay flat, compared to 2% growth we previously predicted for 2017, and hamper the economy’s chances of recovery.â€\x9d European banking shares are rallying this morning, as traders look for silver linings in the Italian political upheaval. Almost every bank in the index of major European banks, the Stoxx 600, has gained ground. The prospect of Monte dei Paschi (-2.6%) receiving a dose of state aid this weekend is calming the markets, as this would remove the risk that it might simply collapse. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, has taken his eye of his company’s plunging share price to explain all: One of the biggest worries surrounding the referendum was the impact it could have upon the nation’s banking system, with the likes of Unicredit and Monte dei Paschi in the midst of a recapitalisation and bank rescue plan. Plans to raise substantial funds at Monte dei Paschi have hit the buffers after the ‘No’ vote and while a likely government bailout may not be the ideal otucome for the bank, it will mitigate the risk of a collapse and contagion in the region, hence the widespread gains across the financial sector today. Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem has weighed in on Brexit this morning, warning that the UK’s demands are not compatible with a smooth exit from the EU. Our politics liveblog has all the details: Britain’s financial spread-betting firms love to talk about the possibilities created by stock market volatility. But they’ve had a nasty taste of it themselves this morning, after the City regulators announced a crackdown on ‘contract for difference’ products. CFD’s allow a customer to make big profits if they correctly predict a market move -- or see their nest egg crushed by the stampeding herd if they get it wrong. So today, the FCA announced new rules to prevent “inexperiencedâ€\x9d clients from getting burned. It wants to restrict how much leverage a retail customer can take on (to restrict them from taking big positions on a small deposit), and better risk warnings. And no wonder - given that 82% of clients manage to lose money on CFD! All sensible-sounding stuff. But shares in IG and CMC Markets, two of the biggest players, have both plunged by 30% this morning -- showing how profitable these retail investors have been. More here: The pound has hit a two-month high this morning, after chancellor Philip Hammond meets with fellow finance ministers in Brussels. Arriving at the meeting, Hammond told reporters that the UK government hasn’t ruled out paying into the EU budget in return for access to its markets. He said: “We want to keep all options open.... That is something we would have to look at, looking at the costs and the benefits based on what is in the best interests of the British taxpayer.â€\x9d The possibility of a so-called Soft Brexit has nudged sterling up to $1.277 this morning, its highest level since early October. European stock markets are remarkably calm this morning. Most stock indices are up in early trading, led by Italy, where the banking index has rallied by almost 2%. Shares in Monti dei Paschi, though, have fallen by 3% in volatile trading, as investors wonder whether its rescue plan can be salvaged by the weekend. Britain’s FTSE 100 is becalmed, down a few points. Connor Campbell of SpreadEx says: The FTSE is lacking any macro-momentum bar the continued, and exhausting, Brexit-brouhaha that have been a constant presence since June, meaning it is struggling to significantly break through the levels it has been stuck around for the last few months. Newsflash from Italy: The Rome government will be desperate avoid inflicting bail-in losses on small bondholders, says the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Robin Bew: That could mean breaking EU rules on bank rescues, unless Italy can ‘bend’ them by finding a way to compensate those small savers. Here’s a handy reminder of how badly Italian banks have fared this year, and how badly Italy has performed this millennium, from the Wall Street Journal. Italian government debt is strengthened in value this morning, showing that the markets remain relaxed about the situation. The rally has pulled down the yield on Italy’s 10-year bonds to 1.95%, down from 1.9% last night, and actually lower than before Sunday’s referendum. The gap between Italian and German debt remains steady too - another sign of market calm. The Financial Times reckons that Monte dei Paschi may have to be bailed out this weekend. It all depends whether Qatar can be persuaded to still back its €5bn cashcall, even though Italy has been plunged into political limbo. Here’s the key points. Bankers are running out of private-sector solutions for Monte dei Paschi di Siena and have told the Italian lender to prepare for a state bailout this weekend after prime minister Matteo Renzi was felled by a referendum defeat. While financial markets responded relatively calmly to the referendum result, people briefed on the situation said the political upheaval made it “more difficultâ€\x9d to secure a €1bn investment from Qatar on which Monte dei Paschi’s €5bn capital-raising plan hinges. Senior bankers fear that a failure to shore up the bank, which was the worst loser of this summer’s European bank healthcheck, could damage already jittery investor confidence about Italy’s overall banking sector, which is hobbled by €360bn of bad loans and weak profitability. JPMorgan Chase and Mediobanca, advisers to Monte dei Paschi, have been working with Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister, to persuade the Qatar Investment Authority to pump money into Italy’s third-largest lender. But hope is fading that they can secure a deal by this week’s deadline. Without the cornerstone investment from Qatar, the other parts of the complex plan to fill the bank’s €5bn capital shortfall are likely to collapse. Reuters is reporting that Italian authorities are standing by to provide ‘precautionary’ state aid to their oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi, if its rescue plan fails. Intriguingly, this measure could (apparently) allow Rome to get much-needed capital into MPS without triggering European rules forcing some bondholders to take a hit. That would protect those families and pensioners who hold bank bonds. Here’s the story: Measures to allow state aid for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena are ready but will depend on political developments in coming days, sources familiar with the matter said. The Tuscan lender is looking at the idea of a precautionary recapitalisation which would avoid the triggering of European bail-in rules, one source said. Monte dei Paschi needs to raise 5 billion euros ($5.38 billion) by the end of December to avoid being wound down, but investors are reluctant to back the cash call after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi lost a referendum on Sunday and pledged to resign. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Matteo Renzi’s defeat in Sunday’s Italian referendum continues to reverberate around Europe, even though the outgoing PM has agreed to stay on a little longer to get the country’s 2017 budget passed. The big worry, of course, is Italy’s banks - with their €350bn of non-performing loans and uncomfortably thin capital reserves. The City is watching to see if Renzi’s defeat has scuppered the plans to recapitalise these institutions using private money; potential investors could well have been scared away by the crisis in Rome. If these efforts fail, then Italy’s government may have to activate bail-in procedures, which would inflict losses on private bondholders. And in Italy, that includes many members of the public. As CMC’s Michael Hewson explains, the Italian banking sector is a serious worry: Any new government technocratic or otherwise is still faced with the unenviable task of either bailing in the Italian banking sector and wiping out a wave of Italian pensioners and savers, or defying Brussels and trying to bail the banks out with taxpayer’s money in contravention of new rules to protect taxpayers. As it is the recapitalisation plan for Monte dei Paschi di Siena is much more problematic now that Renzi has gone given the uncertainty that is likely to come next as we await the shape of any new administration. No one in their right mind is likely to invest in a bank that has already been bailed out three times in the last few years against such an uncertain political backdrop. One thing is certain the events of the last few days make it likely that we will see the ECB extend its asset purchase scheme by at least another six months, beyond March 2017 when they meet later this week. The wider stock markets, though, continue to be quite relaxed about the political situation in Italy. Most European indices rose yesterday, and traders are expecting a quiet morning today. We’ll also be watching Greece, which was last night granted some short-term debt relief by its European creditors. But more seriously, the eurogroup and the IMF are still split over Greece’s fiscal targets, meaning the Fund still hasn’t officially joined the €86bn bailout programme. Euro zone grants Greece short-term debt relief; no deal with IMF",
 'Watchdog demands banking overhaul to save customers money A package of measures intended to help customers save £92 a year by switching their bank accounts has faced criticism for failing to do enough to encourage competition among the high street banks. After two-year investigation into the sector, the competition watchdog said technological advances that helped the development of Uber and Google Maps would make it easier for customers to compare bank accounts and should encourage customers to shop around. The £5m investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority – first announced in July 2014 when former Labour leader Ed Miliband was vowing to create new banks – is intended to kickstart competition in a sector where only 3% of personal and 4% of business customers switch to a different bank in any year. It also tried to tackle the £1.2bn a year the banks make from unarranged overdraft charges, as customers with overdrafts find it more difficult to change accounts. Banks will be required to send alerts to customers going into the red and set a monthly cap on such charges, which some campaigners argue are higher than those levied by payday lenders such as Wonga. But Alex Neill, director of policy and campaigns at consumer watchdog Which?, said: “It is disappointing that the monthly charge cap is not actually a cap and banks will be allowed to continue to charge exorbitant fees for so-called unauthorised overdrafts, rather than protect those customers that have been identified as among the most vulnerable.â€\x9d The CMA stepped back from breaking up the big four – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays – which control 77% of the current account market and more than 80% of small business accounts. The key plank of the proposals is the adoption of new technology in 2018 that will enable customers to see hidden charges applied to their accounts, allowing them to shop around for the best deal. This might eventually happen through the creation of a “digital appâ€\x9d or a sophisticated price comparison website – but this “open bankingâ€\x9d technology will need to be developed. Alasdair Smith, who chaired the investigation and has faced criticism in the past for holding back from tough reforms, said: “We are breaking down the barriers which have made it too easy for established banks to hold on to their customers. Our reforms will increase innovation and competition in a sector whose performance is crucial for the UK economy.â€\x9d The CMA said that personal customers could save £92 on average a year by switching provider, with savings of around £80 a year on average available for small businesses. “Larger savings are available for overdraft users – for example, personal customers who are overdrawn for one or two weeks every month could save £180 per year on average,â€\x9d the CMA said. The use of free-if-in-credit banking – in which customers do not pay a fee for services if they do not go overdrawn, but do not receive interest on their balances – by the big four is often criticised as impeding competition. This is because it can make it difficult for customers to see how much they are paying for their banking services in hidden charges. Spanish-owned TSB – once part of Lloyds – wanted customers to be sent monthly bills to tackle this. Paul Pester, chief executive of TSB, said: “The CMA has played right into the hands of the big banks and missed a golden opportunity to enable people across the UK to get a better deal from their banks.â€\x9d MPs were also unimpressed. The Treasury select committee will call the CMA to give evidence in the autumn and Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said the MPs would not give up on trying to find ways to give customers more choice. “Until people are able to find out how much their bank charges them for their current account, millions of customers will be denied genuine choice in retail banking. There’s a lot to digest but, based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not optimistic that the CMA’s remedies will get to the heart of the problem,â€\x9d said Tyrie. Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who sits on the committee, will ask the Financial Conduct Authority to consider measures similar to those imposed on payday lenders to cap charges on overdrafts. The measures that were rejected Breaking up banks The CMA concluded there was insufficient evidence that the current structure of the industry was hurting competition. The separation of TBS from Lloyds Banking Group and the troublesome split of 300 Williams & Glyn branches out of Royal Bank of Scotland were “expensiveâ€\x9d and “high disruptiveâ€\x9d for customers. Both those divestments were demanded by the EU as a result of the taxpayer bailouts. Ending free-if-in-credit banking The CMA concludes this works well for many customers. The real problem is whether customers can work out if they are getting the best deal. Easing capital requirements for mortgages New banks need to hold more capital for lending than established players. Two members of the inquiry group thought this could be a barrier to entry but it was rejected on the grounds that it was not appropriate to create “regulatory uncertaintyâ€\x9d given work already being undertaken by the Bank of England.',
 "It's official: Trump clinches Republican nomination Trump secures nomination in Cleveland Thirteen months after launching his campaign, Donald Trump has secured the Republican party’s nomination for US president after a once-improbable proposition became a reality on Tuesday night at the Republican national convention in Cleveland. As Trump passed the delegate threshold, an illuminated message proclaimed: “Over the Topâ€\x9d. Later, the candidate proclaimed: “This is a movement and we have to go all the way.â€\x9d The convention speakers included Trump’s children, Donald Jr and Tiffany, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who offered a rabble-rousing, prosecutorial takedown of Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign continued to insist Melania Trump’s well-received speech had not been plagiarised,while some conservative groups are staging a rearguard effort to get the Republican party to accept the dangers of climate change. US election 2016: Republican party nominates Donald Trump for president Hottest June Last month was the 14th straight month of record-breaking global temperatures, according to Nasa and Noaa. June 2016 was 0.9C hotter than the average for the 20th century, and the hottest June in the record which goes back to 1880. It broke the previous record, set in 2015, by 0.02C. The 14-month streak of record-breaking temperatures was the longest in the 137-year record. Hottest ever June marks 14th month of record-breaking temperatures US police face recruitment crisis After the killing of five Texas police officers on 7 July, there are growing fears that strained community relations, budget shortfalls and perceptions of a “war on copsâ€\x9d will worsen recruiting problems faced by departments in Dallas and elsewhere. The Dallas police chief, David Brown, recently issued an invitation to those who marched in protest at killings of African Americans by law enforcement: join us. “Serve your community, don’t be a part of the problem.â€\x9d Racial tension, budget cuts and ‘war on cops’ could hinder police recruiting Banned from Twitter Milo Yiannopoulos, a rightwing writer and notorious internet troll, has been permanently banned from the social media site after he was accused of promoting a social media attack on Ghostbusters’ Leslie Jones. Yiannopoulos, the technology editor for Breitbart.com, tweeted as @Nero, called himself “the most fabulous supervillain on the internetâ€\x9d and referred to Donald Trump as “daddyâ€\x9d. Milo Yiannopoulos, rightwing writer, permanently banned from Twitter Ailes to exit Fox hole The Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, is in negotiations to quit the conservative-leaning cable news network he helped create, following allegations of sexual harassment from some of the channel’s highest-profile female news anchors. Ailes was hit with a sexual harassment suit by anchor Gretchen Carlson earlier this month. Ailes could collect as much as $40m in severance pay, according to a leaked copy of a “separation agreementâ€\x9d published by the Drudge Report on Tuesday. Roger Ailes negotiating exit from Fox News amid sexual harassment claims Farmers struggle to meet organic demand Demand for organic food has never been higher – $13.4bn in the US last year – yet farmers are struggling to get organic certification. Only 1% of US farmland is currently approved and the time and expense required for certification present major roadblocks. Concern over the organic shortage is so acute that corporate businesses and nonprofits are launched new efforts to give growers better incentives to go organic. American farmers are struggling to feed the country’s appetite for organic food Many Turks back authoritarian ErdoÄŸan The enduring popularity of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, perplexes some western observers, who know him mainly for his increasingly authoritarian actions. In recent days, western leaders have expressed alarm at the purge instigated following the failed coup attempt. Since Saturday about 35,000 officers, soldiers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, teachers and university deans have been detained, fired or suspended as ErdoÄŸan attempts to isolate anyone his government perceives to be a threat. But outside city hall the crowds saw him mainly as a saviour. “We love our president so much,â€\x9d said Ersin Korkmaz, a 29-year-old civil servant who was draped in a Turkish flag and accompanied by his two young daughters. ‘We see him as one of us’: why many Turks still back authoritarian ErdoÄŸan Russian doping verdict anticipated Dick Pound, the International Olympic Committee member whose report into Russian doping led to the country’s track and field athletes being banned last year, has broken ranks to suggest the IOC is unlikely to ban the entire Russia team from the Rio Games. In an interview with the BBC, Pound said he thought the committee would be “very reluctant to think about a total exclusion of the Russian teamâ€\x9d. In the ’s view, Rio is no place for cheats. Dick Pound fears IOC reluctant to ban entire Russia team from Olympics Museums embrace Pokémon Resisting anxiety that players of the game will amble blindly into works of art, US institutions including the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art in New York are seizing the opportunity to get gamers through the doors. MoMA, for instance, has two Pokéstops, including characters that are waiting inside the galleries at the current Tony Oursler and Rachel Harrison exhibitions. American art museums cautiously embrace Pokémon Go Garry Marshall, Happy Days creator, dies The TV writer and producer Garry Marshall, who has died aged 81, was considered one of the entertainment industry’s most successful figures who coined the term “jumping the sharkâ€\x9d. Earlier this year, he told the “sharks were big thenâ€\x9d. Marshall also created 70s shows such as Mork and Mindy and, in the 80s, directed films, including the blockbuster Pretty Woman, with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Garry Marshall, creator of Happy Days, dies aged 81 In case you missed it … Donald Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, once claimed that Mulan, the 1998 Disney animated film about a Han Dynasty-era woman who disguises herself as a man in order to battle an invading army, was “mischievous liberalâ€\x9d propaganda designed to influence “the next generation’s attitudes about women in combatâ€\x9d. Pence’s piece, written in 1999 and rediscovered by Buzzfeed, criticized Disney for suggesting that a woman could fight alongside men. Pence also claimed the film’s romantic subplot proved that straight men and women were unable to serve beside each other without sex becoming an issue. Mike Pence: Disney’s Mulan is ‘mischievous liberal propaganda’",
 'Live music booking now Judging by Bad Habits, the first track to be released from second album Everything You’ve Come To Expect (out 1 April), Alex Turner and Miles Kane’s sort-of supergroup The Last Shadow Puppets are headed in an increasingly noirish, garage rock-based direction (perhaps in an effort to tie in with Turner’s sartorial leanings). They’re also heading out on tour for the first time since 2008 (26 Mar to 3 Apr, tour starts Usher Hall, Edinburgh) … More names have been revealed for this summer’s Reading and Leeds festivals. Alongside previously announced main stagers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Disclosure and Foals will rotate headline duties on one of the other evenings; the mainly teen audience will also be treated to a set from author of crack-manufacturing anthems Fetty Wap (Richfield Avenue, Reading & Bramham Park, Leeds, 26 to 28 Aug) … In further festival news, Green Man has Belle And Sebastian, James Blake and Wild Beasts topping its bill (Glanusk Park, nr Crickhowell, 18 to 21 Aug) … While east London’s Lovebox plays host to LCD Soundsystem and Major Lazer (Victoria Park, E3, 15 & 16 Jul).',
 'European Union referendum polling day – as it happened The polls are closing now following a campaign which many believe was the most divisive in British politics. On election nights, it’s usually at this time that broadcasters put out their exit polls and make their projection for the night ahead. There is no such exit poll this time however, although some financial institutions are said to have commissioned private exit polls which they are likely to keep to themselves. Here’s your guide on how the night is expected to play out. Now, turn over to Andrew Sparrow’s referendum night blog, which has just launched. We’re getting some reports around the country of people who say that they have been turned away from election booths. They include people who turned up, polling card in hand, only to be told that their name was not on a list. It’s hard to gauge at this stage how extensive those problems might have been but I’ll try to look into a few of those later. Has Boris Johnson conceded defeat even before the polling stations close or is this a little bit of mischief? Lewis Iwu, a Londoner, says that he bumped into the MP on the underground a little earlier and was asked if he voted leave. Iwu said no and suggested that Johnson had also conceded defeat. Ever the attention grabber, live pictures are also now coming in of Johnson leaving his vote until almost the last minute. We’re into the last half an hour of voting. Traditionally there’s a bit of a rush in some places. Let’s see ... As any veteran of election/referendum all-nighters knows, it’s crucial to have a ready supply of unhealthy sugary drinks and snacks close to hand. Bit worried about Robert Peston’s paltry stock at ITV at this stage ... Global stock markets have been climbing sharply today as investors took the view that the UK was increasingly unlikely to vote to leave the European Union, reports the ’s Nick Fletcher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has just closed 1.29% higher, with banking shares among the main gainers. Earlier in London the FTSE 100 finished 1.23% higher, while the pound is currently up 1% at $1.4875. But the recent rally could be dramatically reversed if the leave campaign does end up winning the day. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at City firm CMC Markets, said: “The FTSE 100 has gained nearly 7% in the last seven days while the pound has rebounded from lows of 1.4010 to peak earlier today at 1.4950 and post its highest levels this year, as the polls continue to improve in favour of remain. “This suggests that a good part of this remain bounce could well be largely priced in already and if we get some early results in the early hours of the morning pointing to a move back to the leave camp then sterling could drop back sharply, potentially dragging stock markets down too.â€\x9d Away from the torrential rain in some parts of Britain, the possibility of Brexit has been very much on the minds of Britons in sunny southern Spain. A sleepless night beckons for some, it seems. The ’s Sam Jones has been canvassing opinion in Orihuela Costa, the largest British enclave in Spain: Early evening found Colin Lindgren nursing an al fresco pint at the Emerald Isle club and reflecting on his paradoxical feelings about Brexit. Like many of the expats who have made homes here, the retired 75-year-old, originally from Bedfordshire, would hate to give up the life of sunshine he and his wife have enjoyed for 14 years. If he’d got round to getting his postal vote in on time, he would have opted to remain. Yet if he were still in England, he would have voted to leave the EU. “I don’t like the way we were conned into it as the man on the street,â€\x9d he said. “When we first went into it, it was a trading deal. It’s just escalated and the whole thing has got totally out of hand.â€\x9d There is however, little to tempt him back to the UK – and it’s not just the excellent Spanish healthcare, the bowls and the sense of community in Alicante province. “We couldn’t afford to go back now,â€\x9d he said. “If we had to, it would be very expensive. The cost of living here is lower and it’s a very sensible life.â€\x9d Academic researchers have concluded that 61.6% of young voters intended to vote to remain in the EU. That’s a survey – the details have just come – by Oxford and University of Manchester researchers who worked with the data firm RIWI to run the survey from the beginning of March up to June. Partial responses came from 7,444 people under the age of 40. A last email push is being made by both sides. One which has arrived from Boris Johnson says: Polls close in 90 minutes, so obviously we don’t have time for long emails. If you have voted leave, thank you. If you haven’t yet, please do. And please email, text or phone all your friends to Vote Leave. Don’t lose this chance to make today our Independence Day!!! Thank you so much. It ends with “Sent from my iPhoneâ€\x9d because of course he’s been busy tapping that out in the last while. Another, from Labour, says: It looks like there could be a record number of people at the polls today, showing just how historic an event and how important this decision is to all of us. If you haven’t voted yet — don’t miss out on being a part of it. There’s still plenty of time, polls are open until 10pm. It comes with a link to a Labour gizmo designed to help voters find their polling station. A dispatch comes in from Glastonbury, where the ’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen says that there’s general agreement that the “Glastonbury bubbleâ€\x9d is a welcome break from the political bickering. That said: Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis may have had no qualms about loudly declaring their voting intentions in the EU referendum, but the once-in-a-generation poll proved more divisive among the 180,000 festivalgoers who arrived in the last 24 hours. Eavis was not allowed to have a polling station on site but had repeatedly urged people coming on Thursday or before to arrange either a postal or proxy vote – advice it seems many followed. The Fleming family, who had travelled from Chesterfield for their first Glastonbury together, were divided on the issue. Parents Tim and Jane, 51, both favoured Brexit, but their daughter Holly, 20, took the opposite view. “It just isn’t that bad in the EU and we’re going to be the generation where if it goes tits up, we’ll have to sort it out,â€\x9d she said. Susan Hardisty, 60, who was also at Glastonbury for the first time, said the referendum was “one of the most important votes of our generation, more important than the general electionâ€\x9d. She added: “We have kids in their 20s and I think the world will be a lot easier for them if we are part of the EU. And the thought of retracting into an isolated little Britain just scares the life out of me.â€\x9d A council in an area where a polling booth was temporarily closed after a man was stabbed nearby has been using Twitter to let voters know that it’s open again. A 19-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident in Huddersfield, which West Yorkshire police said was not linked to the EU referendum. The man was found collapsed with a stab wound in the Waverley Road area of the town at 5.15pm. Frances Perraudin had some more details earlier. Remain campaigners in Islington, a Labour stronghold that includes the constituencies of Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, seem confident that rain and occasional thunder and lightning haven’t damaged their chances of success. The ’s David Pegg, who is anchored in deepest Islington, reports: Despite comments from Nigel Farage earlier in the day anticipating that the bad weather could favour the leave campaign by putting off “soft remainersâ€\x9d, local activists canvassing outside schools and stations in an effort to reach parents and commuters said they felt positive. “Turnout appears to have been fairly high. An awful lot of people are saying ‘I’ve already voted’,â€\x9d said Freddie Wilkinson, leafleting outside Highbury and Islington station. “There are quite a few people trickling in,â€\x9d said Jo Wood, one of a group of Labour party members out campaigning. “People are voting.â€\x9d Results for the area are expected to be declared after 1.30am, making it one of the earlier counts for London. That #usepens hashtag continues to trend on Twitter, with some gentle (and not so gentle) mockery of the urgings from some (mainly pro-Brexit) quarters for voters to bring their own pens to ensure their papers are not altered in favour of a remain vote. Read Esther Addley’s piece from earlier on one of the more curious trends of today’s poll. The conversations are still going on in south Wales, reports the ’s Steve Morris. In Cardiff campaigners have set up next to the statue of Aneurin Bevan – Labour party icon and architect of the NHS. They believe the turnout in central Cardiff is very big – and think this is good news for Remain - but worry that it may be a different story in the valleys and out in the countryside. They just spoke to someone who was still undecided. “I’ll give it some thought,â€\x9d she said. She’d better hurry up. Welsh Labour grandees are still working hard in the valleys, one of their traditional strongholds. Unlike other parts of the UK, their job has been made more pleasant by warm sunshine. So, are the polls going to get it right this time? The ’s Tom Clark has been looking at how the EU referendum is the pollsters’ big chance to regain some credibility. Here’s a snatch The big flaw unveiled in the thorough post-election inquiry for the industry, by Prof Patrick Sturgis, has not been satisfactorily addressed. The root problem, he found, was not last-minute jitters in the ballot box or inadequate turnout filters, but rather a brute failure by the pollsters to interview the right people. A couple of door-to-door surveys run by academics and published long after the event did get election 2015 right. The big difference was that these surveys picked out voters’ names at random, and then kept hammering on their doors until they answered. The other polls, whether online or phone, give up on the hard-to-reach, move on to other phone numbers and email addresses, and thus fail to achieve a genuine mix. In 2015 it transpired that Tories, for whatever reason, were that bit harder to rouse, creating the big polling miss. Read on here. For those having trouble getting home because of the weather, I’m afraid it’s too late to apply for an emergency proxy – the deadline was 5pm today. It seems unlikely that transport problems would be accepted as a valid reason anyway, as people stranded overseas today because of the strike by French air traffic controllers were told they were not entitled to appoint an emergency proxy. The guidance on such proxies for the EU referendum says they apply when someone has a medical emergency or “your occupation, service or employment means that you cannot go to the polling station in person, and you only became aware of that fact after the proxy vote deadline (15 June)â€\x9d. When my colleague Mark Tran asked the Electoral Commission about the possibility of people stranded at train stations getting emergency proxies, they referred him to this tweet by the commission. It’s Ben Quinn here picking up the baton now from Haroon. Red Bulls at the ready? Very high turnouts have been reported in the back yard of the only pro-Brexit MP in Bristol, Charlotte Leslie. Clerks in polling stations on council estates, littered with leave signs, said that they were “not as high as 75%, but closeâ€\x9d. In posher districts at one polling station, the was told that, including postal votes, “1,000 of the 1,400â€\x9d had been cast – but this was “not as highâ€\x9d as other nearby counts. Bristol, considered a pro-remain stronghold, is one of the last big counts to declare with a result due at 6am. If the national result is very close – as some predict – then Britain could be waiting to see what happens in the city to find out whether the country remains or leave the EU. West Yorkshire police have confirmed that they were called to a stabbing near a polling station in Huddersfield at 5.15pm, but said the incident had nothing to do with today’s referendum. The polling station on Waverley Road was closed for half an hour to “contain the sceneâ€\x9d, but has now reopened. Local reports have named the victim as 18-year-old Luke Joseph and say he was stabbed by a gang of five other teenagers. Police believe he was attacked in the nearby Greenhead Park and then walked to the polling station, where he collapsed. The victim’s injuries have been described as serious but not fatal. The problems at London transport hubs could potentially affect the ability of thousands of people to vote. Waterloo, where there appears to be no service at all, serves 90 million passengers a year, which is about 250,000 a day on average (although the average obviously includes weekends and holidays). Cannon Street, Charing Cross, London Bridge, Victoria, and probably other stations have also been affected. They are all major commuter stations with many people likely to have left for work this morning before polls opened. The Rail Delivery Group says among the train operators affected are Abellio Greater Anglia, Gatwick Express, Southern, South West Trains and Thameslink. Among those stranded is the broadcaster and journalist Sian Williams: A reader has got in touch to say that turnout may not be high everywhere: Scotland’s chief returning officer, Mary Pitcaithly, has predicted overall turnout in Scotland will reach about 70-80% after a day of “steadyâ€\x9d voting at polling stations. Pitcaithly told BBC Radio Scotland she did not expect turnout to reach the 85% seen in the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014, which she oversaw, but agreed it would still be high. Only 56% of Scotland’s 4 million-strong electorate turned out for May’s Holyrood elections, but 71% did so in last year’s UK general election. The chief executive for Falkirk council, she is due to announce Scotland’s regional result after collating the count data from 32 local councils at around breakfast time. The storms have brought Waterloo station to a standstill, potentially affecting thousands of passengers who may not have voted. The station is a major hub for people commuting from outside London many of whom would likely have left in the morning too early to vote. Many people have taken to social media to express concern that they will miss the 10pm deadline. More on the pens saga from PA, which reports that police were called to a polling station where a woman was handing out pens to fellow voters after a volunteer reported a “disturbanceâ€\x9d. A Sussex Police spokesman said: Police were called to Durnford Close, Chichester, at around 12.25pm on Thursday 23 June by a volunteer reporting a disturbance outside a polling station. A PCSO [police community support officer] who was in the area went to the scene and spoke with a woman who was handing out pens. No offences were committed and it was not being treated as a police matter, the spokesman added. Concerns have been expressed on social media that votes not written in ink could be rubbed out and altered. There are some interesting tweets about turnout coming through: Schools in Bristol, painted as a great remain heartland, ran mock referenda today. Of course it’s not the real thing and only a bit of a laugh but there was an interesting split. In the affluent northern suburb at Redland Green school, of the 475 staff and pupils who voted, 440 backed staying in the EU. That’s 93% of the vote. Meanwhile in the less well-off southern fringe of Hartcliffe, students were more evenly split. Pupils at Bridge Learning Campus in Hartcliffe backed remain. Some interesting constituency by constituency figures are coming out of Northern Ireland that show voting is slow in republican areas while unionist districts are recording higher votes. In North Down - the most affluent constituency in Northern Ireland - polling stations were reporting that 22% of the electorate had voted by lunchtime today. North Down usually records one of the lowest electoral turnouts in Westminster and Stormont Assembly elections. In sharp contrast, by midday one polling station in the republican heartland of West Belfast was reporting a 7% turnout. Meanwhile in republican/nationalist-dominated Derry, turnout was about 11.5% by lunchtime in the Foyle constituency. Overall the Electoral Office in Northern Ireland expects the region-wide turnout to be close to 70%, which would be 15 percentage points higher than last month’s election to the devolved assembly. South Belfast, regarded as the most liberal constituency in Northern Ireland, was reporting voting turnout of up to 21% in some polling stations by the middle of the day. After the BBC reported earlier this week that poll station staff were receiving “training in what a selfie isâ€\x9d, with the hope of preventing photography while people vote, it appears smartphones are posing a threat to the privacy of poll booths. Taking a photo inside a polling station is not of itself against the law but section 66 of the Representation of the People Act says: No person shall communicate at any time to any person any information obtained in a polling station as to the referendum answer for which a voter in that station is about to vote or has voted. Many social media users have taken photographs, including Henry Smith, Conservative MP for Crawley. Smith tweeted a photograph of his completed ballot paper. The tweet received a mixed reception from other users, with several suggesting he had committed electoral misconduct. Here is a round-up of the key developments so far today: At least two polling stations had to be moved and people voting at others had to wade and/or be helped through deep waters, as torrential rain fell on parts of London and the south-east, causing severe travel delays and flooded homes. A poll of polls by Britain Elects put the likely outcome as 51% for remain and 49% for leave. The final pre-polling day poll, by Ipsos-Mori, gave the Remain camp a four point lead. It is believed to be the first to be published while voting was taking place. All the final phone polls showed remain in the lead, whereas the last four online polls were split with two putting remain ahead and two putting leave in the lead. The pound hit a new high for the year and shares closed up in a volatile day’s trading, indicating investors are expecting a remain vote. The pound and FTSE100 surged in the morning, fell back in the afternoon and then rallied again later, albeit not reaching the peaks during morning trading. Vote Leave has been criticised for an email warning that the referendum could be decided by voters in London and Scotland “despite the heartlands of the country voting to leaveâ€\x9d. The email also included a a photo of a queue outside a polling station captioned a “leafy London suburbâ€\x9d. Labour MP Chuka Umunna, a member of the official remain campaign, said the message was divisive, describing it as “utterly disgracefulâ€\x9d. A council has urged voters not to use pens when they cross their EU referendum ballot papers as it could cause them to smudge. East Northamptonshire council issued the warning after a conspiracist meme encouraged pro-Leave voters to take pens to vote so that their pencilled-in crosses could not be tampered with. Most of the key figures in the campaign, including David Cameron, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Nigel Farage cast their votes early. As he left a polling station in Islington Corbyn said: “The bookies usually get it right [but] they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?â€\x9d The referendum has been the biggest political betting event in history. Betfair said it took £5m on the result this morning. What happens after polls close at 10pm? Here’s how we expect the night to play out, from the leave heartlands of the northern counties and the east coast, to the remain cities of London, Edinburgh and Bristol. Investors have put their money on a vote to remain in Britain’s EU referendum, with the pound hitting a new high for 2016 and the FTSE 100 share index rallying strongly. As the market exuberance of recent trading sessions continued throughout polling day itself, there were, however, fresh warnings that investors were setting themselves up for heavy losses in the event of a Brexit when the outcome of the referendum becomes clear on Friday. The pound broke through $1.49 against the dollar for the first time since December before shedding some of those gains in afternoon trading to stand at $1.4799 (still up 0.6% on the day). The FTSE 100 index of leading shares added a solid 1.2%, or 77 points, to close at 6338 - the highest for eight weeks. Chris Saint, senior analyst at financial firm Hargreaves Lansdown Currency, said: Clearly the key issue now for currency markets is whether rising expectations that the status quo will prevail are well-placed. Most of the results from the local counting areas are expected by the early hours of tomorrow morning with the official outcome anticipated by around breakfast time. Dramatic exchange rate swings are to be expected regardless of the result, with a sharp drop in the pound’s value possible in the event of a Brexit. Shares and the pound were higher from the open and got an extra fillip in morning trading after the publication of an Ipsos Mori poll conducted for the Evening Standard newspaper showed a four-point lead for remain. “Even though we all know that polls can be rubbish, the markets seem quite happy that the remain camp has done enough to win,â€\x9d said Kathleen Brooks, research director at spread-betting firm City Index. It may be polling day but there is no respite from the bitterness between the two opposing campaigns. Stronger in Europe has hit out at a plea by Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliot, sent by email to Brexit supporters, urging them to vote, because: There is a very real chance that voters in London and Scotland will vote to keep us in the EU today despite the heartlands of the country voting to leave. The email includes a photo of a queue outside a polling station in a “leafy London suburbâ€\x9d. Chuka Umunna, Labour MP for Streatham, said: Vote Leave are ending this campaign as they began it – by seeking to divide our country not unite it, turning regions, nations and communities against one another. Londoners and Scots have as much right to exercise their democratic choice as anyone else. Implying that our votes are somehow less legitimate than those cast in other parts of Britain is utterly disgraceful. Pollsters have suggested that the elderly are more likely to vote and more likely to vote “leaveâ€\x9d. So the vote by Keith Adams’s mum today may come as little surprise but it was the way she exercised her democratic right that got it trending on Twitter. Twitter users all across the country appropriated Adams’ post to tell people what their 93-year-old mums are contributing to the poll station, from the serious to the utterly bizarre: “Keithâ€\x9d and “93 yr mumâ€\x9d have both trended on Twitter today. Adams has since written a blog post in response to trolling he received as a result of his post, condemning his critics for their “entire premise...that being brexit invalidates anything elseâ€\x9d. Earlier the pound surged to a 2016 high against the dollar and also appreciated against the Euro but it has fallen back this afternoon: One of my colleagues, Maya Wolfe-Robinson, has been told that an inability to get back to vote because of strike action on the continent is insufficient reason to be allowed an emergency proxy. Others appear to have the same problem: That’s it from me for now. I’ll be back on in the early hours for the results. In the meantime Haroon Siddique is poised to take over. Earlier we highlighted this lovely gallery of quirky polling stations up and down the land from the ’s picture desk. We’re also starting to receive pictures from readers around the country. Emma Cozzi sent this, a church community centre in Hove. You can see more pictures readers have sent, including one from Stephanie Steele, who lives above her polling station in Windsor, and add yours (but please don’t tell us which way you are voting) here. Amidst all the political gambling on the outcome of the referendum, William Hill points to an interesting activity in a side bet on Theresa May becoming the next Tory leader. It has halved May’s odds from 6/1 to 3/1, making her a clear second favourite, behind 11/4 favourite Boris Johnson. William Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe said: “Ms May had drifted right out in the odds over recent months, finding very little support with political punters, but suddenly she seems to be back in favour and the money is hinting that she might be well placed to be a serious contender for the top job.â€\x9d Nigel Farage is still expected at a Leave.EU party hosted by Ukip donor Arron Banks tonight, despite triggering speculation over his whereabouts by pulling out of a Channel 4 debate last night citing family reasons. Sources confirmed he had decided instead to have dinner with his son, who has been abroad for work for nine months. It also looked like he was none too keen on bumping into fellow C4 guest Alan Sked, a former Ukip leader who has been very rude about him. Farage looked chipper as he voted in his home village of Westerham in Kent this morning and is understood to have been having a relaxing lunch before getting ready for the big night. The library in Birstall, outside which MP Jo Cox was murdered seven days ago, is serving as a polling station and there is a light police presence outside. David Smith, the deputy returning officer in the area, says turnout seems high (postal voter turnout looks like it will be over 80%) and that the region’s count hall in Huddersfield will hold a minute’s silence for the MP at 11.30am. Smith says the last time he oversaw a count in the area was when Jo Cox was elected as the constituency’s MP. Fighting back tears, he says: “I work with politicians everyday and they have a bad press, but everything they say about her is true.â€\x9d On the stroke of 12.50pm, the time that Cox was killed seven days ago, around 200 people gathered around the corner from the polling station in Birstall market square to take part in a vigil for the MP. Holding hands, the crowd held a minute’s silence before chanting “we stand togetherâ€\x9d and singing hymns. Paul Knight, the vicar of Birstall, who led the vigil, said Cox’s death had caused the country to stop and think about the decision facing them in the EU referendum. “The country paused after a very uncomfortable period of argument and exaggeration, if not untruth, and I hope that pause, though it has come about through such a tragic incident, will make people carefully think through the issues.â€\x9d The steps of nearby Batley town hall, which was also being used as polling station, were decked in floral tributes to the MP. Turnout could be similar to last year’s general election, according to a BMG Research poll for the Electoral Reform Society [ERS]. It found that 67% of people said they would definitely vote and a further 12% said they would probably vote. At last year’s election the turnout was 66%. A high turnout is thought likely to favour remain, but the survey also found that older people who are more likely to vote leave are more likely to vote than younger people. Just 54% of 18-24 year olds said they would definitely vote today, compared to 79% of over 65s. While up on last month’s 47% for 18-24 year olds, it is still a “stark gapâ€\x9d, according to ERS. Katie Ghose, its chief executive, said: “Considering the fact that this is a once in a generation vote, the fact that turnout could be similar or lower than last year’s general election is a shame if true. This referendum is arguably more important than a general election as every votes counts and the result will affect the UK for decades to come. “A poor turnout risks people viewing this issue as unclosed, and we could see calls for further referendums or questioning of the validity of the result from either side. Nobody wants a result based on a small minority of registered voters. Instead this is an opportunity to have a decisive result, so we hope everyone gets out to vote before the 10pm deadline.â€\x9d “The demographic gap is worrying – with 71% of wealthier Brits saying they’ll vote compared to just 62% of those from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds, and with only half of 18-24 year olds saying they’ll vote. This referendum can’t be decided by one demographic on behalf of another – it needs to be the result of a great national conversation involving everyone.â€\x9d Welsh first minister – and Labour leader in Wales - Carwyn Jones has voted. He’s been campaigning hard in the Welsh valleys in recent days trying to get that Labour vote out for Remain in one of the party’s traditional strongholds. But Ukip has also been getting stronger in the valleys. It will be fascinating to find out how valleys folk have voted today. They’ve benefitted from millions of pounds of EU money – but it’s easy to find people concerned about immigration here too. Remain campaigners in Glasgow have set up a wish tree in Buchanan Street to rival those set up during the independence campaign. In case you missed this from the indyref it was a charmingly empowering/nauseatingly twee device that we had a lot up here with folk leaving their wishes for an independent Scotland. Now there is one for the EUref and I feel that the circle has been fully squared: Nigel Farage has put out a final Leave.EU video appeal that picks up Boris Johnson rallying cry to make today “Independence Dayâ€\x9d. It features lots of nostalgic clips: Ian Botham winning the ashes in 1981, British troops in the Falklands, steam trains, and spitfires. Column Eastwood leader of the SDLP has used his daughter Rosa (who is one today) to make a last ditch video appeal for remain. Talking outside a local polling station in Derry city he said: “I want to make sure Rosa grows up in the European Unionâ€\x9d. We’ve been asking our readers to send over their referendum day photographs and comments. Here’s a selection: Mark, 49, Cologne: The EU referendum has been in the news here a lot and Germany is fully aware of the implications whichever way the result goes. Germany does not want to see the UK leave and truly believe we’re stronger together. I’m an expat who came to Germany after leaving the RAF and married my German spouse. I came over 20 years ago. Now all I can now do is sit and watch, as I’m not allowed to vote due to being away from the UK for too long. The rest of my family are all in the UK and I know they’ll be making the right decision. As for me? I will have to wait until breakfast tomorrow for the result. Naomi Tayler, 38, South Cambridgeshire: It was a busy polling station in Melbourne at 7am this morning, I was accompanied to vote by my cocker spaniel, Bella and border terrier, Daisy, who are now regular attendees at the polling station. Unfortunately the dogs were so enthusiastic they ruined a fellow voters white trousers by jumping up! Catherine Phipps, 20, Paris: I’m a student at the University of London Institute in Paris, and will be following the coverage in Paris with my other British friends who live here. None of the French people can understand why we would leave. I don’t either. Chloe, 27, Harrow: My polling station has pimped up for the day with a lot of patriotic memorabilia. Is this what democracy looks like? Kate Smith, 19, Newcastle upon Tyne: I’ve only voted twice before, but both of those times I was in and out of the polling station within minutes. Today, when I arrived, there was a queue of around 15 people lined up outside – it was 8am! The most encouraging thing was that of these 15 people, around two thirds were under 25. I’m so glad that my generation is engaging in this referendum, which in my opinion could be the most important decision we could make. Help us document what’s happening around the UK on polling say by sharing your stories, photos and videos here. There’s been little sign of leave campaigner Boris Johnson today. That’s because he’s been attending his daughter graduation ceremony in St Andrews. Will he make it back to London in time to vote? A poll of polls by Britain Elects puts the likely outcome on 51% for remain and 49% for leave. Polls in the last 10 days of the campaign have been split, but the last four all have Remain ahead. Long queues have been reported outside some polling stations as voters cast their ballots in Britain’s closely fought EU referendum. In London and parts of the south-east many were forced to brave torrential rain and navigated flooded streets to have their say. David Cameron ignored questions about the weather, saying only “Good morningâ€\x9d as he and his wife Samantha cast their votes at Methodist Hall in Westminster. The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, speaking outside his Kent home, said he believed the leave camp had a “very strong chanceâ€\x9d because of the weather, adding: “But it’s all about turnout and those soft remainers staying at home.â€\x9d Voting is said to be “briskâ€\x9d across Northern Ireland in the EU referendum according to the Electoral Office in the region. Unofficially it is said the vote could be as high as 70% in the region. If this is the case it will be far higher than the turnout for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections last month which was 55%. There are 619 polling stations across the province and the votes will be counted at eight different centres before the full Northern Ireland result is declared in Belfast’s Titanic Centre. North Wiltshire Tory MP James Gray (a passionate leave supporter) says if people vote to remain he will accept “the democratic will of the peopleâ€\x9d, but only if it is a “reasonable majorityâ€\x9d suggestion around 60-40. Are the Leave campaigners paving the way for the next wave of campaigning if they lose? Betfair has taken £5m on the EU referendum this morning as punters rush to place final bets ahead of tomorrow’s results. There has been a flurry of bets, predominantly on staying in the EU, according to a spokeswoman. “The Scottish referendum saw nearly £10m traded on the day, so we’re anticipating at least that amount,â€\x9d she said. The company says it has taken £56m on the political event. Betfair said their biggest bet of the morning had been £28,500 on Remain, adding that they had had eight bets that day of £20,000 or more. Overall, the biggest bet they’ve seen has been £315,000 on remain. It’s a similar picture for Ladbrokes, which reported bets of over £1m in the last 24 hours. Most of the money was on the Remain side it said. The average stake on Remain is now £400, while the average on Leave is £70. A spokesperson for Coral described betting as brisk this morning, saying that there had been numerous four figure bets laid, predominantly on Remain. So far it has had one bet of £4,000 on Remain (at 1/4) and a £2,000 punt on Leave (at 11/4). “The majority of bets today are for Remain, which has seen the odds on Britain staying in the EU shortening from 1/4 to 1/7, and Leave out to 4/1, from 11/4.â€\x9d It added that while more shop customers are predominantly backing out, online ones are for stay. “This reflects an older customer base who bet in shops wanting out, and the younger customers who bet online are for staying.â€\x9d It’s a similar picture at William Hill, which makes Remain a 2/9 favourite – equating to an 81% chance of winning. There’s been flooding outside the Grange primary school in Newham, east London. Eyewitness Ben March said people were “hitching up their trousers and wading through the waterâ€\x9d to cast their votes. A spokeswoman for Newham borough council said that everyone would still be able to vote, adding that teams were out trying to clear the water. There should be no problem accessing and assistance is on hand for those needing it. There were also problems in New Malden, south-west London, Merton council said. A council spokeswoman said no-one had been turned away and that staff were doing “everything they canâ€\x9d to guide voters and drivers through and clear water away. Kingston council, also, in south-west London has had to move a couple of polling stations due to the weather. Tea rooms, front rooms, mobile homes, a Buddhist centre and a launderette – here’s our photo gallery of quirky polling stations. Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has voted at Tonypandy in south Wales. She has been a passionate voice in the Remain campaign. But it would be fascinating if, say, Wales voted to remain and the UK as a whole voted out. Would that be a boost to nationalism in Wales? You’d think so. Down amongst the detail of today’s Ipsos Mori poll are a couple of interesting nuggets. Two weeks into the campaign the Ipsos Mori polls showed that immigration had overtaken concerns about the impact of Brexit on the economy as the issue which was the most important in helping people to decide how to vote. Last week’s poll which had a six point Leave lead had 33% of people naming immigration as the decisive issue for them. Today’s poll (which gives Remain a four point lead) still shows immigration as the issue of most concern at 32% but concerns about the impact of Brexit on economy has closed the gap to 31%. This may explain how the swing to Remain has taken place. The poll also has some interesting party breakdowns. It shows that 68% of Labour voters intend to vote Remain, but only 43% of those who voted Conservative at the general election intend to back Remain. This is what happened to the pound after the poll was published. Spain’s El Mundo carries an interview with Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames. In it, not for the first time, Soames declares : “My grandfather would have voted to remain.â€\x9d Sticking with the second world war theme, the El Mundo journalist Alberto Rojas has posted some very stirring footage shot for the film 1969 film Battle of Britain. The accompanying tweet reads: “I preferred it when the British were trying to free Europe rather than trying to abandon it.â€\x9d The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, also scrambled the Spitfires earlier this week. There’s more on European press coverage here. The first Brexit copycat has emerged in a country that has not yet gained entry to the EU. On the eve of the vote, Turkish president Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan suggested that Turkey could hold a referendum over whether to go on with its long-stalled and rocky accession process to join the bloc. “We can stand up and ask the people just like the British are doing,â€\x9d Erdogan said in an angry speech late on Wednesday after breaking the Ramadan fast at an official dinner. “We would ask ‘Do we continue the negotiations with the European Union or do we end it?’ If the people say ‘continue’, then we could carry on.â€\x9d He has repeatedly accused the bloc of rejecting Turkey on the grounds that it is a Muslim-majority country. Ankara has also been angered by comments from David Cameron during the bruising Brexit campaign, suggesting that Turkish membership was not even “remotely in the cardsâ€\x9d and that the country may not join until the year 3000. Brexit dominates Italy’s front pages, deemed “Europe’s longest dayâ€\x9d by La Repubblica and business daily Il Sole 24 Ore. Rome’s top paper, Il Messaggero, carries a bleak image of the “anxiety and fear of the British, divided on the destiny of the Kingdomâ€\x9d. It says the climate in Britain has become even more poisonous since the murder of MP Jo Cox. The staunchly anti-EU Il Giornale carries a photo of a “Keep Calm & Vote Leaveâ€\x9d van, declaring that whoever wins, Brussels has lost. The Italian papers have also noted prime minister Matteo Renzi’s pro-Remain article in the . Here’s a summary of where things currently stand just over five hours since polls opened: People heading to polling stations to vote had to wade through deep waters, as torrential rain fell on parts of London and the south-east, causing severe travel delays and flooded homes. London fire brigade said it had dealt with a day’s worth of calls in just 90 minutes, including buildings struck by lightning and flooded shops and homes. The final pre-polling day poll gave the Remain camp a four point lead. The Ipsos-Mori poll is believed to be the first to be published while voting was taking place. All the final phone polls showed remain in the lead, whereas the last four online polls were split with two putting remain ahead and two putting leave in the lead. Most of the key figures in the campaign, including David Cameron, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Nigel Farage cast their votes early. As he left a polling station in Islington Corbyn said: “The bookies usually get it right [but] they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?â€\x9d The pound and shares have soared as investors await the result. Traders have been watching the EU referendum closely for weeks, and many will be working through the night as the results come in. The referendum has been the biggest political betting event in history. What happens after polls close at 10pm? Here’s how we expect the night to play out, from the leave heartlands of the northern counties and the east coast, to the remain cities of London, Edinburgh and Bristol. Help us document what’s happening around the UK on polling day by sharing your stories, photos and videos. Show us what’s been happening in your community and at polling stations around the country. If you’re following the election from outside of the UK, tell us how and why. We’ll feature your stories throughout our coverage, so get in touch. You can share your photos and experiences by clicking on the blue ‘Contribute’ button at the top of the live blog. Remember that sharing pictures of yourself or what’s happening before you go into or after you leave the polling station are great, but please don’t take pictures or video of yourself inside the polling station, as publishing it to Witness or social media could be a breach of the law. Also please do not tell us how you voted or how you intend to vote as we will not be able to publish your contribution until after the polls close at 10pm. More about pencils (number 2 on the Cowley list). A trusted contact of our North of England editor Helen Pidd, emailed this: “I run a polling station and it is very noticeable how many voters today are bringing their own pens and even sharpies to register their vote rather than use the pencils provided in the booth. Worrying lack of trust in the counting system and I assume someone has put out some sort of rumour that votes made in pencil can be erased, which as you know is ridiculous. Professor Briain Cox, Britain’s favourite scientist, quipped: Spaniards tend to be very proud Europeans, which is one of the reasons there’s so much interest here in the referendum. But there’s another very, very strong reason why Spanish eyes are fixed so firmly on the UK today. As this graphic from the online Spanish newspaper El Español shows, almost a third of the tourists who came to Spain in May were British. Last year, British tourists spent €14bn in Spain - or €444 a second. If Brexit happens, the paper notes, the pound is likely to tumble in value and British holidaymakers will be less happy to splash their cash. The article bears the headline: “The graphic that makes Spanish tourism shake over Brexitâ€\x9d. The LibDems lit up the foot of Edinburgh castle with a Remain messages. LibDem leader Tim Farron made a final plea to voters. He said: “Today is about the very future of Britain; it’s about the kind of country we want to be: an outward looking, tolerant and progressive nation, leading in Europe. “But the result today is still on a knife-edge, and we absolutely must not let the likes of Nigel Farage and Michael Gove have their way. The very tone of their campaign should tell us enough about what they would do to our country. “So that’s why I need you to go to the polls and cast your vote for Remain. I need you to vote with the prosperity and opportunity of our future generations at the forefront of your minds.â€\x9d In what is believed to be the first ever poll published on polling day, Ipsos Mori gives Remain a four point lead. The phone survey was completed in the days before the referendum. Mike Smithson, an election analyst at politicalbetting.com points out that all the final phone polls showed Remain in the lead, whereas all but one of the online polls show Leave in the lead. One of the methods was wrong, we just don’t know which yet. As predicted by Cowley (number three on his list of things to watch), we’re seeing a lot of dogs at polling stations. Now spotting dogs at polling stations has become Twitter’s favourite pasttime on polling day. This year, as with last year’s general election, #dogsatpollingstations is one of the top trends. Ukip leader Nigel Farage joked with reporters that he had been “undecidedâ€\x9d how to vote as he arrived at a polling station in a primary school near his home in north Kent. Spain’s acting prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has taken an unequivocal line on Brexit, warning earlier this month that a leave vote affect the hundreds of thousands of Britons who live in Spain and “would be very negative for everyone and from every perspectiveâ€\x9d. Divorce from the EU, he stressed, would see British citizens forfeiting the rights to live and work across the continent. However, pro-independence politicians in Catalonia – who long for a break with Madrid – are taking a far more nuanced approach. Although most people in Spain are strongly pro-European, Catalan separatists recognise that Brexit could help set a precedent for how the EU deals with a reconfigured Europe. Raül Romeva, the Catalan minister for foreign affairs said: “Catalonia has been following with great interest the debate that is taking place these days in the UK and its possible outcome. British citizens have been given the opportunity to compare all the various points of view before voting freely on what kind of relationship they want their country to have with the European Union. This is beneficial for any democracy: it reinforces it and makes it stronger.â€\x9d Whatever the result, adds Romeva, the referendum has shown that citizens are “free to decide on their sovereignty in a democratic wayâ€\x9d. “Europe has always adapted itself to new realities. We have seen it in the past, we will see it now with the United Kingdom and we will continue to see it in the case of Catalonia.â€\x9d Catalonia’s regional president, Carles Puigdemont, recently told the that he saw many parallels between the rhetoric deployed by the Remain campaign and language used to counter moves towards Catalan independence. “We have also suffered campaigns of fear,â€\x9d he said. “I remember when the banks started issuing their opinions. They treated us as if we were not grown-ups and said a whole lot of lies.â€\x9d Puigdemont also downplayed suggestions that the UK’s departure from the EU would tear apart the union, saying: “The EU will make an extraordinary display of political realism, and an admirable, Darwinian ability to adapt.â€\x9d Google Trends has been looking at what UK internet users have been searching for in connection with the referendum. The top issues by local authority revealed that ‘immigration’ (in red) was very prominent all over the country, but so too was the ‘NHS’ and the search term ‘Expats’. ‘Trade’ and the ‘economy’ were less prevalent. The leave campaign has covered more of provincial and rural England in its efforts to persuade Britons to quit the EU, while the remain side has concentrated on urban centres. Analysis by the , which pinpoints campaign stops made by four prominent campaigners on either side of the debate in the five weeks to 16 June, shows the leave side has largely ignored Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while the remain camp has been absent in a large swath of eastern England. For the analysis the looked at the itineraries of four campaigners on the remain side: prime minister David Cameron, chancellor George Osborne, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow first secretary of state Angela Eagle and, on the leave side, Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, Ukip leader Nigel Farage and Labour MP Gisela Stuart. It also shows that both sides have, in the main, chosen to campaign in areas broadly supportive of their respective views. In north-west England, for example, the remain campaigners have concentrated on the larger urban centres, Liverpool and Manchester, both of which are rated “relatively Europhileâ€\x9d by YouGov. Looking a little quiet on the Isles of Scilly at the moment. Scilly Sergeant Colin Taylor is making sure there’s no foul play in the far south west of Britain. The Isles of Scilly could be one of the first places to have a result. Usually at elections ballot boxes are taken to the mainland for counting but for the referendum it will be done on St Mary’s. Only 1,700 voters so it shouldn’t take that long. Over in the City, shares have hit their highest level since late April as investors remain glued to the EU referendum vote. The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares jumped by 1.5% to a two-month high, before dipping back a little, as Brits headed to the polling booths. Mining stocks and financial firms are among the risers. Traders have been watching the EU referendum closely for weeks, and many will be working through the night as the results come in. Yesterday, UBS bank predicted that £350bn would be wiped off leading shares if the Leave campaign won. The pound is also rallying this morning, hitting a six-month high of $1.4851 against the US dollar. Analysts have forecast that it could plunge to $1.30 after a Brexit victory. Our business liveblog has more details: The Leave camp has a “very strong chanceâ€\x9d of pulling off one of the biggest political upheavals of recent times, Ukip leader Nigel Farage has insisted. Speaking outside his Kent home, Farage told PA: “Actually I do think we are in with a very strong chance, I do genuinely. But it’s all about turnout and those soft Remainers staying at home.â€\x9d Who knows what happened in the privacy of the voting booth? Here’s video of Labour leader and reluctant remain campaigner before and after casting his vote in Islington. “The bookies usually get it right,â€\x9d Corbyn is heard to mutter, before adding “they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?â€\x9d Justice secretary and leading Leave campaigner, Michael Gove, has voted in Kensignton. He was accompanied by his wife Sarah Vine, the Daily Mail columnist who is the godmother to David Cameron’s youngest daughter. Note the Vote Leave brolley. Thorbjørn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, said he hoped Britons would choose to stay in, but said Europe would deal with the issue in a “rational wayâ€\x9d if the verdict was to leave, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Oslo. “I was chairing the committee that awarded the Nobel peace prize to the European Union so the answer is evident [on where I stand] but I really hope that the UK would stay. I also believe that if we get the opposite result, Europe has to deal with it in a rational way, so Europe will survive,â€\x9d he told the . “It is up to the people of United Kingdom to decide, it’s a democratic referendum, we have to respect that but I hope results would be clear,â€\x9d he added. He said the UK won’t be isolated if it decided to leave. “British islands will continue to exist and British people will continue to exist as part of Europe, so whatever happens we cannot start isolating each other in Europe once again, it would be ridiculous.â€\x9d The referendum dominated Norwegian front pages on Thursday. “Today Britain can split Europe,â€\x9d read the headline of Aftenposten newspaper. The cartoon on the newspaper’s front page showed Boris Johnson trying to pull a sword out of a European stone that would make him king. “Fears that emotions will take Britain out of the EU,â€\x9d read the front page headline of Dagens Næringsliv, one of the biggest newspapers in Norway. Labour activists are reporting brisk early business at polling stations in the south Welsh valleys, where the party has been working hard to get the vote out in one of its traditional heartlands. But the result in Wales is going to be fascinating following Ukip’s excellent showing at the assembly elections last month when the party took seven seats. More than 2.2m Welsh voters are eligible to take part in the referendum and will be casting their votes at 3,578 polling stations. Results will be declared locally in each of Wales 22 council areas – from Monmouthshire in the far south-east to the Isle of Anglesey in the north west. The overall figures will be collated and announced in Flintshire in the north-east. The Welsh rugby great Gareth Thomas has announced that he has voted for the first time in his life – and reveals that he was heavily influenced by actor Michael Sheen and former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. “Can always blame them,â€\x9d he said in a Tweet. Gibraltar’s pro-remain chief minister Fabian Picardo has cast his vote. Polls suggest that 85% of the island want to remain in the EU. Last week Picardo told the : “There is quite unprecedented unity here. Myself and all my predecessors, every political party, all the trade unions and employers’ organisations, every club, society and association … For Gibraltar, this is a slam dunk decision. Now that the leave camp has made it clear that they are not looking for Britain to remain a part of the European single market, the choice for Gibraltar has become very stark.â€\x9d In his ten things to watch Philip Cowley warned us to be careful of reports of high turn out (see earlier). But we can’t resist having some anecdotal reports from respected sources (what else can we write about on polling day?). Cowley is keeping a beady and wary eye on such reports. Only two UK referendums have had higher turnouts than recent general elections, the Institute for Government Points out. These were the one on the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998 (81.1%) and on Scottish independence in 2014 (84.6%). Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon voted early. Axel Scheffler, the illustrator behind the Gruffalo, has created an image for the to demonstrate his support for Britain remaining in the EU. Edinburgh council has reported that nearly a fifth of the city’s 345,000 voters have already submitted postal votes in the EU referendum, with more than 82% of the city’s postal voters returning their ballot paper by Wednesday evening. The city has a high number of registered postal voters at 22%. The number returned so far does not include late submissions – postal votes can be handed into polling places on polling day. That 82% interim turnout is close to the 86% UK average for postal vote returns in the 2015 general election. Remains campaigners are out in force in the West End and Partick areas of Glasgow, with the leave camp conspicuous by their absence around polling stations. But I’m told that’s because Leave are concentrating on their get out the vote operation. Plus, the student/middle class/SNP make-up of the area probably doesn’t speak to their core support. Polling station officials report a steady flow of voters, no doubt encouraged by the bright sunshine, though not yet teaching the high watermark of 2014’s Scottish independence referendum. Landmark buildings across Europe, including in Madrid and Warsaw, have been lit up with a Union Jack to show support for the Remain campaign, according to video from the Business Insider. Here’s video of David and Samantha on their way to vote in central London. Leading leave campaigner Boris Johnson has told the Telegraph that today’s vote is more important to him than his future in British politics. “Frankly, if this is the end of my political career… I’ve done eight years as mayor of London, I enjoyed it hugely, it was a massive privilege. Fine by me.â€\x9d But he remains fairly chipper about the outcome. “Our campaign has been about optimism and self-reliance. This is an absolute turning point in the story of our country because I think if we go on with being enmeshed in the EU it will continue to erode our democracy. That is something that worries me.â€\x9d Boris spent part of the final day of campaigning kissing fish at Billingsgate. Steve Bell features Boris kissing fish in outer space in his latest If... cartoon. Both David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn have cast their votes. Philip Cowley, who teaches politics at Queen Mary University of London, has 10 things be wary of today. Reuters has followed up that front page promise by the German tabloid Bild to recognise England’s disputed goal in the 1966 world cup final. Germany’s Bild newspaper promised on Thursday that Germans would not hog hotel sunloungers and would ditch their goalkeeper for the next penalty shootout, playing on friendly stereotypes in a last-ditch plea to Britons to stay in the European Union. “Dear Brits, if you remain in the EU ... then we ourselves will recognise the Wembley goal,â€\x9d Bild declared above a picture of Geoff Hurst’s controversial extra-time goal in the 1966 World Cup Final, when the English soccer team beat West Germany. Touching on decades of rivalry on the soccer pitch, the paper said Germany would go without its goalkeeper in the next penalty shootout between England and Germany. Germany is considered by English soccer fans to be their main sporting rival. Germany defeated England in a penalty shootout in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup and the semi-finals of the 1996 Euros. Leaning on decades of jokes between the countries, the mass-selling tabloid promised to put towels on sun loungers to reserve the best spots for Britons by the hotel pool, and to not use suntan lotion out of solidarity with sunburnt Brits. If Britain were to stay in the EU, Bild also pledged to supply the baddie for every James Bond film, put its clocks back one hour so they were on the same time zone as Britain and introduce an EU guideline that bans froth on beer. Earlier this month, Germany’s Der Spiegel published a bilingual edition of its weekly magazine in English and German containing a strong appeal for Britons to vote to remain One voter said she had to be carried into a flooded polling station. Police said they were not expecting trouble as tens of millions of Britons are expected to vote in Thursday’s referendum. Despite a bitter and heated campaign, police said they expected a peaceful day. Police commanders have been issued with extensive guidance on how to minimise the chances of electoral fraud with police chiefs keen not avoid getting caught up in the rancour surrounding Brexit. A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “While there is currently no intelligence to suggest issues will arise around Thursday’s poll, police forces are monitoring the situation locally and putting appropriate plans in place to ensure a fair and peaceful electoral process.â€\x9d No voting problems reported so far in Barnet. The London borough has a lot to prove after hundreds of people, including the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, were turned away at last month’s elections after a voting register blunder. The Sun and the are diametrically opposed on the referendum, but both papers used views from space on their front pages to make their differing cases. The Sun has Britain heading for the sunny uplands on “Independence Dayâ€\x9d - the rallying cry of leave campaigner Boris Johnson. While the wants us to stay in the European Union - light pollution and all. Meanwhile, the Mirror’s front page looks in the other direction – down a deep hole in the earth – to warn readers of what it sees as the perils of Brexit. I’m handing over this live blog now to Matthew Weaver, who’ll cover the next several hours of polling day. Our live coverage runs right through to polls closing at 10pm and beyond, when Andrew Sparrow returns to catch all the results being churned out and turn them into sense. I’ll also be back on Friday morning for those key counts. Thanks for reading and for the many comments. The early morning weather in Glasgow is radiantly sunny, with all that is inferred to mean for turnout. The Scottish papers are well aware of the importance of this country’s predicted EU-phile tendencies today, with the Scottish Daily Mail declaring that “Scotland holds the key to Brexitâ€\x9d and the Daily Record’s front-page banner urging readers to vote remain. Elsewhere Scottish party leaders have been reminding their Twitter followers to vote, while Ukip MEP David Coburn has been urging voters to #useapen in case those dastardly pencils given out at polling stations are a cunning ploy from remain to (literally) rub out his side’s support. We’ve yet to see how committed pro-independence supporters in Scotland react to Farage et al co-opting the hashtag #independenceday. As the UK votes on whether to stay in the EU or leave, the sent seven photographers to capture the mood in various European communities who have made their home in the UK, from a Greek Orthodox church to a German bierkeller. Whichever way you’re voting, these images are a beautiful way to kick off your day: There’s only one important item on the agendas of investors across the world today. Britain is heading to the polls after a lengthy, bitterly fought campaign to decide if she stays in the European Union, or should leave. Traders in the City are preparing for a lengthy shift – perhaps staying late into the night, or returning to the office early tomorrow morning. Friday is likely to be one of the most dramatic and volatile trading sessions in many years, especially if the public choose to leave the EU. Analysts have predicted that the pound could slump by 15%, while shares would probably suffer big losses. Voting has just begun, with pollsters saying that the result is hard to call – especially as around 10% of voters are still undecided. If you’re planning to stay up for the results tonight, you need to plot your day carefully. Sleep might, after all, be needed at some point. So my colleague Jessica Elgot has come up with this nifty hour-by-hour guide, starting from 10pm: Polls will close, and on election nights this is normally the moment broadcasters show their exit polls and make their projection for the night ahead. However, that won’t happen this time as there’s no exit poll for this referendum. Some banks are said to have commissioned private exit polls, but they will be kept for their employees. So if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen at this stage, they’re a chancer, unless they are an eagle-eyed watcher of sterling derivative markets. Sky News has commissioned a survey from YouGov of people previously polled, asking how they voted on the day. This will be released at 10pm, but this is not, repeat not, an exit poll and shouldn’t be treated like one. Of course, it’s not just London and south-east England that have weather. Other parts of the UK are also entitled to have weather. Theirs is rather better today: With the polls telling us that around 10% of voters are still unsure how they will cast their ballot, you could perhaps do worse – OK, not much worse – than go by the roll of a dice. (Pedantic readers, please note: I know it should be a die, but that reads oddly and I’m trying to keep things cheerful.) Voter Andy Roe tells the Oxford Times that he’ll decide by tossing his homemade cube: The dice idea came into my head when David Cameron said ‘we must not roll a dice to decide out children’s future’. Everybody will be doing that because of misinformation. Most people will be metaphorically throwing a dice – we don’t know what will happen either way. Here he is with his unnecessarily large cube. Democracy’s a funny thing. Will rain in London and south-east England put off voters today? Spectacular thunder and lightning overnight might have caused a few to oversleep this morning, but the bigger problem is likely to be travel disruption caused by heavy downfalls and flash flooding in some areas. The London Fire Brigade says it received a day’s worth of calls in just an hour and a half to reports of weather-related incidents including lightning striking property, flooded homes and businesses and rising waters trapping vehicles. On the London underground, the District line, DLR and Overground were all suspended or delayed because of flooding. Gatwick Express southbound services have been suspended, and South West Trains, Southern and TFL Rail are also suffering major delays. Outside London and south-east England, the weather is expected to be fine and settled today. Yes, it’s here: the day you’ve been dreaming of/dreading; the day you didn’t believe would ever really happen. Polling stations open this morning for those who haven’t already posted back their ballots (hello, decisive and organised voters!) to cast their cross to remain in the European Union or leave. Here I’ve rounded up all you need to know for the long day ahead. Then this live blog – steered by me and a cast of colleagues – will take you through until polls close this evening, at which point Andrew Sparrow climbs into his seat for a night of results. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps. The big picture The last few hours have been strewn with final pleas – and if the polls are correct in saying the percentage of those voters still undecided could be in double figures, there might yet be receptive ears for those pleas to fall upon. So here they are, in a nutshell. David Cameron: “It is a fact that our economy will be weaker if we leave and stronger if we stay … Put jobs first, put the economy first.â€\x9d Boris Johnson: “Democracy is vital but it only works when you can kick the buggers out when they make a mistake. If we vote to leave we can take back control of our democracy and our immigration policy.â€\x9d Nicola Sturgeon: “I believe in independence for countries but I also believe independent countries must work together for the greater good … If we vote remain, we protect them; if we don’t vote remain, then we put all of these things at risk.â€\x9d Gordon Brown: “This is not the Britain I know, this is not the Britain I love. The Britain I know is better than the Britain of these debates, of insults, of posters.â€\x9d Yvette Cooper: “What the leave campaign have done is push lies and also pit human beings against other human beings. That is what is wrong, immoral and just not British.â€\x9d Andrea Leadsom: “Tomorrow we will either wake up to the bright freedom of our independence day, or to the humdrum drudgery of just another day under the newly triumphant eye of the Brussels bureaucracy.â€\x9d Nigel Farage: “Let’s stop pretending what this European project is: they have an anthem, they are building an army, they have already got their own police force, and of course they have got a flag. At the end of the day … when people vote they have to make a decision – which flag is theirs?â€\x9d John Major: “If our nation does vote to leave … we will be out, out for good, diminished as an influence upon the world, a truly Great Britain shrunk down to a little England, perhaps without Scotland, perhaps with a grumpy Wales, and certainly with a Northern Ireland divided from the south by the border controls that would then be the edge of the European Union.â€\x9d Iain Duncan Smith: “David Cameron is colluding with the EU and lying to the British people. Families are suffering the consequences of uncontrolled migration – a direct result of the EU’s obsession with freedom of movement.â€\x9d Jean-Claude Juncker: “Out means out. British policymakers and British voters have to know that there will be no kind of renegotiation.â€\x9d Tim Farron: “You’ve got to hold and give but do it at the right time. You can be slow or fast but you must get to the line. They’ll always hit you and hurt you, defend and attack. There’s only one way to beat them, get round the back.â€\x9d (And in case you didn’t know why the remain campaign was reminiscing fondly about John Barnes.) You should also know: Torrential rain and flooding in London and south-east have raised turnout fears. Thousands paid tribute yesterday on what should have been Jo Cox’s birthday. Britons worried about the pound rush to stock up on foreign currency. But the financial sector is sure of a remain vote, despite a late FTSE dip. The referendum has been the biggest political betting event in history. A good read from Natalie Nougayrède, who says the EU seriously misjudged the British mood. And from Michael Cockerell, who documents how old pals David Cameron and Boris Johnson fell out so publicly. Poll position There won’t be official exit polls this evening, so the last-ditch forecasts are all we’ll have until the real results land. And those final polls tell us that remain is ahead, that leave is ahead, and that it’s neck-and-neck. ComRes for the Daily Mail and ITV News puts remain on 48%, leave on 42% and undecideds on 11% (yes, that’s 101% – let’s assume there’s some rounding here). With undecideds lopped off, it becomes remain 54% to leave 46%. YouGov gives In a two-point cushion, with remain leading leave by 51% to 49%. Opinium swung a notch the other way, with leave on 45%, remain on 44% and 9% still to make up their minds. And a final TNS poll also edges the Outers ahead, with leave on 43%, remain on 41% and 16% not decided or not voting at all. The FT poll of polls rounds off the campaign with remain on 47% and leave on 45%. Number Cruncher Politics – which stood out in last year’s general election for actually predicting a Conservative victory – now puts the probability of a remain win at 74%. What happens next Don’t expect too much today, bar politicians and voters heading to polling stations. (Nonetheless, stick with the live blog, won’t you?) It all hots up after 10pm, when voting stops and counting starts. So, in Friday timings: 00.00-00.30: Expect Sunderland to declare. They’re always super quick. Other authorities, including Wandsworth and the City of London, are also due to report early. 2am sees a big tranche of announcements, with 22 councils due to speak up around now. By 3am, we’ll be two-fifths of the way through. Stay strong. Drink caffeine. At 3.30am we should hear from a number of Scottish authorities, including Edinburgh and Aberdeen. 4am: 88 authorities announce their counts. We might wonder if we can make a guess at this point. Don’t hold us to that. 5am: 90% of the way there. You might start to think about sleep. Hang on. By 8am, we really should know the result. Have breakfast. Toast with a bucks fizz. Drown sorrows. Call in sick. Go to bed. Read these Paul Mason, writing on Medium, says a vote to remain is not a mandate for the “neoliberal, anti-democraticâ€\x9d EU: On Friday, with the referendum over, I will join with radical and progressive movements across Europe to oppose your austerity strategy and the political cant that justifies it – aka neoclassical economics. And I will go on fighting the austerity imposed by the UK government … I hope remain wins tomorrow. But the problem will still be there: neoliberal austerity promoted by the European Union is destroying the values of Europe. A generation of young people is being taught to despair and fear the future. For this reason I will push for a mandatory re-run of a referendum on EU membership every seven years. I encourage the peoples of all other countries to exercise this right regularly. Juliet Samuel in the Telegraph writes in defence of the referendum campaign: For all the fear and anger and viciousness, I believe voters will make the right decision. I’m not referring to which way they’ll vote. I mean that voters broadly understand, either instinctively or rationally, what the arguments are and where they stand. We’ve heard time and time again in this campaign how ‘confused’ the public is and how desperate for ‘facts’ voters are. Esteemed commentators have wrongly concluded that this makes people unqualified to vote on such a serious matter. The opposite is true. The insatiable desire for ‘facts’, the endless letters and phone-ins and questions, tell us that voters know they are not hearing definitive predictions, but points of view and spin. They would like certainties, but they have not heard anything that amounts to one. And so they know that their vote in the referendum is really just a judgment call: whom do I trust? What risk can I bear? And, fundamentally: what do I value? Max Colchester and Jenny Gross in the Wall Street Journal win fascinating fact of the day with news that residents of the Isle of Man cannot vote in the referendum (but Gibraltarians can): The debate over Brexit, as Britain’s potential exit from the EU is known, isn’t simple. Neither is figuring out who gets to cast a vote. During world war one, the UK passed laws allowing ‘British subjects’ from across the empire to vote in UK general elections. The empire crumbled but the rights live on. People from some 53 countries can vote in the referendum as long as they live in the UK or Gibraltar, a British territory off the tip of southern Spain. People residing in Gibraltar can’t vote in general elections but got a pass for this one … The Isle of Man counts as abroad … Today, it is a ‘self-governing Crown dependency’, which means it isn’t part of the UK, even though Britain is responsible for its foreign affairs. The day in a tweet Well played, Germany: they don’t think it’s all over. If today were a song ... All the polls would tell us it has to be Europe’s The Final Countdown. But no! What do the polls know, anyway. Let’s go for the Hokey Cokey instead: in, out, shake it all about. That’s what it’s all about. And another thing Would you like a Friday morning email on the referendum result? Sign up here!',
 'When I got my Top of the Pops break, Mum got me new pyjamas My father was sitting by the fire, with a transistor radio in his lap. At the age of 57, Don Bradley was listening to John Peel for the first time in his life. His new found interest in Radio 1’s finest was sparked by his son’s band making a record that immediately fell under the patronage of Peel. It was 1978. The Undertones had recorded Teenage Kicks that summer. It was a big deal for us, still playing every weekend in a bar in Derry and finally achieving what few of our fellow citizens had ever done. Making a single (an EP, no less) and getting it reviewed in the NME and played on national radio. Not that I made a big deal of it at home. The ninth of 11 children, I realised early on that you were allowed to go ahead and do what you wanted, as long as it didn’t cost money and was unlikely to land you in hospital or in prison. My parents were not liberal bohemians, though. Don and May Bradley were strict practising Catholics, which could account for my having 10 siblings. Mass on a Sunday, fish on a Friday, television switched off during Holy Week. No rules about punk rock, though. The only advice my mother gave me when I started to hang around with friends who would become the Undertones was to stop slouching. I was a couple of inches taller than Billy, John and Vincent and she said, in a not unkind way, that I was starting to stoop. A subconscious effort to blend in. She was also the first to say to me that long hair was on the way out. This was early 1976 and I suspect it was a ploy to get my shoulder-length mop into some kind of order, rather than a premonition of future trends. My father was an accordion player (button key, harder to learn than the piano key version) who played with a local ceili band. Fifteen years before Teenage Kicks, Charlie Kelly’s Ceili Band made the occasional appearance on BBC TV and I remember being allowed to get out of bed and come downstairs to the front room when they were on screen. Even with the aerial held just so, I found it hard to pick him out, especially as he wore a bow tie and a white shirt. He never wore the bow tie when he was going to work as a storeman at a local farm supplies co-op. It was hard work, especially on the mornings after a late night ceili in some far flung corner of Ireland. But he did it without complaint or talk of television studios. When it came to my turn in music, I took that attitude from him. Maybe too much. I never officially told him or my mother that I was in a band called the Undertones. One morning I did say that someone from Sire Records in London was coming over to see us play. Not in a conversation, though. I just said it out loud and hoped that someone would pick it up in the middle of everything else that was happening at home. Dinners, cleaning, worrying about money. It was noted, though. When I got the word the band were appearing on Top of the Pops, my mother did her bit by buying me a new set of pyjamas. No words of warning about London, about behaving myself or about signing my life away. None were needed. Although she did introduce me to the phrase “living in each others’ pocketsâ€\x9d, which made sense when we broke up five years later. A couple of decades on and my 18-year-old son is playing jazz on the drums in our front room. He’s very good, although he stops as soon as I open the door. “Very good,â€\x9d I volunteer, although I’m really there to let him know that his dinner is on the table. I know not to talk too much about what he’s playing, what he’s listening to, what his band are up to. That’s the conversation that happens with other teenagers, not with a 56-year-old parent. • Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone by Michael Bradley is published by Omnibus Press, £16.99. To order a copy for £12.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.',
 'UK unlikely to stay in single market, Tory document suggests Britain is unlikely to be able to remain a member of the single market, according to a document photographed in the hands of a senior Conservative official on Downing Street. A handwritten note, carried by an aide to the Tory vice-chair Mark Field after a meeting at the Department for Exiting the European Union, could be seen to say: “What’s the model? Have cake and eat it.â€\x9d And in a further embarrassment, it added “French likely to be most difficult.â€\x9d It also suggests that a deal on manufacturing with the EU should be “relatively straightforwardâ€\x9d but admits that services, such as in the financial or legal sectors, are harder. One idea cited in the note is a “Canada-plusâ€\x9d option, suggesting Britain could look to replicate the free trade deal hammered out by the EU over seven years with Ottawa. However, it suggests that the UK would be seeking “more on servicesâ€\x9d than was agreed in the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (Ceta). A government spokesperson distanced Theresa May from the document, saying: “These individual notes do not belong to a government official or a special adviser. They do not reflect the government’s position in relation to Brexit negotiations.â€\x9d However, the fact they appeared to have been taken during a meeting with officials or even ministers – given May’s tight-lipped approach to the negotiating strategy – means that they will be pored over. The woman carrying the document appears to be Julia Dockerill, chief of staff to Field, who is vice-chair of the Conservative party, working on international issues and MP for the Cities of London and Westminster. Field does not have a formal Brexit role but does take a keen interest on the impact that leaving the EU could have on the country’s financial services, many of which are based in his constituency, and is likely to have been speaking to senior figures about this issue. The notes also said: “Transitional – loath to do it. Whitehall will hold onto it. We need to bring an end to negotiations.â€\x9d That could suggest that ministers are not keen to enter a transitional deal after the end of the article 50 period, despite May hinting last week that this would be possible. Other comments include: “Difficult on article 50 implementation – Barnier wants to see what deal looks like firstâ€\x9d, in reference to lead negotiator Michel Barnier. “Got to be done in parallel – 20 odd negotiations. Keep the two years. Won’t provide more detail,â€\x9d it adds. “We think it’s unlikely we’ll be offered Single Market.â€\x9d The document appears to reflect a discussion about the prospect of a trade deal like that of Norway, which is a member of the European Economic Area. “Why no Norway – two elements – no ECJ intervention. Unlikely to do internal market.â€\x9d That appears to refer to the drawbacks of taking on the Norwegian model, which has the country outside the EU and its customs union, but inside the single market. The reason Brexit supporters do not want to follow that idea is the requirement that Norway accepts free movement of people and is under the jurisdiction of the European court. The document was being carried out of 9 Downing Street, the Brexit department, and into No 10 Downing Street when it was photographed. It comes after reports that there is a sign on the DExEU exit doors reading: “Stop! Are your documents on show?â€\x9d. It emerged on Monday that the government faces the prospect of a second legal challenge to its Brexit plans, with the group British Influence threatening a judicial review over whether leaving the EU means Britain must also automatically leave the European Economic Area and hence lose the free trading benefits of the single market. However, the government and senior EU legal experts have claimed that this attempt is unlikely to be as successful as the high court ruling that parliament must have a vote before the Brexit process begins, which is the subject of an appeal by the government in the supreme court that is due to be heard next week. Despite the denial about the note, it is likely to increase pressure on the government to lift the secrecy about its plan for Brexit, with opposition MPs complaining that there should be full transparency about the UK’s plans. Stephen Gethins, the SNP spokesman on Europe, said the notes reveal a government “with no direction, and no clueâ€\x9d. “Worryingly, those in favour of taking us out of the EU appear set to cut off their nose to spite their face – with an apparent call to end any negotiations with Europe before they’ve properly begun and already wishing to pull the plug on the prospect of transitional arrangements,â€\x9d he said. “These scribbled papers, however scant, seem to be the only plan the UK government has and stand starkly in contrast to the very clear plans set out by first minister Nicola Sturgeon in the aftermath of the EU referendum. “If they weren’t so deeply troubling, these revelations would be risible. Public patience has worn thin with stonewalling and obfuscating from the UK government – it’s now high time they set out a proper plan on leaving the EU as opposed to hastily jotted down notes, so short on substance.â€\x9d Tim Farron, leader of the Lib Dems, added: “If this is a strategy it is incoherent. We can’t have our cake and eat it and there is no certainty on the single market. This picture shows the government doesn’t have a plan or even a clue.â€\x9d May has so far only promised to talk about her broad aims before triggering article 50 in March, and thereby officially notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to leave. She has made clear that there will have to be more controls on immigration from the EU and wants to see an end to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice – which is why many think Britain will come out of the single market. But the lack of further details from No 10 has alarmed many formerly pro-EU Labour and Tory MPs, who are increasingly cooperating in an attempt to stop a “hard Brexitâ€\x9d. Their key demands are staying as close to the single market as possible, a transitional deal to cushion the economic effect of leaving and more parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiations. Some former remain politicians, including former prime ministers Tony Blair and Sir John Major, are even pushing for a second referendum to allow the public to vote on or even veto any deal for leaving the EU. It was also reported in the Sunday Times that Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, backs a transitional deal with the EU to cushion the impact of Brexit for businesses until at least 2021.',
 "Up really is down on Mummy Leadsom's amazing journey The centenary of the Somme isn’t many people’s idea of a good moment to promise “it will be all over by Christmasâ€\x9d. But Andrea Leadsom isn’t just any old person. She’s a mother. A mother with a strong interest in grandchildren. Even though she hasn’t got any yet. But she has met some and she likes them a lot. Having won the referendum war largely thanks to the votes of the over 40s, Leadsom has suddenly developed a keen interest in children and grandchildren. At her Conservative leadership launch, her eyes moistened and her voice became breathier every time she said “children and grandchildrenâ€\x9d. Which was about once or twice a sentence. The message: “Anyone who doesn’t have children is evilâ€\x9d was subliminally beamed on to the wall behind her. It’s pure coincidence that Theresa May doesn’t have children. Leadsom wants to reassure the UK’s children and grandchildren she has always had their best interests at heart and that everything is going to be absolutely fine. Don’t worry your pretty little heads. Trust mummy. Trust wannabe granny. All those nasty people who have been scaring you that separation from the EU would be long and painful have got it wrong. It’s a doddle. All we have to do is say to the EU we want this and we want that and the EU will give it to us. Most things will go through on the nod. Simples. Everything will be fixed by Christmas. Earlier, possibly. Apart from those bits that won’t. This might all have come as news to the Leadsom of 2013 who was certain that Brexit would be a disaster for the economy and cause a decade of uncertainty, but she wasn’t at all keen to explain herself. “I’ve been on an amazing journey,â€\x9d she said, channeling an X Factor contestant who had just been kicked off the show. It’s amazing what a touch of Kool–Aid and personal ambition can do. From Andrea to Pollyanna in three very easy years. But then Pollyanna has a great deal to be Pollyanna-ish about right now. Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson were the cheerleaders-in-chief at her launch at the Cinnamon Club, one of Westminster’s top restaurants. IDS is the man who once thought he was the right person to be leading the Tory party and Paterson is the environment secretary who was outwitted by 250 badgers. She’s also the preferred candidate of Arron Banks, Ukip’s largest financial donor. She is a magnet for all the rightwing oddballs whom most Tory MPs try to keep at arm’s length. In any sane world, their support should be a guarantee of failure. And yet she’s one of the frontrunners to challenge the favourite, Theresa. Just as confusing, no one seems at all bothered that one official described her as the worst minister the Treasury had ever had. Up really is down. Standing in front of a sign that read andREALeadsom – who knew that 2012’s Perfect Curve actually existed? – Pollyanna sounded like a particularly unconvincing Lance Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army. And anything but REAL. “Please don’t be afraid,â€\x9d she said, struggling to contain her sense of panic and bewilderment at being the centre of attention. “What we need to remember is that the Hun doesn’t like it up ’em. We haven’t stopped loving our children and grandchildren. We haven’t abandoned love. We have just rediscovered our freedom to hate the people we don’t like.â€\x9d People who don’t have children being first in the queue. Pollyanna’s voice caught. Her leadership bid wasn’t about personal ambition, as she had plenty of cash tucked away after years of working in the City; it was about doing the best for the country’s children and grandchildren. “One of my key appointments will be a minister for housing,â€\x9d she insisted. “And I will do my very best to keep him in post for the duration of the parliament.â€\x9d That wasn’t exactly the firmest of commitments. Pollyanna also went on to declare her passion for social justice, a passion that didn’t quite extend to revealing whether all her family tax affairs were onshore. All in good time. “My concern is for the emotional health of our nation,â€\x9d she concluded. “And I am better prepared than anyone to deliver that. We are the mother of all parliaments and I am the mother of all mothers.â€\x9d And one day she would be the grandmother of all grandmothers. There was as little detail in Pollyanna’s speech as there had been in every other Tory leadership bid. All she knew for certain was what she didn’t know. She didn’t know if there was going to be a cut-off point for EU migrants being allowed to stay in this country; she didn’t know who was going to be in her great negotiation team for the negotiations that wouldn’t need to take place because they would be over by Christmas; and she definitely hadn’t a clue why so many people thought she might make a good leader. In another part of Westminster, Liam Fox launched his own leadership campaign. A futile gesture was a far more fitting way to mark the centenary of the Somme.",
 'The view on the UK labour market: farewell, Lithuanian car valets The main reason behind the leave vote on 23 June, at least according to the polls, was to take back control – to repatriate lawmaking powers from Brussels to Westminster. But if that was the emotional appeal, the most tangible prospect was of an immigration policy made in Britain. The challenge that now faces British politicians – in particular the government, which is committed, in the prime minister’s words, to making Brexit mean Brexit – is to work out how to respond to voters’ fears in a way that is clear and transparent and economically viable too. That means balancing freedom of movement with access to the single market. A result, in Brexit terms, must be fewer EU workers. That, however, raises another set of difficult questions: questions about who will do the jobs that EU workers were coming to the UK to do, and what they will be paid. Britain’s infamous low-wage sectors – agriculture and food processing, clothing manufacture and retail, domestic services – are already facing two significant new pressures. The national living wage is already in play and will increase hourly wages to approximately £9 an hour by 2020. Then, from next May, for larger employers, the apprenticeship levy will also be applied. If, in addition, there are fewer EU workers, that is likely to mean more upward pressure on pay. Some employers are already clawing back other benefits in response to the living wage, and warning of existential threats. Contemplating the consequences of Brexit is clarifying the real impact of the movement of 21st-century labour. The latest research from the Resolution Foundation summarises the impact of high levels of migration from the new accession countries after 2004. It acknowledges that those who argued that migration was an unmitigated good, growing the economy to the benefit of all, overstated their case – almost as much as did those who argued that migration was invariably harmful. The latter were right that in low-paying sectors, wages were held down. But EU migrants also tended to contribute more in taxes than they received in benefits. Maybe the biggest impact is contradictory: it concealed the other marked development in the period, particularly after the 2008 crash – the wider stagnation of wages. Of course, pay was not the only reason that migrant workers came to be so resented. Queues for doctors’ appointments and overcrowded classrooms were easier to see than differences in pay, and they played a bigger part in fuelling resentment. Yet in the same way that migration concealed structural change in wages, its impact on public services served as a distraction from the real cost of the austerity measures brought in by the coalition government in 2010. What is already becoming clear, and will only become clearer as EU membership is more fully examined, is that Britain’s labour market does not function well. If EU migration has held pay down, it ought to follow that pay will go up in response to the labour shortages that are likely to be the consequence of a cut in migration. Not so much, according to the Resolution Foundation. The original impact of cheap labour was to cut at most a few pence off wages, and only from the pay of “nativeâ€\x9d workers with no qualifications; on the foundation’s projections, the likely effect of cutting EU economic migration will simply reverse that. And if, as projected, the economy shrinks, it is likely to mean a downward pressure on wages that could outweigh the impact of labour shortages. In theory, scarce labour should also be an incentive to invest and modernise in a way that the plentiful supply of low-paid workers has made unnecessary until now. The teams of car valets from Lithuania will be replaced by an upgraded version of the drive-through car wash that had almost disappeared, and supermarkets will at last introduce the kind of electronic pricing system that is commonplace in France. UK productivity may even show an improvement. But it would also upend the British labour market model where high levels of employment are set against hyper-flexible working and low pay. Post Brexit, there may be fewer jobs, but they will be better paid. So far, so good. But there are much wider consequences, not least for millions of local authority workers and the councils that pick up their wages bill. There is a crisis already in the care home sector, and the NHS is in the grip of its worst ever cash shortage. Faced with challenges like this, the government will have to take some hard decisions about how it meets its pledge to the Brexiteers.',
 'Jermain Defoe hat-trick sees Sunderland sink 10-man Swansea When the dust settles on this extraordinary match – and that could take a while – the referee will cease to become the main talking point for Swansea City and the threat of relegation will start to bite. Graham Scott, who was asked to take charge of the game at short notice after Andre Marriner pulled out on Monday, looked totally out of his depth at this level, yet the erroneous decisions that impacted on both teams were of little concern to Sunderland come the end. Inspired by the evergreen Jermain Defoe, who completed his hat-trick five minutes from time and took his tally to five in two games in the process, Sunderland picked up the most precious of victories to move within one point of Swansea and give their survival hopes a huge boost. It was a crazy, helter-skelter game and one that was overshadowed by some calamitous refereeing from a man who was officiating only his fourth Premier League game. Defoe looked to be offside when he gave Sunderland a third-minute lead and it should not have been a penalty when Wes Brown was penalised for fouling André Ayew later in the first half. Then came arguably the defining moment in the match when Scott sent off Kyle Naughton in the 37th minute for a challenge on Yann M’Vila that was not worthy of a free-kick never mind a straight red card. The full-back’s studs were high but he clearly got the ball and only M’Vila knows why he was rolling around. Although that harsh decision initially galvanised Swansea, who went 2-1 ahead through a superb Ayew goal shortly before the interval, Sunderland’s numerical advantage eventually told. Patrick van Aanholt, who was excellent on the left flank, hauled Sunderland level with a deflected shot and from that point on it was all about Defoe. Alan Curtis, Swansea’s interim manager, was bitterly upset and felt Scott’s decision to send off Naughton was the turning point. “I’m disappointed. I think the big talking point is the referee’s decisions,â€\x9d Curtis said. “I won’t say it has cost us as you don’t know how it will play out but it has had a major bearing on the game. Unfortunately the referee did look out of his depth. “We were fortuitous with the penalty decision for us. But when he makes a huge decision to send a player off we were forced to play the next hour with 10. You only have to look at the video and Kyle won the ball cleanly. It is something we will try to appeal in the morning.â€\x9d Allardyce had some sympathy for Swansea and Naughton on that occasion – he looked across at Curtis and appeared bemused as well as amused when Scott showed a red card – but he also made the point Sunderland were on the wrong end of a bad call with the Ayew penalty incident. “Scott only stepped in because the referee who was supposed to referee the game was ill,â€\x9d the Sunderland manager said. “In his defence before the game Scott pointed out: ‘I know how big this game is for both of you and I’ll try and manage it the best way I can.’ But things happen under pressure and when people are under pressure they make mistakes.â€\x9d The referee was not the only one who blundered. Lukasz Fabianski’s terrible goalkick led to Sunderland’s opener when he drilled the ball straight to Adam Johnson, who fed Fabio Borini on the left. Borini’s low shot was parried by Fabianski and Defoe, who had strayed into an offside position, tapped home. Gylfi Sigurdsson levelled from the spot after Scott deemed Brown had tripped Ayew when the Ghanaian had actually stubbed his foot into the ground. Three minutes after Naughton’s dismissal Swansea were in front when Ayew, sprinting on to Fabianski’s measured kick, beat Lee Cattermole and struck home a sumptuous left-foot angled drive that flashed into the far corner. With an extra man, Allardyce urged his players to press higher up the pitch in the second half and Sunderland quickly got reward when Van Aanholt cut inside and thumped an 18-yard shot that took a wicked deflection off Federico Fernández’s back and went in off the far upright. Defoe, running on to Johnson’s fine pass, then beat Fabianski to grab his second – again the striker appeared offside – before later turning in Van Aanholt’s cut-back for his third. “Jermain’s a massive player for us and converted most of the chances we created,â€\x9d Allardyce said. “And irrespective of some of the referee’s decisions we’ve gone and won away in an enormous game for both of us because we’ve gained three points on everybody that is above.â€\x9d',
 'From Afar review – compelling film-making This assured first feature from Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas is a masterclass in storytelling through image rather than words. The photography, particularly the eloquent use of shallow focus and the eye for subtle body language, delivers stabs of clarity to a portrait of an ambiguous relationship between a man in his 50s and the teenage gang leader he meets on the streets. Armando (played by the great Chilean actor Alfredo Castro, a regular collaborator of Pablo LarraÃ\xadn) is coolly inscrutable, the bitterness resulting from some hinted-at childhood trauma etched deep into his watchful face. He is gay but prefers his sexual encounters, like everything else in his life, at a safe distance. He scopes the streets of Caracas for young men, takes them back to the shadowy secrets of his apartment, but never touches them. One day he spots Elder (Luis Silva). The teenager lashes out, both with homophobic invective and with his fists, but there’s an uneasy fascination between the mismatched couple which draws them together. When I first saw this picture at the Venice film festival, where it won the top prize, I felt that it suffered in comparison to the similarly themed Eastern Boys (2013) by Robin Campillo. On a second viewing, however, while it lacks the propulsive narrative drive and tonal shifts of Eastern Boys, From Afar reveals itself to be every bit as compelling a piece of film-making.',
 "Remain camp will win EU referendum by a 'substantial margin', says campaign chief Lord Rose - Politics live A total of 84,000 EU migrant families on tax credits would have been affected by David Cameron’s “emergency brakeâ€\x9d if it had been introduced four years ago, official figures reveal. The number – released by HMRC six months after it was first requested by the – appears far smaller than had been suggested by the prime minister in previous public statements justifying the plan. Lord Rose, chair of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, has said that his side will win the EU referendum campaign by “a substantial marginâ€\x9d. (See 3.26pm.) He made the claim in a lunch to the press gallery. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, said Rose was out of touch with public sentiment. Elliott said: The cosy establishment club doesn’t want change because it does well out of the status quo. But the people want change and to take back control. It’s a David vs Goliath struggle - but we all know who ended up winning that one. Asked about claims that boasting like this could be counterproductive (see 3.28pm), a campaign source said that voters wanted to identify with a winning side - but also that Rose was not a politician, and that he was inclined just to speak his mind when answering questions. John Baron, a Conservative MP, has said that parliament will become “nothing more than just a chamber of Europe, a council chamberâ€\x9d if it does not assert its sovereignty. He was speaking in a debate on a backbench motion saying parliament should have the power to block unwanted EU legislation. The debate was dominated by Conservative backbenchers known for their opposition to Britain’s membership of the EU. An opinion poll in Scotland suggests the SNP still have a huge lead over Labour ahead of the Scottish elections in May. The TNS-BRMB survey shows the SNP on 57% in the constituency section, Labour on 21% and the Tories 17%. In the regional list section the SNP is on 52%, Labour 19% and the Tories 17%. The SNP’s Derek Mackay said: Labour woes are continuing in the face of the party’s rank incompetence north and south of the border – and with their plans to shift the burden of Tory austerity onto workers by hiking taxes on the low paid, their situation is only going to get worse. Two major road tunnels across London could significantly ease congestion, the capital’s mayor, Boris Johnson, has said as he unveiled proposals to send more traffic underground. The EU’s top court has told the home secretary, Theresa May, she cannot deport a Moroccan mother with a British-born son simply because she has a criminal record.The advocate general of the European court of justice has told May that it will be contrary to EU law if she automatically expels or refuses a residence permit to a non-EU national with a criminal record who is a parent of a child who is an EU citizen. As Alan Travis reports, the preliminary opinion of the court’s advocate general, Maciej Szpunar, however, adds that while, in principle, deportation in such cases was contrary to EU law, he agreed with UK representations that there should be exceptional circumstances when a convicted criminal could still be deported depending on the seriousness of the offences involved. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Here is the ’s Politics Weekly podcast, featuring Alberto Nardelli, Anne Perkins, Rafael Behr, Dan Roberts and Hugh Muir talking about the Iowa caucuses and the EU renegotiation. The Out campaigns are continuing their circular firing squad act. Arron Banks, the co-founder of Leave.EU, has just put out this statement. Leave.EU initially welcomed the news that Vote Leave wanted to call a truce and work together. However, it is now crystal clear that they have zero interest in joining forces. Cummings, Elliott and their MPs have now been offered the the chance to form a united front five times, and on each occasion our overtures have been rejected outright. For Cummings and Elliot this is a business, not a cause. Danny Finkelstein’s excellent analysis of the situation is sadly correct. I am angry that this group is jeopardising this historic referendum through their dishonesty and unwillingness to embrace and work with all the Brexit groups. It’s time they and the Conservative MPs associated with them decide if it’s their career or their country which matters most to them, and then they can either fit in with the rest of us or quite frankly disappear. Banks seems to be referring to the announcement this week about Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliott stepping down from the Vote Leave board. Cummings, an abrasive character, was seen as an obstacle to a merger between Vote Leave and Leave.EU and, after it was announced that Cummings and Elliott were leaving the board, Banks repeated his offer to merge the two organisations. But Banks himself is not Mr Diplomacy. This is what he tweeted about the news that Lord Lawson was becoming chair of Vote Leave. In his statement Banks is referring to this column by Daniel Finkelstein in the Times (paywall). In it, Finkelstein described the alternative visions for Britain outside the EU put forward by Vote Leave, which is backed by the Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, and Leave.EU, which is backed by mainstream Ukippers, including Nigel Farage. The vision of Carswell and his allies, including the Tory MEP Dan Hannan, is that we need to leave the EU because it is out of date. We must be an open, free market, free trading nation, linked to the English speaking world, powerful in global trading bodies. The Leave message should be optimistic, daring and broad ... Voters are concerned about Britain losing control of its own policy, but when asked what aspect of control they are most concerned about, overwhelmingly they answer immigration. Their grasp of what the EU’s other powers and structures may be is, let’s just say, weak. Yet many of Carswell’s Vote Leave allies don’t actually believe in strong immigration controls at all. They are free marketeers who see the benefits of free movement of workers ... This is the great advantage of the Leave.EU campaign. It appreciates the centrality of immigration to the case for quitting. It has a very different outlook from the Carswell-Hannan group. It is much more pessimistic, much more focused on what Britain has lost and stands to lose. It doesn’t want some new English-speaking, free market internationalism. How much better would that be than the EU? It thinks the EU is too newfangled, not too modern. I’ve asked Number 10 to elaborate on why Erna Solderg, the Norwegian prime minister, thinks the “Norwegian optionâ€\x9d won’t work for the UK if it leaves the EU. (See 12.29pm.) A spokeswoman said that Soldberg simply made that point in her talks with David Cameron. The spokeswoman said she could not say any more about Soldberg’s reasoning. UPDATE: Downing Street have come back to me to say this is what Cameron said about the “Norway optionâ€\x9d at PMQs in October last year. Some people arguing for Britain to leave the European Union, although not all of them, have pointed out a position like that of Norway as a good outcome. I would guard strongly against that. Norway pays as much per head to the EU as we do and takes twice as many migrants per head as we do in this country, but has no seat at the table and no ability to negotiate. I am not arguing that all those who want to leave the EU say that they want to follow the Norwegian path, but some do and it is very important that we are clear in this debate about the consequences of these different actions. Here’s the New Statesman’s George Eaton on Lord Rose’s claim that the In side will win the EU referendum easily. Lord Rose, chair of Britain Stronger in Europe, gave a speech at a press gallery lunch earlier. Here are some of the main points. Rose said he expected the In camp to win comfortably. He floated the idea of banning the publication of polls just before the referendum. He said Cameron was considering doing TV debates. He said the In campaign were running a “Project Realityâ€\x9d, not a “Project Fearâ€\x9d. Rose, the former M&S chairman, also had a good joke at his own expense, prompted by his recent memory lapse. On the World at One Daniel Mitov, the Bulgarian foreign minister, said Bulgarians living in Britain were worried about the proposals in the draft EU renegotiation. He said that the negotiations were still going on, and that there was a need for some “polishingâ€\x9d, particularly in terms of how the emergency brake would work. But, despite being twice asked if Bulgaria was threatening to veto the plans, he declined to make that threat. Bulgaria wanted to see a reasonable compromise, he said. As Nicholas Watt reports in the today, David Cameron has said that the government will introduce some measure to assert the sovereignty of parliament. This will happen alongside the EU renegotiation, and will particularly appeal to Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP and mayor of London who has been calling for this for some time. In his story, Nick says two options are being considered. A few hours later, after the exchanges in the House of Commons, it became clear that the prime minister is prepared to deal with Johnson’s concerns on two levels. The prime minister is expected to: Declare that the UK supreme court or another official body should be vested with powers akin to those of the German constitutional court, which has the right to assess whether legal acts by the EU’s institutions remain within the scope of the powers of the EU. Cameron first floated this idea in a speech at Chatham House in November after Johnson had outlined in a private plea to the prime minister to his calls for an assertion of parliamentary sovereignty Propose a possible fresh act of parliament to make clear that the UK’s agreement to the primacy of EU law – which dates back to 1972 – was gifted by parliament and could therefore be withdrawn by parliament. In the Times today (paywall) Lord Neuberger, president of the supreme court, said setting up an alternative constitutional court would be a mistake. He told the paper: One of our great advantages compared with most of Europe is that we have a very simple system of courts and I think replicating the civil, European system of having a supreme court and a constitutional court — a supreme administrative court — is just a recipe for complication, for cost and for unnecessary duplication. And Lord Pannick QC, the prominent human rights lawyer, told the paper that giving the supreme court a constitutional role would be pointless. For our supreme court to be given a function similar to that of the German constitutional court would not have any practical effect. The proposal has no legal merit. It may have a useful political purpose for the government, but the prime minister should be careful about raising expectations that will not be achievable. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, was asked about this on the World at One. When the comments in the Times were put to him he insisted that it was worth clarifying the position of UK law in relation to EU law. There’s always been a discussion about constitutional precedence here, which law take precedence. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read a lot of stuff about this and there are a lot of very eminent lawyers saying that there are ways to address this issue; maybe not the perfect solution, but there are ways to assert the supremacy of our parliament and to give us a much stronger position than we have had in the past. And I think as this discussion goes forward we will want to see these ideas discussed and explained in full. Hammond also hit back at David Davis, rejecting his claim that the emergency brake “would not stop a push bikeâ€\x9d. (See 9.42am.) I think David Davis is wrong and, frankly, those people who are not looking for a good deal with Europe but are looking to argue for Britain to leave Europe, and whatever the package contained would be looking for Britain to leave Europe, are obviously going to attack whatever the package contains. But it does contain significant measures that will change the way the European Union works. The Leave.EU campaign has hit back at the suggestion from the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Soldberg, that the “Norway optionâ€\x9d could not work for the UK. (See 12.29pm.) A spokesman said that it was not true to say that, if Britain were in EFTA and the EEA but outside the EU like Norway, it would have no say in drafting EU rules. There is an enormous network of discussion and consultation even within EFTA/EEA, on a global and regional level, long before these rules ever get near a statute book. The UK would be an active part of this network, along with over 190 international bodies. EEA/EFTA representatives participate in over 500 committees and expert groups involved in what is known as “decision shapingâ€\x9d at single market level. Above EU level, EEA/EFTA representatives have their own seats on many global bodies which we cannot as EU member states. Number 10 has rejected a claim from Alan Johnson, chair of the Labour In For Europe campaign, that the “emergency brakeâ€\x9d allowing the UK to stop EU migrants getting in-work benefits for up to four years will have no impact on immigration. Johnson made the claim in an interview on the Today programme. But the prime minister’s spokesman told journalists at the Number 10 lobby briefing that it would make a difference. Migrant families were able to claim £6,000 a year on average in tax credits, he said: I think common sense would tell us that reducing the financial incentive will reduce that pull factor. As the Press Association reports, the spokesman was also unable to say whether migrants from wealthier EU states, such as Luxembourg, might end up receiving more generous child benefit payments than their British neighbours under the plan to give them child benefit at their home country rate, not the UK rate. The Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg has said the “Norway optionâ€\x9d would not work for the UK if it leaves the EU, Number 10 has said. (See 12.29pm.) The Conservative MP David Davis has said that the emergency brake “would not stop a push bikeâ€\x9d. (See 9.42am.) Analysts at Goldman Sachs are warning that sterling could fall by up to 20% if Britain votes to leave the European Union. Ukip has been accused of “baseless scaremongeringâ€\x9d after it used a party political broadcast on the BBC to warn of the dangers of Turkey joining the EU, highlighting its Muslim population and claiming 15 million of its citizens could migrate to the UK. David Cameron has said that the international community must raise billions of dollars more than last year to alleviate the unacceptable plight of Syrian refugees. He was speaking ahead of today’s Syria donor conference. For more details, do follow our separate live blog which is covering it. Labour could lose up to £8m a year as a result of the government’s changes to trade union funding, Iain McNicol, the party’s general secretary, has revealed. Sir David Dalton, the senior NHS boss trying to resolve the junior doctors dispute, has written to all of the 45,000 trainee medics involved in a last-ditch attempt to avoid next week’s planned strike. MPs have called for the head of a self-described neo-masculinist movement to be banned from the UK as a minister blasted him and his group as “absolutely repulsiveâ€\x9d. A series of events planned by the Return of Kings group have been cancelled after Daryush Valizadeh, who calls himself Roosh V, said he could no longer guarantee the safety of anyone who wanted to attend. Responding to an urgent question about the meetings, Home Office minister Karen Bradley said the government “condemns in the strongest terms anyone who condones rape and sexual violence or suggests that responsibility for stopping these crimes rests with the victimsâ€\x9d. Responding to calls for him to be banned from the UK, Bradley said that the Home Office did not routinely comment on individual cases, but that the home secretary could ban non-British citizens if she believes their presence is “not conducive to the public goodâ€\x9d. The Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox QC has been told to apologise to the House of Commons after failing to declare more than £400,000 of outside income on time. Rural bus services are being wiped out in many areas of England and Wales due to cuts in subsidies, a study by the Campaign for Better Transport says. David Cameron met Erna Solberg, the Norwegian prime minister, in Number 10 last night. Mostly they were talking about the Syria conference, but Cameron’s EU renegotiation also came up. Norway is not in the EU, but it gets access to the single market through its membership of the European Free Trade Association. This means it has to submit to what is anachronistically referred to as “government by faxâ€\x9d because it has to comply with EU rules without having a say in how they are drawn up. According to Number 10, Solberg said this would not be a good arrangement for the UK. This is from the readout of the meeting that Downing Street has just sent to journalists. A Downing Street spokesperson said: [Cameron and Solberg] also discussed the prime minister’s work to win a renegotiated package for the UK in the European Union. Prime Minister Solberg said she supported the prime minister’s work to build a more flexible EU and to cut red tape. She also agreed with the prime minister that Norway’s position in the European Free Trade Area but outside the EU would not work for the UK. Solberg’s comments - at least, her comments as mediated through Number 10 - are significant because one of the challenges for those campaigning for Britain to leave the EU is explaining what its future trading relationship with the EU would be like. Often they cite “the Norway optionâ€\x9d, but Cameron now has a new argument to deploy against that. Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Conservatives in Wales, will say in a speech later today that his party would cut ministerial salaries in the Welsh assembly by 10%. They would use the savings to encourage young people to get involved in politics through a national children and young people’s assembly for Wales. After May the Welsh first minister’s salary is due to rise to £140,000, with other ministers’ pay rising to £100,000, and Davies says his proposal would save around £250,000 over five years. Lucy Powell, the shadow education secretary, is giving a speech to an education summit in Sheffield today. In it, she says that the school curriculum does not prepare children well for the world of work and that ministers should not be personally involved in deciding what’s on the curriculum. I want to open up a conversation about how we can guarantee that future curriculums are fit for purpose. Young people have the right to a programme of study that prepares them for the modern world, with a strong connection to the needs of the economy. At the moment, this just isn’t happening. Instead, under the Tories we’ve seen parts of the curriculum personally drafted by the education secretary and then circulated for sign-off amongst cabinet ministers, each making the case for their own pet project to be included ... Ministerial diktat on the curriculum has gone too far and this approach is failing to meet the needs of our young people and our economy. It’s no wonder then that we now have the situation where 69 per cent of businesses and two–thirds of parents do not feel the education system prepares their children for work. It is interesting to note that, even though Michael Gove stopped being education secretary in 2014, he is still a prime target for the opposition. The complaints about ministers interfering with the curriculum primarily relate to him. Here is a classic example. A Conservative MP, Geoffrey Cox QC, has been told the apologise to the Commons after failing to declare more than £400,000 of outside earnings on time, the Press Association reports. The standards committee found that Geoffrey Cox QC had committed a “seriousâ€\x9d breach of rules, although it accepted he had not “intended to hideâ€\x9d the payments for hundreds of hours of legal work. The Torridge and West Devon MP, known as one of parliament’s highest earners, quit as a member of the committee and referred himself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards in October after it emerged he had repeatedly missed the 28-day deadline. In its report (pdf) the committee said: “We accept that Mr Cox had no intention to hide these payments and that he has not breached the requirements of the House for declaration of relevant interests. “Nevertheless, as the commissioner notes, the number of payments and the sums involved in the late registration are significant and Mr Cox was in a position which should have ensured that he was more familiar with the rules and the relevant principles of public life in this area than other Members might be.â€\x9d As my colleague Ben Quinn reports, the Daily Mail’s “Who will speak for England?â€\x9d editorial (see 10.47am) is being roundly mocked on Twitter. You can read all today’s politics stories here. As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories. And here are three articles I found particularly interesting. Sam Coates in the Times (paywall) says Michael Gove, the justice secretary, is torn over what to do about the EU referendum. Michael Gove is fuelling hopes that he will back the campaign to leave the European Union by telling friends and colleagues of his deep discomfort at voting to remain. Downing Street sources had indicated that the justice secretary was likely to side with David Cameron and George Osborne, the chancellor, by backing Britain to stay in the EU. Privately, however, Mr Gove claims to be torn between personal loyalty to the prime minister and his conscience. He is intellectually convinced of the case for leaving but worried about contributing to a campaign that would wreck Mr Cameron’s legacy, friends said. His discomfort is said to be heightened by the prime minister’s demand that he presents plans for a court to defend Britain against new EU laws, which he believes to be unworkable. The plan for a constitutional court was seen as an attempt to secure support from Boris Johnson during the referendum campaign. The Daily Mail, in its front page ‘Who will speak for England?â€\x9d editorial (complaining that anti-EU ministers are refusing to speak out, and that the Out camp lacks effective leaders) criticises Boris Johnson. Don’t bank on Boris Johnson either. True, the London mayor — never known for his courage — is happy to play flirtatious footsie with the ‘out’ campaign. But what’s the betting that at the first whiff of a plum Cabinet job, Boris will do the PM’s bidding, keep his doubts to himself — and possibly even sign up to the ‘remain’ campaign? And the Sun in its editorial also has a go at Johnson. Boris Johnson would make an entertaining Prime Minister. We’re less convinced he’d be good at it. His ducking and diving over the EU question, Britain’s most significant in a generation, is not very encouraging. We have always admired London’s Mayor for eloquently speaking his mind. But his many eurosceptic remarks are a deception. He has repeatedly talked up Britain’s prospects outside the EU. And he plainly shares our scathing view of David Cameron’s renegotiation. Yet he will not front the “Leaveâ€\x9d campaign and be the powerful voice of millions who want out. Boris continues to flirt with it, but he’ll vote to “Remainâ€\x9d. It’s time he came off the fence. The FullFact blog points out, in the light of Alan Johnson’s interview, that it carried out its own fact check last year of the claim that in-work benefits were attracting EU migrants to the UK. It concluded that there was “no direct evidence on whether welfare has acted as a ‘magnet’ encouraging EU migrants to come to the UKâ€\x9d. Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate for London mayor, has unveiled a plan which he says would protect space for small businesses and start-ups in the capital. It’s part of his business framework, Sadiq Means Business. He released figures showing that, as a result of changes to planning rules introduced by the last government allowing commercial space to be turned into housing without planning permission, commercial floor space covering 1,786,466 sqm was lost in London between May 2013 and April 2015. He said that if all that space was fully occupied, it would have housed more than 123,000 jobs, although occupancy rates suggest 48,000 jobs have been lost or are under threat because of those changes. Khan said he would amend the London Plan to make it harder for these units to be converted into housing. In a statement he said: Of course we need new homes, but this does not need to be at the expense of the spaces we need for the businesses that provide our jobs and drive our prosperity. We should be focusing on building new homes on publicly and privately owned brownfield land, while using the London Plan to protect business space, and to create new start-up spaces in housing developments. I’ll make tackling the housing crisis my number one priority while increasing the space available for small business, start-ups and entrepreneurs. David Davis, the Conservative former Europe minister, and David Cameron main rival for the party leadership in 2005, will give a big speech on Europe later. It is being billed as his first in-depth contribution to the EU debate and he will use it to say that he is voting to leave the EU, to say that the EU is beyond reform, and to explain how Britain can eliminate the risks of Brexit. According to extracts sent out from his office in advance, he will also criticise David Cameron’s “emergency brakeâ€\x9d. Like Alan Johnson, he will argue that it will have no effect on immigration. Davis will say: The prime minister ‘s emergency brake on migrant benefits would not stop a push bike. And we now discover we would have to ask Brussels’s permission to even use it. In any case, the whole concept of an emergency brake is flawed. Migrants are coming to Britain from Eastern Europe not to claim benefits but to earn more money. My figures show that they can readily earn three to four times as much working in low-skilled jobs in Britain. No amount of tinkering with our welfare rules will make a blind bit of difference to immigration numbers and the Prime Minister is being disingenuous to pretend otherwise. In a press notice, Davis explains why he believes cutting in-work benefits for EU migrants will not reduce migration. Davis will cite figures showing that the main attraction to would-be migrants from Eastern Europe is not Britain’s welfare system but the vast disparity in earnings between the two parts of Europe. For instance, the monthly average wage in Romania (£400 a month) is currently less than one third of the monthly minimum wage in the UK (£1300). This gulf will widen to a factor of more than four (£400 to £1600) by 2020 when the new UK national living wage is introduced and gives a big boost to the earnings of unskilled workers. Davis will also point out that research shows that the vast majority of Eastern European migrants to the UK are either single or couples without children and that they make minimal demands on the UK welfare system. They are coming here for work, not handouts. Only 10 per cent claim in-work benefits in their first year in the UK, rising to 20 per cent after four years as they begin to form families and have children. Even so, 80 per cent are not claiming in work benefits after four years in Britain and therefore measures to curb benefit payments such as the emergency brake can be expected to have minimal effect on migrant inflows – the public’s chief concern about the implications of EU membership. The press notice includes this chart showing the take up of tax credits by EEA (European Economic Area - which is the EU, plus three other small countries) citizens. Justine Greening, the international development secretary, was also on the Today programme, talking mostly about the Syria conference. But she was asked about David Cameron’s EU renegotiation, and if she thought it was fair that he was able to promote it while anti-EU ministers will not be allowed to speak out until the deal has been formally agreed, in another two weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, she supported Cameron. I happen to agree with the prime minister, I think this is a good deal, I hope we can seal the deal when he goes to Brussels later this month. But in the meantime we have cabinet collective responsibility and indeed the deal isn’t finally agreed yet. So I think we all need to back the Prime Minister to get the best deal for our country. Suzanne Evans, the Ukip deputy chair, thinks Alan Johnson was given an easy ride on Today. Several political parties will be involved in the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union. There are at least three cross-party umbrella groups but Labour, mindful of how campaigning alongside the Conservatives in Better Together in Scotland backfired badly on the party at the 2015 general election, has got its own campaign, Labour In For Britain, and its chair, Alan Johnson, was on the Today programme this morning. Having multiple parties campaigning for the same thing can be an advantage, because they appeal to different groups. But it also has its drawbacks, because campaigners may contradict each other, and we saw that today when Johnson shot down one of David Cameron’s key EU arguments. Here are the key points from the interview. Johnson said that cutting in-work benefits for EU migrants would not reduce immigration. Cameron has repeatedly argued that in-work benefits are one of the “pullâ€\x9d factors that lure EU migrants to the UK (even though the evidence for this is minimal, to put it politely), and he has been talking up the significance of the “emergency brakeâ€\x9d that would allow the UK to stop paying full in-work benefits to EU migrants for up to four years. But Johnson said this would have no impact on immigration. Asked if it would deter people from coming to the UK, he replied: It was never going to do that ... the issue of in-work benefits isn’t a draw factor and indeed this is a two-way process, no country has more of its people working in other developed countries than Britain – more than Poland, more than any other country in Europe. Go to a pub in Paris, go to a pub in Madrid you will hear English voices. It’s not a draw for them, either, there’s all kinds of factors why people choose to move around the European Union to work. I don’t think that’s one of them. But Johnson also said that Labour supported the principle behind the “emergency brakeâ€\x9d on fairness grounds. He said: We believe in the principal of fair contribution, that’s why it was in our manifesto that there should be a limit of two years before in-work benefits were paid. Actually there is an argument that this is better in the sense that you’re here contributing paying taxes for a period before you actually receive those benefits. And I think for British people the problem is not xenophobia, it’s not anti-Europe, it’s not any kind of racism overt or covert, it’s a fairness argument. It’s that you should be putting something into the system before you draw anything out. He said that pro-Europeans had not been making the case for the EU strongly enough in recent years. I don’t think many people, including me, have been making that argument sufficiently overt the last ten years. Now we can do it in areas where Ukip are strong and areas where they are not. There is more Europe coming later today. Here is the agenda for the day. 10am: The Supporting Syria conference opens in London. My colleague Matthew Weaver is covering that on a separate live blog. 11am: David Davis, the Conservative MP, gives a speech on what leaving the EU would mean for the UK. Around 12pm: MPs begin a debate on a backbench motion saying the EU renegotiation should protect parliamentary sovereignty. As usual, I will be covering breaking all the political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrewâ€\x9d in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.",
 'Trump aims to woo pro-Israel donors at Aipac despite their lingering worries As Donald Trump prepares to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the Republican presidential frontrunner is facing mounting criticism from pro-Israel leaders for his incendiary rhetoric and policy stances. Meanwhile, after months bashing other candidates for their links to big donors, Trump appears to be making inroads wooing some staunchly pro-Israel megadonors, including billionaire Sheldon Adelson – though other big check-writers still have huge concerns about his candidacy. Despite awards Trump has received from pro-Israel groups and his boast that he would “do more for Israel than anyone elseâ€\x9d, many Jewish leaders both conservative and liberal have found much to criticize about Trump. The anti-Trump sentiments have targeted his numerous comments on the campaign trail that are perceived as anti-immigrant, anti-women and anti-Muslim, raising the stakes for the real estate billionaire in his Aipac speech on Monday evening. “Anybody who is lauded by David Duke, Vladimir Putin and Jean-Marie Le Pen, I can’t support,â€\x9d said former US senator Norm Coleman, a board member of the conservative pro-Israel Republican Jewish Coalition, of which Adelson is the lead funder. “They’re listening to his dog whistles and responding favorably, which frightens me.â€\x9d Coleman’s critique of Trump is only one of many from Jewish conservatives, religious leaders and some donors. Pre-Aipac political fireworks began last week when a few dozen rabbis announced they intended to boycott Trump’s speech because of moral concerns about his inflammatory comments about Mexicans, Muslims and other issues. “We object to Trump’s message,â€\x9d said Jeff Salkin, a rabbi and Aipac member from Hollywood, Florida, and one of the boycott organizers. “It’s a message of division, bigotry and xenophobia. He’s threatened violence against protesters. This is about who and what we want America to be.â€\x9d Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator with the US State Department and now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center thinktank, said: “In my experience dealing with the pro-Israel community in the US, there has never been a presidential candidate or a politician speaking at Aipac who has been more a source of division and fundamental opposition than Donald Trump.â€\x9d Trump sparked other concerns among conservative Jewish groups and donors late last year when he talked to a candidate forum organized by the hawkish Republican Jewish Coalition. In his remarks, Trump spoke of his desire if elected to be a “neutralâ€\x9d player in fostering peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. “We don’t want to be even-handed,â€\x9d one RJC board member told the about Trump’s idea of being a neutral peace negotiator. Trump has won plaudits in some conservative pro-Israel quarters for attacking President Obama and the secretary of state, John Kerry, for “selling out Israelâ€\x9d and lambasting the Iran nuclear deal as a “disasterâ€\x9d for Israel. The Republican frontrunner has also touted his past support for Israel. When he received an award early last year from a Jewish news organization, Trump said: “We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100%. We will fight for Israel 1,000%.â€\x9d (Trump also often cites his role as grand marshal of the Israel parade in New York in 2004, and notes that one of his daughters is married to an orthodox Jew and that she converted as well.) But to bolster his credentials, the Trump speech on Monday is expected by analysts and donors to be staunchly pro-Israel. It is also seen as a chance to burnish his image for Adelson and other major Jewish donors. To build bridges to conservative allies and donors before his speech, the Trump campaign reportedly contacted some prominent GOP fundraisers for help in crafting his remarks. To expand his Washington support, Trump was meeting before his speech with a couple of dozen lawmakers and lobbyists, a gathering that is slated to include Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, an early Trump backer, and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a prominent Middle East hawk. Despite his harsh words for big donors on the campaign trail, Trump has been quietly wooing several megadonors including Adelson, who is a famously ardent supporter of Israel and confidant of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. At a candidate debate in December held at an Adelson casino resort in Las Vegas, Trump had a private meeting with Adelson, who had warm words for his fellow billionaire. At a press conference a few days later in Macau, where he owns major casinos, Adelson called Trump “very charmingâ€\x9d and said they spoke about Israel. Adelson donated close to $150m in 2012 to a mix of Super Pacs, which must reveal their donors, and not-for-profit organizations, which don’t have to disclose contributors, to help Republicans. But other leading pro-Israel donors such as hedge fund chief Paul Singer still seem to have grave doubts about Trump. Singer, who donated $5m to a Super Pac backing Marco Rubio, has also been $1m donor to Our Principles Pac, which has run millions of dollars of anti-Trump ads in several states. Our Principles is running ads in Utah before Tuesday’s caucus and will have spots up in Wisconsin before its primary next month to undercut Trump’s ability to get enough delegates to secure the nomination before the GOP convention this summer. Other Trump critics in pro-Israel circles fear that a Trump candidacy could spell big trouble for GOP control of Congress. Coleman, who chairs two outside groups that in recent elections have spent millions of dollars backing GOP House members, said: “I think a Trump candidacy runs the risk of losing the Senate and putting the House in play.â€\x9d Trump’s critics and his allies will be listening to see how much impact his Aipac speech will have on the campaign’s momentum and how much it may sway the legions of Trump doubters.',
 'Malcolm Turnbull warns marginal seat voters against supporting independents Malcolm Turnbull appealed directly to marginal seat voters in a campaign launch speech that urged Australians to resist the “roll of the dice on independents or minor partiesâ€\x9d and return the Coalition government to ensure stability. “That is why I counsel Australians against a roll of the dice on independents or minor parties,â€\x9d Turnbull said. “Vote for anyone other than the Liberal and National party candidates, and the risk is that Australians will next week find themselves with Bill Shorten as prime minister and no certainty about their future. “That is why I am urging every Australian to think of this election as if their single vote will determine what sort of government we have after July 2.â€\x9d In the final weekend of an eight-week election marathon, the prime minister “launchedâ€\x9d the campaign in the seat of Reid, held by Liberal MP Craig Laundy on a margin of 3.3%. Turnbull’s key messages were stability following the UK’s decision to exit the European Union and a return to Tony Abbott’s theme of a safe, secure Australia. “National security and economic security go hand in hand,â€\x9d he said. Turnbull nuanced the Coalition’s domestic message in the wake of the Brexit decision, with a nod to the disengagement felt by voters in Australia and around the world. “There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian,â€\x9d Turnbull said. “But only if your optimism and confidence is matched with a clear-eyed understanding of what makes the economy work, what makes businesses invest and hire, and an ability to see the world as it is, not how you would like it to be. “This is a time which demands stable majority government.â€\x9d His Coalition partner, the National party, has been worried throughout the campaign that Turnbull’s message of “exciting timesâ€\x9d in a changing economy has been scaring the electorate, especially in regional Australia. The prime minister, whose main policy is a $50bn corporate tax cut, underlined the connection between the economy and people, fleshing out specific examples including women who want more part-time work and young people who want to get a start. “We know that the economy is people – their lives, their futures, their security.â€\x9d He characterised the $50bn decision to build submarines in South Australia as a “historic investmentâ€\x9d because “only a strong Australia can be a safe Australiaâ€\x9d. He attacked Labor’s record on asylum seekers – “50,000 unauthorised arrivals on 800 boats, 1,200 deaths at seaâ€\x9d – and again suggested people smugglers were looking for a sign that the government would waver on refugee policy. Turnbull warned the division in Labor over boats policy would mean the return of asylum seeker boats. “We know this because hope rarely triumphs over experience,â€\x9d Turnbull said. “They have failed Australia before.â€\x9d He borrowed from John Howard’s justification for hardline asylum policy. “Public trust in the government to determine who can come to Australia and how long they can stay is an essential foundation of our success as a multicultural society,â€\x9d Turnbull said. Turnbull thanked Howard for his reforms, which he said “set Australia up for the longest period of prosperity in our historyâ€\x9d, and Tony Abbott for ending the Rudd-Gillard years. “John and Tony, we salute you.â€\x9d Turnbull announced a number of election pledges in the final stage of the campaign, with the major commitment around mental health. He promised $192m towards a package of mental health changes to ensure help for individuals and their families, including commitments in suicide prevention, which has been a persistent theme in the campaign. The Coalition pledged $48m to help 24,000 of Australia’s most disadvantaged children with their education through the Smith Family’s Learning for Life program and $31.2m for internships and post-school career advice to increase support for women and girls to study and work in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem). There is $50m to improve the digital literacy of senior Australians and $10m to protect, preserve and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait languages as part of the living story of Australia’s shared history. He attacked Bill Shorten’s policies as being a recipe for “economic stagnationâ€\x9d, characterised by “union thuggeryâ€\x9d and raised the Victorian firefighters’ dispute. “His vision splendid is to run the nation like a trade union,â€\x9d Turnbull said. “The volunteer firefighters of Victoria know what that looks like.â€\x9d In a bid to sidetrack the Coalition event, Shorten effectively held a second campaign launch in Brisbane under the guise of a Save Medicare rally. He framed the Coalition as divided and Malcolm Turnbull as a weak leader ahead of the Liberal launch. “Behind the forced smiles today and the awkward music, when we watch them, those Liberals at that party are sharpening their weapons of revenge for the impending civil war in that party after the election.â€\x9d The latest poll from Galaxy Research – of more than 500 voters in each seat – showed Labor was unlikely to win the marginal seats required to take government. The poll, published in News Corp papers, found Labor would win only two of 14 Coalition-held marginal seats in four states and is at 50-50 in two others. The poll suggests Labor could win the Queensland seats of Petrie (2PP 52-48) and Capricornia (2PP 51-49) while it is on 50-50 in Hindmarsh in South Australia and Macarthur in New South Wales.',
 'Noel Gallagher: We should never have made Be Here Now then Oasis should never have made Be Here Now when they did, according to Noel Gallagher. Despite being bullish around the time of its release, the Oasis songwriter now claims that the band’s overblown 1997 album was recorded too soon after their hugely successful second LP What’s the Story (Morning Glory)? During a video interview with Vevo, Gallagher said: “I only say this now, looking back on it after 20 years … we should never have made that record then. We came off the back of that American tour which was, again, the third tour in a row that we never completed. And I came back to the airport and the fucking world’s press was there and instead of going, ‘Right, we should just go our separate ways for a year or two,’ we decided like idiots to go straight into the studio.â€\x9d He added: “That maybe wasn’t the best idea. Morning Glory hadn’t really run its course then. It was probably still number one in England, it was definitely still top five in the States. And yet, there we were, going into the studio, effectively trying to make another album to kill it, which was ridiculous.â€\x9d Gallagher also claimed that the band should have been talked out of making the record when they did. He said: “I often think, looking back, the people around us who were in the music business for 20 years before we got there should really have said something.â€\x9d Be Here Now received rave reviews at the time of its release, and saw fans queuing outside record shops to buy it. But it has since gained a reputation as being an act of cocaine-addled folly, full of overlong songs and nonsensical lyrics. A remastered reissue of the album is out now.',
 'U-turns are possible on the road to hard Brexit Jonathan Freedland is right that the referendum result has to be honoured (Who speaks for the 48% as we lurch to extreme Brexit?, 8 October). That does not mean, however, that it is sacrosanct, any more than the result of a general election. Those who argue that it is undemocratic to seek its reversal if circumstances have changed ignore the fact that it is an essential part of democracy that no decision should ever be irreversible. As Freedland states, leavers did not vote for the most extreme rupture of our relations with the EU that will cause profound damage to our economy. But we are now heading inexorably towards a hard Brexit, since the government has made immigration control of our borders its top priority, which is incompatible with staying in the single market or the customs union. When this realisation sinks in – the decline in the value of the pound shows it is already happening – domestic and foreign investment will decline, a flood of companies will emigrate, London will probably cease to be the financial centre of the EU and we are likely to face a severe, self-inflicted Brexit recession. In time that is likely to cause a major change in public opinion, as many voters for leave will feel they were conned. This change will fully justify a rerun of the referendum, after the conclusion of the negotiations, before our departure becomes inevitable. It is widely assumed that once we trigger article 50 and announce our intention to leave, this sets in motion an irreversible process. However, this assumption does not appear to be legally correct. In an article for the Financial Times, Jean-Claude Piris, former director general of the legal service of the Council of the European Union, has pointed out that invoking article 50 and declaring “an intentionâ€\x9d to leave is a “unilateral act that does not depend on what other members think or doâ€\x9d and that “In law, the word ‘intention’ cannot be interpreted as a final and irreversible decisionâ€\x9d. Nothing in article 50, he wrote, would prevent the UK, in conformity with its constitutional requirements, from withdrawing its unilaterally declared “intentionâ€\x9d. Those who voted remain are therefore perfectly entitled, legally and democratically, to do everything possible to avoid a disastrous future for this country. Indeed some of us regard this as our duty. Dick Taverne Liberal Democrat, House of Lords • One of the most worrying aspects of the Brexit debate is theconstant attempts by the Brexiteers to deny the legitimacy of debate following the referendum: “the people have spokenâ€\x9d is their sole refrain whenever a contrary voice is heard. Yet scrutiny, challenge and debate are not optional extras in a democracy, they are the very essence. It is beyond ironic that those who argued so vehemently for parliamentary sovereignty should resort to the royal prerogative and so deny the very democracy they claim to have fought for. Roy Boffy Sutton Coldfield • Just suppose that the referendum had produced exactly the opposite result, with just over half of those who voted choosing to stay in the EU. Would the government have been entitled to go for hard remain and join the euro and sign up for the Schengen agreement? And, if so, would the leavers have accepted that the British people had made their decision and there was nothing more to be said? Kath Aspinwall Hathersage, Derbyshire • The prime minister (May quick to reject cross-party calls for Commons vote on the single market, 10 October) believes that the government can proceed with Brexit under the royal prerogative without the authority of parliament. Brexit will inevitably involve the repeal of the European Communities Act. Only parliament can repeal an act of parliament. Any other view would be a constitutional nonsense. The prime minister might do well to recall that over 300 years ago we fought a civil war on the issue of parliamentary sovereignty, and at least one monarch lost his head as a consequence. Derek Gambell Bromley, Kent • Your coverage of Theresa May’s conference speech (‘Change must come’: May consigns Cameron to history, 6 October) omitted one of the most intriguing remarks that she made: that “it is time to reject the ideological templates provided by the socialist left and the libertarian rightâ€\x9d. The libertarian right, unlike the socialist left, is strongly entrenched within Mrs May’s own party. Its disciples include Liam Fox and David Davis, as well as Nigel Lawson, who tells us that Brexit offers the chance to complete his interpretation of the Thatcher revolution, by shrinking taxation, regulation and the state as a whole. The Taxpayers’ Alliance, with its close links to the Republican right in Washington and the leadership of the leave campaign, propounds libertarian doctrines; so does the Institute of Economic Affairs. Both are regularly and admiringly quoted in the rightwing press. If our new prime minister really intends to take on the ideologues within her own party, then it will not only be the Labour party which will be faction-ridden over the next few years. Of course, she may back down before their passionate pressure; but if so, the social and industrial agenda that she has just set out will be a shell. Those of us on the centre left, from Liberal Democrats to Labour social democrats, should exert as much passionate pressure on the prime minister from the other side not to slip away from the promises she has just made in order to hold her divided party together. William Wallace Liberal Democrat, House of Lords • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'The 50 best films of 2016 in the US: No 2 Toni Erdmann Few people settle in for a three-hour German comedy about an uptight woman and her farty father expecting a masterpiece. Yet that’s what Maren Ade’s extraordinary, genre-bending revolution of a movie is. It tells of Ines (Sandra Hüller), an efficient, humourless, whippet-thin businesswoman in her mid-30s. She’s focused on success with no apparent aim but for its own sake (“You’re an animal,â€\x9d someone tells her – there are a lot beasties in this film). To this end, she sacrifices her free time, much of her social life, and many of her ethics. There’s one appalling scene in which she must take shopping the wife of a powerful contact she’s courting. “I’m not a feminist,â€\x9d she witheringly tells one of the colleagues above whom she is miles more capable and bright, “or I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you.â€\x9d We pity brittle Ines. We don’t necessarily like her. Following the death of his dog, her prank-loving dad, Winfried (Peter Simonichek), decides to pay her a visit for the weekend. This goes appallingly; the endless wait for the lift down from her apartment to the cab is a perfect horror-show of two people with deep affection who can’t stand the sight one another. But Winfried, concerned for Ines’s sanity, does not actually leave. Rather, he shows up again, infiltrating her sacred professional circle, beneath weird wig and ill-fitting false teeth, calling himself a life coach called Toni Erdmann. Similarities to Les Patterson are accidental – but irresistible. Toni also bears a striking resemblance to Harold Bornstein, aka Donald Trump’s trusted doctor (on the left in this Twitter comparison). The remainder of the film is essentially a compendium of showcase scenes which you can’t shift, even months on. There’s an Easter egg painting party which culminates in an angry, flabbergasting rendition of Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All (which had the Cannes press audience erupting in spontaneous, mid-screening applause). There’s the naked birthday bash. The sex scene involving petits fours. The shockingly moving playground chase involving a Kukeri (like an elephant, they’re hard to describe, but you know one once you’ve seen one). Ade’s film, highly scripted but culled from hundreds of hours of footage, is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It tickles, frequently, but it also touches you more deeply than you could have anticipated. It is an extravagant film about loneliness and DNA, its web of emotional hostage-taking too complex to ever begin to unpick.',
 "A&E units are overwhelmed, and it's not the fault of staff Accident and emergency services are the national symbol of the NHS. While people may have complaints and grumbles about treatment elsewhere in the health service, it is an article of faith that when you have an emergency you will see the NHS at its best. More than this, it exemplifies the principle of free at the point of need. Extraordinary human and technical resources can be mobilised in minutes to save your life, irrespective of your wealth and status, or the cost to the state. But increasingly A&E is also coming to symbolise a health service struggling to cope, with multiplying pressures and no sign of a long-term solution. Between 2003-04 and 2014-15, according to King’s Fund analysis, annual A&E attendances jumped from around 16 million to more than 22 million. For most of this time, the majority of the increase went to walk-in centres and minor injuries units. But more recently there have been significant rises in the number of people attending major A&E units, which is having a big impact on hospitals’ ability to cope. In the eyes of politicians and the media, A&E performance has been reduced to whether it is able to hit the government target of 95% of patients being seen, treated, admitted or discharged in under four hours. Performance has been worsening steadily since 2010, and in 2014-15, the 95% standard was missed for the year. But the causes are complicated. Analysis by regulator Monitor of the steep decline in performance over the winter of 2014-15 reveals hospitals have been struggling to cope with a significant rise in the number of people arriving by ambulance. This can be seen in a sharp increase in delays for ambulance crews handing over patients and the average waiting time for an initial assessment creeping up. The biggest problem tends to be delays in admitting patients from A&E to the hospital. The average wait for admission in the three months up to December jumped in a year from under four hours to almost four-and-a-half . The most striking conclusion reached by Monitor is the sharp performance drop last winter against the four-hour target was not due to a drop in the performance of A&E units themselves. In other words, the staff are working as well as ever, but they are gradually being overwhelmed by factors beyond their control. If anything, A&E departments were using their capacity more effectively to manage the increased demand, and overall staffing levels for both doctors and nurses were slightly higher. Too often, hospital bed occupancy rates are pushing over 90% – well past the 85% threshold at which NHS England suggest hospitals will struggle with fluctuations in demand. At this sort of level, further small increases in bed occupancy can significantly impair A&E performance. Other studies have indicated that improving the flow of patients through care pathways and ensuring patients are cared for in the most appropriate setting are the best ways to get bed occupancy rates down, and improve the flow of patients from A&E to wards. This highlights the importance of factors such as timely access to testing and results, and hospitals’ own discharge systems working well. Difficulties elsewhere in the system, such as accessing GP services out of hours and discharging patients from hospitals to social care play a part. The impact of social care cuts may well exacerbate problems this winter, but it is hard to pin down exactly how much these factors hit A&E. However, the revelation by Health Service Journal that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence believes A&E departments need to build a greater margin of safety into their nurse staffing levels shows there is more to analysing performance than using a stopwatch. Morale, the willingness of clinicians to embark on a career in emergency care and whether talented staff are prepared to stay are also critical factors. While relentless firefighting is to some extent the nature of emergency medicine, there is a fine line between adrenaline and burnout. The fact that the huge pressures on staff are not yet affecting overall performance is testimony to their extraordinary efforts, but the crunch point will come unless there is action to relieve the unsustainable load. Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.",
 'Trump sees enemies on all sides He was booed at a debate for pointing out 9/11 happened on George W Bush’s watch. He’s been tarred as pro-choice. He’s been attacked for cussing too frickin’ much. So on Monday... Trump said the Republican party was “in defaultâ€\x9d of a deal to treat him fairly, and he might run as an independent. He also repeated a threat to sue Ted Cruz for being born in Canada. Trump threatens third-party run over ‘unfair’ treatment Trump’s tirade came after a new Jeb Bush Super Pac radio ad ran in South Carolina, a polite place that votes Saturday. The ad mashes up Trump telling people to go “BLEEPâ€\x9d themselves. Video: Republican debate a festival of bickering “Is this the type of man we want our children exposed to?â€\x9d the pro-Bush ad asks. Cruz meanwhile launched a TV ad saying Trump could not be trusted with a supreme court pick. Republicans said the president should not seek to replace late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia. “There comes a point ... where you stop nominating,â€\x9d Marco Rubio said. From our years together at the DC circuit, we were best buddies ... It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend.â€\x9d – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg A powerful service employees union made three Spanish-language ads in Nevada for Hillary Clinton, who’s battling there with Bernie Sanders. But Sanders drew a huge crowd for a rally in Michigan on Monday, a day after packing a high school in Las Vegas with thousands of people. Sanders draws thousands in Vegas Who? Farewell, Jim Gilmore: the hopeless Republican presidential hopeful',
 'Tottenham steamroller lacklustre Stoke with Son Heung-min double Mark Hughes told Tottenham Hotspur fans to shut up, but his team could not silence the visiting forwards. Son Heung-min scored twice before Dele Alli and Harry Kane struck their first goals of the campaign and, in doing so, confirmed that Tottenham are up and running for the new season after playing fitfully in their first three matches. Hughes, meanwhile, may have disciplinary matters to fret about in addition to his team’s botched start to the season after being sent to the stands in the first half. Stoke are bottom of the league with one point from four matches. Tottenham took the lead thanks to their ability to keep calm in the storm caused in part by Stoke’s fury with the referee, Anthony Taylor, and the fourth official, Jon Moss. Taylor, acting on advice from Moss, ordered Hughes to vacate the sideline in the 34th minute after the manager stomped out of his technical area to vent his anger at the booking of Marko Arnautovic for simulation. Hughes felt that Stoke should have been given a free-kick before that for a foul on Jonathan Walters and was doubly aggrieved when Taylor judged Arnautovic’s “evasive actionâ€\x9d to be a dive. “Those were two decisions I felt should have gone our way so I reacted in a forceful manner,â€\x9d Hughes said. “Sometimes you forget that this year you’re not allowed to come out of your technical area. Mr Moss, bless him, felt that warranted a sending off, which, by the letter of the law, it did, so I have to hold my hands up. But I saw Sky say that maybe I swore, which I didn’t.â€\x9d As he left the pitch Hughes made gestures to rev up the home crowd. Then he tried to send a different message to away supporters. “I was telling them to shut up,â€\x9d he said. “Sorry if I did that.â€\x9d That hoopla created a sizzling atmosphere in which players needed to stay cool. Spurs did so better and were rewarded by Son’s goal in the 41st minute. Joe Allen might have thwarted it if he had not overcommitted when trying to dispossess Christian Eriksen, allowing the Dane to sidestep him before pulling the ball back from the sideline to Son, who was unmarked 12 yards from goal. The South Korean guided it first time into the net with his left foot. Such composure in the bedlam can only have encouraged Mauricio Pochettino, bearing in mind how his team lost their heads and the league title at Stamford Bridge last season. Earlier, Spurs had to show resilience to weather a storm of another kind, as Stoke started strongly. Wilfried Bony, making his debut for the hosts after joining on loan from Manchester City, gave the team a much-needed fulcrum up front. The Ivorian threatened as early as the second minute when he exchanged passes with Walters before unleashing a 16-yard shot that was blocked by Jan Vertonghen. Glenn Whelan and Ryan Shawcross also had efforts foiled by defenders. Tottenham gradually took the upperhand, however, thanks to the crispness and swiftness of their passing. Son served notice of his menace by collecting a crossfield pass from Toby Alderweireld on the half-hour and dashing towards the Stoke area. Arnautovic chased back to disrupt his progress but inadvertently played the ball into the path of Alli. He dragged a shot past the advancing Shay Given but wide of the post. Then, following Hughes’s expulsion, Son shot Spurs in front. Half-time brought a chance to regroup and Stoke did hint at a comeback early in the second half. But Son quashed it with a superb strike on the counterattack, collecting another pass from Eriksen at the corner of the area and sweeping a first-time shot in at the far post. Stoke began to unravel. “The second goal deflated us more markedly than it should have,â€\x9d Hughes said. Spurs were not minded to show mercy. The visitors inflicted further damage through another rapid counterattack on the hour. Kyle Walker hurtled down the right and picked out Alli, who, like Son for the first goal, had found space in the middle of the area and took full advantage. With Victor Wanyama on a yellow card and guilty of a couple of tackles that the home crowd believed should have resulted in a red, Pochettino made a substitution to ensure Tottenham kept 11 players on the pitch, replacing Wanyama with Érik Lamela. “It was better to take the pressure off the referee and Victor,â€\x9d said Pochettino. All that was missing from Spurs’ point of view was a goal for Harry Kane. So Son helped deliver one. He tricked his way down the left before providing a pass that enabled Kane to end the wait for his first goal of the campaign.',
 'Brexiters maintain stubborn mood in face of chilling EU warnings The Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico is set in postwar London with austerity at its height. Inhabitants find that they can escape rationing because the district was once part of Burgundy during a conflict that has never formally ended. They set up their own kingdom within a kingdom, defiantly resisting attempts by Westminster to bludgeon them back into line. The mood of stubborn resistance is summed up by one of the characters whose Englishness is called into question. “We always were English and we always will be English and it’s because we are English that we are sticking up for our right to be Burgundian.â€\x9d Something of this mood has pervaded the EU referendum debate, so far at least. Warnings about the dire consequences of a vote to leave have come in thick and fast. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said Brexit would be the equivalent of a tax increase, the Bank of England said it might tip the economy into a technical recession and the International Monetary Fund said Britons should brace themselves for a stock market crash and plunging house prices. Appearing on The Andrew Marr Show, the pro-Brexit energy minister Andrea Leadsom described it as “institutional ganging up on the poor British voterâ€\x9d. One of the leaders of the gang, Mark Carney, was also interviewed on the BBC programme. The Bank of England governor was unrepentant about his public warning last week that the higher inflation and slower growth Threadneedle Street thinks would result from a Brexit vote might be enough to tip the economy into recession. What’s interesting about the campaign so far is that the bloodcurdling warnings about the horrors that will be visited on the economy in the event of Brexit seem to have had such little effect. The remain camp think the intervention of Carney will prove decisive in swaying undecided voters, and some on the leave side privately agree. It is possible that the polls are understating support for the status quo, which will only become apparent in the last few weeks before the 23 June vote, when people really start to concentrate on how they will vote. But so far, the Brexit camp must be pretty pleased with how things are going. The bloody-minded spirit of Passport to Pimlico lives on. There are umpteen possible explanations for that. It could be the heavy-handed way the government has gone about things, which has allowed the leavers to portray themselves – in true Ealing comedy fashion – as underdogs. As one small example, the IMF’s annual health check on the UK economy was delayed last year because it did not want to be dragged into politics at the time of the general election. Those niceties have been cast aside this year, with the fund’s report used as a campaigning weapon by George Osborne. The initial findings of the IMF team sent to the UK were published last Friday: the full report will appear the week before the referendum. The remain camp also needs to be careful not to overstate its case. There would undoubtedly be a great deal of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath of a vote to leave. Sterling would take a hit and dearer exports would push up inflation. A slowdown in the economy has been under way for several quarters and was happening long before the prospect of Brexit surfaced. It is not outlandish of the Bank of England to float the idea that the economy could slide into technical recession given that growth was 0.4% in the first three months of 2016 and a further slowdown looks highly probable in the second quarter as investment is delayed in the run-up to the 23 June vote. There would then be a further hit to activity after a Brexit vote. Clearly, two quarters of negative growth – the definition of a recession – cannot be ruled out. But the sky would not fall in. Britain would remain a member of the EU for at least two years after a no vote and the full weight of the UK political establishment would instantly switch from warning about the dire perils of Brexit to ensuring that the costs of divorce would be minimised. There is no certainty that Christine Lagarde’s prediction of a crash in house prices would come true and it would be a net benefit to the economy if it did. Likewise a fall in the value of the pound, which would do something to help rebalance the economy by making exports cheaper. Conversely, a remain vote is likely to lead to a stronger pound, making the imbalances worse. Both the Bank and the IMF assume that the economy is in pretty good shape and will bounce back quickly once the threat of Brexit is removed. But as the IMF noted in its Article IV report, the underlying problems of the economy – the low level of household savings, an abysmally poor productivity performance and a terrifyingly large current account deficit – have actually got worse in the past year. The Bank’s growth forecasts, which assume that the UK will stay in the EU, have been cut since February as a result of the continuing weakness of productivity. The underlying problems of the economy are the result of decades of under-investment in the economy’s productive base, not the Brexit threat. It is therefore open to the remain side to make the case that leaving the EU is a shock the UK could do without at a time when the economy is not in the greatest shape. This has the virtue of being true and might impress voters put off by hyperbolic claims that Britain risks becoming an economic wasteland within weeks of 23 June. Yet, it doesn’t suit Osborne’s narrative, which is that the economy has flourished under his stewardship these past six years and that Britain will be a land overflowing with milk and honey once the threat of Brexit has been banished. Instead, he will crank up the volume still higher over the next few weeks, confident that the tactic that has been so successful in swaying floating voters in general elections – Labour is bad for your wealth – will work just as well in the referendum. But maybe it won’t. Veteran economics commentator Brian Reading made the point last week that the 13 American colonies were fully aware of the consequences for trade and capital flows from Britain if they chose independence. Noting that George Washington et al preferred making their own laws rather than having them made in London, Reading said: “No one today would argue that the American states would have been better off remaining UK colonies.â€\x9d Is Britain gearing up for a 1776 moment? It seems improbable. In Passport to Pimlico, remember, the film ends with the status quo restored. But polls suggest many voters are looking beyond Carney’s “technical recessionâ€\x9d. And that’s making the remain camp very nervous.',
 'It’s only rock’n’roll, Labour, but you should like it There is a newspaper Xanadu where some of the ’s greatest journalistic triumphs reside. These include one of the greatest scoops in the history of UK print journalism when, in 1812, reporter Vincent George Dowling was on hand to witness the assassination of the prime minister, Spencer Perceval, before stepping in to apprehend the killer. A century or so later, in 1919, JL Garvin penned his famous and prescient editorial on the Treaty of Versailles: “The Treaty left the Germans no real hope except in revenge.â€\x9d The paper’s legacy of seeing what others refused to see and uttering what others feared to utter was evident once more in 1956 during the Suez crisis. The took a principled stand of the government’s conduct on the issue. “We had not realised that our Government was capable of such folly and such crookedness,â€\x9d our leader writer then wrote. I also feel the ’s spirit of fearlessness digging at the coalface of truth inspired our campaign to restore authentic rock music to the airwaves of Scotland. In April 2014, I was shocked to learn that Scotland’s only proper rock radio station had been replaced by something vapid and inane called X-FM. I wrote then: “Heavy rock is important to society as it portrays and recalls our industrial heritage and celebrates hard work, honesty and integrity. If there was ever a proper revolution in this country it would provide the soundtrack to the social upheaval; not Franz Ferdinand or the Smiths or Blur.â€\x9d It seems our campaign has paid off. For it was announced last month that Ofcom had awarded Rock Radio Glasgow the FM commercial radio licence in the west central Scotland area. It was the culmination of a campaign that, I think, stands within the finest traditions of the ’s brave and counterintuitive reporting. Donald MacLeod, who owns the Cathouse and Garage nightclubs, is chair of Rock Radio. He is a chap not unknown to the in Scotland as he has often offered us sanctuary in one of his meaty establishments when many others had previously refused. MacLeod was effusive in his appreciation of the for its support. “If it hadn’t been for the unstinting support of the , I’m not sure we would have got over the finishing line. As Jimmy Page and Robert Plant once wrote: ‘And it’s whispered that soon, if we all call the tune, then the piper will lead us to reason’.â€\x9d Scotland has been buffeted recently by fell forces that still threaten its economic and social wellbeing. The independence referendum was lost in a welter of falsehoods and half-truths whereby Labour in Scotland and their allies in the Tory party conned the frail and the elderly into maintaining the status quo. Since then we’ve had Brexit, the rise of the hard right, ultra-austerity, racial aggravation and the bitter knowledge that Donald Trump is Scottish. Yet there are signs that the nation is experiencing a degree of solace in a rock’n’roll renaissance. The news that Rock Radio now possesses the new FM licence in the west of Scotland doesn’t just mean a return to Led Zep, Deep Purple, Van Halen, Mountain and Judas Priest and an escape from Adele, Justin Bieber and Rhianna. It will also provide training and support for indigenous bands who acknowledge that God has indeed given rock’n’roll to us, to paraphrase those great lyricists Simmons and Stanley. This year also marked the 10th annual Bonfest in Kirriemuir, held to celebrate the life and career of Bon Scott, celebrated frontman of AC/DC, who was raised in this douce little Angus town. Previously, Kirriemuir was known only as the birthplace of JM Barrie. Now, thanks to Bonfest, it’s been revealed that for the first time more people were inspired to visit Kirriemuir because of its Bon Scott connection than its JM Barrie one. And let’s face it, what would you rather your town was renowned for: fairies or rock’n’roll damnation? Next year’s Bonfest will be held in April and, while Scotland has far too many arts and cultural festivals, this one shouldn’t be missed. The majority of festivals are principally for a wandering troupe of second-rate authors, singers and artists who can’t make money on their own but can live off the fees guaranteed by gullible local councils that think they’re funding something cultural and essential. Inexplicably, Glasgow, which has a rich rock’n’roll heritage, has opted to turn up its nose at the chance to market itself as one of the world’s top destinations for the head-banging oeuvre. Although Bon Scott was the braggartly leader of AC/DC, the band were founded by the Glaswegian brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, who were born within sight of the water tower at Cranhill in the East End of Glasgow. Yet, despite the efforts of councillor Frank Docherty, the ruling Labour group decided against awarding these two the freedom of the city. The party was probably too busy doing what it does best: making twinning arrangements with enough cities to keep its councillors in jollies for a lifetime. If Labour wants to have a chance of holding off the SNP’s assault on its local authority powerbase in Glasgow, it needs to get with the rock’n’roll picture. If the SNP get in they’ll probably ban all rock’n’roll because the lyrics are not sufficiently diverse and fail to deliver the appropriate pattern of deliverable outcomes on gender issues and responsible attitudes towards alcohol and relationships. So here’s my plan to help Labour stave off the threat of the Nationalist roundheads. They need to announce a Rockfest week along the lines of Kirriemuir’s Bonfest. This would celebrate the genius of the Young brothers and others such as Brian Robertson, the great Thin Lizzy lead guitarist, Alex Harvey, Jimmy Barnes, Bobby Gillespie and Jim Kerr. In their seminal work, Sin City, a thoughtful étude on loss and redemption in an urban setting, Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott included these lines: So spin that wheel, cut that pack And roll those loaded dice Bring on the dancing girls And put the champagne on ice I’m goin’ in To Sin City',
 'Financial watchdogs need more bite to bring shadow banking to heel Behind the easy-going manner, Bank of England governor Mark Carney is angry. The object of his anger is Sir John Vickers, the mild-mannered former deputy governor who keeps telling the world that Carney has gone soft on the bankers. In recent months, when he hasn’t been discussing the impact of the EU referendum, Carney has behaved as if he were a Plantagenet king, dispatching his lieutenants to crush a former friend turned critic. The most recent intervention was led by Martin Taylor, a Barclays chief in the 1990s who sits with Carney on the financial policy committee, the UK’s financial watchdog. Taylor’s defence of the FPC was cleverly couched not only as a rebuke to those who believe that it is weak, but also to those who consider regulation too tight, positioning the watchdog as even-handed – tough on banking, without crushing the industry under a welter of heavy-handed rules. Why must Vickers be intellectually assassinated? The answer is in the credit bubble that is growing by the week. The Bank is concerned that it will be undermined as chief regulator if critics can convince the public and parliament its policies have been watered down and rules that remain made so complex they can be gamed by the finance industry to a point where they are worthless in the event of a crash. Carney and the FPC are right to be worried. Vickers and others paint a scary picture of an industry where the culture has changed little and the next financial crisis is just around the corner. Not only did Vickers say bank lending should be capped at 25 times capital, only to be told the chancellor would tolerate 33 times, his plans for ringfencing (to keep a bank’s retail operations separate from casino-style investment banking) were watered down. Vickers wanted the kind of simple ringfence an interested citizen might be able to understand. Instead, he got a complex web of capital ratios and inter-relationships that few but the geekiest bank experts can fathom. Bank chiefs are playing their old tunes. HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver said last year he would both cut the bank’s riskiest assets and achieve double-digit returns. It showed he believes the pre-crash era of super-returns is close at hand now the regulator is subdued. Such is the huge volume of capital swimming around the global financial system that investors have for some time been spreading their bets, and this is where Carney’s critics get really worried. Part of the reason Gulliver is under pressure to promise super-returns is that investors are diverting a large portion of their savings to sponsor a huge rise in shadow banking, which is the term for generally opaque lending by non-bank financial firms. There are bigger returns to be made than even bank bosses promise in their more exuberant statements. Already car loans in the US are looking like they are the new sub-prime lending scandal. Mortgage lending in the UK is heading the same way after reaching pre-crisis levels. Too often mortgages are sold to over-eager first-time buyers at astronomical income multiples. And that’s the high-street banks at work. Carney, who is also chair of G20-sponsored global regulator the Financial Stability Board, says the bank is on the case. According to the FSB, a narrow definition of shadow banking shows it grew to $36 trillion, or 12% of financial system assets, in 2014. A wider aggregate figure for all shadow-banking activities, including pension funds and insurers who lend out their securities, hit $137tn, representing 40% of total financial system assets. Last month, Carney issued the FSB’s latest review and urged countries to pay attention to the risks. But there is little public data on the scale of the risks taken by shadow banks and very little regulation. A report by the University of Leeds and the University of the Basque Country shows that business school economists from across Europe are worried. They believe the culture of banks has changed little since the crash and governments are still in thrall to their financial sectors as cash generators, ignoring the risks they pose to their economies and social structures. More than 90% of the 50 experts polled for the EU-funded Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (FESSUD) research project said that the benefits of finance were either overestimated or highly overestimated. They said the excessive size of the finance sector and poor regulation were the causes of the last crash. More than 70% said the flawed economic theory that underpinned a belief in financial systems as self-correcting was another factor. These economists are not from the Corbyn/Sanders wing of academia. Some advise finance firms and even sit on bank advisory boards. Nevertheless, they believe the financial services sector will continue to grow, providing investors with risky profits, while the benefits for Europe’s citizens are “limited and likely negativeâ€\x9d. Worse for Carney, the economists are especially concerned about shadow banking, saying that as banks are further regulated, shadow banking will grow with, at best, loose regulation. Their views tell Carney he should lay off Vickers and intervene across the entire industry to limit damage from a financial crash. If shadow finance has the ability to add a further twist to the turmoil, it will be in setting off defaults and bankruptcies across businesses and households, while having only a fraction of the weakened checks and balances on the banks. It goes to show regulators need more bite and less bark.',
 "Depp and Heard's biosecurity thriller ends in lo-fi hostage video – review Hollywood A-lister Johnny Depp has delivered a startling fall-from-grace character portrait in the final act of the legal/biosecurity thriller nobody expected: one part intrepid dog movie and two parts international relations drama, like The International by way of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, with a dash of Midnight Express thrown in. The pulse-pounding first act starts with a clock-is-ticking twist, harking back to Depp’s 1995 political action movie, Nick of Time. In that film, the actor was assigned an hour and a half to escape political hot water in the 90s; in this, he and his partner/co-star, Amber Heard, are granted a more generous 50 hours by the Australian agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce. Joyce makes a fairly deranged villain; the couple’s dogs, he snarls, will be executed by the government if Heard and Depp fail to remove them from the country in time. Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo radiate a natural if understated gravitas in their breakthrough performances. Thus a moral dilemma to springboard the second act: who do we root for? The bad arse, blasé, aviator-clad, double-earring wearing hunk and his beautiful partner (Heard is terrific here; her doe-eyed presence recalls the early work of French New Wave pioneer Anna Karina)? Or the burly, weatherbeaten borderline psychopath, who just threatened to use federal powers to execute the couple’s adorable tiny dogs? It is a difficult choice. Tension slackens in the second act, as the key players spend more time independent of each other, and the plot takes on some implausible developments. In an improbable turn of events, Joyce becomes the deputy prime minister of Australia: surely an act of over-reaching on behalf of the screenwriters. A second unexpected twist sees Heard take centre stage and emerge as the key player. Media outlets the world over had reported Pistol and Boo as Depp’s dogs; he was therefore at the core of the narrative. Few people could have anticipated Heard would emerge as the protagonist, a sort of reverse The Lady Vanishes. She was here all the time. And nobody, bar nobody, could possibly have imagined how this sensational affair would end. First, there’s a courtroom scene – more sombre than suspenseful – in which a repentant Heard pleads guilty to falsifying an immigration document. But it’s the final scene that’s surprise clincher: rough and tense, like a home-shot version of Black Mirror crossed with London Has Fallen. Or, more simply, something that looks quite a lot like a hostage video. Talking direct-to-cam in a low-angle shot, Depp on the left and Heard on the right, the pair sit in front of nondescript off-white curtains appearing stiff and solemn, looking like botched statuettes from the world’s saddest Madame Tussauds museum. Heard speaks of Australia’s “treasure trove of unique plantsâ€\x9d and Depp morosely advises viewers to “declare everything when you enter Australiaâ€\x9d. He performs a small nod of his head but to who? To the audience, in a fourth-wall-breaking moment? Or to somebody just off-screen? Could Joyce also be there, holding up a script for the pair to read while their entourage sit in the adjacent room with potato sacks on their heads? Like the final, cryptic shot in the great Austrian director Michael Haneke’s psychological thriller Hidden, we can’t ever be sure.",
 'Premier League 2016-17 preview: 11 things to look out for this season 1. Manchester manager wars So here it is – the long-awaited new series of Pep versus José. Neutrals are hoping for a classic rerun of the meltdowns that made the Barcelona/Real Madrid years so special – but early signs are that both managers are making an effort to coexist. Last month Guardiola denied he’d spend the season refusing to shake Mourinho’s hand (“We are polite guys, why not shake, why not shake? No reasonâ€\x9d), and José says he’s completely over it. “Individual fights make no sense in England. If I focus on him and he on me, someone else is going to win the league.â€\x9d They meet for the first time at Old Trafford on 10 September. Time will tell. 2. Arsène Wenger’s farewell tour? Away from that excitement, everything feels pretty familiar at the Emirates. On 1 October it will be 20 years since Arsène Wenger took over: 20 years since he told the sceptics: “I am like every human - I have my weaknesses. I would say to you I try every day to be better than the day before, but I am conscious that I have to win over the supporters. They don’t know me.â€\x9d Two decades later, they do know him, but the “winning overâ€\x9d process is still ongoing. Signs are this will be Wenger’s last at the club. Could it end in glory? 3. Zlatan’s impact Having trailed his Old Trafford move with a Hollywood hashtag – “#iamcomingâ€\x9d – self-billed “kingâ€\x9d and “legendâ€\x9d Zlatan Ibrahimovic needs to deliver early on. But, generously, he says he’s prepared to share the headlines with colleagues, including Wayne Rooney. “Every big player can work with other big players. That’s not a problem. I see no problems here. Just success.â€\x9d 4. Leicester’s tricky encore How do you follow a fairytale? Do it all over again, or slip into graceful decline? N’Golo Kanté is gone, and pre-season has been testing – a 4-0 defeat to PSG and 4-2 to Barcelona – but key title-winners remain, including Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, Danny Drinkwater and captain Wes Morgan. Last season Claudio Ranieri said Morgan was “Baloo off the Jungle Book. He is a big gentle bear. He does not speak so much but when he does speak, everybody listens. He is the perfect captain.â€\x9d 5. The reinvention of David Moyes It’s been a tough few years. Humiliated at United, Moyes achieved meme status when this photo of him meeting fans at Old Trafford went viral – captioned online: “I have no idea what is happeningâ€\x9d. Then came 12 grim months at Real Sociedad. But now he’s back, at a club much more like Everton. “In my first season at Everton, after the club had continually avoided relegation, I think we finished seventh,â€\x9d he said. “Will that happen with Sunderland? It will be very difficult, but I have to believe there’s a possibility.â€\x9d Expect heavy last-minute spending: Christian Benteke has been linked. 6. New-look homes We’re all invested in West Ham’s new ground, literally. The £701m stadium, with the club chipping in £15m, opened last week, and is a world away from Green Street. The rebrand is neat – but no amount of green sheeting is going to disguise that 30m gap between the stand and the pitch. Elsewhere, Liverpool will unveil their new £114m Main Stand. They paid for it themselves. 7. Hull’s new manager… … is already, before being appointed, being tipped as this season’s sack race winner. Hull’s pre-season bid for crisis-club status has been slick: Steve Bruce walking away, Mohamed Diamé sold down a division to Newcastle, no signings and Assem Allam still in charge. So expect to see a rare sight on the opening day: fans of a newly-promoted club protesting against their board. Hull face champions Leicester in Saturday’s television curtain-raiser (12.30pm on Sky). 8. A new corporate visual identity Always a thrilling moment: a corporate brand identity refresh – the Premier League’s old Barclays logo gone, and, in its place, a new range of expensive fluorescent sponsor-free logos, which attracted online mockery when they were unveiled in February. League officials called the new branding “a bold and vibrant identity that includes a modern take on the lion iconâ€\x9d; everyone else saw it as primary school-style tribute to Aslan. Elsewhere, other badge tweaks this season include Manchester City’s new heritage-led logo, and West Ham removing the Boleyn Castle from their badge and adding the word “Londonâ€\x9d, to help sell the global brand. 9. Which way are Stoke headed? Will Stoke finish ninth for a fourth consecutive season? Or is something less comfortable in store? Mark Hughes – who starts the campaign with a neat new Jeremy Corbyn beard – has some serious momentum-correcting work to do after last season’s run-in – as does Alan Pardew at Palace, who oversaw two wins in 21 league games before dancing his way to FA Cup final defeat. And, also looking unpredictable among the usual mid-table candidates: the newly wealthy Everton. Ronald Koeman has found his kitty hard to spend so far, but he’s trying. “We are working hard to bring in players. I expect better quality on the ball.â€\x9d 10. Geometric fuse-welding Back with the marketing department, here’s Nike describing this season’s new official ball, the Ordem 4 – featuring a “new wrapped bladder system delivering optimal touch; geometric 12 panel fuse-welded construction employing a new 3D printed ink technique; plus the design principle of ‘Flow Motion’ applying luminance.â€\x9d In other words, it’s round and colourful. The Premier League ball is blue, green and purple, La Liga’s is navy, orange and yellow, Serie A’s is orange, pink and purple. Collect all three for £285. 11. New rules 95 law changes were announced in May, so expect a long season of indignant mixed-up punditry. Apart from backwards kick-offs, other changes include no more automatic reds for players who accidentally deny a scoring opportunity and an end to forcing injured players to leave the field after quick treatment. But likely to have the biggest impact are changes around dissent. This season it’s an automatic yellow for “showing visible disrespect to officialsâ€\x9d; for “running towards an official to contest a decisionâ€\x9d; for making any physical contact with officials; and it’s a yellow “for at least one player when two or more surround a match officialâ€\x9d. Players who add aggression or abuse to any of the above will upgrade to an automatic red. Stand by for mass suspensions.',
 'Abbas Kiarostami obituary Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, the country’s vibrant and original cinema took its place on the world stage. Among the many superb film directors who contributed to Iran’s new wave the most celebrated was Abbas Kiarostami, who has died aged 76. Kiarostami, whose subtly enigmatic films play brilliantly with audiences’ preconceptions, was considered one of the greatest directors in contemporary world cinema. Of all the new wave cinemas, the Iranian was probably the most surprising, because it emerged from under an authoritarian religious regime. Kiarostami managed, on the whole, to avoid censorship by the government; rather than confront the censorship office, he accepted their general guidelines – and working within the framework, made films that imply meaning beyond it. He was born into a large middle-class family in Tehran. His father, Ahmad, was a painter of frescoes on walls and ceilings, and as a child, Abbas’s expectations were to be a painter and designer. After winning an art competition in his late teens, he studied painting and graphic design at the University of Tehran. In the 1960s, he worked as a commercial artist, designing posters and eventually shooting scores of television advertisements. At the same time, he designed credit titles for films and illustrated children’s books. During the period when a handful of Iranian films were starting to be shown in the west, thanks mainly to the success of Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow (1969), Kiarostami helped found a film-making department at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Tehran. It was there that he made several short films aimed at, and about, children. The 60-minute film The Experience (1973) continued in that line, focusing on the efforts of a young man to attract a girl with whom he is infatuated. Kiarostami’s first feature, The Traveler (1974), released internationally only in the 1990s after he became famous, is a well-observed, witty and touching film about a 10-year-old boy’s determination to obtain enough money, by hook or by crook, to get from his small town to a big football match in Tehran. In contrast, The Report (1977) was an adult drama about a weak civil servant, accused of taking bribes, whose marriage is crumbling. Because of its “immodestâ€\x9d view of women, the film was promptly banned after the revolution, when cinema was condemned for its perceived western attitudes. In 1983, a foundation was established to encourage films with “Islamic valuesâ€\x9d, from which emerged, ironically, a number of cinematic masterpieces. Taking up from his pre-revolutionary films with children at the centre, Kiarostami began the new era with Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987), a gently humorous film about a child’s loyalty, reminiscent of François Truffaut’s 400 Blows. It was to become an international success only after Kiarostami had made a name for himself with Close-Up (1990). A superb blend of documentary and narrative film making, Close-Up tells the true story of a man who pretends to be the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in order to hoodwink a family into thinking they will be the subject of a film. This fascinating exploration into identity, fame and the illusion of film, was enacted by the real people involved. “I don’t invent material. I just watch and take it from the daily life of people around me,â€\x9d Kiarostami once stated. Life, and Nothing More... (1992) follows a director – a Kiarostami surrogate – making a film while searching for the children who featured in one of his earlier films in the hope that they had survived a severe earthquake in Iran. Through the Olive Trees (1994), set in the same area, is about a director casting and shooting another film. The most fascinating aspect of the film-within-a-film is that the audience never knows what is real and what is fiction. The celebrated final sequence follows the two main actors, who are having a “real lifeâ€\x9d romance, in extremely long shot as the boy persuades the girl to marry him. The film, at once simple and complex, intimate and distant, is full of insights into film-making, society and human relationships. Kiarostami’s trademark of people driving over long roads is perfectly illustrated in Taste of Cherry (1997), which co-won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Using long takes, a leisurely pace and periods of silence, it follows a middle-aged man who is bent on suicide (although the reason is never given). Desperately seeking people to help him, he drives up and down winding roads asking passers-by to bury him in the grave he has already dug for himself. He wants to pay someone to come around at 6am and call down to him. “If I answer, pull me out. If I don’t, throw in 20 shovels of earth to bury me.â€\x9d The fact that suicide is forbidden in the Qur’an explains the paradoxical ending. Continuing his minimalist style, The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) has more than 10 characters who are heard but never seen, or discussed but neither heard nor seen. This semi-comical parable of outsiders follows a three-man film crew arriving in a remote Kurdish village intent on photographing the ceremonial funeral rites of a dying 100-year-old woman for a television documentary. But she lingers on. Kiarostami made a bona fide documentary outside Iran with ABC Africa (2001), a study of the Aids epidemic in Uganda. It was his first use of a digital camera. “I felt that a 35mm camera would limit both us and the people there,â€\x9d he said, “whereas the video camera displayed truth from every angle, and not a forged truth... The camera could turn 360 degrees and thus reported the truth, an absolute truth.â€\x9d The car motif reoccurs in Ten (2002), which consists of 10 long takes in close-up of a woman navigating through the streets of Tehran, during which she has conversations with various women passengers, including a prostitute, and her brat of a son. Kiarostami’s subtle criticism of the male-dominated society is reflected by the boy. Kiarostami explained why he liked to shoot characters in cars: it puts people in close proximity to allow natural two-shots and close-ups and, sociologically, it is space that allows women some freedom. In Shirin (2008), a group of 114 women of different generations are photographed in an audience, ostensibly watching a film of a 14th-century Persian tale. Unlike the casts in other Kiarostami films, these women (who include Juliette Binoche) are all professional actors, some of them banned from performing under the present regime. We watch their reactions and hear only the soundtrack of the film, using their expressions to help us imagine the story. Here are defiant women from a strict Islamic society revealing their faces, and their emotions, with a few menacing out-of-focus glimpses of men in the background. Binoche then starred in the first fiction feature that Kiarostami directed outside Iran. Certified Copy (2010) – shot in Italy, with dialogue in English, French and Italian – follows the relationship between a British writer (William Shimell) and a French antiques dealer (Binoche), and explores that which separates illusion from reality. Like Someone In Love (2012), elegantly shot in Japan, and in Japanese, was ostensibly even more of a distance from Kiarostami’s world. Always more interested in characters than plot, he retained his oblique view of human contacts in the study of a high-class prostitute, her jealous boyfriend and an elderly former university professor. By shooting in other countries, Kiarostami became a cosmopolitan figure, underlining how universal his film language was, though slightly diminished away from its roots. In addition to making films, Kiarostami wrote several books of poetry, had his photographs exhibited and directed a production of Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 2008. He is survived by two sons, Ahmad and Bahman, from his marriage to Parvin Amir-Gholi, which ended in divorce. • Abbas Kiarostami, film director, born 22 June 1940; died 4 July 2016',
 "Cinema paradiso: Bologna's magical Il Cinema Ritrovato The best festivals contain surprises, secret gigs arranged too hastily to appear in the printed programme, but which draw a discerning crowd, jumpy with anticipation. At the 30th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna’s annual celebration of restored and rediscovered cinema, the bonus addition to the bill was not a film-maker, or a movie, but a projector. The machine in question was a British model, made in 1899, but now once again in perfect working order. Fittingly, the projector was positioned in a piazzetta near the Cineteca di Bologna as the sun was setting, and threaded with a reel of the first films ever projected – the 50-second slices of life shot by the Lumière brothers in 1895. A spark of electricity between two carbon electrodes in the projector illuminated the screen, and while the handle was patiently turned, the faces and bodies of our 19th-century forebears appeared. The films, more than a century old and already familiar to most in the audience, had a new crackle of authenticity, which was due to more than just the flickering caused by the Victorian mechanics. The relatively small frame thrown on to the canvas, the fluttering light as the carbon lamp fizzed and sputtered, and the drama of the occasion prompted a few strained necks and gasps of pleasure. This was how our ancestors would have watched the first films – perhaps with more excitement, but less hushed respect. The technology was on display as much as the films themselves, with a microphone placed close to the machine so that its constant whirr would harmonise with the piano accompaniment. Having completed its short programme without a visible hitch, the vintage projector was wheeled away and the evening’s advertised entertainment could begin. Another carbon lamp projector, but larger, and less ancient, showed Jean Epstein’s beautiful coastal romance Coeur Fidèle (1923). The impressionist style of that film, with its superimpositions and haunting closeups contrasting with a grimy setting, was as apt an illustration as you could find of how later silent film-makers built on the work of the Lumière brothers, transforming their techniques and eye for composition into a visual poetry. Elsewhere in the week, the same carbon glow would be bestowed on outdoor screenings of Hollywood’s first adaptation of Stella Dallas, an accomplished and wonderfully poignant film from 1925, and a programme of shorts from the 1900s, featuring glimpses of astonishingly vivid hand-applied colour. At this year’s festival, amid a more than generous selection of films and talks covering all decades of cinema history, there were many such opportunities to connect with the beginnings of the medium. The immensely popular series of screenings covering the pre-code escapades of producer Carl Laemmle Jr at Universal featured the roving, “unchainedâ€\x9d camera-work of cinematographer Karl Freund, who gave German expressionist silents Metropolis (1927) and The Last Laugh (1924) such emotional unease. That strand also contained Paul Leni’s crackpot The Last Warning (1929), a haunted-theatre yarn that mines all the gimmicks of the silent-film playbook for shocks and giggles. An overdue, and excellent, restoration of silent veteran Lewis Milestone’s talkie The Front Page (1931) created room to enjoy its claustrophobic, circling camera-work in the poky press room as much as the celebrated machine-gun dialogue. And the stunt-fighting and physical comedy of Tay Garnett’s sleazy romantic drama Her Man surely owed a debt to the era of great silent slapstick that was just ending when it was made in 1930. That magical screening of Coeur Fidèle was part of one of my favourite strands at this year’s Ritrovato: that devoted to Marie Epstein. The sister of the well-known director Jean herself worked as an actor, screenwriter and director, before spending the later part of her career preserving films at the Cinématheque Française with Henri Langlois (she acted in, and co-wrote, Coeur Fidèle). Working with co-director Jean Benoît-Lévy, Epstein’s greatest successes among the films shown in Bologna this year showcased great child acting, as in the rural silent Peau de Pêche (1928), or the magnificent ballet-school drama La Mort du Cygne (1937), an unforgettable, juvenile Black Swan. The intensity of emotion and clarity of drama in these films often rendered the festival’s offering of simultaneous translation redundant. Silent films burst forth in other strands of the festival, most notably the Restored and Rediscovered programme, and the section devoted to centenarian titles. In the former, Czech social drama Taký je život (Such Is Life, 1929) was perhaps the most remarkable discovery: a female-led drama starring Vera Baranovskaja, which lays bare the deprivations of urban poverty. The film is notable for its minimalist intertitles Â\xad– they are used only as chapter headings, with proverbs attached to each day in its week-long structure. The plot, comprising multiple characters and small but crucial incidents, is told entirely visually. Avant-garde dancer Valeska Gert adds spice as a minxy waitress. Another highlight was a showing of Volker Schlöndorff’s sharp, gossipy film portrait (Nur Zum Spass – Nur Zum Spiel, 1977) of this amazing performer, who spent most of her career on the stage but made indelible appearances in films by Pabst and Fellini, among others. British silent Shooting Stars (1928) showed us one of the earliest and best examples of the industry turning its focus, and its humour, inward – while an original Technicolor print of Singin’ in the Rain (1952) repeated the jokes at a safer distance. Der Müde Tod (1921), one of Fritz Lang’s shorter (98 minutes) and earlier “monumental filmsâ€\x9d, was presented with its original colour tinting revived. A restoration of Pola Negri’s whip-cracking comedy A Woman of the World (1925) brought some very 1920s humour, and sexual double standards, to a modern audience, and a screening of Clarence Brown’s sizzling Flesh and the Devil (1926), starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, played to a packed house. A screening of DW Griffith’s epic Intolerance (1916), with live musical accompaniment, running for more than three hours, would normally be a gala event, but here it was just one of the juiciest titbits in the section devoted to films from 1916. Pre-revolutionary Russian films, early Hollywood genre pictures and precocious work by names such as Frank Borzage, Allan Dwan and Douglas Fairbanks revealed a picture of a lively and ambitious year in film history, including the last gasps of Europe’s dominance in the world market. There couldn’t be a celebration of silent cinema without Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, though, who were both featured strongly in the programme. Having completed restoration work on Chaplin’s films, Cineteca has started on those of his stone-faced peer, with The Keaton Project. Some of those new prints were shown: shorts The High Sign (1921), The Paleface (1922) and Cops (1922), as well the hour-long caper Seven Chances (1925), appeared across the week. There were also al fresco screenings of two classic Chaplin features, Modern Times (1936) and The Kid (1921), in the city’s main square, the Piazza Maggiore, with live orchestral accompaniment. Throughout the festival, the silent screenings were among the most popular events, with queues forming outside the screening rooms even for obscure titles. For the Chaplin films, delegates, tourists and Bologna residents came in their thousands, thronging the square and bouncing laughter off the palazzo walls. The Lumière brothers, who had a permanent presence in the Piazza thanks to the eye-opening exhibition devoted to their work, would have been pleasantly surprised. Louis Lumière famously told George Méliès that his invention had no future. Little did he know that it would still be thriving more than a century later, and that its future could live so happily with its past. • For more on the festival see the Cinema Ritrovato website.",
 'Funding is welcome, but root causes of mental illness are growing The impression is being created of unstoppable momentum towards expansion and improvement of mental health services. Reports, cash and pledges of action are piling up. But it is hard to identify what will change and from where the money will come. Meanwhile, the problems that give rise to mental illnesses are growing. Hitting hyperbolic heights this week, NHS England promised “the biggest transformation of mental health care across the NHS in a generationâ€\x9d. In the wake of the report (pdf) by the Mental Health Taskforce, led by Mind chief executive Paul Farmer, NHS England pledged to help millions more people and invest more than £1bn a year by 2020–21. The commitment of NHS England and the government to giving mental health the focus it deserves is not in doubt. What is problematic is their ability to deliver on the promises being made. Announcing telephone number-sized quantities of cash to “transformâ€\x9d the NHS is now routine, but the shine soon fades as the realities of tight funding kick in. First it was the £3.8bn Better Care Fund in June 2013, a laudable attempt to encourage clinical commissioning groups and councils to join up health and social care. But this has been overwhelmed by the need to reduce emergency hospital admissions and tackle delays in transferring frail elderly patients from hospitals back to the community. So the fund views the care system through the narrow lens of hospital admissions and bed occupancy, doing little to bring about anything that could be described as transformation. Then in December 2015 the government announced the NHS would receive £1.8bn in 2016–17 as part of a Sustainability and Transformation Fund to “give the NHS the time and space it needs to put transformation plans in placeâ€\x9d for changes such as seven-day working and the new models of care described in the Five Year Forward View. But analysis by the Nuffield Trust has revealed that very little of this money will be used for transformation. In its first year all but around £339m will be consumed in backfilling hospital deficits. Now we have a promise to invest in the transformation of mental health. Aims include seven-day access to support for those experiencing a mental health crisis, and integration of physical and mental health care. This is in addition to £1.25bn announced in the dying weeks of the Coalition government for perinatal, child and young people’s mental health services. Yet funding for mental health trusts in England has been falling. According to figures published by the BBC last week, budgets for mental health trusts fell 2% between 2013–14 and 2014–15, while funding for hospital trusts climbed 2.6%. In the current year, mental health trust funding will increase by just 0.3%. While this is not the totality of mental health services, it demonstrates that the talk in recent years has so far failed to even stem the relative decline in investment, let alone begin to close the chasm in access between physical and mental health services. Meanwhile, too many of the root causes of mental health problems continue to grow. The number of rough sleepers in England jumped 55% between 2010 and 2015, according to the government; research by the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (pdf) indicates around 2.8 million children are living with an alcohol-dependent parent, up from 2 million in 1992; according to Paul Farmer’s report, two in five older people living in care homes are affected by depression, while a BMA conference of GPs recently voted in favour of GPs no longer having responsibility for care home residents, arguing their complex needs are beyond the capacity of primary care services. And there were 89 prison suicides in England and Wales last year, an increase of 46% in three years. This catalogue of misery emphasises the extraordinary breadth of public policy that needs to be aligned to improve the nation’s mental well-being. Funding is just the start. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 "Government could save $175m a year by ending pathology companies' ‘free ride’ The federal government could save $175m each year by ending the “free rideâ€\x9d it has given to pathology companies, a leading health economist, Stephen Duckett, says. Duckett has called for reform to the way pathology is paid for so the massive efficiency savings the industry enjoys are shared with taxpayers and the government The federal government announced in its budget update in December that it would scrap the bulk-billing incentive it pays to health professionals for pathology services, representing savings of $101m per year. As a result, the pathology industry has threatened to pass the costs onto patients by introducing a $30 co-payment for common tests, including pap smears. But according to the report from the Grattan Institute released on Sunday and co-authored by Duckett, greater savings could be made by reforming a “decades-oldâ€\x9d pathology payment system that overwhelmingly benefits pathology companies over the government and taxpayers. It is a view that has been dismissed by the pathology industry, which has slammed the Grattan report, called Blood Money: Paying for Pathology Services, as nothing more than “opinionâ€\x9d based on flawed data. Over the past decade, the average number of pathology tests per person has risen by 40% from around 3.9 per person in the population in 2004-05, to 5.4 per head in 2014-15. An ageing population with more complex health conditions is responsible for much of this increase. “As test volumes increase, we would expect to see efficiency improve and average rebates come down commensurately,â€\x9d the report says. “Pathology rebates have declined in real terms, but only by about 10% relative to volume increases of 40%. Many aspects of pathology are now highly automated, which means additional tests can be performed for very little cost. However, in Australia, rebates are fixed for each test and do not vary directly with volume of tests ordered.â€\x9d The current Pathology Funding Agreement between the government and the pathology industry is due to expire in June. Duckett told Australia “the industry has been getting a free rideâ€\x9d. “Medicare pays a fixed price per test,â€\x9d he said. “For the pathology companies, the more tests they do, the less each subsequent test costs. So why can’t the government and the taxpayer share some of those savings?â€\x9d Reforming existing funding arrangements to share the benefits of this scale economy could yield savings of around $75m per year, while further savings of around $100m a year could be made by abolishing the bulk-billing incentive for pathology providers and requiring participating pathology companies to bulk bill all services, the report says. Additional savings could be made if the government opened pathology services to a tender process, the report says, with two major companies currently controlling 75% of the industry. “The point is there is no price competition,â€\x9d Duckett said. “The government sets the price and the pathology companies don’t have to compete. Through a tender process, public hospitals and smaller companies could enter the market, which is big enough to have some competition in it.â€\x9d But Liesel Wett, chair of Pathology Australia, the peak body for private pathology, said the data used in the report was problematic and did not account for all the savings the industry had passed on to the government. “Pathology Australia has had an initial review of the opinion piece on pathology funding by Stephen Duckett,â€\x9d she said. “On that initial review it is clear that most of the data used is incorrect and incomplete, and as a result the conclusions are also incorrect. Australian pathology is amongst the most efficient in the world.â€\x9d Dr Michael Harrison, the president of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, also described the report as “opinionâ€\x9d. “Pathology fees are 12% less than they were in the year 2000, and the efficiency dividends that have come back to the government in this time represents savings of more than 40%,â€\x9d he said. “The government has been getting the savings.â€\x9d He said the report also failed to account for coning rules, which mean when a GP orders pathology tests, the government only pays for the three most expensive and any subsequent tests required are free. “The government is getting a huge discount through that process,â€\x9d Harrison said. But Duckett said even though only the first three tests are charged to the government, the costs of running the second test were lower than the first, and the cost of the third test lower still. Yet all three tests were still paid for in full by Medicare. “Coning certainly yields savings, which we actually do acknowledge in the report,â€\x9d Duckett said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more savings to be made. It’s very easy for lobby groups to say costs have gone down, but that doesn’t mean they’ve gone down enough. Our firm view is that there is much more room for taxpayers and the government to share in industry savings.â€\x9d In response to the federal government’s plans to scrap the bulk-billing incentive for pathology companies, the pathology industry has warned it would have no choice but to pass the costs onto patients by introducing a $30 patient co-payment for blood, urine and pap smear tests. But the health minister, Sussan Ley, said the Grattan report confirmed the pathology industry had “no justifiable groundsâ€\x9d for doing so. “It is further proof this is nothing but a tacky scare campaign by stock exchange-listed pathology companies aimed at protecting their profits by unfairly playing on the fears of some of our most anxious and vulnerable patients,â€\x9d Ley said. “As this timely report points out it is actually a series of questionable business decisions, aggressive acquisitions and dud property deals undertaken by these pathology companies which are the real drivers behind a ‘convenient excuse’ to try and introduce a patient co-payment.â€\x9d The chief executive officer of the Consumers Health Forum, Leanne Wells, said patients would be spared the threatened co-payment for pathology, and taxpayers could save hundreds of millions if the lucrative pathology industry were subject to much-needed market-based reforms. “This significant report from the Grattan Institute shines a fresh light on the pathology costs issue and shows that we as taxpayers and consumers are already paying too much for pathology tests,â€\x9d she said. “The analysis provides some support for the stand taken by the Health Minister, Sussan Ley, that Medicare payments are not provided to guarantee the revenue of publicly-listed companies.â€\x9d",
 'Air fresheners, joss sticks, deodorants – and other killers in our midst Lemon and pine air fresheners. Solvents seeping slowly from plastics, paints and furnishings. Composite wood furniture and fittings, household cleaning products and DIY sealants and fillers. Foam insulation, insecticides, scanners, joss sticks, open fires, deodorants, dust mites, mould and dander from dogs and cats. These are some of the bewildering range of apparently innocuous household objects – and animals – that may be killing us indoors, according to a new report from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Heath. Most of us spend most of our lives indoors. So, how can we improve the air we breathe? We should live more like our grandmothers and throw open the windows of our homes for a few minutes every day, says Professor Stephen Holgate, an asthma expert at the University of Southampton who led the report. Modern, energy-efficient homes may be less leaky, but that means it is vital to introduce fresh air to dilute chemical pollution and remove moisture, which encourages moulds. Of course, if the air isn’t fresh – if you live on a polluted main road, for instance – this may not be such a good solution. Holgate believes there has been little scientific investigation of indoor air pollution in Britain because it is an unseen problem (unlike 1950s smog). He says there is a reluctance to “interfere with industryâ€\x9d, too. Until there is more evidence, should we use fewer domestic chemicals? “Yes, we should. It has gone too far,â€\x9d says Holgate. “There are 15,000 chemicals circulating in an average human. Many are in tiny quantities, but we need to find out more about how these mixtures interact when they get inside the human body – especially the foetus, which is very sensitive.â€\x9d Although pollen-producing cut flowers are mentioned as a potential problem in the report, pot plants may mitigate some indoor pollution. Chemicals in air fresheners and scented household products produce formaldehyde when they react with the air. Everyday exposure can irritate the lungs and may contribute to asthma, cancers and other illnesses. A recent test for the BBC’s Trust Me, I’m a Doctor suggested that house plants such as the humble spider plant can reduce levels of formaldehyde. (Formaldehyde is also emitted by furniture; the US has set legal limits for formaldehyde emissions from wood products such as MDF at 0.09 parts a million.) “We can’t introduce laws to control what people do in their houses, but we can make people aware,â€\x9d says Holgate. He hopes that more people will buy portable air-pollution monitors, which work with apps to measure air quality – a bit like personal fitness-monitors. Once we can measure bad air, we can avoid it. “That’s real people power,â€\x9d says Holgate. “That’s going to change things.â€\x9d',
 'Zayn Malik: Mind of Mine review – downbeat sex jams drive assured rebrand Despite his protests of ignorance, the timing of Zayn Malik’s debut solo album, Mind of Mine, feels pretty significant. It comes out a year ago to the day after he released a statement confirming he’d left One Direction, the juggernaut, X Factor-created boyband that had propelled him from a slightly bored-looking teenager to a slightly bored-looking, incredibly wealthy adult. After leaving the group, he explained that he wanted to be “a normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlightâ€\x9d. Months after a very public spat with producer Naughty Boy, signing a solo deal with RCA Records and starting a relationship with model and reality TV star Gigi Hadid after an acrimonious split with his pop star fiancé Perrie Edwards, however, it appears he simply got bored of being normal. Set among the perma-smiling, chino-sporting lineup of One Direction, there was always something oddly compelling about Malik’s indifference. Rarely the most vocal in interviews or the most animated onstage (his moves largely boiled down to fiddling with his ear piece and pouting), his allure came from seemingly doing nothing at all. It was like he was chiselled from marble; blank but intriguing. While the smart money went on Harry Styles to forge a solo career, Malik took on the Robbie Williams role, a twinkly-eyed loose cannon who loves his mum but who couldn’t keep himself out of the tabloids (weed smoking, allegations of affairs, terrible tattoos). If various interviews are to be believed, he has barely spoken to his former bandmates since. It’s this outsider status – along with his hasty derision for his old band’s music – that makes his transition from Mumfordesque ballads and pepped-up pop anthems to weed-fuelled downbeat sex jams on Mind of Mine feel like less of a stretch than if Niall Horan had done it. The importance of getting the first single right means recent UK and US No 1 Pillowtalk is basically a checklist of heavy-handed, I’m-a-man-not-a-boy rebellion. So there’s swearing (“fucking and fightingâ€\x9d to “piss off the neighboursâ€\x9d), alongside that Weeknd-esque trope of conflating pain and pleasure into one woozy, weed-filled 4am tryst. There’s also lashings of overwrought guitar, as though rock’n’roll still signals danger. Thankfully, Malik settles into a less ham-fisted groove as the album unfolds (although its title and artwork both suggest he hasn’t completely mastered subtlety yet). The excellent first half showcases his Frank Oceanesque falsetto on the sad-eyed, organ-drenched It’s You (produced by Channel Orange’s main producer, Malay), and on Befour’s pulsating electro-throb there’s a head-spinning vocal performance you don’t tend to get from a former boyband members, Justin Timberlake aside. Perhaps the album’s highlight is the double whammy of mid-tempo standouts She and Drunk, with the former featuring a fairly cold and distant lyric about Malik offering no solace to someone in need (“She wants somebody to love, to hold herâ€\x9d), while the latter’s percolating emotion finally offers a glimpse behind the cool-guy exterior (“Red eyes, amnesia, I need ya,â€\x9d he coos). From the lovely, pastoral intermission Flower (sung in Urdu in recognition of Malik’s Pakistani heritage), the album’s quality dips slightly, the downcast tempo and reverb-heavy finger-click beats becoming vaporous by the time he and Kehlani swap hazily lustful lines on Wrong (weirdly, the excellent, upbeat Like I Would is relegated to the deluxe edition). There’s still time for surprising moments – Fool For You’s Lennon-inspired piano-lead ballad, the lovely Rear View (“It sounds like you need a friendâ€\x9d) and the glitchy Timberlake-isms of the closing TIO – but the meandering Lucozade is a chorus-less mumble, while the slowburn Truth is lost in the second-half fog. The lasting impression of Mind of Mine, however, is of someone finally making the music they’ve wanted to make for a long time. That the sound he’s chosen – clipped beats, hazy production flourishes, oodles of falsetto as a shortcut for emotional honesty – is basically 2016 writ large may seem bandwagon-jumping, but there’s more than enough good stuff here to suggest it’s been created with love rather than with an eye on ticking boxes. You sense he’s had enough of the latter to last him a lifetime.',
 'In an electronic world, cash still has currency Kenneth Rogoff (Why cash isn’t king any more, theguardian.com, 5 September) erroneously suggests that a less-cash society would be “fairer and saferâ€\x9d. His thesis is that cash payments aid and abet the underground economy and that we should gradually curtail them in favour of alternative electronic payment systems. More than a dozen countries have imposed restrictions on cash payments but until now, no evaluation of the effectiveness of these measures has ever been undertaken. There does not appear to be any correlation between the size of the shadow economy and the adoption of restrictions. As Rogoff himself acknowledges, scaling back paper currency would hardly end criminal activity or tax evasion. The vast majority of cash transactions are perfectly legitimate, while the vast majority of cash users are law-abiding citizens. Making life just that little bit harder for a handful of criminals at the expense of millions of law-abiding citizens would be the ultimate example of taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Cash is fundamentally about freedom. As the German central banker Carl-Ludwig Thiele observed, abolishing cash would hurt consumer sovereignty. Do we really want the state to collude with large financial institutions to know every single detail about how we spend our money and where? Moreover, curtailing cash payments in favour of alternative electronic payment systems would also have far-reaching social consequences. In terms of financial inclusion, restricting cash would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, including young, elderly and infirm people. At a time when cash in circulation is increasing, along with the value of ATM transactions, it seems illogical of Rogoff and others to wish to discriminate against it. All of which suggests that cash still has currency, and if not king, it certainly has a prominent seat at the top table of payment methods. Ron Delnevo Executive director Europe, ATM Industry Association • My grandchildren are quite familiar with our daily milk deliveries by Tony in his float (Letters, 7 September). But I made some joke about something not being worth a farthing and totally flummoxed my 18-year-old grandson who had never heard the word. He was even more confused at the idea of a coin that was worth one quarter of an old penny, so I abandoned the attempt to explain that it took 960 farthings to make one pound. Judith Abbs London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'Fat White Family: Songs for Our Mothers review – the modern Throbbing Gristle As the song titles (Goodbye Goebbels, When Shipman Decides) on Fat White Family’s second album show, the south London squat-rockers love to provoke. Songs for Our Mothers, then, is nothing of the sort, its grimy fusion of Germanic disco (Whitest Boy on the Beach), demonic swamp rock (Duce) and drug-addled noise (We Must Learn to Rise) positing the band as a modern Throbbing Gristle. What they’re trying to say isn’t always clear – are they sixth-form shock merchants or more profound? – but the five-piece most impress at their least confrontational. Hits Hits Hits, inspired by abusive relationships, is loose-limbed psych-funk with a shot of creepiness.',
 'Daniel Craig and Halle Berry to team up on LA riots drama Daniel Craig and Halle Berry are set to star in Kings, a love story set amid the 1992 LA riots, according to Deadline. It will be the English language debut of Turkish-French film-maker Deniz Gamze Ergüven, whose first film, Mustang, was Oscar-nominated for best foreign language film. Craig will play Ollie, one of the few white residents living in South Central during the Rodney King trial. The recluse is brought out of his shell when he meets Berry’s character, a working-class mum who has taken responsibility for a group of local kids. When violence breaks out, Ollie helps Berry’s character get the kids to safety. The 1992 riots started after three of the four police officers caught on video beating unarmed taxi driver Rodney King were acquitted of brutality charges. A seminal moment in modern American history, the riots have rarely been depicted outside of documentary cinema. Yet Ergüven’s film is one of two related feature projects currently making their way to the screen: John Ridley, writer of 12 Years a Slave and writer-director of Jimi: All is By My Side also has a film about the unrest in development. Craig, officially still the lead in the James Bond franchise, famously said he’d rather “slash his wristsâ€\x9d than play 007 again, but still hasn’t confirmed whether he’ll leave the role. He’s signed up to star in Logan Lucky, Steven Soderbergh’s official return to feature directing, which will also feature Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and Katherine Heigl. Berry, who appeared opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 2002 Bond film Die Another Day, will next appear in Kidnap, an abduction thriller. She’s also signed up to play an American secret agent called Ginger in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman sequel The Golden Circle.',
 'Cult heroes: Deniz Tek – Stooges fan and fighter pilot who took punk to Australia Over a career spanning more than 40 years as a guitarist and songwriter, Deniz Tek has been remarkably consistent, though not necessarily prolific. Tek, who is best known for his work with the Australian proto-punk band Radio Birdman, averages a studio album or EP release every two to three years, and has often gone several years between releases. However, he has a few other strings to his bow. By the time Radio Birdman released their scorching debut EP Burn My Eye in 1976, Tek was already studying medicine. He became a flight surgeon with the US navy, where he also trained as a fighter pilot, and now divides his time between rock’n’roll and working as a trauma surgeon in in Australia and Hawaii. Clearly, he’s not one of those musicians who’s at a loss when they haven’t got a gig lined up. Tek was born and grew up in the US, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he would sneak into gigs by the MC5 and the Stooges, who proved to be among his primary influences. When his father, an engineering professor, was offered a year’s secondment at the University of New South Wales in Sydney in 1967, the family temporarily relocated to Australia. After graduating from high school in the US, Tek wanted to pursue his own degree in medicine and he decided to study in Sydney. By the time he had seen the Rolling Stones on their 1972 Australian tour – and sold a vintage National guitar to Keith Richards, no less – it was clear that music was going to be as much a part of his life as his curative vocation. While Tek had a direct connection to the Detroit sound that had developed in his home state, Radio Birdman evolved more or less in isolation in Sydney; something that Tek believes benefited the band. Although that had its downsides – Birdman were ignored and even disdained by the music industry in Australia, and had to book their own venues to play concerts – it made them even more committed to their unique brand of high-energy rock’n’roll. When I was growing up in Australia, too young to have seen Birdman in their 1976-78 prime, the band were almost mythical. It was a code among music freaks: you may have known the Ramones and the Clash and even the Saints, but unless you knew of Birdman you were a no-mark. Their instantly recognisable logo was seen on cars, guitars, school lockers and surfboards in every town on the east coast – surf music was the thing that gave Birdman their identity above and beyond the Detroit sound. Birdman dissolved acrimoniously in 1978, and despite a few appearances by key members in several post-Birdman bands, it wasn’t until Tek toured Australia in 1992 that the first post-Birdman generation got to see some of their songs live (hundreds of other bands playing earnest cover versions notwithstanding). The fact that Birdman’s other guitarist, Chris Masuak, and their keyboardist, Pip Hoyle, were on board for Tek’s solo tour only added to the expectation. Tek had recently retired from the US military, but he was understandably proud of his accomplishments. The solo album that formed the basis of the 1992 tour was called Take It to the Vertical, and featured a cover image of Tek in the cockpit of an F4 Phantom. That was a revelation in itself, as few Birdman fans at the time had any idea he had another career outside music. Then it turned out he was also an emergency surgeon based in Billings, Montana. For anyone who read the music press, it was obvious he was a fairly remarkable individual. But more than anything else, the concerts proved that Tek’s music and his guitar playing had lost none of their power. Since then, Radio Birdman have reformed several times, and their reputation has not diminished. Tek still plays with complete commitment – as he once put it, when he’s on the road he’s “hard-wired to the go switchâ€\x9d. In 2014, at the age of 62, playing solo and Radio Birdman material in a power trio in Europe, he did 29 concerts in 28 days across eight countries. It looks as if 2016 is turning into another busy year for him: Radio Birdman are touring Australia in June, followed by a three-week European tour, and in September, Tek is releasing his sixth solo album. He’s not one for standing still – and long may that continue.',
 'The end of the night – in the 80s, the Wag Club was glorious but it could never happen now As the march of gentrification and greed transforms London – as well as many of the UK’s other inner cities – one great British institution that has fallen foul has been the nightlife business. In London, the area that has suffered the most is Soho. Once a naughty, massively inspiring little Petri dish from which the likes of David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud emerged, it is being rapidly reshaped into something resembling a homogenised shopping mall. One of the first institutions to fall foul of the evisceration of Soho was the Wag, the club Ollie O’Donnell and I founded in 1982 and which ran until 2001. When we began, Soho was really rather seedy and rundown, which was exactly what attracted the young, the groovy and the inventive. The Wag – a nightclub that catered, in the main, to a gang of non-conformist mavericks – was thoroughly appropriate to that crowd. Ollie and I started by packing out the Whisky a Go Go in Wardour Street every Saturday night with our own crowd, then the club’s new leaseholders asked us to run it with them full time. So we lowered the drinks and the door price (which was possible because rents were fair back then), pulled in DJs who played underground music, and the place took off. We were young and aware, so we knew what was happening and approached the running of the club with a zeal that at times dropped us in the proverbial. In November 1982, we hosted the first ever hip-hop club event in the UK, The Roxy Road Show – featuring 25 artists who flew in from New York, including Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Wizard Theodore (who invented scratching), Jazzy Jay and Fab 5 Freddy, rope skipping stars the Double Dutch Girls and legendary breakdancers the Rock Steady Crew. It was complete and utter mayhem, but in a good way. The club was absolutely packed when, at my behest, then unknown graffiti artist Futura 2000 did his live spray-can art on stage and more or less asphyxiated everyone. We later made a name for ourselves by booking all the major rap acts – De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Eric B and Rakim, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Flash, Doug E Fresh. It’s been said that we were responsible for breaking hip-hop in the UK but, for me, it made sense in every way: the acts had never played London before, and it was relatively cheap to bring them over. All it took was two or three discounted flights and a couple of nights in a friend’s dad’s hotel in Bloomsbury. Simple economics. Because I’d been in a band it was my job to source, book and promote the live acts. Sometimes they worked and other times they did not. Even though we all knew of Shane MacGowan’s proclivities I booked Pogue Mahone just as they were starting off. The third time they played, MacGowan was so drunk I was surprised he could stand, never mind sing, but it made no difference because the show stopped after 20 minutes when he tried to hit bassist Cait O’Riordan over the head with his guitar. Then there was the legendary jazz maestro Slim Gaillard, who sold out the club but, rather in his cups, retired to the bar after two songs, fell asleep on it and woke up two hours later, his backing band and the crowd having long departed. I turned down a Prince afterparty/jam session because I’d already booked Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry on the same night. He cost us a packet, but the club was crammed so all was OK until Perry, somewhat chemically enhanced, sang the same song (his new single) 15 times and emptied the club before midnight. We lost our shirts. But there were bigger losses – Bobby Womack’s show was cancelled an hour before it was due to start because of a bomb scare round the corner in Leicester Square; Gil Scott Heron’s gig was called off when he was arrested at Heathrow for possession of cocaine. Both had sold out and we had to refund all ticket holders, leaving us with the cost of the flights and hotel rooms. Of course, other acts were simply magnificent. I recall the surprise on Georgie Fame’s face as he looked out at the crowd of immaculate mods, dressed just as they would have when he played the Flamingo (in the basement of the Whisky a Go Go) in 1962. James Brown’s backing band the JBs were gobsmacked that the crowd (many in 70s kit) knew all their numbers by heart. New acts thrived, too: Sade, Fine Young Cannibals, Curiosity Killed the Cat, the Pasadenas and Swing Out Sister were all signed after shows at the Wag. The Wag was synonymous with what was happening on the street. We played a huge role in kick-starting the acid house movement by hosting sets from Marshall Jefferson, Tony Humphries, Frankie Knuckles, Todd Terry and Masters at Work, among many others, while Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong and Andy Weatherall established their reps at the Wag. But it wasn’t just about music. It was also about meeting people and showing off. Diehard regular Jonathan Ross met his wife Jane Goldman at the Wag. Designers such as John Galliano paraded their designs here; Leigh Bowery strutted his magnificent stuff; future Turner prize winners Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry were regulars; Boy George, Joe Strummer and Neneh Cherry came every week for a little dance. All the attention meant global superstars came to our little ramshackle venue (with no VIP area) for a look: David Bowie (who came a lot and filmed his Blue Jean video there), Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Prince, George Clinton, Stevie Wonder, Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier. George Michael had a fight with our DJ Fat Tony and Grace Jones had to be physically restrained after laying out an irritating bloke with a single punch. Some have said that at one point the Wag was the grooviest club on the planet, but I couldn’t tell. I was too busy trying to fill a Tuesday night. None had this would have happened had we not been in our mid-20s, not that different from most of our patrons, and brave (or stupid) enough to take chances and, most importantly, had the rent not been cheap enough for us to experiment. Today, not only would I not be able to run a West End club, I wouldn’t even be able to hang out in Soho, because landlords and developers have priced the young and not-so-well-off out of inner London. It has been suggested that London should follow Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich and Toulouse and appoint a night mayor to protect our after-dark businesses and the people who use them. Certainly, unless something is done we will lose the talent that has traditionally risen through our night-time economy – graphic designers, artists, DJs, entertainers writers, photographers and musicians of every kind who hone their skills and develop by working with clubs and promoters. I don’t think its possible to overestimate just how important this is for any city or country, and that is why Amsterdam, Paris and Zurich are protecting their nightlife. We have to follow suit before it’s too late. Chris Sullivan presents The Wag Club is available now on Harmless Records.',
 "Temple Taggart: Donald Trump wants to 'silence his accusers’ with legal threats One of the women accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate sexual behavior, Temple Taggart, a former Miss Utah, said on Friday she was ready to countersue the Republican presidential candidate if he carried out his promise to sue all of his accusers. Taggart, who has accused Trump of kissing her on the lips without consent, is one of 12 women who have come forward since the publication of a 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which the businessman boasted of kissing and groping women without their consent. Trump, who has denied all accusations against him, said last weekend he would sue all his accusers after the presidential election. Taggart, who has hired the lawyer Gloria Allred, said on Friday: “I’m not afraid of you, Mr Trump. If you carry out your threat to sue me, I will defend myself.â€\x9d Speaking alongside Allred at a press conference in Utah, Taggart said: “I felt like Mr Trump was trying to silence all of his accusers who had come forward, as well as others who might be thinking of coming forward. “Enough is enough. I feel like he is trying to bully and frighten us into silence. Mr Trump, that is not going to work with me.â€\x9d Another of the 12 women who have accused Trump, Jill Harth, said on Monday she would countersue if Trump pursued legal action against her. Taggart first spoke of Trump’s alleged actions in May, telling the New York Times he kissed her twice on the mouth in 1997, when she was a 21-year-old contestant in the Miss USA pageant. The first instance allegedly took place when she first met the businessman, at a pageant rehearsal. “Mr Trump greeted me with a hug and a kiss on my lips,â€\x9d Taggart, who said she had been very naive and “21 going on 16â€\x9d, said on Friday. “I was shocked because that was the first time that any man had ever greeted me in that manner, but I ended up excusing his behavior as a way that east coast people meet each other.â€\x9d She said the second alleged incident took place when she travelled to New York later that year, to discuss her future with Trump and to meet modeling agencies. “To my surprise, Trump embraced me and kissed me on the lips for a second time,â€\x9d she said. “It was that second kiss that made me wonder what his intentions really were. “What he did made me feel so uncomfortable that I ended up cutting my trip short, bought my own plane ticket, flew home and never spoke to him again.â€\x9d Taggart, a Republican who says she will probably vote for the independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin, said she wanted to make sure that other women feel comfortable coming forward and not frightened that Trump will call them “liarsâ€\x9d and threaten legal action. “Times have changed,â€\x9d said the mother of three. “Women are empowered now. And we will not tolerate being bullied any more.â€\x9d Allred represents four women who allege inappropriate sexual behavior by the Republican nominee. “Groping women is completely unacceptable,â€\x9d she said. “Threatening women who come forward to speak out about what they claim happened to them is also completely unacceptable. “I assure you, Mr Trump, they will not be left to stand alone while you attempt to trample over them with your lawsuits. Many attorneys will come to their aid. And I will be one of them.â€\x9d Allred has a history of representing women in sexual harassment and misconduct cases, including 33 women who have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct.",
 "We Have Always Lived in the Castle: America's queen of weird hits the screen As the queen of American weird fiction, Shirley Jackson’s stories and novels have perhaps been neglected by Hollywood more than her reputation and talent would merit. That’s possibly because Jackson’s vast oeuvre could be deemed largely unfilmable for modern audiences, relying on the building of tension, dread and disquiet through the subtle progression of narratives that are in many cases built on internal monologues. Now, though, one of Jackson’s best-loved novels is coming to the big screen in the shape of her 1961 triumph – and to my mind her best book – We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The Hollywood Reporter revealed this week that filming began in Dublin this month on an adaptation co-produced by Michael Douglas and directed by Stacie Passon, in what is the centenary year of Jackson’s birth. The first star announced was Sebastian Stan, who played the Winter Soldier in the Captain America movies. Stan’s role as Charles Blackwood, while an important one in the plot, is relatively minor compared to the two main characters, Constance and Mary Katherine Blackwood, and their casting announcements came later on Wednesday – Alexandra Daddario (from the Percy Jackson series) will play elder sibling Constance, while American Horror Story’s Taissa Farmiga will be Mary Katherine – Merricat to her small family. Constance and Merricat exist together with their rather befuddled Uncle Julian in a rambling, tumbledown pile, all that remains of a once grand dynasty which was all but wiped out when someone put arsenic into the sugar bowl which most of the family sprinkled on their desert. Elder sister Constance is generally thought to have committed the deed, though nothing could be proved. Still, the townsfolk are convinced that was the case and the killings have passed into local legend, children singing rhymes about the deaths to Merricat as she ventures infrequently into civilisation to gather supplies. They live a life of sequestered, fading grandeur, which is only interrupted with the arrival of cousin Charles, who begins to court pale Constance. But is he just trying to get his hands on the family silver? And tensions are rising between the Blackwoods and the townsfolk … A gothic enough tale, but related in such pedestrian terms barely scratches the surface of Jackson’s novel. The devil is in the detail of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the story told through the eyes of troubled Merricat and her unsettling rituals – she hangs totems and fetishes around the bounds of the Blackwood land to protect the remains of the family – and her thoughts are very dark indeed. The novel is a masterpiece of the macabre, and the tension ratcheted up by Jackson, who died in 1965 after being troubled with demons of her own in the shape of painkillers and alcohol, is almost unbearable. As such, it is difficult to see just how it could be packaged up for cinema audiences who perhaps like their blockbusters big on action and light on twisted introspection. However, with director Passon also having a credit for the Amazon Studios’ transgender drama Transparent as well as the Sundance hit Concussion, which she wrote and directed, perhaps she has an eye for the offbeat which might just pull off the adaptation. If so, an impressive adaptation of a Shirley Jackson novel will have been a long-time coming. Only two of her stories have made it to the big screen – 1957’s Lizzie, based on her short story The Bird’s Nest being the first. Perhaps Jackson’s most famous novel, The Haunting of Hill House, has been filmed twice, both times as The Haunting. The 1963 version of this story of a group of psychics invited to stay at a haunted house is by far the best, transferring Jackson’s prose into cramped monochrome menace with the unforgettable scene where one character sharing a bed with another talks of her growing fears, only to find when the light is switched on that her roommate is nowhere near. So whose hand has she been holding? The less said about the fairly execrable 1999 remake the better. Perhaps Jackson’s most famous short story, The Lottery, has been adapted three times, twice for television (though the 1996 version is only loosely based on Jackson’s story, and attempts to form some kind of sequel) and once as a short film in 1969. Whether We Have Always Lived In The Castle is indeed even capable of being successfully filmed we’ll have to wait and see. But if it opens up Jackson’s work to a wider audience in her centenary year, then it’ll have some merit at least.",
 'What working as an FGM counsellor taught me about female sexuality I had the birds and the bees conversation with my daughter when she was around four years old. I told her that sex is an act that two consenting adults choose to do and I stressed that nobody should touch her body in any way that makes her uncomfortable. We have revisited this conversation over the years. I told her that her genitals are called a vagina, not fanny, nunnie, minnie or down there. I was sick and tired of the pervading belief that women and girls can’t describe our body parts directly. Now nearly 10 years after that conversation (she’s just turned 14) teenage hormones are in full swing, with eye rolling and tuning me out while listening to Rihanna. But I love the fact we have frank open conversations about most things and I truly treasure the times we don’t agree. I love that she has her own views about the world. With that in mind, I want to share some thoughts about my work that made me think of my daughter and the pressure girls around the world face in relation to their sexuality. As part of my work with the Dahlia Project, a counselling service I founded for women and girls who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), I run sessions for refugee women where I talk about the cultures they grew up in. The discussion always leads to sex, and a recurring theme is virginity. Many of the women are educated and considered liberal in their way of thinking. They say their daughters are equal to their sons. However, they also say they want their daughters to remain virgins to protect them from harm and so that future husbands will respect them. What interests me about these conversations is that the women openly talked about being cheated on or beaten by their so-called respectful husbands. I nudged the women to reflect. “Did remaining a virgin work for you?â€\x9d I asked. “Did it prevent the violence and betrayal he had caused you?â€\x9d Many were baffled by my questions. By our second session some of the women were starting to realise that cultural patriarchy was alive and well in their homes, and they were complicit in committing the oppression they had endured against their own daughters. Sadly I only had two sessions with these women, and they left me questioning this universal obsession with virginity. I remember newspaper articles about Kate Middleton, being slut-shamed in newspaper articles for not being a virgin before marriage and rumour has it Diana had to prove her virginity before marrying Prince Charles. If a woman is sexually free or has multiple partners, society shames her and makes her feel bad about herself. While dating I’ve been asked how many men I’ve slept with. This idea of being judged based on the history of my vagina is absolutely ludicrous and another form of control of women’s sexuality. My brother and all the men in my life are never asked such questions yet alone judged on them. Society high-fives men with multiple sexual partners. I had my first sexual experience at the age of 18 with my then husband (I’m currently happily divorced). I didn’t make the choice to stay a virgin. I did so for two reasons. Firstly, I wasn’t the girl boys were lining up to date. I was a super nerd who didn’t wear makeup or pluck her eyebrows. So, no temptation or struggle for me. Secondly, my mother told me sex was great and nothing to be ashamed about. As a teenager I wasn’t keen to try something my mother enjoyed (remember that trick, parents). I remind my daughter that whenever the day comes that she wants to lose her virginity (why is it something you lose, like a precious possession?), it is no one’s business but hers. If anyone tries to judge her based on her genitals, I tell her to just walk away. I tell her that our vaginas are very special and powerful, we bleed and give birth from them, and it’s her right as a woman to enjoy sex one day. It’s a beautiful and enjoyable act. Patriarchy tried to prevent me and over 200 million FGM survivors from living as sexual beings, but through therapy and a loving supportive partner many of these women can and are enjoying sex. There is hope. Dear world, women have sex and enjoy it, so get over the idea that virginity is something to protect. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter. Join the conversation with the hashtag #SheMatters.',
 "Brad and Angelina proved there's no such thing as the perfect marriage: so why do we pretend? Pretty much all the cliches of the fairytale (the noble prince, the helpless princess) have long been satirised, in everything from The Princess Bride to Shrek to the Zog books by the brilliant Julia Donaldson. But there is one myth that even the most cynical of humans stubbornly clings to – the promise of “happily ever afterâ€\x9d, even if all around us is the proof that this is about as likely as a fire-breathing dragon. According to a recent report from the Office for National Statistics, the number of couples in Britain who describe themselves as “extremely unhappyâ€\x9d has doubled in the past five years, while those who describe their relationship as “perfectâ€\x9d has gone down from 9.2% to 5.9%. The ONS does not state how many of those who claimed their relationship was “perfectâ€\x9d in previous studies are now saying they are “extremely unhappyâ€\x9d, but I’d wager there was significant crossover. After all, those who cling to an illusion are the most likely to be disappointed by the reality. This summer has proffered plenty of evidence of the death of this myth. From Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, and her husband, some of the most loudly self-proclaimed happy relationships have come to an end. When a high-profile marriage ends, the journalistic cliche is to say that the reason fans feel unnerved is because they think that, if the celebrities can’t make it work, who can? This is nonsense. As much as people still desperately want to believe in a happily ever after, only the most naive child would think that buckets of money, the constant glare of attention, and at least one desperately needy and narcissistic person sounds like a recipe for a happy marriage. Frankly, I’ve always thought it a miracle that any celebrity marriages last. Instead, the shock of a high-profile divorce is that these are the people who, more than anyone, have promoted the myth of happily ever after, through their work and, often, through interviews and romantic photo opportunities. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard met on movies, as did Pitt and Jolie – films that ended with the promise that only happiness awaited their characters after the closing credits. Elizabeth Gilbert’s relationship with Jose Nunes was the basis of her best-known books, from Eat, Pray, Love (made into a predictably slushy Hollywood film) to Committed, her book about her marriage. But in July, Gilbert announced they were divorcing, and that she is now in a relationship with her best friend, who is currently undergoing cancer treatment. Amid the supportive cheers, some of Gilbert’s fans expressed sadness for Nunes, and who can blame them? He had been sold as their symbol of the happily ever after. (By contrast, the most recent celebrities to separate, Zoë Ball and Norman Cook, were always extremely open about their struggles with infidelity, addiction and the general mundanity of marriage. For this reason, the announcement of their split felt to me like the saddest of all.) And yet the myth persists. In her third Bridget Jones book, Mad About The Boy, Helen Fielding famously killed off Mark Darcy, presumably partly because she herself was divorced by this point and somewhat over the happily ever after storyline. (It is often forgotten how sceptical the original book was about marriage, with its satirisation of Smug Marrieds.) But Hollywood would never allow such cynicism: in the latest absurd movie instalment, Bridget Jones’s Baby, Darcy is firmly resurrected. Do you really need a spoiler alert if I say “Guess the ending?â€\x9d The best books I have read recently are the ones that resist the simplistic love-cures-all conclusions. In Jessi Klein’s terrific collection of essays, You’ll Grow Out Of It, she continues the story after her wedding, describing her fertility struggles and the toll this took on her relationship. Rachel Dratch’s memoir, Girl Walks Into A Bar, is a fascinating riposte to the upbeat “you go girl!â€\x9d female memoir cliche, detailing not just her diminishing professional success but an honest account of what it’s like to be single in your mid-40s. On screen, Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior has proved it is possible to make a delightfully optimistic romcom that begins and ends with a breakup. I never liked Elizabeth Gilbert’s gratingly simplistic memoirs, but her last novel, The Signature Of All Things, is astonishingly brilliant: big-hearted and beady-eyed, it looks at how the romantic fantasy can corrode a woman’s imagination and blind her to reality. Most of all, it knows that happy endings come in all guises, not just with a bridal veil.",
 'Google, Facebook and Microsoft race to get 1 billion Indians online When Manish Kumar first came to the village of Harisal in western India in July, he didn’t think he could stay there for very long. “It was monsoon, so it was difficult to reach because the roads were bad. There was no phone signal, and the electricity only comes on for a few hours in the evening. The people there are farmers, so they wake up early. They work all day, and then in the evening they eat dinner before dark. And then they go to sleep. There’s nothing else to do.â€\x9d But the typical agricultural setting of Harisal was about to change. Kumar, the network head of a rural internet provider AirJaldi had come to transform it into India’s first digital village, under a scheme backed by the Indian government and software giant Microsoft. “We set up a Wi-Fi tower and three smaller hotspots. At first, people were struggling to get online, they didn’t know how to sign on, and we had to teach them. Now, when I visit the village, the kids come to us and teach us how to get the internet working.â€\x9d About 2,000 villagers live in Harisal. There are only five or six laptops in the village, but almost every household has a smartphone. For them, the new Wi-Fi connection changed their lives overnight. “We finally feel connected to the rest of the world,â€\x9d says Jagdishkumar Someshwar Sirsat, the headmaster of the village school. “It’s made small tasks easier. For example, we had to give attendance records to the state government. Before, someone would have to hand deliver those to the government office in the city. Now, we can just fill out a form online, and its done,â€\x9d he says. “And for the children – sometimes the textbooks don’t have enough information, or some things are not up to date. Now that they have internet, they can go online and look up whatever they’re interested in. For the older kids, we’re using online tutorials on YouTube and educational video blogs to teach them new things. They love it.â€\x9d Sheetal Thorat, a doctor in Harisal, says internet connections could save lives. “In the village, there are no specialists for the heart or brain. There’s just me and two other field doctors for the whole village, and we’re general practitioners. Now that we have Wi-Fi, we can set up consultations with heart or brain specialists in Mumbai, and then they can send back reports online.â€\x9d Microsoft funded the project, and plans to get 50 more villages around Harisal online. Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman of Microsoft India, says its project to get villages online is philanthropic. “We don’t have any commercial interest in these projects. We want telecom and other service providers to use the connectivity to provide citizens with useful services,â€\x9d he says. Microsoft has also previously said it would be good for its own business if more people were online. Google and Facebook join online push Microsoft is not alone in the race to get India online. Google has launched a scheme to provide free public Wi-Fi at 100 railway stations. About 3.5m users have already connected to Google’s station Wi-Fi service, with an estimated 15,000 people coming online for the first time every day thanks to the scheme. “We want to expand to new venues, like cafes and malls, to help more people get online, and we’re looking for strategic and forwarding-thinking partners to work with on this effort,â€\x9d says Caeser Sengupta, vice-president of Google’s “Next Billion Usersâ€\x9d team. Last year, Facebook tried to launch Free Basics, which would have allowed people in rural India free access to websites chosen by the company, but the plan was blocked after millions wrote to the telecoms authority saying the scheme would give Facebook too much power. Now, the company has come up with a new scheme, Express Wi-Fi, which will allow those in rural India to buy fast, cheap and reliable mobile data packs. India’s rapidly developing economy, and increasing smartphone penetration presents a huge opportunity for tech firms, who are looking for new markets to expand their products and services, as growth in western economies slows. According to the World Bank’s latest figures, 26% of India’s 1.25 billion population has internet access. In 2014–15, 60 million, equivalent to the entire UK population, went online for the first time. About 900 million people in India, mostly in rural areas, are offline. “India is the only major economy in the world that had a year-on-year growth in internet and smartphone users,â€\x9d says Vikas Kothari, tech analyst at venture capital firm Lightbox. “Large players like Google, Facebook and Microsoft are looking for their next set of billion users and India looks the most promising.â€\x9d Internet access could transform economy Facebook has not yet released details of how much profit it expects to make from its Express Wi-Fi service, or how much investment will be needed to subsidise rural data access, but the company says that internet access will benefit everybody. “Internet access means opportunity. It enables progress. It improves knowledge, economies, lives and communities,â€\x9d says a Facebook spokesperson. The tech companies may appear benevolent, but Kothari says they will all benefit if India’s internet accessibility increases. “In a [digital] ecosystem when infrastructure improves, the biggest beneficiaries are the large players,â€\x9d he explains. Kothari says the tech giants see India as a long-term investment. “The most visited sites or apps in India are Google Search, Play Store, YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Google and Facebook’s business models don’t depend on a fee, but on user data. If more people use their products, the more data they get, thus increasing their ad revenues.â€\x9d For India, better internet infrastructure could transform the economy, and the lives of ordinary citizens. “Improved connectivity will further democratise access to education, healthcare and financial services. People in remote areas will get access to skill-development courses, tertiary telemedicine and reports on agriculture and commodity prices, thus improving their lives,â€\x9d says Kothari.',
 'Liverpool 2-2 Newcastle United: Premier League – as it happened That’s all for now! Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to check back later for a full match report from Anfield. Here’s a game where the substitutions changed everything. Liverpool let their foot off the glass briefly and it came back to bite them. Not that Newcastle will turn down the gifted point, which they desperately need in their relegation battle. 90 min+3: One last chance for Liverpool as Lovren moves quickly up the middle of the pitch and plays it forward. It goes out for an apparent corner but before it can be awarded, the referee blows the whistle for full time. 90 min: Entering the final stages Newcastle seem on track for the most improbable of points. Three minutes of stoppage time forthcoming. 87 min: Ojo surges up the right side and pulls it back to Coutinho at the top of the area but his one-time shot is saved. Liverpool will have a corner. 83 min: Two more subs. For Liverpool, Ojo enters for the goal-scorer Lallana. For Newcastle, it’s the former LFC midfielder Jonjo Shelvey on for Cheik Tiote. 81 min: Liverpool work it up the right flank again and the ball is sent into Sturridge, who heads it weakly toward the goal where the keeper easily scoops it in. 80 min: The corner is turned away but Liverpool have another chance when the ball falls to Stewart, but his one-time shot sailed high and wide over the goal. 78 min: We’re into the final quarter hour and Liverpool have a corner after Lallana surges toward the goal and it’s pushed out by a defender. 75 min: Benitez with Newcastle’s second switch: Cisse off for Mitrovic. 71 min: Two subs for Liverpool. Lucas and Coutinho entering for Randall and Allen. Milner will shift to right back. Newcastle counter after Sturridge loses possession and Jack Colback rips a shot that’s deflected past Mignolet into the goal. As @thisisanfield notes, it’s the second time Liverpool have surrendered a two-goal advantage against the team from the Northeast this year. 62 min: Another Liverpool corner is turned away. Good counter-attack by Newcastle and the ball is out for a corner. It’s played short and sent into the area, but Stewart meets it in the air and heads it away. 60 min: One hour down and Liverpool appear to have regained their footing after going on walkabout for the first five minutes of the half. 59 min: Milner’s service into the area is headed into the back of the net by Allen but Firmino is ruled offside. It was close but replay confirms he was off by half a yard. 56 min: Moments after Milner is show yellow for a clattering challenge, he wins a free kick from just near the corner flag. He sends it into the Newcastle area but it’s easily cleared. 52 min: Sturridge tripped inside the area and appeals for the penalty, but while he’s still on the ground Newcastle are countering brilliant. It’s Cisse by himself on the edge of the area but he takes one touch too many, Liverpool’s defenders close in and somehow they escape it. It really should be 2-2! And Newcastle start the second half with the spark and verve they showed to end the first. A long cross from Anita toward the back post is headed home by Cisse and the Toon are back in business! 46 min: Newcastle have made one change at half-time: Ayoze Perez exits for Georginio Wijnaldum. Speaking of, Uefa have issued a statement on Sakho. UEFA would like to confirm the information communicated by Liverpool FC regarding an adverse finding in a doping test of their player Mamadou Sakho conducted at the UEFA Europa League match between Manchester United FC and Liverpool FC on 17 March 2016 (1-1). The player and the club have received all the pertinent information and have until Tuesday to request the analysis of the B ssample as well as to provide explanations for the presence of a prohibited substance in the players’ body. There are no disciplinary proceedings opened at this stage. Look who’s been spotted at Anfield. A comfortable opening half for the Reds, who answered the bell nicely with an early goal from Sturridge and Lallana’s follow-up. 44 min: Another shot for Anita, one that sails high and wide over the goal, but no doubt Newcastle’s strongest patch today. 41 min: Signs of life from Newcastle as Anita is played through up the right side and sends it into Cisse, whose header is thudded just wide of the goal 37 min: A note from JR in Illinois, via email: I can’t quite believe that nobody (save for a very brief mention by announcer Gary Weaver) seemed to notice the incident about 30 seconds before Sturridge scored. I went back and watched it several times. Mignolet came out of his goal to punch the ball. Not only does it clearly look like the ball was outside the box but Mignolet also cleaned Perez’s clock. Looked an awful lot like two yellow card offences. Weird. Must confess I missed it myself. Will review at the half. 36 min: Another chance for Liverpool as Firmino surges up the right flank and sends it into the area. It appears to be handled by a defender but appeals for a penalty go unacknowledged by the referee. 35 min: Firmino nearly makes it 3-0 on a point-blank chance from inside the area, but a last-gasp challenge by the center back interrupts. 33 min: Tiote, already on a yellow, throws down Joe Allen near the touch line and appears to be a red card waiting to happen. Almost looks like he wants to get sent off. Lallana sends a beautifully struck left-footed curler into the top-left corner of the goal. Made it look so easy. A special goal. Moreno again with the assist. 23 min: Newcastle barely showing a pulse at the moment. A punchless performance so far to be sure. They enter today’s match on a run of nine straight away defeats. The club record is 10, set back in the 1930s, so history may be afoot. 21 min: Newcastle win a corner and it’s quickly cleared. Tiote shown yellow for a cynical foul on Lallana as the midfielder tries to key a Liverpool counter-attack. 20 min: More great interplay from Liverpool up the right flank. They’re really in fine form at the moment. 18 min: A ball is played through to Sturridge, whose quickly struck left-footed shot toward the upper-right corner of the goal just misses the mark. 16 min: Liverpool threatening again as the ball caroms off a series of defenders in the area. Firmino finally directs a shot toward the goal, but it’s turned away. 14 min: Liverpool’s center back Dejan Lovren is down and the medical staff are out to treat him. He’s sitting up now and Martin Skrtel has sprung from the bench to loosen up, but it looks as if Lovren will re-enter the match. 11 min: Liverpool threatening again after a bit of a rudderless stretch in the middle third. It’s Lallana evading defenders on the edge of the area trying to pick out Sturridge but his pass misses the target. 8 min: The referee stops play as Moreno is down with an injury. 5 min: What a start for Liverpool. The Kop faithful had yet to even finish their first-minute tribute to Benitez – you can probably guess the song – when Sturridge found the back of the goal for his fourth goal in five matches (and seventh in 11 career matches against Newcastle). 4 min: Newcastle win a corner but nothing comes of it and within moments Liverpool move it down the pitch into the final third and are threatening again. The match is a scant 68 seconds old when Sturridge times his run perfectly, traps a long pass from the halfway line, clinically spins around two defenders and thumps it past the keeper into the back of the goal. A dream start for the hosts. 1 min: And we’re off! Liverpool attacking left to right toward the Kop end in all-red strips, Newcastle from right to left. Some thoughts Liverpool’s manager in today’s match programme. Hello and welcome to today’s Premier League tie between Liverpool and Newcastle. The Toon are locked in a relegation battle and currently within two points of safety after a mid-week draw with Manchester City. A win today would lift them out of the drop zone, but three points could prove a tall order against a surging Liverpool side on a run of four straight wins across all competitions, most recently a 4-0 triumph over Merseyside rivals Everton on Wednesday. With about a half hour between now and kickoff, here’s a look at today’s teams. Liverpool XI: Mignolet, Randall, Toure, Lovren, Moreno, Stewart, Allen, Milner, Lallana, Firmino, Sturridge Subs: Ward, Skrtel, Smith, Lucas, Coutinho, Ibe, Ojo Newcastle XI: Darlow, Anita, Lascelles, Mbemba, Dummett, Townsend, Tiote, Colback, Sissoko, Perez, Cisse Subs: Woodman, Mbabu, Shelvey, Wijnaldum, Aarons, De Jong, Mitrovic Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime why not check out Andy Hunter’s preview of today’s match. Rafael BenÃ\xadtez’s return to Anfield as the interim manager of Chelsea in 2013 was overshadowed somewhat by Luis Suárez’s bite on Branislav Ivanovic. He heads back seeking a favour from his old club in his attempt to keep Newcastle in the Premier League, but Liverpool are not in the form to give one – regardless of what team Jürgen Klopp selects. With Villarreal in the Europa League semi-finals to come next week, Klopp may revert to the much-changed lineup that beat Bournemouth last Sunday. But there’s also been big news from Anfield already …',
 'Labor push for banking royal commission shut down by government Labor has moved a motion to introduce a banking royal commission in an attempt to derail the government’s agenda on the first substantive day of parliament since the election. But the government has shut the move down, pointing to a new inquiry into small business lending practices and other reforms to argue the royal commission is not needed. Bill Shorten, the opposition leader, on Wednesday sought a suspension of standing orders in the lower house to call for a royal commission. The motion was seconded by independent MP Bob Katter. Shorten said that scandals in the banking and financial services industry have gutted retirees’ savings, “rortedâ€\x9d families and resulted in life insurance policy holders being denied justice. He cited examples including allegations of rate-fixing in the banking sector and insurance policies being denied for “having the wrong type of heart attackâ€\x9d. “Despite several inquiries, new powers, new resources, and a financial ombudsman service, the rorts and the rip offs continue.â€\x9d Kelly O’Dwyer, the minister for revenue and financial services, announced on Wednesday the government has asked the Australian small business and family enterprise ombudsman to look at how banks treat their small business lending customers. The ombudsman will report within 12 weeks and provide interim findings to the Ramsay review examining external dispute resolution schemes in the financial services sector. The government shut down Labor’s call for a royal commission, successfully amending the motion to instead question why Labor had not instituted an inquiry when it was in government. Coalition MP George Christensen, formerly an advocate for a bank royal commission, moved the motion. He noted the Ramsay review – led by corporate law expert Professor Ian Ramsay – was under way and that the Australian Securities and Investment Commission had commenced prosecutions on the rate-rigging allegations. Christensen pointed to government initiatives including increasing the resources of Asic and a new process to haul banks before a parliamentary committee to explain failing to pass on interest rate cuts. “If a royal commission were to go ahead it would simply be reviewing old ground,â€\x9d he said. The leader of the opposition proposed areas of focus for the commission, including consideration of how widespread unethical behaviour is, financial institutions’ duty of care, and whether regulators are equipped to prevent illegal and unethical behaviour. Shorten said the breadth and scope of the allegations showed problems in the industry “go beyond any one bank, type of financial institution or group of receiversâ€\x9d. He accused the government of running a “protection racketâ€\x9d by refusing opposition demands for a royal commission. “You can take Malcolm Turnbull out of the investment bank, but you can’t take the investment banker out of Malcolm Turnbull,â€\x9d he said, referring to the prime minister’s former career in finance. Shorten said Labor, the Greens, crossbench, and at least eight Liberal and National parliamentarians had supported a royal commission. But the appetite for a royal commission is waning amongst some of those Coalition MPs, with Warren Entsch, previously a fierce advocate, now proposing a bank victim compensation tribunal instead. On 16 August Katter blasted Entsch for the back-flip, accusing him of “dogging itâ€\x9d and pleading with him to back a royal commission. Shorten said a royal commission “is the only forum with the coercive powers and broad jurisdiction necessary to properly perform this investigationâ€\x9d. He invited Turnbull to meet with the victims of banking and financial scandals.',
 'Southampton 0-2 Chelsea: Premier League – as it happened Here’s Dominic Fifield’s match report: That was an extremely impressive performance from Chelsea, perhaps their best of the season. Their defence didn’t give Southampton a sniff, and Eden Hazard and Diego Costa were full of menace on the break. Since moving to a back three they have won four league games in a row by a combined score of 11-0. They are less adventurous than the three sides above them but they look dangerous and durable. Thanks for your company, night. 89 min Diego Costa is replaced by Michy Batshuayi. He had a terrific game. 87 min Chelsea bring on Branislav Ivanovic for the impressive Victor Moses. 85 min Austin has a goal disallowed for offside after robbing David Luiz. It was the right decision, though it was extremely close. 84 min Another excellent Chelsea attack. Costa curls a long pass to the wing-back Moses on the right. He runs across the line of the box, uses Willian by not using him and belts a left-footed shot that is too hot for Forster to hold. 81 min A summary of this match. 78 min Substitutions galore. Chelsea introduce Willian for Pedro; Southampton bring on Sam McQueen and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg for Dusan Tadic and Ryan Bertrand. 76 min Southampton almost pulled one back. Martina’s curling cross was met at the near post by Davis, who headed it onto the challenging David Luiz. From there it looped over Courtois and onto the top of the bar. 74 min Chelsea have been brilliant in the second half. Before half-time they were excellent defensively but offered almost nothing going forward. Since the break they could have scored four or five. 71 min Hazard almost repeats his goal against Manchester United last week. He ran at Martina on the left of the box, moved the ball infield and drove it low across goal. It wasn’t quite in the corner, however, and Forster got down smartly to his left to save. 69 min Bertrand breaks down the left and wafts a nice cross towards Austin, who gets above Cahill on the six-yard line but thumps his header over the bar. That was Southampton’s best chance of the match. 68 min Southampton have only had one shot on target, Tadic’s free-kick in the first half. That tells you how well Chelsea have defended. 67 min This game is done. Chelsea are in full catenaccio mode and Southampton have no answer. 63 min How did that stay out? Moses’s shot was spilled by Forster to Hazard, who calmly squared it across the six-yard line for Costa. Forster was out of the game but there was a defender on the line and Costa, for some reason, tried to give the goal to Pedro. His pass was slightly behind Pedro, who was eventually crowded out by the defence. It was lovely play from Hazard, reminiscent of Karel Poborsky’s brilliant assist for Vladimir Smicer in the 3-2 win over the Netherlands at Euro 2004. 61 min Southampton make their first change, with Clasie replaced by Sofiane Boufal. 58 min Almost a third goal for Chelsea. Hazard’s low cross to the near post is swept over the bar by Costa, who was under pressure from the sliding Fonte on the six-yard line. 57 min This has been an immaculate away performance from Chelsea. It’s hard to believe it’s just over a month since they were a mess at Arsenal. This is a wonderful goal from Diego Costa! Chelsea took a short free-kick on the left, where Hazard gave the ball to Costa. He moved infield and them, just from just outside the box, smacked a magnificent curling shot into the far corner. Brilliant. He was helped by some half-arsed defending from Martina, who couldn’t be bothered to close him down properly, but it was still a fantastic goal. 55 min Chelsea look very comfortable defensively, and a bit more purposeful in attack than they were in the first half. This is their best spell of the game. 52 min Chelsea counter-attack promisingly until Alonso picks the wrong option, a shot from 25 yards, and executes it dismally. 50 min Matic heads the corner over the bar. 49 min Fonte saves a goal with a crucial interception. Kante drove a crossfield pass to Alonso, who delivered a beautiful low cross along the six-yard line. Fonte, sliding towards his own goal, knew he had to do something because Hazard was behind him waiting to score, and he just managed to slice it wide of the far post from a corner. 48 min Southampton have some decent attacking options on the bench, including Boufal, McQueen and Hojbjerg. I suspect they’re going to need them. 46 min Southampton kick off from left to right. Peep peep! Half-time reading Peep peep! Chelsea have done an efficient number on Southampton, scoring early through Eden Hazard and defend in the Serie A style. Southampton have not played badly at all but they are really struggling to add the progression to their possession. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 45+1 min Southampton appeal for a penalty when Austin goes over after an aerial challenge with Kante. There was nothing in that. 44 min “Shearer last night said that Aguero is the only world-class player in the Premiership,â€\x9d says Ian Copestake. “Given there are only about five world class players in the actual world then perhaps his comment has no actual shock value.â€\x9d 43 min Austin does exceedingly well, Mr Kipling, to win a corner for Southampton. Bugger all happens from the corner, however, so he needn’t have bothered. 41 min Matic robs Clasie and plays a gentle through pass for Costa. He lumbers into the box and whacks a low shot that is kicked away by Forster. That’s a crucial save because you can’t see Southampton coming back from 2-0 down against this defence. 38 min Good play from Hazard, who veers away from Van Dijk and Romeu 20 yards from goal before hitting a low curling shot that is comfortably saved by Forster. 33 min A desperate clearance from David Luiz finds Hazard on the left. He has a great chance to put Pedro through on goal but mishits his crossfield pass. Eventually it comes to Moses, whose shot deflects wide for a corner. 31 min This is almost like a training session, with Southampton attacking and Chelsea defending. Chelsea look superbly organised at the back and Southampton can’t make any progress. 27 min Alonso shoves Tadic over 25 yards from goal. He’s been the weakest of Chelsea’s back seven thus far. The free-kick is a far way to the right of centre, and Chelsea only have a three-man wall. Tadic curls it low around that wall and Courtois plunges to his left to palm it round. 23 min Tadic started the match superbly but hasn’t been involved much in the last 10 minutes. For all their nice passing, Southampton haven’t really got behind Chelsea. 21 min Davis’s corner from the left is headed back to him by Cahill. He lobs another cross beyond the far post, where the under-pressure Fonte can’t direct his header on target. 20 min Hazard looks menacing every time he gets the ball. After missing almost all of last season through apathy, he is fit and firing again. 17 min “I’m glad to see Chelsea finally showing signs of change after playing in a similar way regardless of manager,â€\x9d says Nas Iqbal. “Conte’s trust in Luiz and Moses is reaping big rewards right now.â€\x9d They look formidable defensively now, with three centre-backs and Kante and Matic in front of them. Good luck getting through that mob. 16 min Southampton win a corner on the left, play it short and make a balls of it. 14 min Davis’s inswinging free-kick from a narrow position to the left is headed well wide by Austin, lurking near the penalty spot. That was a decent chance but he got far too much on the header. 13 min Southampton have responded well to going behind, with some confident, easy passing. 9 min “I still have not quite recovered from the cricket this morning, me not being the type to be glad of a loss despite the incessant practice,â€\x9d says Ian Copestake. “So I hope Southampton can build a good lead before tea.â€\x9d 8 min This has been a cracking start to the match, and Redmond almost slithers through the Chelsea defence at the other end. He would have done so but for that pesky Matic, who made an excellent interception. 7 min As Gary Neville says on Sky, “once you’re one against one with Hazard in the box, you’re deadâ€\x9d. He beat Davis easily and then cracked the shot through Forster. Chelsea take the lead! It’s a classy goal from Hazard, who is starting to look back to his best. He moseyed over to the right side of the box to receive a return pass from Moses, turned inside Davis and belted a low left-footed shot through the legs of Forster. 5 min Tadic picks up a loose ball on the edge of the box and hits a shot that is well blocked by Matic. Moments later, after Tadic makes a fool of Alonso, Romeu hooks a bouncing ball over the bar from 30 yards. 3 min “Okay Rob,â€\x9d says Matt Loten, “first poser of the afternoon for you: what is Pedro doing right to keep Chelsea’s best player of last season, Willian, on the bench? Don’t get me wrong, the Spaniard has plenty of qualities - you don’t play in that Barcelona team without qualities - but to my mind Willian is a far more consistent threat, and better at playing the ball between the lines. His free kicks aren’t half bad either. Is Conte just sticking with a winning team, or is Pedro really the better choice?â€\x9d Willian is probably a better player but I’d say Pedro suits the 3-4-3 system a bit better. Also, Pedro was superb last week so I’m sure there is an element of not changing a winning side. I can’t see Willian being on the bench for long, especially as you could play him in a few positions. 2 min Hazard makes a good angled run to the right of the box before crossing towards Costa at the near post. His attempted shot is blocked by a defender and dribbles through to Forster. 1 min Peep peep! Chelsea kick off from left to right. They’re in blue; Southampton are wearing the usual red-and-white stripes. The players emerge from the tunnel into the cool Southampton air. The weather’s nice. A little brisk. Everton beat West Ham 2-0 in the first match of the day. You can read all about it here. Southampton (4-D-2) Forster; Martina, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand; Romeu, Davis, Clasie; Tadic; Redmond, Austin. Substitutes: Taylor, McQueen, Yoshida, Hojbjerg, Ward-Browse, Boufal, Olomola. Chelsea (3-4-3) Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso; Pedro, Costa, Hazard. Substitutes: Begovic, Ivanovic, Terry, Chalobah, Oscar, Willian, Batshuayi. Referee Mike Jones Chelsea are the team of the season so far. No, you big eejit, I don’t mean they’ve been the best team, but they are the team who best reflect the old-fashioned unpredictability of the 2016-17 Premier League season. In the first few weeks, when they picked up all those points through late goals, they were apparently the likeliest challengers to the Manchester clubs. Then they were an in-transition shambles who even lost to Arsenal. Now, after Antonio Conte’s switch to three at the back, they are apparently the likeliest challengers to Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool. William Goldman was right: nobody knows anything. So we might as well just enjoy what looks like a cracking game between Chelsea and the always admirable Southampton. Chelsea are the only team to win a league match at St Mary’s this year, a reflection of how tricky a match this is likely to be. A win for Chelsea would take them within a point of the top three; a win for Southampton would take them above Manchester United. Kick off is at 4pm. Rob will be here soon enough. Until then, read Antonio Conte’s thoughts on fruit and varying formations: Under Antonio Conte Chelsea’s stomachs are settling. It has been a fraught 12 months but three Premier League wins of increasing significance have brought a pronounced change in tone and the manager’s tweaks, both on and off the pitch, appear to have swiftly borne fruit. In fact fruit is only part of it. Conte’s reputation for keeping firm control over his players’ diets preceded his arrival in July and, in relaxed form at Cobham before Sunday’s visit to Southampton, he explained that his insistence on balanced food intake stems from a penny dropping late in his playing career.',
 "Martin Baron: 'We took Donald Trump seriously from the beginning' The phone call that would, just hours later, inflict a highly damaging blow to Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions came through to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold mid-morning on Friday 7 October. The source – a Snapchat-era “Deep Throatâ€\x9d – informed Fahrenthold, whose dogged exposure of the operations of the Trump Foundation had so infuriated the billionaire, that they had some previously unaired video of Trump. Would he be interested in viewing it? “David recognised immediately that [the footage] was explosive,â€\x9d says the Post’s executive editor Martin Baron, “and the first task was to make sure it was authenticated, which he was able to do pretty quickly.â€\x9d The Post sent a transcript of the video – outtakes from a 2005 edition of the NBC show Access Hollywood, in which Trump is heard bragging that “when you’re a star … you can do anything [to women] … grab them by the pussyâ€\x9d – to the Trump campaign for comment. “They asked us for the actual video,â€\x9d says the softly-spoken Baron, “and shortly after that they sent us Donald Trump’s initial response.â€\x9d Five hours on from the tip-off, the video and accompanying piece went live on the Post, reverberating around the world. While Grope-gate (as some are inevitably calling it) may be a far cry from Watergate, the Post’s most famous scoop, it was nevertheless a momentum-shifting event in the presidential race, which has seen Trump, who had previously claimed that he could “shoot somebodyâ€\x9d on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and not lose votes, since struggle to regain his swagger. Yet, while the Trump revelations have lately flowed thick and fast, there has been criticism (even in the Post) that much of the US media was initially slow to take Trump seriously, particularly early on in the Republican primaries. Baron vigorously defends his corner. “At the Post, we took the candidacy seriously from the very beginning,â€\x9d he insists, going on to cite reporting, among other things, on Trump Mortgage, the Trump University, and his “multiple bankruptcies in Atlantic Cityâ€\x9d. “Other people reacted in a different way. Certainly there was a tremendous amount of cable coverage of his rallies,â€\x9d he says. “Wall-to-wall, they would cover his rallies from beginning to end, on live television. I don’t happen to think that was a wise decision on their part.â€\x9d Baron does concede, however, that Trump is “skilfulâ€\x9d at using the media. “[During the primaries] he would call into shows, which would normally require a candidate to show up in person, they would just take his phone call and he’d be on the air, and then he’d call the next show. He’s been by far the most accessible presidential candidate ever.â€\x9d Indeed, even when the Trump campaign barred the Post’s reporters from his events (for, they claimed, inaccurate reporting), he still made himself available to Baron’s team. “We had actual published interviews with him, [even] while we were on the blacklist,â€\x9d he says. Born in 1954 and raised in Tampa, Florida, Baron, who’s a fluent Spanish speaker, cut his teeth at the Miami Herald, which he first joined in 1976. He went on to work at some of America’s most prestigious titles – the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. As Globe editor, the paper won six Pulitzer prizes, including in 2003 for the Spotlight team’s investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests, which was turned into the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight last year. In 2013, he became executive editor of the Post, which a little over three years ago was acquired by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for $250m from the Graham family. Earlier this year, the Post – whose traffic numbers reached a record 83.1m unique visitors in September 2016, a 40% year-on-year increase – moved from its former base to a gleaming, light-filled building on K Street, where reporters sit cheek-by-jowl with software engineers. Beyond financial capital, the Amazon CEO has provided the Post with “intellectual capital, tooâ€\x9d, Baron explains. “He’s basically forced us to confront how the internet is different and how we have to adapt to it and embrace it. He’s also given us what he calls ‘runway’, which is time to experiment. So, in funding the experiments, we have time to let them play out, without having to adhere to some strict timeline or strict requirements for profit.â€\x9d One area Bezos was especially keen that Baron address was the issue of aggregation. “One of the first questions he asked was: ‘You do these long narratives, these deep investigations, but after you’re published, within 15 minutes, half a dozen websites have decided to aggregate you – and they get more traffic than you do. How do you propose to deal with that?’â€\x9d Baron’s solution was, in effect, to fight fire with fire; hiring in-house bloggers, not only did the Post start aggregating itself, but it began aggregating other people’s content too. Since acquiring the Post, Bezos – who’s added 140 employees in three years – has held regular conference calls with senior staff. So how interested is he in the editorial side of the paper? The question isn’t even complete before Baron jumps in: “He doesn’t inject himself at all into our journalism. He doesn’t suggest stories for us to do. He doesn’t critique us in any way. Every once in a while, when he sees a story which delights him, he tells us. “[The conference calls] are all about tactics and strategy. We talked about aggregation, way back when. We’ve talked about our audience engagement team. But in terms of particular stories, particular projects, or particular avenues of coverage, he does not get involved at all.â€\x9d When asked what he thinks the Post’s output and business model will look like in five years time, Baron concedes that he simply doesn’t know. “I always say the people who are most certain about what the model will be are the furthest removed from any responsibility for actually making that model occur,â€\x9d he says a touch world-wearily. “There’s so much that’s happened so fast, and the pace of change has really accelerated. Today we’re sitting here talking about what we are doing for Facebook Live. Or what we’re doing for Snapchat. We’re talking about using bots for Amazon Echo, which we did to provide scores during the Olympics. And during this election we’ll be [using bots] to provide election results. [These aren’t] things we talked about a year ago – maybe we should have, but we didn’t.â€\x9d Despite his ink-stained background, Baron believes that if institutions such as the Post are to survive, they have to think and behave like technology companies: they need to move fast, take risks, and accept that failure is an essential part of experimentation. “I think people [at the Post] do feel free to propose new ideas and try new things,â€\x9d he says. “And there’s no penalty for failing. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.â€\x9d But, he adds quickly, newspapers must always stick to their principles and values. “We can never violate that. If we do, then we destroy our entire argument for existence.â€\x9d CV Age: 62 Education: Lehigh University, Pennsylvania. BA Journalism 1972-1976; MBA 1975-1976. Career: 1976: reporter, the Miami Herald 1979: business reporter, Los Angeles Times 1983: business editor, Los Angeles Times 1991: assistant managing editor, Los Angeles Times 1996: assistant to the managing editor, the New York Times 1997: associate managing editor, the New York Times 2000: executive editor, the Miami Herald 2001: editor, the Boston Globe 2003: the Globe wins Pulitzer prize for public service (for exposing sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic church) 2013: executive editor, the Washington Post 2014: the Post wins public service Pulitzer prize, with the US (for revealing widespread secret surveillance by the NSA) 2016: the Post wins Pulitzer prize for national reporting (for building a national database on police killings)",
 '2016 is make or break time for the NHS “It’s a new year, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new life for me and I’m feeling good,â€\x9d to misquote Nina Simone. But sadly not everyone starts the new year with optimism. For the NHS, 2016 really does appear to be make or break time. The NHS is in a financial maelstrom – more than three-quarters of all providers are in deficit, amounting to a whopping £1.6bn just halfway through the financial year. Last year’s spending review provided upfront funding for the NHS in 2016-17, but this is short lived. As the chart below shows, NHS funding per person will grow in 2016-17 but that is followed by a year of no real-terms growth and then falling spending for two years. Overall, the settlement for the next five years delivers the same real terms growth in funding as we saw over the last parliament. After inflation it amounts to a 0.9% a year increase in the total NHS budget, which is a O.1% a year increase in health service funding per head. That means we are halfway through a decade of stagnant real-terms spending per person in England. And at this mid-point things are not looking good. Many in the NHS must be hoping that the tight financial squeeze expected later in this parliament is not really the government’s plan, and that the Treasury will be reopening the health service spending settlement in a year or two. The political argument would be that health is simply too important to be allowed to fail. Just as the government has in effect provided a bailout for the service in the spending review, so it will do the same in a couple of years’ time. And anyway, isn’t the chancellor being too pessimistic and money can always be found? Taking account of the economic outlook Since the autumn, the economic outlook in the UK and globally has worsened, and delivering the economic and fiscal forecasts in the autumn statement looks tough. This is likely to stiffen the Treasury’s resolve that the anticipated overspend in 2015-16 is not going to be funded by another raid on its fragile coffers but will come out of the extra cash earmarked for 2016-17. This extra funding is going to have to stretch a long way – filing the existing financial black hole, meeting rising pension costs, funding demand pressures and supporting transformation. To rely on the Treasury riding to the rescue is only for those who like very high stakes poker – not really the way to run a vital public service. Against this backdrop, much of health policy looks perplexing. We cannot afford inefficiency or poor productivity. David Nicholson, former chief executive of NHS England, recognised this back in 2009 but progress has been woeful. All too often the focus has been on the one-off, short term and tactical. There has been little drive to address the fundamental barriers to a more efficient and productive service. The Five Year Forward View – Simon Stevens’ plan to make the NHS more sustainable – and Lord Carter’s review of NHS spending, offer hope for a different approach. But 15 months on from the launch of the Forward View, we still don’t have an efficiency plan for the NHS. Beyond the immediate backyard of NHS services the storm clouds are gathering. Delivering a sustainable health service requires action on social care and public health. Evidence suggests that around £1 in every £5 of NHS spending is the result of ill health attributable to the big five risk factors of smoking, alcohol, poor diet, obesity and inactivity. This, more than anything else, is why we perform so poorly compared with our European neighbours on health outcomes. Despite this, public health budgets are being cut in real terms by almost 4% a year. The gap between the number needing social care support and the number receiving it On social care, the government has recognised that the system can’t sustain a further round of cuts on the scale of the last parliament. Most estimates are that the additional funding for social care won’t bridge the funding gap. Social care is the dog that hasn’t barked – despite the reductions in access to social care service, demonstrating that this has had a direct impact on the NHS has been difficult. But recent data from the Health Survey for England shows that the lack of robust research evidence on the impact of social care cuts should not be a source of complacency. Providers are reporting that one of the reasons for their rising deficits is delayed transfers of care, partly related to issues of timely access to social care. There are increasing numbers of vulnerable older people living in silent misery with no help. The chart above shows the gap between need and provision (from any source, formal and informal, public and privately funded) for men and women in different income groups. The gap between need and receipt of help is greatest for those on low incomes and growing over time. Whatever the economics of that, it surely cannot be something we aspire to as a society in 2016. Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 "Secret Trump voters reverse their support: 'He seems to be insane' Do the outrageous things Donald Trump says – from insinuating Hillary Clinton should be assassinated for her support of gun control to calling on Russia to hack Clinton’s emails – change the minds of people who had planned to vote for him? Yes, actually – at least some of them. In the middle of primary season in February, the called for secret Trump voters to contact us and tell us why they were voting for Trump on the sly. More than 100 reached out – from yoga teachers to immigration lawyers – and we published 12 of those answers. Now that the general election season has well and truly begun, we checked back in with the original anonymous 12 to see if they are still on board the Trump train. We got 10 responses – and four of them have already jumped off. “At first I was seduced by his showmanship and strong-man persona and charisma, and by his strong borders patriotism and willingness to speak about the problem with Islam, and considering banning all Muslims from coming into the USA,â€\x9d said a 48-year-old scientist from California. “But when he said the judge of Mexican heritage wouldn’t be fair in his lawsuit and women should be punished for having abortions, that really turned me off him,â€\x9d added the scientist, who had been flipping between Bernie Sanders and Trump but will now vote for Clinton. A retired biomedical engineer from Hawaii, aged 66, says he thought originally that the US needed someone like Trump to create total social upheaval in order to get rid of corruption and paid interests in politics. “But now – fortunately? – Trump has demonstrated that he is much more than a narcissistic buffoon,â€\x9d he said. “Anyone who is willing to put the trigger for America’s nuclear weapons in the hands of someone like this is placing the future of human civilization at risk. I believe we must do anything to prevent Trump from ever reaching the Oval Office. Even if it means voting for Hillary Clinton,â€\x9d added the retired biomedical engineer. A yoga teacher and writer from Tennessee, aged 29, said the bullying antics of Trump didn’t bother him – but that he had stopped supporting him anyway. “What does bother me is Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. I believe it would be safe to assume he will grow the American police and surveillance states, which are already spiraling out of control. HRC isn’t any better though. While Trump seems intent on banning Muslims, HRC’s record on foreign policy (and support from war-hawks) reflect she is more likely to bomb them with drones,â€\x9d he wrote. “Truly, I believe America is getting the candidates it deserves. We will not get out of this mess until people wake up and realize they have more than two choices,â€\x9d said the yoga instructor, noting he’d be voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Another voter, a white male early retiree who lives in the Sonora desert, said he no longer backs Trump as he “seems to be insane. I no longer believe it is possible that he could truly represent the people who support him and need what he promised.â€\x9d Instead, he’ll reluctantly vote for Clinton. “For me, more Obama is OK, and that is a vote for Clinton. I will rely on the checks and balances of the US constitution to take care of the rest,â€\x9d he said. But other secret Trump supporters were still backing their initially reticent decision, noting that the news media’s coverage of Trump is unfair. “The media is like an extension of the DNC at this point. They’ll intentionally misinterpret or exaggerate anything Trump says to try to help Hillary win the election,â€\x9d said a 50-year-old college professor from California. “Everyone wants so desperately to believe he’s Hitler 2.0, and their warped image of him is clearly looming large at the forefront of their minds – so much so that they can’t help but attach the worst possible connotation to even vague, offhand quips like these,â€\x9d said a 29-year-old Hispanic attorney from Florida, referring to his second amendment comments. An Indian American attorney, who describes his wealth as being in the top 1%, says he doesn’t care about the to-and-fros between Trump and Clinton or even Trump and his own party. “All of the controversies to me are inconsequential. The economy is terrible, the job situation has not materially improved, and illegal immigration and national security will get even worse moving forward. Regardless of what Trump may say and how he gets characterized, his focus is on the right things,â€\x9d he wrote. But even some who back him don’t agree with all his antics. “I do still plan to vote for the orange buffoon. He is a ridiculous egomaniac who has found the recipe for stirring up support among discontented voters,â€\x9d said a manager from South Carolina. “My only regret is that I won’t be able to say that I cast a vote for the first woman to ever hold the presidency, but I have little doubt she will win. By the way, my 20-year-old self would be appalled by the complete political cynicism of my 52-year-old self,â€\x9d he added. A 20-year-old Arab student from Missouri says he backs Trump because he’s flipped US politics. “If he doesn’t win, his ego and legacy will still dominate American politics. He has basically set the tone for the coming century in which an isolated authoritarian state could be a very real prospect for our country,â€\x9d he said. Did Trump threaten to assassinate Clinton? The also reached out to the 100 secret Trump supporters to get their take on Trump’s comments this week that gun owners could exercise their second amendment right in protest of Clinton, a line seen by many as a threat of assassination. Here’s a selection of their responses: A 56-year-old male casino supervisor from Oklahoma: I think and do believe he was talking about taking it to court with the backing of all American gun owners. A 46-year-old male real estate agent from Colorado: He’s not serious by any means, and you’d be considered mentally ill to act on that delivery – he was trying to be distasteful/politically incorrect as usual, which is why I will vote for the man. PC has ventured into thought policing on things, and along with the ultra surveillance state we have moved towards, I don’t want to be answering questions by the Gestapo after I text a tacky joke to someone. A 26-year-old Chinese citizen working in the US on an H1-B visa: Trump was dumb to say that, but I don’t judge him based on those words. Politicians are trained to not to take things personally, so Hillary shouldn’t care less. Objectively speaking, if Hillary made the decision to be a politician, then dirty attacks are fair game. A 58-year-old retired ornithologist from Tennessee: Hillary is too far left on this issue, the most radical position on gun control of any presidential candidate ever. She’s inflamed half of America. A 55-year-old pilot: I am getting tired of Trump’s running of the mouth. It almost feels like he is trying to lose this election. To me this should be the easiest election to win against this corrupt woman, however Trump is not staying on message and it looks very childish the way he is behaving. I’m now convinced he will lose unless he turns it around now. A small-business owner from Orlando, Florida: First I heard, I was incredulous. Then I listened – not to the sound bite – but the whole sentence (and I use the term ‘sentence’ under advisement due to how he speaks). My take? Just another mountain out of a molehill as created by generally left-leaning media.",
 "Carrie Fisher in Telluride: 'I’m just getting bigger and older. That's not good' “Mother and I live next door to each other, separated by one daunting hill,â€\x9d says Carrie Fisher in the HBO documentary Bright Lights, which had its North American premiere at the Telluride film festival on Saturday. “I usually come to her. I always come to her.â€\x9d Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens’s cinema verité-style film about Fisher’s close relationship with mother Debbie Reynolds will doubtless draw parallels to Albert and David Maysles’s iconic 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, which centered on a similarly eccentric mother-daughter duo, who shared an equally deep bond. But Fisher likens the film more to a “surreal reality showâ€\x9d featuring “unreal people.â€\x9d “I didn’t think that we were the new Grey Gardens,â€\x9d Fisher said during a conversation after the screening. “It’s really an ideal reality show.â€\x9d “My mother and I, we used to go shopping – not a lot, because it would turn into a show,â€\x9d she continued. “And people would sort of linger because we had loud voices. They would stay in the store to listen us. So [Bright Lights] captures that.â€\x9d The film finds Reynolds, now in her mid-80s, on the cusp of retirement and planning one last hurrah variety show in Vegas, much to the chagrin of Fisher, who would rather she rest. “Performance feeds her in ways her family cannot,â€\x9d says Fisher. She meanwhile is documented in the throes of staging her own comeback, preparing to reprise her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. “I had always wanted to show my mother off the stage, off the screen, because she’s such an amazing character,â€\x9d Fisher said. “I wanted someone to capture that.â€\x9d Despite her wishes, Fisher admitted that she had “third and fifth thoughts about making itâ€\x9d once Bloom and Stevens came on board, mainly because she’s not fond of her own appearance on screen. “I don’t like looking at myself,â€\x9d Fisher said. “I’m just getting bigger and older. That’s not good. Meryl Streep does three movies a year, so she can watch herself age. I went from Princess Leia at 23 in a bikini to this broad. So that was distressing for me. I hate being vain and I’m working on it – and taking classes.â€\x9d Bright Lights will air on HBO early next year. It next screens at the New York film festival in October.",
 'From the Land of the Moon review - Marion Cotillard locked up in fuggy sexual melodrama Freedom, as the far left used to say, is the right to choose your jail. School, job, family, marriage: no cage is distraction enough for Gabrielle (Marion Cotillard), who – with a dreamer’s conviction – will do anything to escape the box being built for her. From the Land of the Moon is a choc-cake rich drama that oozes along on the strength of a committed performance from Cotillard and the odd sprinkle of visual flair. It presents a kind of no-frills silliness, almost tricking you into believing its balderdash. It’s based on Italian author Milena Agus’s 2006 novella, which has been relocated by director Nicole Garcia to 1940s Provence, the French coastal town of La Ciotat, the Swiss alps and Lyon, sometime later in what looks to be the mid-60s. The story is told in flashback from this point. Gabrielle and her husband, José (Alex Brendemühl) are taking their son to a regional music competition, where – in respect to mama’s gloomy sensibilities - he’ll mournfully trot out some Tchaikovsky. The mood in the car is peculiar. Mum’s distant, dad and son clearly more connected. They roll into Lyon in a funk. Then Gabrielle spots an address that stirs a violent memory. And from there, we’re off. Sort of. For a fairly simple plot the story rolls out awfully slow. It emerges that Gabrielle, the daughter of a successful lavender farmer, was always the wild child. Stultified by country life, she has channeled her frustrations into a crush on her teacher, partly fuelled by his on-point literary recommendations (Wuthering Heights is, according to teach, “About a girl who never leaves the countrysideâ€\x9d). The flirtation ends, disastrously, at a family meal to celebrate the harvest. Luckily, there is someone there to pick up the pieces: José. A Spaniard who fought against Franco and now works for the family, he’s picked as a solid candidate for a marriage of convenience. The family hand over responsibility for Gabrielle, she gets to leave the lavender and he can marry money. “Why choose to be unhappy?â€\x9d, Gabrielle asks José as they wrangle with the idea. José, played delicately by Brendemühl, gives the impression he has seen several lifetimes of unhappiness already. A little more will hurt, but manageably. The couple move to the coast, where dependable José begins to build a house. Gabrielle is still afflicted, now with paralysing cramps that may or may not be real. She’s sent, on doctor’s orders, to a spa in the Swiss mountains. There – finally – she meets someone who might help her escape herself: a floppy-haired hottie called André Sauvage (Louis Garrel). A veteran of the war in Indochina, he’s picked up a kidney infection that manifests itself in bouts of exhausted sighing. His treatment is gob-fulls of opium and the odd manly grunt to help through the pain. All this Byron-esque suffering is, unsurprisingly, right up Gabrielle’s street. A lot has been made of female sexuality coming to the fore at this year’s Cannes. From the Land of the Moon continues the trend to a degree. It’s implied that much of Gabrielle’s pain is rooted in sexual frustration. There’s a lot made of what Gabrielle calls “the principal thingâ€\x9d. This, in Agus’s novella, is love. But Garcia suggests sexual fulfilment is strong in the mix here too. In an early scene Gabrielle stands, dress hiked up and lets a river wash over her. It’s the pursuit of orgasm as escape. Getting off to get out. Elsewhere the expression of inner turmoil is a lot less interesting. There is loads of Gabrielle running away desperately - into the woods, the sea, a ditch. Cotillard’s ability to tear up in an instant is used to the point of exploitation. Gabrielle is, on many occasions, simply too nasty to care about. “Every time you visit it rains,â€\x9d she tells José. “People are right: you’re mean,â€\x9d he says later. He sticks around, still. The film takes on Gabrielle’s listlessness, slumps into an opiated fug. The malady is mysterious and not easily treatable. It just exhausts you. It transforms from a story about release to just another jail. At times it felt like there was no escape.',
 'From Boris Johnson to Sarah Vine: the Brexiters about to seize power LIKELY NEXT PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip It is now not just possible, but probable, that Johnson will replace David Cameron as prime minister before the Conservative autumn conference. Some MPs believe that there should be a coronation rather than a contest. If that doesn’t transpire, it is still difficult to see beyond Johnson for PM, as long as he is one of the two candidates chosen by Tory MPs to put before the Conservative membership. The former mayor of London was the target of concerted personal attacks from figures within the Remain camp during the campaign, including the energy secretary, Amber Rudd. She infamously suggested during a debate that, while Johnson was the “life and soul of the partyâ€\x9d, he wasn’t a man you’d trust to drive you home. And he may still be weighed down by incidents in his colourful past, including extra-marital affairs and giving advice to a friend who was planning to beat up a journalist. “My wife says she will divorce me if I support Boris,â€\x9d said one MP, voicing the doubts that many feel. “But I think it would be fun. Maybe it would be too much fun.â€\x9d CONSIGLIERE AND IDEOLOGUE MICHAEL GOVE Justice secretary A favourite among the Tory membership, and could put in a decent challenge to replace David Cameron, but it is believed the justice secretary is being genuine when he says that he doesn’t have any interest in the role. It is more likely that Johnson as prime minister would appoint Gove as his chancellor and consigliere. He is expected to play a key role in negotiations with the European commission about the terms of Brexit. POLEMICIST SARAH VINE Daily Mail columnist Vine and her husband, Michael Gove, were once close friends with David and Samantha Cameron. Since Gove’s demotion from the role of education secretary ahead of the general election, Vine has taken pleasure in wielding her pen to the PM’s disadvantage. She wrote a major piece in the Mail in favour of Brexit and her column is a regular source of barbs aimed at those who cross her husband. FINANCIAL EXPERT ANDREA LEADSOM Leading Leave campaigner She has impressed some during the campaign, during which she was a leading light of the Leave team. She is a relatively junior minister for energy and climate change, but some believe there is leadership potential in the MP for South Northamptonshire. Leadsom worked in the city as a corporate banker before embarking on her political career, so may also prove to be an alternative option for Johnson as his chancellor. However, she was accused of lying during a debate by the Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson after claiming: “The truth is, 60% of our rules and regulations comes from the European Union.â€\x9d STRATEGIST MATTHEW ELLIOTT Vote Leave chief executive A founder and former chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Elliott was the brains behind the Leave campaign’s strategy, along with Dominic Cummings. He insisted that he wanted to put forward a “positiveâ€\x9d and “internationalistâ€\x9d vision for Brexit, but he wasn’t shy of attaching his name to quotes attacking uncontrolled immigration and speculating about the impact of Turkish migrants on the UK. Talking about the night of the Brexit poll, Elliott said: “When the polls came in at 10 o’clock and everybody was writing off Leave, we didn’t buy that.â€\x9d He is known as an effective lobbyist, but there is likely to be a place in a Johnson Downing Street if he wants it. ‘MAN OF THE PEOPLE’ NIGEL FARAGE Leader of Ukip Even his harshest critics, and there are many, admit that Farage was a major figure in pushing the prime minister into even staging a referendum. He almost single-handedly turned the small party of Ukip into a genuine electoral force with 4 million votes at the general election, albeit still with just one MP. Without that electoral threat, Cameron would not have felt the need to make his promise. Farage’s role in the referendum campaign was typically controversial. Michael Gove admitted he “shudderedâ€\x9d on seeing Farage pose in front of a poster depicting refugees flocking on a winding road under the heading: Breaking point, but Farage was the first to point out that Vote Leave emulated his immigration rhetoric. Quite what his role will be from here on in is not clear. He has previously suggested that he admires Johnson. It is doubtful whether the admiration goes two ways. Nevertheless it is unlikely that the Ukip man is going to disappear. UKIP MONEY MAN ARRON BANKS Donor A former Tory donor, the businessman donated £6m to Ukip’s leave campaign, Leave.EU, he claimed on polling night. Asked by David Dimbleby why he had spent such a fortune, he said: “It is something I believe in. I believe we should bring our democracy back in to parliament.â€\x9d An aggressive businessman with a brash manner, he has had a poor relationship with the official campaign to take the UK out of the EU. He branded justice secretary Michael Gove as “disgracefulâ€\x9d and “toxicâ€\x9d after the cabinet minister was suspected of leaking the Queen’s views on Europe. TEMPERAMENTAL TACTICAL GENIUS DOMINIC CUMMINGS Campaign director for Vote Leave As ITV called the referendum for Leave, Cummings stood on a table, gave a roar and punched a panel out of the ceiling above him as colleagues in Vote Leave chanted his name. “That’s Dom,â€\x9d said a source. Cummings has never been far from controversy. Andy Coulson, who was then director of communications to the prime minister, blocked him from government as too independent and disruptive when Cameron first entered Downing Street. Yet when Coulson resigned, Cummings returned to the side of Gove at the Department for Education. He waged a war against Nick Clegg (calling him a “revolting characterâ€\x9d), and caused uproar among civil servants due to his ill-concealed contempt for many of them. He was also to become a stern critic of David Cameron (whom he described as a “sphinx without a riddleâ€\x9d). During the EU referendum he clashed with a series of colleagues at Vote Leave, leading to a reprimand from his chief executive. But it is Cummings’s strategising that many say delivered Leave their extraordinary victory. He is said to be the man behind the “Take Back Controlâ€\x9d slogan. FREE-MARKET GURU PATRICK MINFORD Chair of Economists for Brexit Nine out of 10 economists may have supported Britain remaining in the European Union, but macroeconomist Patrick Minford has stood apart. Minford, a supporter of the neoliberal theories of Milton Friedman, headed up Economists for Brexit, the eight-person group that claims the City of London will thrive, unemployment will fall and the trade deficit will narrow upon leaving the EU. Ukip leader Nigel Farage tweeted last year: “Professor Patrick Minford, a top economist, calculates that EU exit would bring the cost of living down immediately.â€\x9d Minford doesn’t believe the UK should be part of the single market. Instead, a post-Brexit Britain should opt to remove all barriers to imports, leading to cheaper food, less expensive goods and stronger growth. Genuine free trade, it is claimed, would provide a growth boost of 4% of GDP within five years while helping the UK emerge unscathed from the immediate post-referendum turbulence. It is yet to be seen whether Minford has the ear of the Brexit politicians set to take the reins of power. LABOUR BREXITER DREDA SAY MITCHELL Writer A rare ethnic minority female voice who called for the UK to leave the EU – although she refused to join Vote Leave. “I’m not leave with Farage – I’m leave with Dennis Skinner, and a handful of other brave Labour MPs,â€\x9d she wrote in an article for the . LABOUR LEAVE FINANCIER JOHN MILLS Donor A brother-in-law to Tessa Jowell, and a major donor to Labour before Jeremy Corbyn became leader, Mills is pushing Labour to change its policy on immigration and will continue to do so. He claims the party has become too close to the metropolitan elite. “There has been growing dissatisfaction among traditional working-class Labour voters, especially in the north of England.. “This is part of a wider problem. Many of these Labour voters feel the party has left them behind and does not respect their priorities and values., “This referendum result is pivotal for Labour, and it must be a trigger point for change.â€\x9d he said after the result. FATHER OF THE MOVEMENT BILL CASH MP MP for Stone He was once regarded as something of an angry pub bore, but in recent days the veteran MP has morphed into an elder statesman, taking a moment yesterday to “pay tributeâ€\x9d to both sides of the House and the people “who have taken a principled standâ€\x9d. But, as a figurehead of the Eurosceptic movement in the Conservative party, his intentions with regard to the Tory leadership couldn’t be clearer. “Whoever takes over [from David Cameron] … that person, I’m quite sure, will be a very, very clearly defined Brexiteer,â€\x9d he told the BBC. KEY LABOUR LEAVER GISELA STUART MP for Birmingham Edgbaston The German-born MP has emerged as a powerful voice in the Leave campaign and a counterpoint in the party to Jeremy Corbyn’s liberal views on immigration. It is expected that she will have a role to play in negotiations with the European commission over the terms for Brexit. Her views on the EU were shaped by the experience of being appointed as one of the UK parliamentary representatives to the European convention, which was tasked with drawing up a new constitution for the European Union in 2001. TRUE-BLUE RIGHTWINGER PRITI PATEL Employment minister The former lobbyist caused a stir during the referendum campaign by suggesting the British economy would benefit from a cutting back of employment rights. She has also previously endorsed the return of capital punishment. In 2012 she was one of the so-called “young gunsâ€\x9d from the new right of the party who called for a culture of “graft, risk and effortâ€\x9d to project Britain into the “super leagueâ€\x9d of nations. COMMENTATOR/ACTIVIST TIM MONTGOMERIE Times columnist A former adviser to Iain Duncan Smith, Montgomerie was eager for Rupert Murdoch’s paper to come out in favour of Leave. He expressed his disappointment in diplomatic but unmistakable terms when it went the other way. He is co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice, creator of the ConservativeHome site and describedseen as one of the most important Tory activists around. TABLOID FRIEND PAUL DACRE Editor of the Daily Mail Within the Mail stable of newspapers there has been an internal row over the referendum, in which Dacre has emerged more powerful for backing the winning campaign. The Mail on Sunday’s editor, Geordie Greig, plumped for supporting continued EU membership. Greaves is set to move to the daily. And Dacre’s vehement voice is probably only going to get stronger within and outside the organisation. It recently emerged that Dacre benefited from at least £88,000 in EU subsidies for his houses in Sussex and the Scottish Highlands in 2014. FREE-MARKET GURU RUTH LEA Economics adviser An adviser to Arbuthnot Banking Group, and formerly economics editor at ITN, Lea regularly appears on TV as a talking head on economics from a free-market position. Her preference is for the UK to join the European Free Trade Association of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, and hers will be an influential voice.',
 'Drill, baby, drill? Tillerson for state Donald Trump nominated Rex Tillerson, the outgoing chairman of energy giant ExxonMobil, as secretary of state, praising his experience at negotiating contracts around the world. Critics raised concerns about Tillerson’s coziness with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Cabinet picks so far Trump canceled a news conference in which he had said he would describe his plan to remove himself from his business operations to avoid potential conflicts of interests in his presidency. Interests, conflicts Trump claimed that he is not required by law to divest from his business holdings. But the nonpartisan office of government ethics said precedent was for a president to “conduct himself ‘as if’ he were bound by this financial conflict of interest lawâ€\x9d. It might take just a minute to catch up on the latest campaign news. But good journalism takes time and costs money. If you like the ’s politics coverage, please consider joining us by becoming a member for only $6.99 a month. Thanks for reading! Become a member Trump received Kanye West at Trump Tower. When asked what they spoke about, Trump replied: “Just friends, just friends. He’s a good man.â€\x9d West tweeted that the pair discussed bullying, education and violence in his hometown of Chicago. ‘Talk about life’ An aide who advised Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to click on a seemingly Russian-based phishing attack typed the email was “legitimateâ€\x9d. The aide meant to type “illegitimateâ€\x9d, the Times reported, “an error that he said has plagued him ever sinceâ€\x9d. Read the piece',
 'Lush review – pithy indie chroniclers stage a confident comeback This is Lush’s first show in almost 20 years, so the nerves are understandable. “I was shitting myself yesterday,â€\x9d admits singer and guitarist Miki Berenyi, still swearing like a trooper. Really though, you wouldn’t know she’s spent most of the intervening period as a magazine subeditor rather than a hard-gigging frontwoman. It’s a crisp, confident comeback from the early-90s indie stalwarts. Berenyi’s trademark fluorescent barnet is now a sober jet black – “no red hair, deal with it!â€\x9d – and Justin Welch (once of Elastica) has replaced drummer Chris Acland, whose tragic suicide precipitated Lush’s split back in 1996. Otherwise, little has changed. Maybe because they haven’t spent the last two decades acquiring annoying muso habits, Lush sound almost exactly like they did when they were last in circulation. De Luxe remains brilliantly confounding, Hypocrite charmingly venomous, Lit Up a hit of pure sugary goodness. New song Out of Control slips into the set so snugly you’d be hard-pressed to tell it apart. The compliment is faintly double-edged – Lush have always written to a formula, albeit a pretty good one: off-kilter pop songs, distinguished by wobbly high harmonies and a glittery guitar haze. Despite being signed to 4AD, they were never too precious about their sonic cathedrals. It’s the quality and consistency of their songwriting that shines through here, and that’s without even playing Britpop-era hits Single Girl or 500 (Shake Baby Shake). Songs such as For Love and the dreamy, tormented Desire Lines may no longer represent the lives of Berenyi or her fellow frontwoman Emma Anderson, but they are reminders that Lush were pithy and vital chroniclers of the young female experience in the overwhelmingly blokey domain of alternative rock. It’s hard to tell at this stage whether Lush’s career will gain a prolonged second act, but this underrated band still have the power to inspire. Lush play Coachella festival, California on 16 and 23 April, then touring the US',
 "Emma Stone to play JFK's eldest sister in tale of enforced lobotomy Emma Stone will star as John F Kennedy’s lesser-known eldest sister Rose Marie “Rosemaryâ€\x9d Kennedy, who was lobotomised at the age of 23 after developing violent mood swings that threatened to embarrass her famous family. Letters From Rosemary will be based on a screenplay by first-time screenwriter Nick Yarborough which deals with events leading up to the lobotomy and its aftermath, according to Variety. The film does not yet have a director attached but is being backed by the Anonymous Content production company, which helped bring 2016 Oscar winners Spotlight and The Revenant to the big screen. Rosemary Kennedy, the firstborn daughter to Joseph Kennedy, Sr and Rose Fitzgerald, was one of the first mental health patients to undergo the controversial prefrontal lobotomy procedure in the US. The results of the operation were so disastrous that she spent the rest of her life in a facility called St Coletta of Wisconsin, having been left with a mental age of two. The biopic’s title may refer to the many diaries and letters written by Rosemary in her teens and early 20s, which were published in 1995 by former Kennedy family secretary Barbara Gibson. They reveal the young woman lived a full life, attending teas, dress fittings and social events. Rosemary was even presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father’s service as US ambassador at the time of the second world war. In the wake of the botched operation, the famously ambitious Joseph Kennedy Sr told journalists that his daughter taught “retardedâ€\x9d children. Later, the family described Rosemary as “mentally retardedâ€\x9d or “handicappedâ€\x9d, rather than explaining what had happened to her. Many believe Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics as a result of fondness for her sibling. Stone will next star in Damien Chazelle’s musical romance La La Land, opposite Ryan Gosling, and has been cast in the tennis biopic Battle of the Sexes.",
 'Brexit or Bremain? Readers share the one argument that made up their mind There’s now less than a month to go before the EU referendum, but have you made up your mind on how to vote? It’s understandable if you’re still struggling to decide, given all the spurious facts and political in-fighting. But for many of us, one overriding fact or issue will have emerged that might ultimately determine our vote. We asked our readers to tell us which argument stands out for them above all the rest. There was a big response from readers (421 people responded) – here’s what they said. Peace in Europe Peter Thomas, 44, Carmarthenshire: We take peace for granted, it’s easy to forget our past What’s the big argument for staying? One word: peace. The referendum coincides with the centenaries of the battles of Verdun and the Somme in the first world war. The people who died in those battles serve as a poignant reminder of the genuine dangers when European nation states choose combat over compromise, and chauvinism over diplomacy. Today we take peace for granted. It’s easy to forget that until 1945, European history was one long, repetitive stream of spilled blood and internecine fighting every couple of generations. It’s vital that we continue to build on the trade, cooperation and relationship-building that have been brokered, peacefully, since 1945. For the UK, 42 of the 71 post-war years have been within the EU, and during that time we can be proud of Britain’s role in achieving widespread improvements in European wellbeing – from the integration of former dictatorships, through the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the welcoming of former Soviet bloc countries into the club, to the rise of the digital global economy. The EU has been a force for good in all these developments. Which begs the question: why allow Brexit to mess things up? Especially with a referendum that, like all referendums, will be influenced more by short-term populism and emotions (anti-immigrant, anti-Cameron, anti-Corbyn, anti-bureaucracy etc) rather than any reflective, rational decision-making on the nation’s mid- to long-term future. Asher Baker, 27, London: The EU was set up as an antidote to extreme nationalism Many want to leave the EU to become a supposedly “independent and Great Britain once moreâ€\x9d. But realistically, if we leave that’s not going to happen. Britain has been in “splendid isolationâ€\x9d before – during another period of rapid, fantastical change and industrial upheaval. Of course, out of these efforts to protect our empire we saw a naval race, several arms races and two world wars resulting in millions of deaths. You might say that was a different time, but it was a mere century ago. As long as governments, particularly western ones, are selfish and greedy and constantly seeking to line their pockets in the name of economic growth, there will always be conquest and conflict. The EU was set up as an antidote to the extreme nationalism that devastated the continent for decades. That’s worth protecting. The economy Harshini Andugulapati, 19, Nottingham: I worry about the job market As a student who will graduate in the next three to four years, the economy, and more specifically the job market, is what’s influencing my decision most. It is the seed from which all other factors such as culture and the environment will grow and flourish. Apart from the myriad econometric models and studies that conclude that Brexit would indeed make us worse off, I feel this way because of a lack of strong argument from the outers, who simply refuse to recognise the almost inevitable short-term economic costs of Brexit. Indeed, since the Tories have proved their unfathomable disdain for the youth of this country, it is almost certain that we would be the ones who would suffer the most. Since Vote Leave won’t even come clean about what its preferred alternative to EU membership is, the notion that in the post-referendum political chaos Britain could really reach this undefined utopia, where everything will ostensibly be “betterâ€\x9d or even the same, is fanciful. I will most certainly vote to stay in. The only proposition that could change my mind would be if David Cameron issued a statement promising to resign and emigrate to the south of France if things didn’t go according to plan. Roger Kirkham, 51, Ipswich: If we leave, we’re taking a huge gamble When the British economy performs badly, it affects almost every aspect of our lives. Everything becomes more difficult and less enjoyable. The poorest people in our society suffer the most, but a recession or years of low growth is tough for everyone. We already know what it’s like to be in the EU. We know that it’s possible for Britain to do well as part of it and that in the past (eg the 1990s) we’ve achieved high levels of growth and prosperity. I suppose some huge EU scandal might change my mind, but I’ve listened to various economic experts, people like Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who said that Britain leaving the EU could cause a stock market crash, and Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, who said that a Brexit vote might spark a recession. These voices and that of Barack Obama have all convinced me. The EU has its faults, don’t get me wrong, and its failure to act decisively during the wars in the former Yugoslavia was criminal. But I still think overall we’re better being a part of it, although we should never join the single currency. If we leave the EU we’re taking a huge gamble. It might be the best thing we ever did, it might be the worst. But we’re swapping a known quantity for the unknown, which seems to me at best reckless, at worst foolish. Kate Henderson, 21, Newcastle: There are benefits to the free market There are significant benefits to the free market, as have been proven due to existing institutions. All competing claims by Brexit campaigners are guesswork, they have no proof to substantiate any of their claims. Even if we left the EU, in order to continue trading, we would have to comply with its regulations, but we would have no say in how these regulations were implemented. David Stutchbury: Leave doesn’t have anything to prove its case The UK economy is doing OK in the EU and no one knows what would happen if we left. The risks of leaving (which include our GDP going down for the next five years) far outweigh any perceived benefits to the economy. Leave doesn’t really have anything to prove its case on economy, whereas we know that in the EU the UK has the fifth strongest economy in the world. What extra proof do we need that it’s working? If we were to leave I would be most worried about the possibility of credit agencies reducing our rating, which would increase our debt costs. Immigration is also a net contributor to our GDP so reducing it will reduce our wealth. I am voting in and nothing will change this unless I lose my mind over the next few weeks. Sovereignty and democracy Elliot Myers, 25, London: The EU lacks transparency and democracy My vote is not on immigration, nor is it on economics. It’s on upholding the central value that is the foundation of western civilisation: democracy. There are many merits to the EU but a transparent and accountable democratic process isn’t one – 28 unelected EU commissioners decide on laws and regulations ranging from fishing to finance and do so without the worry of the ballot box. In Britain we expect the elected parliament to draft laws and for the unelected House of Lords to scrutinise them. In the EU the reverse occurs with the unelected commission drafting laws and pushing the agenda for the elected parliament to enact them. The two unelected chambers have the majority of legislative power, whereas the elected parliament has limited power. I believe this undermines the democratic legitimacy of the EU. British fishermen have complained for years that EU regulations have hurt the industry yet their protests are futile. The government can’t veto the regulation nor can the UK electorate apply political pressure through the ballot box. Ian Pexton, 45, London: The basic principle of democracy must be paramount Sovereignty is the fundamental argument here. All other arguments are important (immigration, culture, economy etc) but all of those subjects find their roots in the argument of sovereignty and democratic accountability. As a country, in order to maintain peace and stability, the basic principle of democracy must be paramount. Nothing is likely to cause trouble and violent dissent faster than taking away the ability of the population to decide its own future (which will happen if power remains in Brussels), especially in economically dicey times. Family John Dowling, 43, Sussex: Without Europe my family simply wouldn’t exist I emigrated from Ireland to Germany as a teenager and received a great opportunity through freedom of movement. My wife has a French father and German mother, all our children were born in Germany and now we live in the UK. Incidentally, the UK is one of the most welcoming places I’ve lived, while at the same time I have never felt so unwanted by politicians’ rhetoric. People in the UK are so friendly and helpful but since I came here in 2013 it has seemed politicians have been trying to outdo each other in bringing down migration. There has been very little talk about the fact that immigrants aren’t here to just get benefits and milk the system. Without Europe, my family simply wouldn’t exist. To me, that is so much more fundamental than the economy. Enya, 41, south-east London: My family is about reaching across cultural divides It is sad that we all fought to keep Europe free and now we want to separate ourselves from Europe. By leaving we are saying we don’t think we can work together. My family is African and some members helped fight during the second world war. Apart from that, my immediate family are American and I am married to a Brit. My entire family is about reaching across cultural divides. My husband’s dad and mum live in Brussels and France respectively. His uncles live in Scotland, Munich, and Toulouse, and my brother has links in Norway and Berlin. Many families have links like this and leaving the EU would be very complicated. Families will be divided or find it harder to see each other. The environment Jessica Horner, 23, Plymouth: The EU protects important species and specialist areas More than 80% of our environmental policies originate from the European Union, and without the influence of Europe I do not trust the current government to promote green policies. Environmental issues also cross national borders, so we must respond with international measures. I attended a talk recently and heard from a member of Friends of the Earth about the protection the EU gives to many important species and specialist areas. The EU is also putting pressure on its member states to reduce air pollution, which is a significant cause of premature death. As well as this, there are fears Brexit would lead to development on sites which are currently protected under the Natura 2000 scheme. In 2013 the EU also voted to restrict the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, despite the UK government dismissing scientific evidence of the harm they cause to pollinators. I worry that if we leave the EU it could take us years, maybe even decades, to regain a similar level of protection for our environment. The future Don MacCallum, 62, Isleworth: The world has moved on since the days of the empire Europe represents a great adventure for the future. To leave it now (or at any time) would be a catastrophic error in my opinion, with dire consequences for succeeding generations in addition to being both unimaginative and irresponsible. Ask many Brexiteers why they wish to leave and they are often unable to articulate their reasons for doing so other than a vague notion that Britain will regain status and become somehow stronger as a consequence. They are perhaps conveniently forgetting that the world has moved on since the days of the empire and has become increasingly regionalised and globalised. It would be disappointing and demoralising if Britain were to find itself left on the outside looking in as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Solidarity Andy Smith, 61: We have an obligation to our European colleagues When you marry you make a solid commitment to the other party, thick or thin – divorce should only be contemplated if the situation is truly intolerable and all other avenues have been explored. The Brexit debate focused on whether we in the UK will be better off short or long term, in or out, is misplaced; we have an obligation to our European colleagues. Yes, there’s plenty wrong with EU governance so let’s use our influence to improve it. Culture Teresa Horan, 57, London: I am proud of our European cultural identity I am very proud of our open British culture, so why would we want to dilute it and come out of Europe? I am a Londoner and one of the things I am most proud about is the fact that the capital is such a diverse city – that’s what makes it so rich. I would like to believe that by staying in Europe we can protect the arts and other creative industries. There is a lot of scaremongering around Brexit but ultimately that’s exactly what it is: scaremongering. We are better and more culturally rich together. Immigration Alex Hobson, 26: I don’t want this country to become a platform for racist bigotry I find the immigration argument to be the one influencing my sway the most at this juncture. Not because I agree with it, but because of how heavily I disagree. In my opinion the argument that we need to halt immigrants coming from Europe is outdated and ignorant and ignores key facts, such as the fact that Brexit might not mean any change in immigration. Also, I don’t want to see this country become a platform for racist bigotry in the wake of our leaving the EU. Brexit would only reinforce and strengthen a British nationalism that has been stirred up by a referendum brought about by nothing more than career politicians. This doesn’t make me want to vote remain necessarily, but it makes me not want to vote to leave. Anonymous, 35, London: I am in favour of immigration, but not in its current form I am an immigrant to this country and so are many of my friends. I am heavily in favour of immigration, but not in its current form. It’s because of this that I am voting Brexit. I don’t believe that 330,000 immigrants a year is sustainable, particularly because we seem unable to address issues such as transport congestion, and housing supply in any reasonable time-frame. Housing is a major concern. I don’t believe that it is possible for this country to build enough homes to address this problem. In the area in which I live local residents are totally opposed to, and bitterly resent, new housing developments which they believe are changing the face of their city. Every planning application results in an almighty battle with residents and this problem exists all over the UK. Accepting almost unlimited numbers of unskilled workers is not sustainable.',
 "Donald Trump is vetting women for vice-president. That won't fool us Donald Trump’s woman problem is common knowledge – his misogyny may be the one consistent, comprehensive thread throughout his campaign. It spans his insults aimed at Hillary Clinton, to his run-ins with Megyn Kelly, to his Twitter spat with Elizabeth Warren, to his comments about punishing women who get abortions. Just this week, he told Bill O’Reilly that, as president, he would appoint conservative justices to the US supreme court in attempts to overturn Roe v Wade. This kind of rhetoric on gender has been destructive and dangerously regressive, and women across the political spectrum have responded by mostly refusing to support his candidacy. Now, however, word is leaking that Trump is considering both former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst – both of these people are women – as his potential vice- presidential pick. There’s no question that living in the perpetual present has worked for Trump so far, as he flip-flopped his way to the Republican nomination. His latest tweet serves as the best delineation of the current Trump stance on any given issue. But does he really think that 50.4% of Americans have such a short attention span that they’ll forget his constant demeaning and his insults at the sight of a female running mate? Because I can promise you: we won’t. For months now, Trump has disparaged every woman that crossed his path, from accomplished, privileged politicians like Clinton and Warren to women in the most abject of circumstances. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 75% of abortion patients are poor or low-income women, living anywhere between 199 and 100% of the federal poverty level. Attacks on women’s rights to abortion care is an attack on women who are already struggling. Economic justice, economic opportunity and reproductive justice all go hand-in-hand. A failure to see this – or seeing it and supporting policies that hurt women anyway – betrays a regressive worldview that speaks volumes about how Trump might see a host of other issues, from marriage equality to the environment. Reproductive rights, in addition to providing critical healthcare choices for women, also represent a woman’s ability to be autonomous, to be able to make her own decisions about what is good and right for her. Opposing reproductive rights clearly states that you do not believe that women could or should have this ability – if a woman can’t make her own healthcare decisions, well, she certainly shouldn’t have access to the nuclear codes. (Not that Trump’s lady veep would ever have such access – his health is stellar!) There’s a reason women and minorities have refused to endorse Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. He not only speaks in thinly veiled white supremacist code – make America great again! – he also never misses an opportunity to stoke the flames of a gender war, implying that men ought to gird their loins against the threat of women’s agency. That includes his likely opponent in the general election. And it would include any woman he might pick as his running mate. Allowing her to smile in his shadow doesn’t make any of this less true.",
 'Uncertainty in the property market gives rise to the Brexit clause With a month to go until the EU referendum, there are signs that property investors have growing concerns about the possible impact of a leave vote. City law firm Nabarro said on Friday that commercial property investors were adding “Brexit clausesâ€\x9d to contracts that will allow them to pull out of deals if the UK votes to leave on 23 June. Next week, a new phase of a luxury flat development in south London will go on the market with a “Brexit pledgeâ€\x9d for worried buyers. A poll of UK and global property investors with holdings worth £350bn found that more than two-thirds were pessimistic about the outlook for property values if the leave campaign wins, Nabarro said. As a result, said senior partner Ciaran Carvalho, investors in commercial property, including office and shop developments, were taking precautions. “We have seen a marked increase in the number of contracts which include clauses to protect the position of buyers investing in UK real estate ahead of the referendum,â€\x9d he said. Investors are paying deposits that they will get back if leave wins. “Brexit is a leap into the unknown,â€\x9d Carvalho said. “Brexit clauses are a pragmatic, legal response to that uncertainty.â€\x9d Residential developer Oakmayne Properties is launching 42 apartments in Two Fifty One, a 41-storey building in the middle of the Elephant and Castle redevelopment in south London, at an event at the Shard. Prices start at £655,000 for a one-bedroom flat and buyers who put down a £2,000 reservation fee will be able to get the money back if they are unhappy with the referendum result. David Humbles, the Oakmayne managing director, said: “Buyers will not be required to exchange contracts until after the vote. If they don’t like the result, whichever way it goes, they will have the right to withdraw and have their reservation fee refunded in full.â€\x9d The move comes as commercial and residential property markets start to show jitters ahead of the vote. All sectors of the market are now affected. Residential The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported on Tuesday a 2.5% rise in house prices in March, bringing the average cost of a home to £291,820. However, the latest survey of estate agents by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) suggests that the mood has altered – partly as a result of the stamp duty changes that took effect in April and prompted landlords to bring forward purchases, and partly as a result of the forthcoming EU vote – although referendum effects are mostly focused on London. George Osborne warned on Friday that in the case of a vote to leave the EU, values would take a hit of 10%-18% compared with values expected if the UK stays. The government has also said mortgages would become more expensive following a Brexit, as interest rates are likely to rise. Henry Pryor, a buying agent for wealthy clients, said the market had slowed markedly. “Buyers don’t want to commit to something that could be cheaper on 24 June and sellers don’t feel inclined to take less for their home than their neighbour achieved six months ago. The result? Falling transactions, fuelling talk of plummeting prices,â€\x9d he said. Howard Archer, the chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said he expected the market to be quiet in the runup to 23 June. “I think the market will be subdued until the referendum and will pick up after that if we vote to stay,â€\x9d he said. “If we vote to leave, I am pretty pessimistic about the housing market ... there will be a shock and I think the market will stay pretty weak for some time after that.â€\x9d This is backed by ratings agency Moody’s, which said a Brexit vote would be good news for first-time buyers, particularly in London. Gaby Trinkaus, a senior analyst at Moody’s, said: “First-time buyers would benefit from lower competition, as house price and rental inflation would slow down if immigration is curbed.â€\x9d One issue, however, could be labour in the construction market, with builders including Barratt warning that an end to free movement of workers could slow down the supply of new homes. Commercial Britain’s biggest listed property developer, Land Securities, responsible for the Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London and retail spaces such as Bluewater in Kent and Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, said this week it had sold more than £1bn of its assets because of growing risks to the UK market, including the chance of a Brexit vote. Its chief executive, Rob Noel, said a leave vote would lead to “falling rental values and a reduction in construction commitments, particularly in London. An exit could be painful for the property industry and those it supports.â€\x9d The last last commercial property report from Rics found that demand for UK offices and shops from international companies had fallen since the referendum was announced, while a report from the Bank of England said there had already been a marked slowdown in commercial real estate investment deals in London. Mat Oakley, the director of commercial research at Savills, said £13.5bn of commercial transactions took place in the first quarter of the year – down from £18.5bn in the first three months of 2015. That is still way above the long-term average of £9.5bn, but he said: “There are certain buyers who aren’t moving at the moment. UK pension funds and insurance companies are less active and expected to remain so in the runup to the referendum. Other investors are seeing it as an opportunity though, particularly non-domestic investors.â€\x9d The impact of the referendum was mostly being felt in London, Oakley said, but a remain vote would probably prompt a new burst of activity: “I think we will have a ‘Brelief’ bounce.â€\x9d Property investment funds In recent weeks, several of the UK’s biggest property investment funds have changed their pricing so investors who want to cash in their holdings will get a less lucrative deal. The changes to commercial property funds run by Henderson, M&G and Standard Life mean those coming out of the fund receive about 5% less than under the old pricing structure, to discourage cashing out. M&G said it was forecasting good returns from commercial property, but that the decision was “a reflection of current flows ... designed to ensure equitable treatment for transacting clients and those who remain investedâ€\x9d.',
 "Twitter suspends CEO Jack Dorsey's account In the wake of the US elections, with the rise of the “alt-rightâ€\x9d blamed for the easy ride the far right have had on social media, Twitter is eager to prove that it can police its own borders. Perhaps too eager. Overnight, the social network suspended its own chief executive and co-founder, Jack Dorsey. A couple of hours later, Dorsey was back, blaming an “internal mistakeâ€\x9d for his account suspension, and attempting to make light of it with a call back to both his and the service’s very first tweet. Hours later, there remain some odd effects around the suspension. Dorsey has lost almost 700,000 followers, if the public counts before and after his suspension are accurate. Dorsey’s self-imposed ban follows a more deliberate crackdown of far-right accounts on the network. Last week, a number of American far right leaders found their accounts disabled for hate speech, including the white nationalist Richard Spencer, the self-styled “founder of the alt-rightâ€\x9d, who led a conference a few days later at which supporters gave Nazi salutes.",
 'Brexit economy: inflation surge shows impact of vote finally beginning to bite Britain’s vote to leave the EU is finally feeding through to the UK economy, according to a analysis that shows rising inflation is offsetting brisk trade for businesses. Buoyant consumer spending, a low unemployment rate, rising house prices and continued growth for the country’s dominant services sector point to a strong finish to the year, defying earlier forecasts from the Bank of England and others that the economy would grind to a standstill. But worries are growing over prospects for 2017 as signs emerge that the Brexit vote’s blow to the pound is stoking inflation and hitting people’s spending power. As the starting date for negotiations over leaving the EU approaches, the pound has come under fresh pressure in recent weeks and been prone to further downward lurches with every political mention of Brexit – most recently from Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon raising the prospect of a new independence vote for Scotland. To track the impact of the Brexit vote on a monthly basis, the has chosen eight economic indicators, along with the value of the pound and the performance of the FTSE. The dashboard for December shows a better than expected performance in four of the eight categories. Two were as expected, one was worse and inflation was higher than economists had forecast, fanning fears that household budgets will be squeezed by higher prices next year. Six months on from the vote to leave the EU, the latest batch of figures show wage growth remains solid, headline unemployment remains low, business activity continues to expand and house prices are still rising. The FTSE 100 leading share index is close to an all-time high hit in October and the more domestically focused FTSE midcap index is above its pre-referendum level. But the pace of hiring has slowed, retail sales growth has eased off and inflation is at a two-year high as the weak pound raises the cost of imports to the UK. The public finances were in a worse state than forecast in November and, looking ahead, they are expected to be in deficit for far longer than had been predicted before the referendum. Britain’s trading position improved more than expected in the latest monthly figures but substantial revisions to earlier data show the trade gap with the rest of the world ballooned to a near three-year high in the three months following the referendum. Economists point to several indicators suggesting negative effects of the Brexit vote could be more keenly felt in 2017. Surveys and business investment figures suggest British-based firms are more reluctant to spend. Consumers have become more cautious and they expect inflation to quicken over the coming year. Writing in the , a former member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee, David Blanchflower, said some of the data since the Brexit vote had come in better than he had feared but that there were signs this could be as good as it gets for the economy. “Business confidence is low and there is evidence that optimism is falling among businesses and consumers. My suspicion is that the news is not going to get better,â€\x9d said Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US. “The consumer has held up pretty well and still seems to be spending and GDP growth at 0.5% is not to be sneezed at. But the fall in the pound and the steady rise in inflation because of the rise in import prices was always going to have an impact,â€\x9d he added. A report from the Bank of England’s regional agents on Wednesday flagged the impact of higher import prices on inflation. But the agents – the Bank’s eyes and ears on the ground – noted silver linings from the weaker pound. Tourist spending was rising and exports had also been helped by the currency’s fall, which makes UK goods more competitive overseas. Since the last dashboard, the government’s independent forecasters at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) have published a new outlook for the the economy. They predict weaker business spending and a squeeze on consumers from higher inflation will dent the economy next year, but warnings for a post-referendum recession should prove unfounded. Publishing its forecasts alongside Philip Hammond’s autumn statement of tax and spending measures, the OBR said the economy would likely expand by just 1.4% in 2017, compared with the 2.2% it had predicted before the referendum. Hammond, was quick to point out that even that lower growth would still leave Britain outperforming France and Italy next year and possibly Germany too. Andrew Sentance, also a former member of the MPC, said the signs of weaker investment and employment and a squeeze on consumer spending pointed to slower growth for the UK economy next year. But much depended on the country’s key trading partners, the rest of the EU and the US, Sentance wrote in the . “Current forecasts suggest that Europe and the US will continue to grow reasonably well in 2017, which will help temper the UK slowdown. Next year may not be so bad for the UK after all, but we will need a reasonably healthy global economy to keep us moving forward.â€\x9d Experts have warned that the potential Brexit blow to the economy, coupled with the government’s continued push to bring down spending will leave many households struggling with lower incomes next year. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has warned that the UK is suffering its “first lost decade since the 1860sâ€\x9d and highlighted a squeeze on household budgets that predates the referendum. Respected thinktank the Institute for Fiscal Studies said workers in Britain face the longest squeeze on their pay for 70 years. This week, the Resolution Foundation thinktank warned the UK faces the risk next year of a return to the squeeze in real pay suffered earlier in the decade. It said 2015-16 had been the fastest year of real wage growth since 2001 but said the combination of low inflation and strongly rising employment would not be repeated. For the housing market, forecasters expect a slowdown next year. A longstanding shortage of homes will mean prices keep rising but at a much more modest pace of 3%, predicts the the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Property firm Savills has suggested that prices will remain flat across the UK. The UK’s largest building society, Nationwide, expects the UK average price to increase by 2% over the year, below the rate of growth it has reported in 2016.',
 "Blaine Harrison's playlist: Declan McKenna, Daughter, David Gilmour and more Declan McKenna – Paracetamol I was introduced to Declan’s music by a friend of the band last year and was immediately taken by his song Brazil. Here was a 15-year-old kid with the ability to write poignant lyrics about the misappropriation of wealth in that country around the time of the World Cup. I connected with the spirit of the song. Paracetamol is a song made of the same substance, but has a vulnerability to it reminiscent of the great songs Daniel Johnston used to sing into a tape recorder in his parents’ basement. We took Declan out to eat pizza in London and when he turned up dressed like the Karate Kid we immediately decided he had to open for us on our tour. Screaming Peaches – Sad Kid Someone first played me this song on a broken iPhone in the back of an Uber and I immediately liked the way they spelled out their lyrics (who doesn’t like spelled out lyrics?), but then all of a sudden someone else started listening to something completely different on their phone in the front of the car and I couldn’t tell what was being spelled out anymore and got very confused. When I arrived home I looked them up and realised I’d inadvertently been a fan for longer than I thought under their previous moniker, MOVIE. If I wasn’t so lazy I would re-organise my record collection and find a nice slot for them between something like The Chap and Darts of Pleasure-era Franz Ferdinand. I’m not sure anyone really knows what pop music is or isn’t anymore, but this song has a cheeky riff and is catchy as hell. Gaz Coombes – Needle’s Eye I can remember Supergrass’s first album coming out like it was yesterday, their otherworldly faces staring down at me from the covers of magazines in French supermarkets on summer holidays. And what a live force they were, too, like the best bits of every 60s band – the instruments seemingly racing each other to the finishing line of each song. We had the privilege of getting to know Gaz on the festival circuit while touring our last album Radlands and we became huge fans of his second solo release, Matador, when it came out. Detroit was one of, if not the, best song of last year but I’m going to pick another from the same record. With a backbone provided by a morse-code bassline and these huge emotive lyrics, Needle’s Eye feels equally honest and urgent – like the kind of song he needed to live before he could write it. Daughter – Doing the Right Thing Long car journeys have always been synonymous with music for me, and I can vividly remember my dad playing me Lou Reed’s Satelite of Love en route to the airport when I was a kid. I was welling up, sad to be leaving him and had never flown alone before when he put this song on, as if showing me that music was able to articulate something beyond words. Leaving something behind, watching the past disappear in the rear view mirror. I soon became addicted to that feeling. I spend a lot of time driving around London and once in a while a song will come on the radio that catches you off guard and somehow perfectly crystallises a place and moment in time. I had one of those with this song, driving to visit an elderly relative one frosty winter morning last year. The lyrics painted a picture of something very familiar to me at that time, loosing someone close to you to something you don’t understand. Mesmerising. David Gilmour - There’s No Way Out Of Here Growing up, my parents’ friends had a son who was about 10 years older than me and epitomised everything I wanted to be when I grew up into a teenager. His room smelled like a heady mix of CK one and fags, he had one of those giant Swatch watches on his wall – and the Turin Shroud to any nine-year-old in the 90s: a black Fender Stratocaster. As it also turned out, after some digging around in his cupboards when he was away one weekend, he also had a great CD collection (all the Oasis singles, all the Shine compilations etc). I’ve only ever stolen once in my life, and I will admit here and now that his copy of A Collection of Great Dance Songs by Pink Floyd was that one time (sorry, mate, but actually it changed my life forever, so thank you). Pink Floyd’s shores have been colonised to the point of exhaustion, but Dave Gilmour’s first solo album was one stone I’d never thought to turn over. It became something of an anthem for us during the recording of our new album Curve of the Earth, and most importantly, it was written at his absolute peak, when he looked like a hot girl. So much so, in fact, that the world neglected to notice that he wore the same Guinness Stout T-shirt for the entirety of the Dark Side of the Moon tour. Baller.",
 "Can Hillary Clinton tap into Donald Trump's support base? Donald Trump is a populist. That adjective might have once seemed like a surprising one to use for the New York billionaire, but polling shows it’s become increasingly hard to refute – and Hillary Clinton’s team are starting to study the numbers to understand why. In New Hampshire, where Trump crushed his opponents with more than twice as many votes as anyone else, exit polls revealed 50% of voters wanted the next president to “be from outside the political establishmentâ€\x9d. No surprises then that this is also a state where Bernie Sanders easily beat Clinton. Trump’s outsider status helps explain why the candidate has continued to defy expectations. Each time data analysts have written off Trump’s chances, they’ve failed to calculate his ability to deepen his support among existing supporters while at the same time broadening his demographic base. Hillary Clinton’s team can no longer afford to make the same mistake. An article in the New York Times this week claimed that “Democrats are poring over polling data to understand the roots of Mr. Trump’s populist appealâ€\x9d. So what exactly does Trump’s current support base look like, and how does it compare to Hillary’s? The last major poll to look into this was conducted by CNN and ORC between 24-27 February and had 1,001 respondents. The results show that Trump supporters are more likely to be white, male and live in rural parts of America – and that the exact reverse is true for Clinton’s support base. As a fellow outsider, Bernie Sanders is relevant here too – the patterns of his support are almost identical to Trump’s with the exception that they’re more likely to skew urban. In a way, the story of the Vermont senator’s astronomical rise (despite his recent plateau) is the story of the Democrats that Clinton hasn’t managed to attract. That inability is partly about association – and it’s not just her Wall Street ties. That same CNN/ORC poll also asked what respondents thought about Bill Clinton and found that those who were white, male or from rural areas were most likely to check the box marked “unfavorable opinionâ€\x9d. The association with her husband might be hard to break. A more realistic strategy for her to compete with the populist candidates might be to identify the policy areas that appeal to their supporters. There too polling offers some insights. Respondents were asked “thinking about all the major candidates still running for the presidency, regardless of whom you support, which one do you think would do the best job handlingâ€\x9d a range of different topics in the CNN/ORC poll. The gap between candidates was largest on two issues: the economy (where 38% of respondents chose Trump and 25% chose Clinton) and race relations (29% Clinton, 16% Trump). That parallel gap seems all the more striking when you consider Trump’s quotes on the issue. But there’s reason for Hillary to be hopeful: betting markets and pollsters currently think that in a race between Clinton and Trump in 2016, Clinton will win. So she is safe for now – the only only problem is, she’s safe in the meaningless universe of March hypotheticals on a November election. If Trump’s populism hasn’t yet reached its maximum, and if America’s appetite for anti-establishment candidates continues to grow, the former secretary of state may yet be in trouble.",
 'Cancer drug appraisal needs to be reviewed Sarah Boseley’s article (Cancer drug companies cut prices to win NHS approval, 18 August) is a welcome demonstration of how serious the UK pharmaceutical industry is about doing everything possible to ensure cancer patients get access to much needed medicines, yet it fails to offer a rounded perspective on affordability and drugs availability in the NHS. Our industry is acutely aware that our health service has limited money to treat millions of patients with wide-ranging medical conditions, but continuing to cut prices may not be sustainable into the future and is no silver bullet. Our industry is playing its part. A long established deal has already seen drugs companies pay back more than £1.3bn to the government in the last 18 months to help keep NHS spending on medicines affordable. Medicines and vaccines offer some of the best - and most cost-effective – measures we have of preventing, managing and eliminating the world’s most debilitating diseases, but whether or not these successfully reach NHS patients requires fundamental changes to the way medicines are appraised, and how they eventually become adopted and used. By over-relying on the Quality-adjusted Life Year as National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s main measure of value, many cancer medicines are disadvantaged. More flexibility, as is seen in other countries, is needed. Nice’s basic cost-effectiveness threshold for assessing value for money is also more than 15 years old and has not kept pace with either the cost of R&D or the NHS budget. With cancer medicines now more effective than ever, we are seeing scenarios where some new medicines used in combination with established treatments would, perversely, be rejected by Nice even if they were given away free due to the fact that patients are living longer. With 7,000 new medicines in the pipeline in Europe today our industry delivers real innovation for patients. To make sure that the most effective of these are adopted and made available, companies need to offer value for money and the health system needs to ensure that assessment methods are fit for purpose. This is crucial if we are serious about delivering a world-class health service now – and into the future. Dr Richard Torbett Executive director, commercial, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 "Here's why there are no 'good' or 'bad' drugs – not even heroin Before she found heroin, Allison could not get out of bed most mornings. She contemplated suicide. She saw herself as “a shitty lazy person who felt like crap all the timeâ€\x9d. She was deeply depressed, and no wonder. As she explained in an interview with NPR last month, in slow, halting sentences, she’d been molested by three family members by the age of 15. One of the three was her father. Listening to Allison recount the horrors of her young life, most of us feel great pity. If we were psychiatrists, we’d need little justification to prescribe any drug that might help alleviate her suffering. We’d probably start at one end of the long list of approved antidepressants – and keep going. But heroin? Heroin, Allison explained, “made me feel as if I could get up and do somethingâ€\x9d. She could function. “I was great at my job ... and I was doing art on the side. I had energy for the first time in I don’t know how long.â€\x9d In other words, she had vanquished her depression – with an illegal, highly addictive, “recreationalâ€\x9d drug that she bought off the street. It would be wrong to deny that many heroin users suffer great harm as a result of the position their addiction places them in. And I would advise anyone who experiences debilitating depression to seek professional help. But it would also be wrong to classify strong opioid drugs, and other substances currently disparaged by our society, as intrinsically “badâ€\x9d or “evilâ€\x9d. In some parts of the world, people seem to be getting smarter about recreational drugs. For a couple generations, “softâ€\x9d drugs like marijuana and hashish have been increasingly tolerated, more broadly viewed as socially acceptable and, finally, in several European countries and a few American states, legalized. And why not? These drugs help people relax, enjoy music and philosophize. In fact, pot is far safer than booze in every respect. It makes you silly but not aggressive, it has none of the well-documented health risks of alcohol, it’s far less likely to lead to accidents, and it’s not generally addictive, psychologically or otherwise. (Some people do end up with a cannabis habit that hampers clear thinking and short-term memory, but these effects disappear when they cut down or stop.) Then come the psychedelic drugs: LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline and the currently stylish (in some circles) ayahuasca. There is ongoing debate about whether psychedelics are good, bad, safe or unsafe. But compare that dialogue to the tyrannical edicts of the 60s. When I was an 18-year-old in Berkeley, California, in 1969, my friends and I had wrenchingly beautiful interactions with forests, seascapes, music, and each other – on acid. Like Aldous Huxley and other intellectuals, we saw psychedelics as a gateway to a more inclusive, less self-centered sense of reality. We generally couldn’t share those views with our parents nor, certainly, with the police or the courts. Yet despite that, societal views were in flux. In fact, the promise of psychedelic psychotherapy has intrigued scientists and clinicians for decades. A recent wave of research suggests that psychedelics can relieve psychological suffering, from depression, anxiety, PTSD and alcoholism to end-of-life fears. Presently, thousands of young people from North America and Europe are trying ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic used for self-growth and healing by indigenous cultures in the Amazon region. Like their hippie predecessors, many of these “psychonautsâ€\x9d feel they’ve gained something essential from the experience: a broader vision of reality, connection with other people and cultures, a bond with the planet and a commitment to its wellbeing. Well, maybe the soft drugs are better than booze, and psychedelics have greater potential for good than for harm. But what about drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine? In keeping with the punitive policies of the DEA, and the battle cry of the “war on drugsâ€\x9d, most of us still see these drugs as unequivocally bad. Indeed, heroin and meth lead to addiction – and to misbehaviours ranging from lying and petty theft to full on criminality. After years as an addiction expert and a one-time addict, I recognize how dangerous these drugs can be. And I know that the cycling of desire, acquisition and loss leads not only to compulsive drug seeking (and associated brain changes) but also to a narrowing spiral of social isolation, shame, and remorse. Can there be anything good about drugs that are often too attractive to resist? For Allison, the good was undeniable. Heroin helped her overcome a depression that very likely arose from her history of sexual abuse, a trauma that left PTSD in its wake and drained her life of joy, functionality, and any semblance of normality. Allison represents the rule rather than the exception. PTSD often triggers anxiety and depression, and substance abuse is as high as 60–80% among those with PTSD. In fact, the largest epidemiological study ever conducted found an extremely strong correlation between the degree of childhood adversity and injection drug use. When Allison got tired of heroin, she was able to quit, as most addicts eventually do. She found a psychiatrist and learned to live without it, though she reports that she continues to rely on antidepressants. The point is that, for her, heroin was an antidepressant – a very effective one. It shouldn’t be surprising that a powerful opiate can help people overcome psychological pain. Opioids are critical neurochemicals, helping mammals to function in spite of pain, stress and panic. Rodents play and socialize far more easily after being given opiates. Opioids are even present in mother’s milk: they are nature’s way of ensuring an emotional bond between infant and mother. Opiates might be too attractive for some people some of the time; obviously addiction is a serious concern. But that doesn’t make opiates intrinsically bad. I doubt whether there’s much to recommend meth for today’s youth, and clearly meth and coke can destroy lives. But coca leaves were used to overcome fatigue in Latin America for centuries before Europeans figured out how to turn them into cocaine. Like opiates, it seems that stimulants can be of benefit in particular contexts. It becomes impossible to define the “goodnessâ€\x9d or “badnessâ€\x9d of drugs according to drug type – in the abstract. Rather, the balance between potential help and potential harm depends on the person and the circumstances. The human nervous system is an incredibly complicated chemistry set, and we experiment with it continuously through our actions, our loves, the things we eat and drink, and, yes, the substances we ingest for that specific purpose. Tinkering with our nervous system is a direct expression of our ingenuity and our fundamental drive for self-improvement. We’re not likely to give those up. The failure of the “war on drugsâ€\x9d should help us recognize that people will never willingly stop taking drugs and exploring their benefits and limitations. It’s ridiculous to deal with this human proclivity by labelling most or all drugs as “badâ€\x9d. And it’s absurd to mete out punishment as a means for eliminating the drugs we don’t like. Instead, let’s expand our knowledge of drugs through research and subjective reports, let’s protect ourselves against the dangers of overdose and addiction, and let’s improve the lives of children raised in ghastly circumstances. Then the problem of “bad drugsâ€\x9d will no longer be a problem.",
 'José Mourinho criticises ‘cautious’ Liverpool after bore draw at Anfield José Mourinho accused Liverpool of being the cautious team in a dour goalless draw and insisted Manchester United’s meagre possession statistics represented a problem for Jürgen Klopp only. United nullified a Liverpool side who had scored nine goals in their previous two home games, with Mourinho selecting a defensive line-up and seeking to hit the lone striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic with the long ball. Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard and Wayne Rooney were all on the bench while Anthony Martial was absent due to a training-ground injury. Yet Mourinho claimed it was Liverpool who approached the north-west duel with a defensive mind-set due to the presence of Emre Can and Jordan Henderson in central midfield. “We stopped them playing but they also did very well from the defensive point of view,â€\x9d said the United manager. “They played Can and Henderson for some reason and they did that for 90 minutes when they normally project more players in attack. They were very cautious. They kept always Can and Henderson in position. They had only one player behind the three more offensive players. I think it was their intention to try and control us, which they also did well.â€\x9d Mourinho appeared aggrieved by the praise Liverpool have received for their attacking play this season and argued that Paul Pogba’s latest subdued display was the result of Klopp’s defensive strategy. He added: “You know, I think like everybody else, on the defensive side of the game he was perfect. Even the goalkeeper [David de Gea] was on holiday for 90 minutes but he had two big saves to do and he did. When we recovered the ball I was expecting the team to be more dangerous, but I think we still had some important chances and Liverpool did too. They are a very good team. You like to say they are the last wonder of the world in attacking football but they are also a team that defends and thinks defensively. The fact they play Can and Henderson together and control the position where Paul wants to control. We thought there’d be only one player there but they played with two.â€\x9d United’s total of 35% possession was the club’s lowest in the Premier League since Opta began compiling statistics in 2003, but their manager even turned that into an issue for Liverpool rather than his own team. “Last season United won here when Liverpool had 14 shots on target and United had one,â€\x9d Mourinho said. “How many shots on target did Liverpool have on target today? Two. Two shots on target with 65% of possession, you have to be critical of Liverpool. It is their problem, not our problem.â€\x9d Klopp claimed Liverpool lacked patience in possession and made life difficult as a consequence for Daniel Sturridge, who was replaced by Adam Lallana after 60 minutes. The Liverpool manager said: “I am not too happy. The game from the first second was very hectic and maybe that was what Manchester United wanted and we didn’t want, maybe it was more for their advantage. That can happen from the start but you have to find your way back to the way we usually play. We lost patience far too early and our passing game was not good. We had 65% possession but we have to do better. I didn’t expect we would have 10-15 chances. Second half we had chances but De Gea was finally warm and he made brilliant saves. They had that chance with Ibrahimovic. “The best news tonight is we have one point more and a clean sheet, nothing else. We can do much better and we must do much better. We have to stay cool. When they want to chase us, we have to use counter-movements. We had these situations but in the last third we lost patience. It was like ‘Give it to Daniel’. It was a very difficult game for a striker. There was a really good attitude from my side. They tried everything, only with the wrong tools.â€\x9d Mourinho is under investigation by the Football Association for commenting on the referee Anthony Taylor’s appointment before the game. Afterwards he commented: “Can I speak about the referee without being punished? He had a good game and I am happy for him because people with responsibilities put a lot of pressure on him and it was very difficult for him to have a good performance, which he had.â€\x9d',
 'From Liverpool FC to Google: business joins in pledge to promote safer internet The world has changed dramatically in the 13 years since the annual Safer Internet Day (SID) was launched. Thirteen years ago, YouTube didn’t exist. Now more than half of children use the video sharing website every day, according to a recent report from Childwise. And children spend more time on the internet than they do watching TV. As we become more reliant on digital technology, keeping children safe online becomes ever more pressing. Today’s SID – marked in more than 100 countries and organised in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC) – is an opportunity for everyone, from families to law enforcement and businesses to policymakers, to play their part for a better internet. High-profile supporters include the BBC, BT, Disney, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Microsoft, Nickelodeon, Twitter, Vodafone, and the UK government, as well as police services and schools. All are involved in delivering a range of activities. Microsoft, for example, is doing a SID takeover on its search engine Bing, and will serve specially created resources when anything internet safety related is searched. Snapchat has created a filter for SID that can be applied to photos taken using the app, while Vodafone is supporting with its special emoji keyboard, featuring a #SID2016 heart shaped emoji intended to be shared in solidarity against cyberbullying. The company is also working with YouTubers to create awareness raising videos and for each view, like and direct share a video receives, the Vodafone Foundation will donate £1 up to a maximum of £100,000 to child rights charities. But it’s not just the responsibility of big tech companies to ensure they are educating and supporting people in the safe and positive use of technology. Other businesses can also make a difference by through customers and staff. Football teams, for example. Premier League clubs Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are hosting education sessions for hundreds of local schoolchildren, as well as getting players involved in promoting the safe and positive use of technology as part of their youth outreach programmes. Other organisations bring unparalleled reach on SID, with the Post Office playing SID safety messages through TV screens in its network of stores on the day and Nickelodeon creating anti-bullying videos for TV, its website and its YouTube channel. While the day provides a focus for raising awareness of internet safety issues and an opportunity for companies to create some good PR stories, many of these partnerships are continuous throughout the year. The UK Safer Internet Centre sits alongside representatives from corporates, NGO, government, and police on the executive board of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, as well as being represented on safety councils for Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Ask.fm and more. Keeping children safe online is challenging – cyberbullying is increasing and young people are facing increasing pressures online that can have long-lasting impacts on their wellbeing. The ongoing threat from the proliferation of child sexual abuse images remains at the top of the agenda for many companies as they strive to use cutting-edge technical solutions to solve issues that can have huge consequences for the lives of some of the most vulnerable children both here in the UK and worldwide. The challenges are complex, and there’s no magic bullet to create a better internet but if all organisations step up to the challenge and play their part, we can all make a big difference.',
 'Slaven Bilic: It’s no good if West Ham always need to score three goals to win Slaven Bilic does not want his players to look up or down. He does not want them studying the fixture list. West Ham United’s manager will be happy as long as they relax, play with passion and quality and, as the old cliche goes, take each game as it comes. “You can’t approach it differently,â€\x9d Bilic said. “You can’t approach it like ‘today, we are home to Crystal Palace, three points, and then Arsenal, one point’ because this happens.â€\x9d From Bilic’s perspective, Mark Clattenburg happened. Clattenburg was an unpopular man around Upton Park because of his controversial decision to send off Cheikhou Kouyaté for a high challenge on Dwight Gayle midway through the second half, allowing Crystal Palace to snatch a late equaliser and stall West Ham’s push for Champions League qualification by securing a 2-2 draw. Three points behind fourth-placed Manchester City, West Ham were furious. They will appeal against Kouyaté’s red card and feel that they are not getting the rub of the green with officials at the moment, thinking back to Chelsea’s dodgy late penalty in the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge on 19 March and Anthony Martial’s equaliser in the 1-1 draw in their FA Cup quarter-final at Manchester United being allowed to stand, despite Bastian Schweinsteiger’s foul on Darren Randolph. For all their indignation, however, there is an argument that West Ham could have done more to kill off their opponents in all of those games. Having recovered from the sloppy defending that allowed Damien Delaney to give Palace an early advantage, they led 2-1 at half-time, thanks to Manuel Lanzini’s equaliser and Dimitri Payet’s fifth direct free-kick in 2016. Dropped points from winning positions cannot simply be put down to referees; a touch more ruthlessness and West Ham would be fourth. “Okay, fair enough but it’s no good if you always need to score three goals to win,â€\x9d Bilic said. “I’m not talking that you can win the championship or whatever with winning 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 because it is not only about your defence, it is also about the opponent. But you can’t always score three goals.â€\x9d West Ham made errors for both Palace goals, a defensive calamity allowing Gayle to equalise with 15 minutes left, and Bilic hopes his back four will be more solid, with James Tomkins, on the bench here, available after two months out with a calf injury. With Sam Byram also missing, Michail Antonio has been used as a makeshift right-back and he was targeted by Palace’s flying wingers, Yannick Bolasie and Bakary Sako. The return of Tomkins is a timely boost as West Ham approach a defining period. With fourth place and an FA Cup semi-final against Everton up for grabs, they host Arsenal in the league on Saturday and United in the Cup four days later. “We have a big enough squad, a lot of energy and a lot of confidence,â€\x9d Bilic said. “Ginger Collins and Sam Byram, they are going to come back. Even without, we would go for both, try to finish as high as possible and try to reach the semi-finals.“ Palace are already in the semi-finals. Yet their FA Cup run has not been matched by their league form. Although it was an improved display against West Ham, a draw stretched their winless Premier League run to 14 matches and kept them seven points above the bottom three. Alan Pardew mentioned those alarming statistics in a meeting with his players on Friday night. “That was a normal, tactical meeting but probably a little bit longer than most. I just wanted to question the players and ask whether they actually realise what has gone on. Did they know the figures that the press have been using about us because you’d be surprised. “The players don’t always take on board what has been going on. They go into training and their view is that: ‘Oh, it’s the next game.’ Of course, as managers we are overloaded with stats and information. So I just wanted to remind them of where we were and I think I got a good response.â€\x9d Pardew was asked if the players were aware of the numbers. “They certainly knew after,â€\x9d he said. “I made it very clear about my feelings. That is all you are going to get.â€\x9d Man of the match Bakary Sako (Crystal Palace)',
 'Top 10 books about the dangers of the web My latest novel, Viral, is about a young woman whose drunken mistake in Magaluf floods the internet and ruins her life. It deals with a contemporary family, which could be yours, and a contemporary crime – which could happen to you. That crime is involuntary pornography, and it’s not actually a crime. But I think it should be. I wanted to write about it because everything about the issue makes me furious: online misogyny, social hypocrisy and the lack of justice and support for women like my character, Su, whose world is shattered after being filmed in public without her knowledge. Before I wrote Viral in 2014, I knew little about internet shaming, beyond the fact that it’s scary. I knew even less about revenge pornography, apart from the fact that it’s scary. And I knew nothing about the darknet … apart from, well, ditto. I like to write about things that scare me. And what could be more terrifying than the darknet? I started reading about it when I was writing the book. It seemed so other to me that it couldn’t possibly exist. Like hell, if the believers were to be believed, this was an ugly and mean place filled with bad people doing bad things in very uncomfortable surroundings. I’ve read a lot on shaming, revenge and involuntary pornography and the darknet since starting Viral. This education has made me more feel more frightened for women’s safety in our online world, and very concerned about the inadequacies of the law in dealing with it. I’ve also learned that the darknet is alien now in the same way that a Walkman was in 1978. It’s here guys, and we should probably learn more about it. Soon we may even venture down into the pit ourselves, just as we donned hefty earphones all those years ago. So here are my top 10 books on the dangers of the web: 1. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson Accessible, entertaining, educational and frightening, Jon Ronson takes a look at some of the people whose lives have been torn to pieces by online shaming, examining who has survived this, and why. We have always punished people with shame, he argues, but now we have a new system of justice and a new way of dishing out punishment. This online sentencing is immediate, severe, destructive, irreversible and neverending. And it’s served by us: by me, and by you. 2. The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett After reading this absorbing, fantastic book, I understand more about what the darknet is, and am therefore a little less terrified of it. It’s people, most of them unremarkable, buying and selling, talking and reviewing. One day, I might use it to buy stationery like I use Amazon, or to talk about writing like I do on Facebook. Bartlett lays out the good aspects of the darknet – freedom of speech, freedom to be anonymous, anti-corruption, anti-authority. And he also talks about the bad – racism, sexism, child pornography, suicide forums, how easy it is to groom victims and ruin lives. So I’m not going there, not yet. 3. Cybersexism by Laurie Penny I am longing for Penny to write more about sexism in the male-dominated digital sphere. In this pithy and important book, Penny takes a look at “nerd misogynistsâ€\x9d, men who are often marginalised in the real world and who have found an outlet for their anger online. We need to let them know we are listening, she argues, and we need to educate them: “You can hack anything, and that includes sexism.â€\x9d 4. The Intrusions by Stav Sharez It surprises me that Sharez is one of few current crime writers to give the online world a significant role in his story. It’s at the centre of most stories nowadays, isn’t it? I was lucky enough to read The Intrusions before its release date later this year, and boy can Sharez do thriller. He writes beautifully, so look out for this one and pre-order as soon as you can. 5. Follow Me by Angela Clarke Follow Me was an Amazon Debut of the Month. It features a baddie, dubbed the Hashtag Murderer, who taunts police by posting clues on Twitter. I loved the idea of a trending serial killer; enticing followers with 140-character clues that investigative journalist, Freddie, must untangle. As the tagline says: “Online, no one can hear you screamâ€\x9d. It’s the first of Clarke’s “social media murder seriesâ€\x9d. 6. In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behaviour by Patrick J Carnes, David L Demonico, Elizabeth Griffin and Joseph M Moriarty I read this for my work (I’m a criminal justice social worker, but I would recommend it to anyone. It’s essential reading for those working with internet offenders; for those who are worried about their own behaviour online, or concerned about the behaviour of someone they know. An excellent guide to recognising and addressing compulsive online sexual behaviour. 7. Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security and the Internet by Edward Lucas Written by Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist, this book features an ordinary couple – Chip and Pin Hakhett – who are used to illustrate everyday cyber threats and ways to defend against them. I was shocked and scared to realise how vulnerable I am online, but also empowered by some of the solutions offered. 8. Butter, by Erin Lange Dark, sad, but also funny, Lange tells the story of 400lb “Butterâ€\x9d who decides to go out with a bang. On New Year’s Eve, he will select a menu and eat himself to death live online. Disturbing, outstanding. 9. Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, by David Leigh and Luke Harding David Leigh and Luke Harding are award-winning journalists who were closely involved with the Wikileaks story as it unfolded. Their account reads like a thriller and includes fascinating details about Julian Assange’s childhood and personal life. 10. Life: Love, Lies & Identity in the Digital Age, by Nev Schulman Nev Schulman of Catfish fame takes his expertise and concerns about online relationships to the page, offering advice and warnings to his fans. Viral by Helen FitzGerald is out now from Faber & Faber, at £12.99), and is available from the bookshop at £10.39.',
 'NHS England sending anorexic patients to Scotland for treatment The NHS in England is sending patients who are seriously ill with eating disorders to Scotland for treatment because chronic bed shortages mean they cannot be cared for in England. Vulnerable patients, mainly teenagers and young adults, are being taken hundreds of miles from their homes in order to receive residential care in Glasgow and near Edinburgh. Mental health experts voiced deep concern about the trend and said it could damage patients’ chances of recovery, increase their sense of isolation through the separation from their families and even increase their risk of dying. Doctors, eating disorders charities and patients have told the that the quality of care received by patients, some of whom are at risk of dying, is being compromised by the NHS in England having far too few beds to cope with the growing number of cases of anorexia, bulimia and other forms of psychiatric illness linked to eating habits. “I’ve seen a rise in calls from people saying their children have been sent far away, miles away, to be looked after because there are either no services nearby or they are fullâ€\x9d, said Jane Smith, chief executive of Anorexia and Bulimia Care. “This is a life-threatening situation for young people. People are in inpatient care because they are at risk of dying. They are in a very fragile, risky state.â€\x9d Rebecca Doidge, 20, from St Albans in Hertfordshire, spent six months in the Priory private hospital in Glasgow earlier this year because she was desperate for treatment and could not find anywhere else. The distance had negative side-effects, she said. Despite being well looked after there, “being sent so far away does compromise careâ€\x9d, she said. “The outcomes are going to be better if you can stay near home. It’s really hard to integrate back home or go to another environment when discharged if you are in a different country. It makes communication between those treating you in hospital and those at home difficult.â€\x9d During her stay in the Priory, which has 25-30 beds, “about seven of the people there were from Hertfordshire,â€\x9d she said. “The number of English people there massively outnumbered Scots.â€\x9d Anup Vyas’s stepdaughter has been receiving treatment for a rare eating disorder in Huntercombe private hospital in Livingston, near Edinburgh, since February. After previous stints in units in Watford, London and Colchester in Essex, the 17-year-old’s condition is so serious that “now she is basically being kept alive in Scotlandâ€\x9d, said Vyas. “NHS England acknowledge that her being so far away is not ideal. Her brothers haven’t visited her since June and no friends have gone up. Most people in the unit are from England, especially the north of England – places like York and Manchester.â€\x9d The family’s home is in Hemel Hempstead, 350 miles from Livingston. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, criticised the practice as “completely unacceptableâ€\x9d. He recently said NHS children and adolescent mental health services were the NHS’s worst area of care. “It is clearly unacceptable for people to be sent hundreds of miles away for care at a time when they need the support of friends and family the mostâ€\x9d, he said. “That’s why in April we committed to a national ambition to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements by 2020-21.â€\x9d Ministers had also earmarked £150m for enhanced services in community settings to help ensure that mental health problems in young people were tackled before their health worsens, he said. NHS England, despite its professed commitment to openness, refused to say how many patients from England were receiving treatment for eating disorders in Scotland. Expanding the supply of specialist beds to treat people with those conditions would take time, it said. “It’s extremely distressing for parents to have a child who is so unwell that they require inpatient care, and it’s even worse when they can’t easily visit their child because of long travel distancesâ€\x9d, said Sarah Brennan, chief executive of Young Minds. “For many young people the distance from family and friends is one of their biggest fears when they are hospitalised. Being separated from loved ones doesn’t help with recovery and makes the stress of hospitalisation worse.â€\x9d Dr Jon Goldin, a consultant psychiatrist in London specialising in children and adolescents, said he had heard of patients being moved long distances. “But it shouldn’t be happening,â€\x9d he said. “It’s a concern. Patients should be treated nearby and should be in contact with family. They need support and it’s much harder to get that when families have to travel long distances. “Part of their recovery may involve therapy with their family, especially for children aged 14 and under.â€\x9d, said Goldin, who is also a spokesman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists. More young people were developing eating disorders, he said. Genetic factors, personality factors and socio-cultural factors, such as images in the media of models “which glamorise thinnessâ€\x9d are among the many reasons for the trend, Goldin said. A spokeswoman for the Priory hospital in Glasgow said it took patients from all over the UK. “The Priory hospital in Glasgow has a reputation for providing some of the highest standards of mental healthcare in the country, and has been given a ‘very good’ rating by our regulator, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, for staffing, management, information to patients, and the environment it offers those we care for. As such, we support patients from across the UK and overseas.â€\x9d A spokeswoman for NHS England said: “The NHS recently laid out very clear plans to expand staff and services for specialist eating disorders and other mental health problems, in order to tackle and eliminate distant out-of-area placements. Transformation won’t happen overnight but work is under way to improve services for everyone and to make sure care is available at home or as close to home as possible when a patient needs more intensive therapy. “To help achieve this, the government has allocated a cumulative £1.4bn to children and young people’s mental health services over the next five years, and the new waiting time for eating disorder patients will ensure patients get better care more quickly.â€\x9d',
 'Low UK broadband targets lack ambition using slow and costly network upgrades There is a good chance you have never heard of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A city of only 170,000 inhabitants, its main claim to fame is a song called the Chattanooga Choo Choo, recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra for the 1941 film, Sun Valley Serenade. Though Chattanooga may be small, it has big ambitions, recently becoming one of the first cities in the world to offer homes and business access to broadband speeds of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps). This is a thousand times faster than the UK government’s universal service obligation (USO) for all British premises to be able to access 10 megabits per second (Mbps) [pdf], announced with much fanfare in the Queen’s speech this week. The USO will be welcomed by people, often in rural areas, who cannot access even this limited speed. But it is setting the bar pretty low. With a world ranking of 23rd for download speeds, and 39th for upload speeds, Britain is not a strong performer in global terms. If we are to get the UK moving up the rankings, we need to follow Chattanooga’s example, and set a much more ambitious target of 10Gbps by 2030. Paradoxically, an easy-to-meet USO will actually be more expensive in the long run. It risks locking us into a continuous cycle of incremental upgrades to the copper wire which makes the last mile of our network, when we need to invest instead in future-proofed non-copper alternatives like fibre-optic cable, mobile and satellite broadband. Survey data from members of the Institute of Directors makes it abundantly clear that faster connections will deliver quick gains to the economy. A large majority believe better broadband would increase their company’s competitiveness and productivity. One in four think it would increase their revenues, and a third say it would prompt them to invest more. As well as boosting firms, it could also help employees with their work-life balance, with half of our members saying they would offer more flexible working if they could rely on quicker broadband. As infrastructure investments go, it doesn’t get much better than this. While our cities are not particularly impressive (London languishes in 26th place in the European Capital City download rankings) it is rural areas in which poor broadband is holding back business most. Connecting the most remote places is clearly expensive, but broadband is now the fourth utility, and essential to all companies. The UK is experiencing an entrepreneurial revolution, but the fact is that it is near impossible to launch a startup with a couple of employees in a converted barn with a connection of 2Mbps or less. With a connection of 1Gbps, however, a whole new world of opportunities opens up. It’s important to stress that a more demanding target should not mean reinforcing the market position of the incumbent, BT, or even a particular type of technology. Getting ultra-fast speeds means enabling competing firms to enter the market on a level playing field. One of the best examples of how to do this comes from a surprising source: Lithuania. It has the third highest upload speed in the world, as well as the global number one ranking for ICT infrastructure. This came about because, in 2004, Lithuania forced its equivalent of BT to give rivals full open access to the physical infrastructure of ducts and poles at a reasonable cost. This led to an explosion of investment by the alternative network providers, and they rocketed up the league tables as a result. If we fail to rise to the challenge on broadband, we will miss out on the exciting technological developments of the next decade. Self-driving cars, virtual and enhanced reality, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, 5G and above all, cloud-based services, simply won’t happen without the speed, universal reach and reliability of a network that has untied itself from the copper cables of the past. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.',
 'The view on internet security: a huge and growing problem The phone in your pocket gives you powers that were hard to imagine even five years ago. It can talk to you, listen, and give sensible answers to questions. It knows your fingerprint and recognises your face and those of all your friends. It can buy almost anything, sell almost anything, bring you all the news you want, as well as almost all the books, films and music you might want to look at. What’s more, it will even allow you to talk to your friends and to communicate with almost anyone. The problem is that these powers are not yours – at least they don’t belong to you alone. They belong to whoever controls the phone and can be used to serve their purposes as well as yours. Repressive governments and criminal gangs are all contending to break into phones today, and this kind of hacking will increasingly become the preferred route into all of the computer networks that we use – the ones we don’t call “phonesâ€\x9d. Apple’s sudden forced upgrade to the iPhone operating system last week was a response to these anxieties. A dissident in the UAE appears to have had his iPhone hijacked by a very sophisticated piece of malware produced by a security company and sold legally, if in secret, to regimes that want to spy on their enemies. This offers its controllers complete knowledge of anything the infected phone is privy to: that’s all the contacts, all the messages of any sort, whether chats, texts or emails, all the calendars and even, potentially, any voice conversation that it overhears. It’s difficult to imagine a more assiduous or intimate spy. And once one phone has been subverted, it becomes a tool for spying into all other the networks to which it or the owner has access. This is not exclusively Apple’s problem. The much more widespread Android system is reasonably secure only on some Samsung and LG models and Google’s own-branded Nexus phones, which are updated frequently and automatically to keep abreast of security vulnerabilities. Other manufacturers have access to the updates but few get them installed in a timely fashion. In the poorer parts of the world, where Android has an overwhelming market share, the problem is especially acute. The Iranian secret police bug their dissidents using a tool (in the jargon of the trade, an Android RAT) called KrakenAgent. Beyond rogue nation states there is an unpleasant and insufficiently regulated market of legal firms that specialise in finding security vulnerabilities and selling them to the highest legal bidder, which normally means oppressive regimes; then there is a second tier of entirely illegal operators who sell tools to criminal gangs. Little of this is used for spying (though there is a market among jealous and abusive men for software that will enable to them to track their partners, one reason why some women’s shelters are reluctant to allow smartphones inside). Much more damage is done by “ransomwareâ€\x9d, which encrypts and in effect steals all of a user’s data, to be released only on payment. Such assaults are becoming increasingly common. Twenty-nine NHS trusts were targeted by them last year. This is a global problem now. Since almost every country will want these powers for its own security services, if for no one else, what is developing is something like an international arms trade. International efforts to police it are urgently needed and the companies that sell us these powerful phones must also be pressed to live up to their responsibilities to keep them safe so that their power is not easily turned against their owners.',
 'Forget about a mental health revolution without new cash If it’s Monday, the prime minister is doing something good and kind, according to the Downing Street grid: last week it was prisons, this week it’s a mental health “revolutionâ€\x9d. Announcing £1bn for threadbare mental health services, he launched a report detailing their dire state. Written by the head of Mind, this hard-hitting report was widely welcomed, as was the £1bn. One in four people suffer mental health problems but three-quarters get no help at all. Suicide rates are rising, as is self-harming, with services so bad that lives are “put on hold or ruinedâ€\x9d for lack of care, with mental health patients dying 15 to 20 years earlier than others. Beds are so scarce that 2,000 acutely ill patients a month end up sent far from home. Prime ministerial attention undoubtedly helps, when the anguish of mental illness is often worse than it is with physical ailments that get priority. Here’s his promise: a million more people will get “high qualityâ€\x9d treatment, including 600,000 more getting talking therapy (previously known as IAPT – Improving Access to Psychological Therapies); every A&E will get a mental health liaison team; and every maternity unit will get perinatal psychiatry to catch depression in mothers. There will also be extra help for children and young people with eating disorders, plus more crisis teams to keep people out of hospital. But “parity of esteemâ€\x9d for mental health has been announced many times by Cameron’s government – more parity of rhetoric than resources: the tariff for mental health was cut below that for physical health. Less than a tenth of NHS funds go to mental illness, and severe cuts since 2010 have left 5,000 fewer mental health nurses and 8% fewer mental-health beds. Professor Sir Simon Wessely, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, says mental health funding has been cut by 8%, telling of severely ill patients shunted “from Cornwall to Cumbriaâ€\x9d. His college commissioned a report from Sir Nigel Crisp, a former head of the NHS, which calls for hard targets – such as a maximum four-hour wait for acute treatment and an end to the “postcode lotteryâ€\x9d. But that lottery is at the heart of Cameron’s NHS policy. What does £1bn buy? As the Health Service Journal reports, this is not new money but part of the £8.4bn George Osborne was forced to promise during the election, faced with unprecedented NHS deficits. Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Health Foundation, lays it out with brutal clarity: “That £8bn was the minimum to sustain services. It doesn’t include any money for improving quality, for extra mental health or for a seven-day NHS.â€\x9d Along with other health economists, she presses the government to say where the money is to come from. “What has to give to provide new and better services, we ask. We get stonewalled.â€\x9d She says the NHS’s ability to carry on depends on good social care, but local authority cash is severely cut. “Money could be saved by early prevention – but in the spending review public health funds were cut by 4% every year to 2020, with its ringfence soon removed.â€\x9d Luciana Berger, the shadow minister for mental health, travels the country looking for community support for the depressed and ill. “But,â€\x9d she says, “Sure Start children’s centres, youth services, befriending projects, education psychology in schools and drop-in centres for the vulnerable are all vanishing. DWP work capability tests pile on mental pressure, although the work programme fails to get 93% of mental health patients into jobs.â€\x9d Cameron was precise about his new services – but the money is not ringfenced to ensure that’s where it goes. Whenever you hear the prime minister “announcingâ€\x9d things in the NHS, alarm bells should ring. Since the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, how money is spent has been devolved to local CCGs – care commissioning groups, nominally led by GPs. Many are now so strapped for cash, they will use it on contracting for existing services. Follow the money and take a look at one large mental health trust: Central and North West London. I interviewed Trevor Shipman, its finance director, for the ’s This is the NHS series, finding him facing an £8m shortfall this April, despite making £26m in savings. I asked if he expected his share of this £1bn to help extend his services. Studying the taskforce report, he pointed to recommendation 58, for the health department “to confirm what governance arrangements will be put in place to support the delivery of this strategyâ€\x9d. In other words, will they force it through and report the results? He sees no ringfence or enforcement mechanism. Will CCGs pay up? “I’ve been told by CCGs in financial trouble that they have been told by NHS England to clear their debts first and worry about mental health later – nothing in writing of course. It’s not CCGs’ fault, as many suffer an unfair funding formula.â€\x9d He needed £1.3m from his CCGs for urgent care, but got only £900,000 this year. He needs to be paid fully for existing services before adding new ones. Nor is there mention of local authority social care, on which he depends to empty blocked beds. Half his costs for children did come from local government, but those grants were abolished five years ago. One mental health success has been the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies talking therapy programme, evidence based, tightly costed and until now ringfenced. By getting nearly 5% of its patients back to work, it pays for itself. But those savings to the DWP don’t flow back to mental health. The sheer dogged determination of the economist and campaigner Professor Richard Layard has forced this through, says Charlesworth. But Shipman says a trust like his has had to deliver it at the expense of acute psychosis services. He must deliver psychosis appointments within two weeks from 1 April. “But how do we get the funds or the staff for that?â€\x9d Funding is so badly administered from on high that he still has no idea what his budget is from April: “How can I plan for staff?â€\x9d He can’t, of course. But then he is obliged to find logic where logic doesn’t exist. For it’s simply self-deceiving to make brave new announcements of fine mental services without new money, safely ringfenced; and they can’t ringfence old money already earmarked for debts everywhere else in the NHS.',
 'Why did the UK change its mind about Brexit? The wedding could hardly have been more tranquil. As midnight struck on the morning of 1 January 1973 – and Jesus Christ Superstar began its run on the London stage, and the first British hypermarket was sucking in shoppers, while Pink Floyd were about to launch the best-selling album in British pop history, and the motor industry was preparing to give the world the Austin Allegro – the United Kingdom was officially joined to the European Economic Community. Here and there people held celebrations – some even lit bonfires – yet most of the land was asleep. Writing the front-page story, a duty that fell to me as the ’s political reporter at the time, was deeply unsatisfying. Something that everyone knew was about to happen, had happened! Hardly a story that anyone yearns to write. There had been enough excitement and turmoil throughout the previous year. Edward Heath, unexpected victor of the 1970 election and as fervent a champion of Britain in Europe as anyone on the planet, had safely steered us in. It is often asserted now that the British public backed that judgment; in fact it wasn’t given the chance. Heath would hear no talk of a referendum, since he might have lost it. The polls showed public opinion running against British entry, and though in those days, leaders liked to believe that an endorsement from them might be enough to sway uncertain voters, Heath knew he might risk destroying a project at the heart of his political life. His battles came over the European Communities bill, the essential preliminary to accession, approved at second reading on 17 February 1972 by a majority of just eight. Though Labour in office had tried and failed to join Europe, they were now against it. Harold Wilson, the leader Heath had supplanted, said the terms for entry were not acceptable. But the party divergence was not what it seemed. A group of Labour MPs wholly committed to membership formed a surreptitious ancillary force for the Tories. The Conservative chief whip, Francis Pym – sternly instructed by Heath that he must not lose a single vote – would tell the Labour dissidents how many abstentions were needed on each division, and they would provide them. As a newly arrived Westminster reporter, I pestered Pym, who was under cruel pressure to deliver, about this arrangement. He and the chief Labour dissidents would explain how it worked. Perhaps the toughest night was when it came to a vote on a referendum, proposed by a Tory backbencher, which the Labour shadow cabinet agreed to back – a decision that triggered the resignation of the deputy leader Roy Jenkins. But again, as reporters in the press gallery waited hopefully for a sensational story, the Labour rebels saved the day for the Tories: 63 Labour MPs abstained. A Tory leader under pressure had calculated correctly, and got what he wanted. The referendum denied to the country then came two years later, in 1975, when Wilson was back in power. The call came now from continuing opponents of British membership, and especially Tony Benn – the mentor from whom Jeremy Corbyn would learn his long distrust of Brussels. Wilson began by opposing it, before scenting some merit in the idea. Handled well – a renegotiation to begin the process, to be followed by claims that the EC’s deterrent factors had now been extinguished – and the referendum might help cement Britain’s allegiance to the EEC. A persuasive case could be made for perpetuation. We had only been in the EEC two years, too short a time to justify permanent rejection. In any case, the people could be relied on to plump for more of the same rather than risky adventure. Voting not to join an organisation was one thing: voting to leave it and shuffle out into the cold was quite another. That year’s Brexit was duly rejected by a margin of three to two. A Labour leader under pressure had calculated correctly, and got what he wanted. It’s said that David Cameron hoped to emulate Wilson’s success, using a renegotiation to argue that the organisation in which he believed we should stay was a very different beast from the one that had become so widely distrusted. But the circumstances of the 2016 referendum were different from those surrounding Wilson’s triumph. The European union of 2016 is vastly different from the EEC, vastly more likely to engineer change or frustrate the kind of changes that many UK voters yearn for; dominant in ways that people find menacing. The mere Economic Community had no great ambitions for wholesale political and economic integration. You had to be there, I suppose, to get a sense of the transformations of these past 40 years. Only those approaching their 60s can know, except by deduction, how things felt. Looking back, the world of 1975 seems not just unsophisticated, but strangely naive. In those days, when I travelled the land trying to get the sense of a coming election, it was customarily assumed that the component regions of the UK were likely to behave in much the same way. It was further assumed that when a political leader spoke, people listened; and further that when the day of decision came, they would always choose what they knew over what was largely unknown, and certainly wholly untasted. The voice of the expert was loud in the land and largely respected. Two years (1973-75) isn’t long to start building up resentments: 41 years (1975-2016) is more than enough. There was, too, no equivalent then of social media, where dissidents can so easily come together and disrupt their masters’ ambitions. Instinctive deference and a stoic acceptance of one’s dissatisfactions had yet to be abandoned. People blame Corbyn for not giving Labour voters a stronger lead. But that’s not how things work any more. Whatever Corbyn had said, the legions of dispossessed Britain, making their protests on Thursday across much of the North, the Midlands and Wales, would not have taken much notice – any more than that former heartland of unswerving loyalty, the Conservative party, dutifully heeded to the voice of its leader. It has been coming for quite a while – see the fate of Labour in last year’s election, not just in Scotland – but we see at this moment more clearly than ever that the old and comforting certainties that used to be the bedrock of British politics are shattering day by day. There were always political shocks, but never before has the golden rule more clearly been: expect the unexpected. The quiet wedding that began in the earliest hours of 1 January 1973 ended at breakfast time yesterday morning, not just in divorce – but even, in this sense, in the cemetery.',
 'Bernie Sanders and other progressives plot Democratic party comeback Newly emboldened, populist voices of the Democratic party called on Sunday for the grassroots revival of progressive forces in America, to remake the party and rebound following Donald Trump’s crushing victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who was defeated by Clinton in the Democratic primary, and Keith Ellison, a rising progressive star and a leading contender to become the new chair of the party, both called for redirecting of party efforts away from the wealthy liberal elite. “We have to do a lot of rethinking,â€\x9d Sanders told CBS on Sunday. “Democrats have focused too much on a liberal elite, which has raised incredible sums of money from wealthy people but has ignored … the working class, middle class and low income-people in this country. “Now we need to create a grassroots movement of millions of people who want to transform this country.â€\x9d Sanders promised to fight Trump on environmental regulations, and said he wanted millions to campaign on forcing Republicans to action on climate change, which Trump has denied exists. He also repeated his rejection of Trump’s campaign rhetoric on immigrants, women, isolationism and Muslims, saying: “We will not accept racism, sexism or xenophobia.â€\x9d The senator, who has described himself as a democratic socialist, admitted he might find common ground on finance reform with Trump – if the Republican held to his word to be “the champion of working peopleâ€\x9d and has “the courage to stand up to Wall Streetâ€\x9d. The senator also said he agreed with Trump on the need to rebuild America’s infrastructure and overhaul international trade deals. “If he’s for creating a trade policy so that corporate America starts investing in this country, not in China, yeah, we can work together on that,â€\x9d Sanders said. But he said he feared the government would devolve into an oligarchy, with a small number of extremely wealthy people in control of the US economic levers. Sanders reserved criticism for Democrats, as well, in their deference to the rich. He criticized the party for failing to appreciate that average working Americans are working longer hours for low wages, are upset and “worried to death about the future generationâ€\x9d. “Trump tapped that,â€\x9d he said. Asked whether he supported the Democratic leaders that will now be in charge of that party’s side in Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer in the House Senate respectively, Sanders said: “I’m not into leaders, I’m into building a movement that transforms this country.â€\x9d An African American from Minnesota, the first Muslim to serve in Congress, and leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Ellison is considered a rising star in the party. Last year, he was one of the few Democrats to seriously believe that Trump could win the Republican nomination – a prediction he made on the same ABC programme, This Week, drawing laughter – and he was one of most outspoken supporters of Sanders in the Democratic primary. “We should have to put the voters first, not the donors first. I love the donors and we thank them. But it has to be the guys in the barber’s shop, the lady in the diner, the folks who are worried about whether their plant is going to close,â€\x9d he said. He said he wanted Democratic party resources to go into mobilizing voters at the local level. “They have got to be the laser-beam focus of everything we do. We need to empower them at the grassroots across this country. That’s how we come back. And we will come back.â€\x9d He declined to comment when asked whether he would seek the DNC chair, or whether he would give up his Congressional seat to be a full-time chairman, should he win it. “I will have something to say real soon,â€\x9d he said. The two men’s views were echoed by film-maker Michael Moore, who attended a large protest march in New York on Saturday against Trump’s agenda, and filmed himself inside Trump Tower, where the Republican president-elect has his home and main offices. Moore warned that he did not believe Trump was going to improve the lives of many of the working people who voted for him “and might make them worseâ€\x9d. Like Sanders, he also admonished Democrats, saying that the rural poor and city and suburban minorities had endured years of “benign neglectâ€\x9d. He also called on Barack Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate FBI director James Comey’s action late in the election, putting a new twist in the saga of Hillary Clinton’s emails. “It needs to be investigated how the FBI director was able to interfere with an election, which I believe is not legal, and tip the balance in what was going to be a very close election,â€\x9d he said.',
 'ONS data shows UK wealth wedded to property Britain’s obsession with property has sent the country’s net worth soaring to an estimated £8.8tn, an increase of 6% (£493bn) compared with the end of 2014. A surge in house prices in 2015 offset the UK’s decline in savings, the slow recovery of the banking sector and the government’s growing debt mountain. Overall, house prices increased by 7% in 2015 to add a further £355bn to the already huge value locked up in Britain’s homes. The Office for National Statistics said in its annual assessment of Britain’s assets and liabilities that the value of dwellings was estimated at £5.5tn at the end of 2015, more than four times their estimated value in 1995, when the figure touched £1.2tn. A more recent survey of house prices for June puts the growth rate at 8.7%. Such is the stellar rise in property prices that the figure for the UK’s total net worth more than tripled between 1995 and 2015, an increase of £6tn, equivalent to an average increase of £87,000 per person, said the ONS. Factories and office blocks add a further £2tn to the value of UK property. The boost to property contrasts with the state of the country’s more liquid financial assets, such as shareholdings, employee stock options, savings and pensions. The financial holdings of British households and companies are vast, but overshadowed by the borrowing and the liabilities attached to the assets. So while private pension funds have accumulated billions of pounds in assets, these are weighed down by the demands on them from current and future pensioners, more than cancelling them out. The state balance sheet makes up another slice of the UK’s assets and in 1995, central government could boast that its assets and liabilities were in balance, but the growing cost of pensioner benefits and the financial crash have thrown red ink all this benign picture and created a £1.5tn deficit. Part of the financial cost of the 2008 banking collapse was the money ministers spent bailing out financial institutions, which were burdened by bad property loans, and the property industry itself. Bankruptcies were avoided and many jobs saved, but at a huge cost to the taxpayer. In contrast to the US, where many banks and property developers were allowed to go bust, in effect writing off the bad loans, UK banks and property companies were bailed out. The effect was that a short sharp fall in property values in 2008 was transformed into a boom that has lasted from 2012 to the present. The ONS figures show that the growth of UK’s property and fixed asset values outstripped that of all other G7 countries while Britain’s total financial assets – collecting together the financial assets of households, the government and companies - put in the worst performance in the G7. Japan had the highest financial net worth in the G7 at £1.9tn while the UK and Italy had the lowest, both at minus £0.3tn.',
 'Peaches review – a masterclass in gleeful subversion There can be few better places to spend the night after a Donald J Trump presidential victory than at a gig by Peaches, the outré Canadian electropop artist. If you need succour, it is everywhere – in the regal headdress that Peaches wears for her opening song, Rub, whose centrepiece is a vulva; in the giant inflatable condom in which Peaches prances about during Dick in the Air, shooting silly string out from its tip; in the fans, turned out in get-ups almost as elaborate and smutty as those on stage. If conservatives have gained the upper hand in the Oval Office, tonight east London’s Oval Space remains a playground for people wearing Lycra with holes in interesting places, for men adjusting their makeup in both-sex toilets. It’s hard to stay gloomy for long when confronted by two shaggy, dancing vulvas on a song called Vaginoplasty from Peaches’s 2015 tour de force album, also called Rub. When Peaches reappears after a short costume change, with six breasts dangling from her (one in her crotch), she looks like a grotesque extra from the Star Wars cantina scene, probably cinema’s most obvious bastion of diversity and tolerance. Although there is plenty of eroticism at Peaches gigs, titillation is often not the whole point: gleeful subversion is. Through a 16-year body of work that spans catchy synthpop, skeletal electro, hard rock and Peaches Christ Superstar, a one-woman performance of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, the woman born 48 years ago as Merrill Nisker has created a parallel universe light years away from the norm. The norm is a harsh, squalid place where women’s bodies are still too often men’s playthings, extreme porn is widely distributed among schoolchildren and “slut-shamingâ€\x9d goes hand in hand with heteronormativity. In Peaches’s world, sex is a free-for-all, fun and frequently absurd. Shame does not exist. All genitalia and proclivities are equal. Pussy-grabbing is frequent, but always consensual. The tide of images of women’s bodies distorted by the male gaze – shaven pudenda, siliconed mammaries – is countered with a surge of ridiculously exaggerated privates and lots of jiggling. Just at the corner of the punk-rock sneer, there is a sly grin. The risk here, though, is that the nonstop erotic cabaret of Peaches’s live show might overshadow her professionalism, that Peaches remains infamous for being a six-breasted freak, rather than the writer of frequently excellent songs. Tonight, her style and her substance are defiantly equal too. Her least X-rated song remains one of her strongest – Talk to Me, from 2009’s I Feel Cream album, which comes early in the set. “This ain’t a Peaches show,â€\x9d she sings to a passive-aggressive romantic partner, “it’s just me and you.â€\x9d Her wide and confidently used vocal range is another thing often overshadowed by all the engorged set dressing. Her wordplay mixes the stark aggression of hip-hop and the kind of freewheeling assonance that recalls Dr Seuss. Rub’s Free Drink Ticket is intense, a spoken-word successor of sorts to Talk to Me, in which Peaches once again lambasts a lover who doesn’t communicate, or worse, lies. “Your personality turned to white powder/ Your brain’s clammed-up chowder,â€\x9d Peaches spits, fearsomely. “I gave and you pretended.â€\x9d For Peaches, lying is a cardinal sin. Contrast this with current political discourse, as witnessed in the Trump presidential campaign and the Leave campaign before it. It’s a mark of how strange things have become when the mainstream needs to take a lesson in moral rectitude from a topless, pan-sexual provocateur whose T-shirts ask: “Whose jizz is this?â€\x9d (after a Dick in the Air lyric). But that’s where we are now. For a woman whose 2006 album was entitled Impeach My Bush, making reference to the misdemeanours of the then-US president, George W, Peaches doesn’t mention current events for a very long time. She finally gets around to it near the end. “I’d rather not say the name,â€\x9d she mutters, before launching into a song called Dumb Fuck, “but he’s a dumb fuck.â€\x9d It’s hard to know where Peaches can go after this bravura performance. But, naturally, there are still places. The night’s second encore is Light in Places, a gauzy disco song in which Peaches’s double entendres redouble again. The stage is dark but for the dancers’ butt-plug torches, beaming from places the sun doesn’t normally light up.',
 "Jeff Lynne's ELO announced for Glastonbury 2016 Jeff Lynne’s ELO will be taking to Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage on Sunday 26 June, taking the afternoon slot traditionally filled by beloved entertainers of a certain age. Lynne follows the likes of Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie, who have attracted huge crowds to the festivals main stage for crowdpleasing sets of old favourites. Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis claimed Parton attracted the biggest crowd the event had ever seen when she appeared in 2014. The return and rise of Jeff Lynne and ELO has been one of music’s surprise stories of the past few years. When Lynne released an album under the ELO name in 2001, Zoom, it reached only No 34 in the UK charts. However, after Lynne appeared at a Children in Need benefit concert in November 2013, he was persuaded by Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans to perform under the ELO name at a Radio 2 concert in Hyde Park. The 50,000 tickets for the show sold out in 15 minutes, since when Jeff Lynne’s ELO have announced sellout arena shows and released an album, Alone in the Universe, that reached No 4 in the UK. The Sunday afternoon appearance by an older musician has become known as the “legend slotâ€\x9d owing to the calibre of the artists appearing in it. Last October, Leo Sayer claimed he was in the running to fill the bill in 2016, saying on ITV’s Loose Women: “It’s on the cards man. I want do to it. Why not?â€\x9d",
 'West Ham’s Andy Carroll twists knife into Bob Bradley and Swansea It was an afternoon when the mood turned ugly in South Wales as Swansea City supporters called for Bob Bradley to be sacked and vented their anger at the members of the board who sold their shares in the summer. “We want Bradley outâ€\x9d and “You greedy bastards get out of our clubâ€\x9d were among the chants reverberating around the stadium during another chastening defeat for a team who look resigned to relegation. The only festive cheer was found in the away end, where the euphoric West Ham fans celebrated a third successive victory that lifted Slaven Bilic’s side up to 11th and piled the misery on to Swansea and their American manager. Bradley put on a brave face and all indications are the Swansea board have no desire to dismiss the man who was appointed in October, yet there is no escaping the level of discontent that was swirling around the Liberty Stadium in the second half. The atmosphere felt poisonous and it was not only the hardcore support, in the upper tier of the East Stand, who were calling for Bradley to go. At one point near the end that “We want Bradley outâ€\x9d chant swept around the stadium as fans railed at the sight of their club sliding towards the Championship. Bradley was never a popular choice at the outset and the results since his appointment have done nothing to change opinion. Swansea have picked up only eight points from his 11 games in charge and, most damningly of all, conceded 29 goals. The West Ham defeat was the eighth time under his watch that Swansea have shipped three goals or more in a game. It is a woeful record, yet Bradley is not solely responsible for the way that Swansea’s season has unravelled. Their recruitment in the summer was desperately poor and it is tempting to wonder how much better any other manager would do with the group of players Bradley inherited when he replaced Francesco Guidolin. Defensively Swansea are a shambles. Bradley has tried just about every permutation possible with the back and yet nothing seems to get any better. Some of his tactics in other areas make no sense and it was a curious decision on Bradley’s part to leave out Fernando Llorente, who had scored four goals in his previous two home matches. Borja, the £15.5m club-record signing who has scored only once all season, started in place of Llorente and was dragged off at half-time. By that stage Swansea were a goal down after yet another piece of calamitous defending. André Ayew, returning to the club where he finished as top scorer last season, registered his first goal for West Ham with a simple tap-in. Winston Reid added the second early in the second half and it was at that point that the frustration in the stands started to boil over. Michail Antonio later added a third and although Llorente pulled one back for Swansea late on, Bilic’s side were not finished. Andy Carroll, volleying home at the far post, twisted the knife with a fourth to re-establish their three‑goal advantage. Swansea face Bournemouth at home on Saturday, and travel to Crystal Palace three days later. Whether Bradley will still be around for both of those games remains to be seen. Whatever the board thinks privately about wanting to give Bradley more time, the manager’s position will become close to untenable if Swansea lose in front of their own fans against Bournemouth. “In terms of trying to win back a bit of belief from the supporters, Bournemouth couldn’t be bigger,â€\x9d Bradley said. For West Ham, who have collected 10 points from their past four matches, the world seems a much happier place. They brutally exposed Swansea’s defensive frailties and never looked back from the moment Reid headed in Dimitri Payet’s corner five minutes into the second half. West Ham’s breakthrough in the first half had owed much to Carroll, who towered above Angel Rangel to head Mark Noble’s diagonal pass back across goal, and also Lukasz Fabianski’s poor goalkeeping. Fabianski carelessly pushed the ball into the path of Ayew, who slotted home from inside the six-yard box. Although Darren Randolph made a couple of decent saves to deny Gylfi Sigurdsson and Jack Cork, Swansea never threatened to mount a fightback. There is no conviction about their play and it was no surprise when Antonio stabbed home a third, turning in Havard Nordtveit’s wayward shot. Llorente, on for Borja, reduced the deficit when he converted Nathan Dyer’s cross but Carroll put a smile back on Bilic’s face with West Ham’s fourth goal. Not that the West Ham manager is taking anything for granted. “It would be suicidal to think we are safe now and look only who is above us,â€\x9d Bilic said. “It is still very tight but we have to use this to gain confidence and continue to improve. Only then we will have a chance to finish good.â€\x9d',
 'Reform call will mean sweet FA unless Premier League excesses are curbed There are, inevitably, mixed feelings about seeing past chairmen and directors of the Football Association speaking out now about the need to curb the Premier League’s power, given their propensity mostly to do nothing about it when they had the chance, in the actual job. That might be unfair to David Triesman, who was savaged by the Premier League during his unhappy stint as chairman for daring to assert the primacy of the FA, but the reform proposals of David Bernstein and Greg Dyke, which they failed to secure, always seemed aimed more at the FA itself, and in office they were not noted critics of the Premier League. Dyke, characteristically vocal now, famously told the in an interview while he was the chairman of football’s still-distinguished and historic governing body, that he had so much money personally, he “didn’t give a fuckâ€\x9d. Yet rather than revel in that personal financial independence by taking on the billionaire vested interests of the Premier League for the game’s greater all-round good, Dyke somehow ended up implementing a redundancy programme at the FA itself, sacking 100 people, some of whom are still not in work a year on – so presumably still have to “give a fuckâ€\x9d. The busyness of Damian Collins MP, the chair of the culture, media and sport committee, drafting yet another backbench bill to reform football – this one a vote of no confidence in the FA, which seems a little over the top – is meaningless without government support. Collins is a Conservative, so he could be doing the difficult job of seeking to persuade his colleagues in government that although they have one or two fine national messes of their own to salvage, they should make time for football reform as a priority. Without it, this is more talk, of which there has been a great deal over the past 24 years, in which the rehabilitated, seated, moneyed new age of the Premier League has been accompanied by unease and disillusionment over its hyper-commercialisation and inequality. Every parliamentary inquiry since the new Labour government’s Football Task Force of 1997 has taken evidence, had a solemn think and reached the same conclusions. Football has wonderful traditions in England, support for the game is phenomenal, but the 1992 breakaway of the then Football League First Division clubs, so as not to share their pay-TV bonanza with the rest of the game, rocket-fuelled the necessary modernisation of the sport with a culture of greed. During these discussions the FA’s executives, including some of these five who are public reformers now, have resisted that analysis and stood in a huddle with the Premier and Football Leagues against the campaigns of supporters, assuring governments that all is well. These five should nevertheless be listened to because they are clearly speaking from experience about the inability of the FA to govern the Premier League “juggernautâ€\x9d. The most insightful point in their letter to Collins is that even the money the Premier League does now distribute, which is only around 6% of the £8bn being reaped by 20 clubs from their latest 2016-19 TV bonanza, “is wielded to assert beneficial positions for the Premier Leagueâ€\x9d. The crumbs for the Football League have regularly been given with an ultimatum from the Premier League chief executive, now executive chairman, Richard Scudamore, that if the 72 clubs did not accept rules, for example on youth development, all the funding would be cut. For all the private grumbling, the Football League has meekly fallen into line over the years, rather than lose a million pounds here or there for each Championship club. Scudamore, of course, represents rich clubs now mostly owned by overseas investors, who bought them as assets to make money for themselves from the boom in the TV rights. His job is to achieve that for them, for the “shareholdersâ€\x9d. Alan Pardew slipped out last week a reflection that the US investors in his club, Crystal Palace, “perhaps don’t know a lot about footballâ€\x9d, but that is another truth that mostly dare not speak its name and it was reported as a faux pas by Pardew. There were positive results from the Football Task Force; the Premier League was pressed into distributing money for the first time to grassroots facilities: 5%, via the Football Foundation. The Burns review, a reform document of moderate ambition focused on the FA, at least resulted in independent chairmen and now two non-executive directors for the FA, which led to Triesman, Bernstein and Dyke fulfilling the role. Over time, these public outcries, combined with increased professionalism of clubs, has led to a more rounded, socially responsive approach than the unattractive money frenzy of the Premier League’s first few years, which made the first fortunes for the selling English owners. Scudamore has also learned when facing these regular challenges how to lobby governments about the Premier League’s Hollywood‑style TV dominance internationally and demonstrate the extensive community work that clubs have developed at home. The perennial result has been that governments have soon been won over by the Premier League’s success story and, rather than seek to curb its excesses, have tended to snuggle up for reflected glamour. There is no sign so far that this government will be any different, so when Collins’s committee hosts the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, on Tuesday perhaps he and his fellow MPs could put her through some of the same righteous interrogation they seem to like dishing out to the FA.',
 'Environmental health officers call for smoking ban in playgrounds Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up. Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007. But the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said on Monday it wants local councils to designate any place where children play or learn as a smoking exclusion zone, although adherence would be voluntary, not statutory. Banning it in those locations would also protect children from secondhand smoke, it says. A new YouGov poll commissioned by the CIEH shows that 89% of 4,300 adults surveyed back a ban on smoking in children’s play areas, while 57% want it to end in public parks. “It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of people would support restrictions on smoking in children’s play areas. We would like to see smoking being stubbed out wherever children play or learn,â€\x9d said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive. “This would not only include children’s playgrounds but could see no-smoking zones extended to public parks, zoos and theme parks. Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour,â€\x9d she added. Some councils have already moved to try to stop people smoking in some outdoor places. For example, Coventry city council has asked parents not to smoke outside the gates of its 82 primary schools. The policy has gone down well with parents and headteachers, the council said. Wrexham has also decreed that playgrounds, school gates and bus shelters should be regarded as smoke-free places, while Nottingham city council seeks to ensure that all its outdoor attractions are smoke-free for the six weeks of the school summer holidays. “Public opinion – and not just among parents – has swung heavily in favour of protecting children from exposure to tobacco smoke and from the behavioural cues children pick up from seeing adults smoking. This is a real opportunity to make it easier for children to grow up healthy,â€\x9d said Jim McManus, the director of public health at Hertfordshire county council. “Parents and children, when given the choice, are overwhelmingly supportive of smoke-free playground. Local voluntary schemes have been popular. It’s time to give parents what they are asking for. You might feel like this is the nanny state – you’d be wrong,â€\x9d McManus added. Forest, the smokers’ rights group, called to the plan “Orwellianâ€\x9d. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Extending the smoking ban to outdoor parks and play areas would be a gross overreaction. There’s no evidence that a significant number of people smoke near children in outdoor areas, nor is there evidence that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else’s health.â€\x9d Clark added: “Public parks are for the enjoyment of everyone, including smokers. Most smokers use their common sense and smoke accordingly. They don’t need government dictating how they behave. The idea that children should be protected from the sight of someone smoking is Orwellian. Adults can’t be expected to be perfect role models for other people’s children.â€\x9d The owners of zoos and theme parks, because they are private businesses, should be allowed to decide whether smoking is banned, Clark said. It became illegal last October to smoke in a car in England or Wales carrying anyone under the age of 18. New figures last week showed that the proportion of adults in England who smoke had fallen to a record low of 16.9%. Deborah Arnott, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “While the ban on smoking in indoor public places resulted in significant health benefits, thousands of children are still exposed to smoke in the home and elsewhere. Growing up in a smoke-free environment is one of the best ways of ensuring that they are not attracted to smoking and lured into a lifelong addiction and ill-health.â€\x9d',
 'Conflating public and private lives makes fools of us all As financiers from RBS’s Fred Goodwin to Northern Rock’s Adam Applegarth and the IMF’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn have demonstrated, senior bankers are quite as likely as, say, Boris Johnson and members of the SNP to embark on extramarital relationships, sometimes discovered before they move on, sometimes not. Though given the superhuman abilities reflected in the bankers’ salaries, it should be emphasised that they are obviously many thousands of times better at conducting affairs than the average married person and would take their talents abroad if anyone questioned their rewards in this respect, with grievous consequences for the British economy. António Horta-Osório, the CEO of Lloyds Banking Group, is entitled to ask why his recent sightseeing in Singapore, accompanied by the chief executive of the Russell Group, Wendy Piatt, was of such interest to Sun readers, that the paper revealed it, beneath the front-page headline: Lloyds Bonk. That the bank is still 9% state-owned cannot amount to the public’s right to CEO uxoriousness or not, anyway, at the same time that the once-dedicated shagger Boris Johnson is promoted to prime minister’s understudy. If anything, modern Westminster shows that, while not exactly compulsory, a furious extra-marital sex life is a tremendous way for a male public servant to create interest and progress his career. On the left, John, now Lord Prescott, rose from shifty practitioner of the office knee-trembler to become one of the greatest moralists of the age, certainly a rival for John Major. It remains only for women MPs to be rewarded, or pardoned, for the same enthusiasm, before the parliamentary sex scandal is redefined as the obvious stepping stone between backbencher and junior minister. Though, as David Mellor’s career reminds us, why stop there? As for any link between continence and competence, Horta-Osório’s record, like Johnson’s, speaks for itself. Give or take a further 3,000 job losses, a fall in profits and a record fine for mishandled PPI claims, Lloyds bank is now in such excellent shape that Horta-Osório’s latest pay deal, including a 6% salary rise, was £8.5m. Having established that Horta-Osório had not claimed any Piatt-related costs of his trip on expenses, Lloyds told the Sun: “In this regard, the review found there were no breaches of the group’s policy and there was no case to answer.â€\x9d It continued: “Lloyds has been returned to financial health over the last five years under the leadership of António, and is well-placed to continue supporting the UK economy and to help Britain prosper.â€\x9d But in another regard, it might have added, António had a little explaining to do. Shortly after his arrival at Lloyds, Horta-Osório introduced a code of personal responsibility, one intrusive enough to satisfy the Sun, and designed to help Lloyds staff to “strive to always do the right thingâ€\x9d. Incentives were included: “We take any non-compliance with the codes very seriously.â€\x9d I recommend the code’s crystalline “decision guideâ€\x9d to any employee who is contemplating something that might not merely make them look exceptionally silly, but cost them their job. For instance, a married employee might ask himself/herself: “I would like to meet my girlfriend/boyfriend while on company business in Singapore, then take boat trips together, even though discovery would cause personal and professional agonies and raise unfair questions about my judgment and expenses. What should I do?â€\x9d In this instance, the decision guide would lead the troubled employee straight to three questions: “Am I leading by example?â€\x9d; “Would Lloyds Banking Group be comfortable if my actions were reported externally?â€\x9d and; “Would I be happy to tell my colleagues, friends and family about my actions?â€\x9d If, like our fictitious employee, you answered no/not sure to one or more, then the code is clear: “Contact your line manager or a responsible senior leader in your business area for further advice and guidance.â€\x9d The glaring omission here is how to proceed if you are already CEO of Lloyds and therefore have no line manager or responsible senior leader with whom to discuss your Singapore trip. In earlier times, Mr Horta-Osório praised his wife’s advice – she recommended he take the Lloyds job – but in this case, that, presumably, was contra-indicated. Perhaps the careless code-writers thought it inconceivable that any leader brilliant enough to help Britain prosper wouldn’t also be enough of a genius not to breach his own regulations by taking an ostensibly adulterous mini-break on the Singaporean harbour front. Such a gigantic talent would be sure to remain, judiciously, indoors. One recalls that even Prescott was exposed only after his diary secretary’s boyfriend went to the Daily Mirror. It becomes clearer why, in what first resembled some grim, public-appeasing precedent, Mr Horta-Osório felt compelled to issue a staff memo much praised by PRs and trumpeted by the Sun as a “grovelling apologyâ€\x9d. On examination, there is little sign of accountability in Mr Horta-Osório’s effort, which adheres strictly to the “mistakes were madeâ€\x9d method of apology, so dear to politicians and bankers, that regrets, preferably in the first person plural, whatever unfortunate circumstances have mysteriously arisen. More than anything it recalls those forced HBOS apologies: “We are profoundly and I think unreservedly sorry at the turn of events.â€\x9d In the current case, Mr Horta-Osório says: “I deeply regret being the cause of so much adverse publicityâ€\x9d (ie, being found out); he dwells on the company’s “major accomplishmentsâ€\x9d; he delicately alludes, as he must, to the code he has transgressed – “the highest professional standardsâ€\x9d. From which it is but a short step to shared responsibility. “We must recognise that mistakes will be made. I don’t expect anyone to get everything all the time.â€\x9d Quite. It would be ridiculous to think that, in the lower regions of the Lloyds banking group, nobody on a fraction of his £8.5m would impulsively do something, as prohibited by the Antonine Code, that they would be unhappy to tell their colleagues, friends or family about. Perhaps it is not so unreasonable, however, for Mr Horta-Osório’s co-workers, and even for the public, with its 9% holding, to wonder if someone in such hilarious contravention of his code can be worth the full £8.5m. Can António, the star in his own revival of Measure for Measure, be the right person to lead by example? Either, as Mr Horta-Osório says, his “personal life is obviously a private matterâ€\x9d, and elements of his code are an outrageous imposition, in which case he’s in the wrong, or his code is defensible and he is in the wrong for non-compliance. “I strongly believe you should link compensation with performance,â€\x9d he has said. A merciful public might conclude that, if Mr Horta-Osório is not to join the blameless 3,000 staff now earmarked for disposal, he should continue in employment only on a salary that better demonstrates this link, £15,156 per year being both generous to him, and the same as a Lloyds customer service assistant.',
 'Macaulay Culkin: ‘No, I was not pounding six grand of heroin a month’ Of all modern myths, it is the fall of the child star that most compels us. Whether they’re embarking on 55-hour marriages, throwing bongs out of windows or abandoning monkeys at customs, we can’t seem to get enough. There’s something pathological in our need to tear down our icons of innocence, which might explain the overprotective nature of Macaulay Culkin’s US publicist, who wants to see all my questions upfront. I refuse. I thought we could just ... have a chat? The interview, Culkin’s biggest in 10 years, is supposed to focus on his comeback. I’m instructed to avoid anything negative. I ask if I can ask if he has any regrets. “Regrets sounds too negative,â€\x9d is the response. When we meet, in the lobby of a hotel in Spain, I’m still trying to figure out what exactly this comeback consists of. Culkin’s filming an advert for Compare the Market, which is obviously not a passion project. “It was fun, and we hammered that sucker out pretty quickly. The biggest scene was me sitting on a bench eating ice-cream.â€\x9d Is he doing this to fund an exciting new venture? “No, not necessarily.â€\x9d He’s dressed grungily, long hair man-bunned back, boots open-laced, blazer badge-studded. He doesn’t project the focused careerism of most actors. “People feel they have to be in perpetual motion, or drown. I’ve never had a problem saying I’ve got nothing lined up. Maybe I’ll take the next year off.â€\x9d It sounds as if he’s not particularly drawn to acting at all. “I’m not much active,â€\x9d he concedes. “If I knew what I wanted to do, I’d be writing it myself.â€\x9d The trajectory of Culkin’s life feels like fallout from an atomic blast. By the age of 12, Uncle Buck, two Home Alone films, My Girl and (to a lesser extent) Richie Rich had made him the most successful child actor of all time. At 14, he became legally emancipated from his parents; both had been trying to gain control of his $17m fortune in their divorce. Culkin married at 17, and separated two years later. Sleepovers with Michael Jackson became public knowledge when he was called as a defence witness at the singer’s molestation trial. I’m ghoulishly fascinated by this alien childhood. I’d like to ask about Michael Jackson. “I think it’s best you don’t,â€\x9d interjects his manager. She is one of three people sitting with us. “It’s not that it’s a painful topic ...â€\x9d begins Culkin. His manager insists we move on, the PR next to her agrees. Culkin clearly wants to say something, but six eyes are telling him not to. I suspect we’re both wondering why we’re here; 35-year-old Culkin doesn’t do this sort of thing any more, having turned his back on the spotlight. “I don’t just turn my back, I actively don’t want it. The paps go after me because I don’t whore myself out.â€\x9d He has spent a decade turning down interviews, and mostly lives in France, where the aloof Parisians leave him alone. (It’s also where Kevin McCallister’s family were headed when they left him Home Alone, but we can’t talk about that.) I get the impression he’s as eager to talk about a price comparison website as I am to ask about one. Instead, I ask why people are still fascinated by him. “I have no idea. I was thinking about this the other day – I’d crossed the wrong street, picked up a tail, suddenly there’s a crush of 20 paparazzi. Then people with cameraphones get involved. I don’t think I’m worthy of that.â€\x9d Has it got better with time? “It’s been like that my whole adult life. You take on a prey-like attitude, always scanning the horizon. It’s strange on dates, as it looks like you’re not paying attention. But I’ve stopped trying to think of myself in the third person, because that’s just gonna drive me nuts.â€\x9d You had to think about yourself in the third person? “Exactly. Macaulay Culkin is out there, and I’m Mac. You guys can play with the first one.â€\x9d He’s not averse to a bit of playing himself, for Culkin is the celebrity’s meta-celebrity. You may remember the meme-meltdown a few years back when Ryan Gosling was pictured wearing a T-shirt of Kevin McCallister. Culkin responded by creating a T-shirt that pictured Gosling wearing the shirt, before Gosling responded in kind, being photographed wearing a T-shirt of Culkin wearing a T-shirt of Gosling wearing a T-shirt of Culkin. They may still be at it for all we know. Culkin’s previous ads, for the likes of Orange (and, in a Partridge move, the rebranding of Norwich Union), trade in close-to-the-bone self-analysis. For Compare the Market, he plays a hitchhiker picked up by the lovable meerkats, who see him as a child, buying him ice-cream and making him ride merry-go-rounds he’s too big for. In 2006, Culkin wrote an experimental novel, Junior, from the perspective of a certifiable child star with father issues. In web comedy :DRYVRS, he’s a blood-spattered sadist, unhinged by the childhood trauma of parental abandonment, and defending himself against home invaders. Is all this self-quoting what he’s drawn to, or just what he gets offered? “A bit of both. It suits my personality and sense of humour. But I would be game for something non-self-referential.â€\x9d Given this dilemma – constantly returning to a past he wants distance from – where does his sense of self come from? “From me. I try to figure out what makes me happy – and not in a superficial way. I keep my soul fit.â€\x9d Is he spiritual? “I know enough to know I don’t know. I was raised Catholic, so there’s a lot of guilt. We’re born with original sin.â€\x9d He veers off into a joke. “Since I was told that, I’ve been trying to come up with even more original sins, that’ll really blow my priest away at confession. Like, here’s one you haven’t heard – it involves a pitching wedge, a donkey and a bucket of ice.â€\x9d And two meerkats? “Yeah! You might wanna record this one!â€\x9d He reflects. “Actually, I’m very much at peace lately. I can debate with people, and my heart rate never changes.â€\x9d And Culkin is witty and affable. Funny, but distant. He offers confrontational figures of speech amiably. “If you want to get into an argument with an artist, ask them what art is,â€\x9d he says. “If you want to make an actor feel uncomfortable, ask them what they’re doing next.â€\x9d (I hastily scribble out one of the few questions I’ve written down.) Are his debates political? “I have leanings, but I’m the definition of a disenfranchised voter – I think the system is ugly. This whole Trump thing is amazing.â€\x9d (Trump cameos in Home Alone 2, showing our hero the way to the Plaza Hotel lobby, although we can’t talk about it.) Culkin doesn’t want to be drawn further. “Discussing politics is the quickest way to alienate people, so I don’t wanna go into it.â€\x9d And Trump has enough column inches? “Exactly! He’s like the Candyman, we have to stop saying his name.â€\x9d Culkin was acting at four, an age at which no one knows what they want beyond watching cartoons and eating oversugared cereal. Having described himself as “effectively retiredâ€\x9d, he works occasionally (voices for Seth Green’s Robot Chicken, cameoing as himself in Zoolander 2), but: “I’m much more proactive with visual arts and writing, my notebook and little projects.â€\x9d Of the projects that reach the public, most could charitably be classed as divisive. There are paintings: one of the cast of Seinfeld on the set of Wheel of Fortune, being painted, nude, by He-Man. There’s The Wrong Ferrari, a Dadaist knockabout written on ketamine with Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches, shot entirely on iPhones. Most notorious is the Pizza Underground, his Velvet Underground tribute act that replaces the original lyrics with pizza puns (I’m Waiting for Delivery Man, Take a Bite of the Wild Slice). At Nottingham Rock City, the band were pelted with beer and booed off stage as he played a kazoo solo. They cancelled their European dates, citing a “cheesemergencyâ€\x9d. My question about all this is: what the hell? “It’s one of those good ideas you have when you’re drunk, and you wake up and forget about it. But we’re taking it to the end of the joke. We have an album coming out, a vinyl pressing with a children’s choir, a symphony orchestra. We’re giving it away, our gift to the world.â€\x9d Does he still find it funny? “Of course I find it funny! We rhyme mushrooms with mushrooms, come on. It’s the same joke, relentlessly. Like, they’re really doing this?â€\x9d Culkin enjoys the absurdity his fame bestows. But scrutiny has its downside. In New York, he takes walks at 4am to avoid harassment. On YouTube, one can find clips of him being harassed by wannabe-paps with smartphones. In 2012, photographs of him looking gaunt, almost transparent, set tabloids aflame with stories he was addicted to heroin and oxycodone, following the breakdown of his relationship with Mila Kunis. Given his friendship with Adam Green and Pete Doherty – as well as a previous arrest for possession of marijuana, Xanax and clonazepam – it seemed plausible. Were people right to be worried? “Not necessarily. Of course, when silly stuff is going on – but no, I was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever. The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern. No, you’re trying to shift papers.â€\x9d Is there a story there he might want to tell one day, on his own terms? “Perhaps.â€\x9d Whatever his recreational habits, I’m surprised by how unscrewed-up Macaulay Culkin is. Plans for the summer mainly involve roadying for Har Mar Superstar and Green (with whom he has another lo-fi film out, Aladdin). “Home is where my boots are. I’m a big fan of jumping on people’s tourbuses, making myself useful, doing load-ins and outs. I do everything except the merch table. I tried that, but ... we didn’t sell anything.â€\x9d He has directionless days. He sleeps in, stays up late, indulges immature humour, bounces around with bad-influence friends. In short, he’s enjoying the adolescence that celebrity stole from him. Ironically, his personal problems and turbulent relationship with the media have also given him a pretty grown-up perspective. Not a bad epilogue for a child star. “It’s allowed me to become the person I am, and I like me, so I wouldn’t change a thing. Not having to do anything for my dinner, financially, lets me treat every gig like it’s the last.â€\x9d He laughs, and this time addresses himself in the second person. “If it is, I’d think: Culkin, you had a good run.â€\x9d',
 'How to stop teenagers sexting Jeremy Hunt has proposed a ban on sexting for under 18s. As any reasonable person might have predicted, this has been met with a great deal of criticism. Most of the arguments appear to be based on the technical practicalities, given how Hunt never truly explained how tech companies are supposed to filter specific types of messages on countless platforms and devices based on date of birth. However, an even bigger hurdle would be the sex drive of teenagers themselves. One time when I was in school, we’d heard that someone had abandoned a pornographic magazine in a nearby field (for any teenagers reading this, this was a common phenomenon in the era when porn had to be printed). So, obviously, we set off to find it. Took a few hours but it was eventually spotted in a ditch. It ended with us just staring at it for a while, focussed on cheaply-printed images of naked breasts, spattered with mud, rainwater and animal effluent (I hope nobody developed any weird fetishes as a result of this, but you never know). About 10 young guys, spending hours climbing hills and trudging through bogs, all for the mere possibility of seeing images of exposed female flesh. These are the sort of lengths teenagers will go to for even the slightest sexual stimulation, so the idea of some remote authority figure saying “stop thatâ€\x9d making them reconsider their actions is ludicrous in the extreme. This isn’t meant to ignore the issue. Teenage sexting is obviously prevalent, and we have no real idea how this affect long-term psychosexual development; we’ve never had a generation of humans who had such easy access to sexual material at such a young age before. And some studies suggest that the adolescent brain, which is still forming, is more prone to addictive behaviour as areas like the prefrontal cortex, responsible for critical thinking and impulse control, aren’t “fully formedâ€\x9d yet. But studies like this, and the general attitude that they inform (and that informs them in turn) do come in for criticism. Our society often has a questionable, unfair view of adolescents, regarding them with suspicion, as unable to think for themselves, minimising their achievements and so on. They’re often treated more like unpredictable pets than, you know, people. Studies focussing on the “immaturityâ€\x9d of the adolescent brain regularly back up this stance and inform policy, despite the fact that there’s relatively little evidence directly linking brain developments and observed behaviours. This could be seen as inconsistent. If your argument is that adolescent brains aren’t fully developed so they shouldn’t be trusted with anything potentially harmful, then technically our brains don’t fully “matureâ€\x9d until our mid-20s. Logically then, every important decision and possibly harmful action (smoking, drinking, driving etc.) should be restricted to those over 25. Unless I’ve missed a major announcement, this hasn’t happened. Another argument is that this lack of impulse control in adolescents isn’t a flaw, it evolved for a reason. Risk taking behaviour rises markedly during adolescence, and falls again into mature adulthood. While this obviously has dangerous implications, it can also lead to positive things like meeting more people, establishing relationships (asking someone out is always a big risk), achieving new experiences and knowledge, and many other things that make you a better person and improve your long term prospects. And then there’s the adolescent sex drive. Teenagers are going through an intense and confusing hormonal onslaught as it is. Testosterone and oestrogen induce the physical sexual changes experienced by men and women respectively, but these also increase our sex drive in the brain. Sex is an extremely powerful motivator at the best of times, but people often overlook how complex it is. You’ve got the basic, animal “urgesâ€\x9d that lead to sex drives, but also the more sophisticated aspects. There’s the intimacy aspect (sex is a big part of relationships, something else our brains seek out), the social aspect (men who have a lot of sex are praised for their virility and prowess, women… not so much), and countless other influences. All of these would be even more potent for a developing, adolescent brain. Despite this, most research focuses purely on the timing of onset of adolescent sexuality, which isn’t especially helpful. So, technical challenges aside, the idea of a ban on sexting is still ridiculous. You’ve got millions of individuals with an increased sex drive, reduced self-control, a fondness for risk and an established aversion to authority figures. Even if you could work out a way to ban sexts among teenagers (one clueless politician versus an angry generation that have been immersed in technology since birth? Could happen, I guess) that wouldn’t solve the problem at all, would almost certainly just result in more teenagers being punished for questionable reasons. As sex-blogger Girl On The Net so eloquently puts it: Short of locking them in boxes with no wifi connection, there is no technical “solutionâ€\x9d that will prevent kids from sexting any more than you could have prevented a younger version of me from getting touched up behind the bike sheds at school. What’s more I’d argue that “stopping kids from sextingâ€\x9d is a misguided goal in the first place. We shouldn’t be treating sex like it’s a monster that’s trying to eat our young people: it’s a very common part of life, and blanket bans are a poor alternative to proper sex education and guidance. There’s definitely a discussion to be had about teenagers engaging in potentially harmful, destructive sexual behaviours, but dealing with this would be a lot easier if policies around sexual issues were consistent and logical, and that’s far from the case. The UK age of consent is 16, but the texting plans would apply to anyone under 18? So you can have sex with your partner but can’t mention it on your phones afterwards? Sex suffuses practically every aspect of our media, bare flesh is common in everyday advertising, but teenage girls get kicked out of school for wearing too-short skirts. Is it any wonder teenagers are confused about sex and attempts to educate them are hit-and-miss? Logically, the best way to get teenagers to be more diligent about sex would be if those in authority started treating them like actual people with thoughts and drives and needs of their own, rather than horny dogs humping your trouser leg needing a tap on the nose to “learn their placeâ€\x9d. Here’s hoping that might happen at some point. Dean Burnett isn’t a sex guru but he’s seen it on the telly. His book The Idiot Brain, is available now in the UK, USA, Canada and many other countries.',
 'A new year that changed me: realising I wanted to live, and giving up heroin It was the looks of contempt that did it. I didn’t normally spend new year with my parents and sisters, but that year I did. I had nowhere else to go really as I’d pretty much run out of friends, and time with my family seemed marginally preferable to time on my own. To be clear; this wasn’t about them, it was about me. I’d been a heroin addict for 10 years and my life was a mess. I’d done next to nothing other than a few dead-end jobs from which I was invariably sacked and I got by on a round of handouts and petty crime. Lying had become second nature; I’d been to rehab five years previously and sworn blind to everyone that I was off the smack, but the truth was I’d never been clean for more than a few days. My life had been reduced to the getting and using of heroin. Not that I turned down booze or other drugs; it was just that none of them hit the same sweet spot of nullification. That feeling of feeling nothing. That new year, though, I was forced to feel my shame. I’d arrived – late, of course, what junkie ever arrives anywhere on time? – and my parents had made a great show of welcoming me. Several years later they told me one of the reasons they had always been so pleased to see me was because my arrival was proof that I wasn’t dead. I kissed my mum hello and my dad offered me a drink. “Don’t worry,â€\x9d I said. “I’ll get one myself.â€\x9d I went into the kitchen, downed a tumbler full of scotch, before refilling the glass to a more acceptable level and going off to the living room to rejoin the rest of the family. Awkward doesn’t begin to do justice to the misery that followed. My parents began, as they always did, by asking me what I had been up to. I came up with the usual hard luck lines of why what I had previously told them hadn’t happened and how I was sure next year would be different. They sat there and nodded, desperate to believe me. My sisters remained impassive, barely even bothering to say hello. I can’t remember the rest of the evening in detail, but if it ran anything like every other evening, it will have gone something like this. Every now and again I will have announced that I needed to go to the toilet and disappeared for the best part of 20 minutes to shoot up some smack. I’d have then wandered back into the living room as if I’d only been gone for a couple of minutes and slump, barely conscious, back into the chair. This would have been repeated several times until the clock ticked round to midnight – the chimes of freedom that allowed everyone to slope off to bed after the briefest “happy new yearâ€\x9d and to escape the horrors of the preceding hours. What I do remember is the contempt in my sisters’ eyes. Normally, nothing could touch me when I was out of it on heroin; it was as if there was a protective barrier between me and the world. If people didn’t like me I seldom noticed, and if I did I wasn’t that bothered. But that New Year’s Eve my sisters broke through my shield and their eyes had seen my soul. Or what was left of it. They may not have known what exactly was wrong with me or just how bad a state I was in, but they had seen enough to give up on me. Loving me had become just too painful; disgust was all that remained. The details of the following morning are equally fuzzy, but something had changed. I couldn’t get my sisters out of my head. Even more striking was the revelation that no matter how much they hated me, it was nothing compared to how much I hated myself. Like most junkies, I often talked to other junkies about how I was going to give up smack. But also like most junkies, I never got round to doing more than getting the occasional methadone script to tide me over a few days of trying not to take quite as much heroin as usual. It was a depressing cycle of failure that only served to reinforce my self-loathing. Yet that New Year’s Eve had been a game changer, because it was also the moment I realised that I wanted to live more than I wanted to die. It took time. Junkies seldom rush anything and I continued to use, with the overdoses becoming more frequent. But within two months I was in rehab, and this time it worked. That was back in 1987. Fingers crossed in March this year I will have been clean and sober for 30 years.',
 'Bridget Jones is a glorious emissary from a better age Trying to hate the third Bridget Jones film is like trying to sulk while a toddler is tickling you: if it’s hard to take against Renée Zellweger in any guise, it’s simply not viable when she’s lip-syncing to House of Pain. As she paces round her yard of failures, and ends “at least I’m finally thin,â€\x9d it’s hard to take against that too. Comic talent leaps from the screen like frogs out of a box. Why was I even trying to hate it? Because it was Bridget Jones, and in the 1990s, that’s what we did. Before the first film we complained about the column, then the book, on feminist grounds. Finally, a character had arrived who didn’t embody a prissy femininity of self-control, but in its place was a constant hum of trivia and calories and incompetence. She couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t make soup, she couldn’t stay upright, she had all the agency and independence of a gosling, she was always at her most loveable when she was showing her knickers. It was as though there was so much fear in rejecting the classic female ideal of decorum that we had to crawl on our hands and knees to be accepted some other way. Inconveniently, she was often very funny. But funny could wait until we’d smashed the patriarchy. That was wrong. No, let me try that again. I was wrong. The self-abasement and the humour were inextricable, and contained a subtle liberation that it was a big mistake to undervalue. Big mistake, to quote another politically problematic but deceptively important film: huge. The first Bridget Jones film came out in 2001, by which time there was a kind of meta-disapproval for Zellweger, as the envoy of US body fascism trying to ape British slatternliness. How can you tear down the cultural constraint of female perfectionism with a heroine who battles constantly with her thighs and drinks wine in pints, and not at least check first whether or not Kate Winslet is available? The distinction between herself as an actor and herself qua casting decision seemed lost on Zellweger, who was extremely vexed at the column inches devoted to her appearance, and has remained so. In retrospect, I can see why. It’s hard not to take things personally when they’re literally all about your person. But seeing the third film makes me realise how much there is to miss about the 1990s politically. Bridget is now 43, and gets accidentally pregnant after two one-night stands, too close together to figure out whose child it is. I probably just about have it in me not to say who the father is, between Colin Firth’s Mark and Patrick Dempsey’s Jack, but otherwise take it as read that this piece will be riddled with spoilers. Immediately, the film made me miss sex-positive feminism. There was a time, towards the end of the last century, when we rejected the word “slutâ€\x9d not because it was victim-blaming but because there was no victim. The charge of sluttishness simply made no sense. A woman might choose to get drunk and have sex with a stranger, and it might not be a cry for help or a violation, it might not have meaning, she might not have low self-esteem, she might just feel like it. She might be charting the exhilarating waters of her own sexual destiny or she might just be passing the time. She couldn’t be made to feel ashamed, not because the Daily Mail didn’t try, but because shame is a two-way street and she didn’t have it in her. Sex didn’t have to be a transaction, with a winner and a loser (or two losers), as it is in Girls; it didn’t even have to be an idealised transaction resulting in mutually satisfied participants, in the manner of Sex and the City. It could exist entirely outside the framework of investment and return, use and exploitation, in the space we used to call life. I miss the jokes. At one point in Bridget Jones’s Baby, Bridget’s gay friend announces he’s adopting, and says: “We’re having a baby. A gaybyâ€\x9d. That joke could only be made because it was seeded in a more ludic time. You wouldn’t write that in a story first conceived today, because someone would think it infantilised same sex relationships, and someone else would think it implied that gay parents tried to preach homosexuality to their children, and some other someone would think it sexualised babies. Which may not sound like a huge loss, because it’s just a piece of silly wordplay, but it is a loss: the ability to take a joke is a fundamental, perhaps defining, component of social legitimacy and confidence. When we all have to be as sensitive as our most sensitive ally, we cram into an ever tighter cultural corner, pearl-clutching, offence-taking, acting out the humourlessness of which liberals were always mischievously accused. And I miss Emma Thompson; or rather, I miss the kinds of roles for which only Emma Thompson will do, caustic, intelligent, sceptical, warm. Try to imagine Theresa May explaining to Emma Thompson why she needed grammar schools, or a van telling immigrants to go home or face arrest; it’s really enjoyable. More than any of that, I miss fecklessness, the ability to accept error as part of the human condition, without trying to stratify it by class or gender and write it off as the kind of thing only undesirable people are capable of. What contemporary political narrative would Bridget Jones fit into, in her current situation? She’s not a scrounger; she’s not a troubled family; she’s not a benefits cheat. (She probably is, for a time, a drain on the NHS.) But nor is she a hard-working family, or a striver. She’s not having a baby because she planned it, or can afford it, or has a brilliant maternity package, or lives near an outstanding primary school. She couldn’t begin to justify her decision, couldn’t even dignify it with the word, it’s more of a happenstance. She doesn’t match any of the criteria of a decent citizen in our current politics; but that’s a fault in the politics, which is kept afloat by a po-faced self-righteousness that can’t brook a joke in case empathy and fellowship come rushing in alongside it. The real work of building a “country that works for allâ€\x9d consists not of standing greyly by and intoning it, but of being able to see a person in wildly inauspicious circumstances, entirely of their own making, and feeling for them; knowing it could be you; wanting to help. That was the subversive element of Bridget Jones – her every pratfall built a deeper collective bond and made a narrow, judgmental, me-first worldview more absurd, more laughable, more impossible to maintain. She returns, like Batman, just when we need her most.',
 "With Trump and Tillerson, Abbott's 'shirtfront' comment looks even sillier President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy will bring together the two most important trends sweeping world politics. One is the surge of anti-establishment consciousness across the west. Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Washington outsider and friend of Russia, Rex Tillerson, is the latest manifestation of this. The other is the rise of Asia after half a millennium of relative stagnation. For Australia, this is an opportunity for an overdue recalibration of our foreign policy thinking, one that harnesses the benefits of our diverse population and puts people first. The pick of Tillerson is the strongest indication yet that Trump will defy establishment hawks and run foreign policy his own way. A Trumpian foreign policy has been touted by his supporters as a course-correction towards prioritising ordinary Americans at home, and away from maintaining the “liberal international orderâ€\x9d. This order, epitomised by hawkish liberal Hillary Clinton, is increasingly attacked by the right as charity to undeserving foreigners, and has long been critiqued by the left as imperialism in the service of global capitalists. The maintenance of this order has led to massive military spending in a period when middle class Americans have seen no real growth in income. The American people, including those who opposed Trump, were increasingly dissatisfied with the foreign policy their government had prosecuted. John Howard would have probably called them anti-American. In practice, noting Trump’s trademark inconsistency, his changes will likely mean less influence by traditional “pro-warâ€\x9d special interest groups and wins for a new group of private sector elites in the president’s inner-circle. Incoming secretary of state Tillerson, alongside chief strategist Steve Bannon and his “economic nationalistsâ€\x9d faction, and Russia-friendly national security adviser Mike Flynn, constitute formidable opposition to the hawkish Republican establishment. For ordinary Americans, however, all this means is potential slight, short-term gains for workers in certain industries. What it means for Australia The Trumpian paradigm is straightforward and realist, at least overtly: if you mess with us, you’re a bad guy, to be bombed (Islamic terrorists) or slapped with tariffs (China), and everyone else (from Australia to Russia) can sink or swim on their own. This increases the urgency of the challenges Canberra already faces, like how to respond to an ascendant China and a multipolar Asia. Less US interest in regional disputes like the South China Sea reduces the risk of a great power war and relieves pressure on Australia to “pick a sideâ€\x9d. However, a potential US trade war with China will harm sectors of our economy and would remove one of the biggest barriers to a real war between the superpowers. Furthermore, US withdrawal from the region may cause countries like Japan, and even India, to begin a military buildup, triggering an arms race in Asia. At this juncture, Australia has a historic opportunity to rethink its foreign policy. For decades our leaders provided rhetorical support for almost all US foreign policies, including those that did not prioritise the Australian people’s interests. Trump seems to envision a USA that is much closer to the way many countries in our region already view the US: as a powerful state pursuing its own interests. Unfortunately, Australia’s politicians had long ignored this view. Our relationship with Washington had been considered, to quote Paul Keating, as “sacramentâ€\x9d. The Trumpian foreign policy is a massive smackdown to the rightwingers in Australian politics and their Howard era “deputy sheriffâ€\x9d mentality, a doctrine that increased our risk of attack by terrorists. Our erstwhile approach of being “more Catholic than the Popeâ€\x9d as seen by former prime minister Tony Abbott’s unfulfilled pledge to “shirtfrontâ€\x9d Vladimir Putin, and other inflammatory rhetoric that saw us excluded from talks on Syria (harming our anti-terror efforts), will no longer suffice now that the next US president has moved to rapprochement with Russia. With an America-firster in the White House, Australia needs to take a sober look at our US relationship, pros and cons. The Alliance’s key benefits include that Washington is bound into consulting on mutual threats. Our security ties provide access to US intelligence resources, military technology, preferred status in equipment purchasing, access to training and combined exercises. This relationship increases the likelihood of US protection, but does not guarantee it. Washington has, understandably, always looked out for itself first, and under Trump this will be more pronounced. Canberra should do likewise, seeing our two nations as rational actors working together where our interests converge. Trump’s election should force us to grasp the full reality of Asia’s strategic ascendance, not just its economic growth. Being seen as a rusted on US ally weakens our leverage in both Washington and Beijing. We must dare to imagine potential future scenarios where China is as powerful as the US in Asia, and where the American people and political class are unwilling to go to war over Asia with a nuclear-armed opponent. Is it worth damaging ties with Beijing because our “valuesâ€\x9d differ, when these values haven’t stopped us maintaining ties with other non-democratic states? These challenges require a careful “triple bottom lineâ€\x9d approach which assesses interests, values and public opinion. Publicly admonishing Beijing over the South China Sea while acquiescing to breaches of international law like Bush’s Iraq invasion fails to stand up to any of these tests. Trump’s anti-establishment win also reminds us not to exclude ordinary people from the discussion. More so than any other policy area, foreign policy has long been considered sacrosanct and above the uncouthness of public debate. But with the geopolitical ground shifting, the conversation must expand beyond Hugh White columns in newspapers and into mainstream political discussions. This includes harnessing Australia’s growing multicultural diversity. Should we still prioritise the “Anglosphereâ€\x9d due to cultural ties as some Liberal politicians prefer, when over 12% of Australians have Asian ancestry and Asians are among the fastest growing migrant groups? Policymaking needs to be diversified both demographically and professionally. Unlike the US, where a revolving door between government, academia and business spurs innovation, Australia’s foreign policy establishment has long been a closed shop with the majority of entrants joining at the graduate level. Thankfully this is beginning to change. When I first joined the foreign service, I was one of only a few graduates who was both a migrant and from a working class, heavily multicultural suburb. Growing up in Dandenong and observing the cultures and inter-group dynamics between the Chinese, Serbs, Afghans etc. gave me a foundation for understanding the world of international relations. With Trump’s America accelerating the emergence of a multipolar world no longer dominated by European-heritage countries, Australia needs to look right here, to our own diverse population when shaping our future global direction. Trump’s rise, both through its implications and as a symbolic example, should teach politicians to put Australia’s people first in foreign policy, and encourage everyone to contribute to the discussion.",
 "Trump did not 'formally invite' Gennifer Flowers to debate, says campaign Gennifer Flowers has not been “formally invitedâ€\x9d by the Trump campaign to attend Monday’s first presidential debate, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday, adding: “I can’t believe how easily the Clinton campaign was baited.â€\x9d In response, Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook said the Flowers story was “a warning sign about [Trump’s] bullying tactics that make him unfit to be presidentâ€\x9d. Trump appeared to invite Flowers, who had a sexual liaison with Bill Clinton, on Saturday, in an exchange of tweets with the billionaire Mark Cuban, a Clinton supporter and Trump antagonist who said he had been invited to attend the Hofstra University debate. Flowers subsequently tweeted that she was in Trump’s “cornerâ€\x9d and would “definitely be at the debateâ€\x9d. BuzzFeed News reported that her assistant said in an email Flowers would attend and the New York Times reported that Flowers confirmed that in a text message, saying: “Yes I will be there.â€\x9d Conway appeared on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. Asked if she could confirm Flowers’ attendance, she said: “No, I can’t confirm that and I can’t believe how easily the Clinton campaign was baited.â€\x9d Flowers, she said, “had not been formally invited. I don’t expect her to be there as a guest of the Trump campaign. “It seems odd,â€\x9d she added, that the Clinton campaign would give the story “life and breathâ€\x9d. Speaking to ABC’s This Week, Conway repeated her contention that the Clinton campaign had started the row by inviting Cuban and elaborated on her claim about “baitingâ€\x9d, criticising the release of a statement on the subject on Saturday night. In that statement, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said: “Hillary Clinton plans on using the debate to discuss the issues that make a difference in people’s lives. It’s not surprising that Donald Trump has chosen a different path.â€\x9d Conway also repeated that Flowers had not been invited by the campaign, but added that she could be at the debate “as a paying member of the publicâ€\x9d. On Fox News Sunday, Trump vice-presidential pick Mike Pence was more emphatic, saying: “Gennifer Flowers will not be attending the debate tomorrow night.â€\x9d Pence also attacked Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, saying he had “been out there saying some pretty tough stuff about my running mate … [He] knows about as much about national security as I do about professional basketballâ€\x9d. On NBC’s Meet the Press, retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, a Trump adviser, held the line, saying Cuban was “not a legitimate personâ€\x9d. Flynn was less decisive about Flowers, saying only: “We’ll wait to see what happens tomorrow night.â€\x9d Following Conway on CNN, Mook said the Flowers story was indicative of Trump’s temperamental instability and unsuitability for the White House. “Nobody knows which Donald Trump is going to show up to this debate,â€\x9d he said, “and in fact his erratic temperament has been discussed a lot around the debate, and I would argue that is why he is not fit and prepared to be president.â€\x9d Conway said Trump “had no planâ€\x9d to attack Clinton in the debate about her husband’s infidelity, echoing remarks by the candidate himself earlier this week, and said: “Mr Trump will answer the questions as asked by moderator Lester Holt.â€\x9d Trump’s frequent attacks on other people were “counterpunchesâ€\x9d to attacks on him, she said, as he had “a right to defend himselfâ€\x9d. Mook said: “I think the fact that Trump is spending the hours before the debate on this sort of thing is indicative of the kind of leader and the kind of president he would be. It’s a warning sign before the debate has even started about [Trump’s] bullying tactics that make him unfit to be president.â€\x9d Clinton would seek in the debate an “unfiltered opportunityâ€\x9d to address the American people, Mook said, repeating campaign claims that the Democratic candidate would not be treated fairly by moderators and saying he was “very concerned that Donald Trump will be graded on a curveâ€\x9d and allowed to “fly off the handleâ€\x9d rather than address specific plans and policies. Speaking to ABC, he added that the campaign did not want Clinton “to have to play traffic cop … having to spend the whole debate correcting the recordâ€\x9d. On CNN, Conway refused to reveal what was said between Trump and the Texas senator Ted Cruz, who endorsed the nominee on Friday after having held out since a bruising primary in which Trump labelled him “Lyin’ Tedâ€\x9d, was critical of Cruz’s wife’s looks and linked his father to the assassination of John F Kennedy. “I can tell you we are thrilled to have the endorsement of Senator Cruz,â€\x9d she said. “Together [he and Trump] really do represent a large part of the Republican party.â€\x9d Speaking in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, Cruz said his decision was rooted in the need to stop Clinton becoming president, but he refused to say if Trump was fit for the job. Bill Clinton initially denied Flowers’ 1992 claim that they had had a long affair, but admitted in a 1998 deposition in a sexual harassment suit that he had a single sexual encounter with Flowers. In 1999, Flowers opened a defamation suit against Hillary Clinton and two Clinton aides, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. It was eventually dismissed. News of Flowers’ possible attendance at the first debate came nine years after she told the Associated Press “I can’t help but want to support my own genderâ€\x9d and “I don’t have any interest whatsoever in getting back out there and bashing Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d",
 "'It’s pretty small': Trump's left hand on display for all to judge in New York Donald Trump’s ailing presidential campaign suffered yet another blow on Wednesday, when the size of his hands – a recurring, sensitive issue for the 70-year-old – was made public. An imprint of Trump’s left hand was found on display at Madame Tussaud’s New York wax museum by the Hollywood Reporter. Using a measuring apparatus, the Reporter found the hand to be a mere 7.25 inches – compared to the average male hand size of 7.44 inches. The revelation threatens to further destabilize Trump’s efforts to be president. Notoriously thin-skinned – he most recently insulted the Muslim parents of an American war hero – Trump has been insisting he has “normalâ€\x9d hands for years. The furore regarding the self-described billionaire’s appendages even spilled over into a Republican presidential debate in March, when Trump inferred his hand size did not mean he had a small penis. Whether that is accurate or not, on Wednesday afternoon some Madame Tussaud’s attendees were shocked as they compared their hands to Trump’s. “It’s pretty small,â€\x9d said Claire Severson, 22. “It’s about the same size as mine and I have a small hand. It’s tiny.â€\x9d Severson, who looked to be around 5ft 7in tall, declared herself “rather surprisedâ€\x9d at the size of Trump’s hand, which is cast in bronze. The good news for Trump, who trailed Clinton by nine points in a CNN/ORC poll released Monday, is that Severson said hand size would not influence her decision at the ballot box. “I’m not going to vote for him,â€\x9d she said. “But not due to the size of his hand.â€\x9d The controversy over the size of Trump’s hands dates back to the 1980s, when journalist Graydon Carter referred to the billionaire as a “short-fingered vulgarianâ€\x9d in Spy magazine. In 2015 Carter revealed that Trump has been sporadically sending him pictures of his hands for the last 25 years, insisting they are not as small as Carter made out. The bronze model of Trump’s hand is located near the exit of Madame Tussaud’s, opposite a penny-pressing machine. It is displayed next to a picture of a stern-looking Trump. As visitors flowed out of the wax museum only a few noticed the exhibit. “Oh, look it’s this asshole,â€\x9d said Maribel Ocampo, a 39-year-old New York City resident. Ocampo, a 5ft tall woman, placed her hand over that of the 6ft 2in Trump. Hers was slightly smaller. “They’re very feminine,â€\x9d she noted of Trump’s hands. “They’re the size of a regular-size female. If I were normal size they’d be bigger.â€\x9d Ocampo described Trump, who has filed for bankruptcy four times, as “a racist and a misogynistâ€\x9d who had “no proper way of talking to peopleâ€\x9d, yet like Severson, she said the size of Trump hands would not play a part in her vote. “I don’t care if he had big hulk hands,â€\x9d she said, referring to the large, green alter ego of scientist Bruce Banner in the Marvel Comics series The Incredible Hulk. “I still wouldn’t vote for him.â€\x9d Ismael Gutierrez, a 24-year-old student, was also taken aback by dimensions of Trump’s hand. “No way,â€\x9d he said. “That can’t be.â€\x9d Gutierrez’s hand was roughly the same size Trump’s, although at 5ft 4in, he is almost a foot shorter. “A guy that tall, I find that weird,â€\x9d Gutierrez said, although he did sound a more encouraging note for the presidential candidate. “You can’t really judge a man by his hand,â€\x9d he noted. “This doesn’t really have anything to do with running the country, the size of his hand.â€\x9d",
 'Ted Cruz refuses to back Donald Trump and hints he could revive his campaign Ted Cruz refused to commit his support to Donald Trump as the Republican nominee on Tuesday, and did not rule out resurrecting his campaign for president despite having dropped out of the race last week. In an interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, the Texas senator said that picking a presidential candidate “is not a choice that we as voters have to make todayâ€\x9d. His comments came as Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who suspended his own presidential bid in March, said he would support Trump as the nominee. During an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Rubio said he intended to stick to a pledge signed by all of the Republican candidates last year to back the eventual nominee. “I signed a pledge, put my name on it, and said I would support the Republican nominee and that’s what I intend to do,â€\x9d Rubio said. Cruz appeared less bound by the pledge, which has already been discarded by former contenders Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham – both of whom have come out against Trump despite his all but clinching the Republican nomination. Cruz pointed out there were still two months until the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and six months until the general election, saying “we need to watch and see what the candidates say and doâ€\x9d. Although Cruz had long committed to supporting the Republican nominee in the past, his tone changed after Trump repeatedly made personal attacks against Cruz and his family. The businessman branded his rival “Lyin’ Tedâ€\x9d, threatened to “spill the beansâ€\x9d on his wife while implying she was unattractive, and accused Cruz’s father of involvement in the assassination of John F Kennedy. While Cruz once called Trump “a friendâ€\x9d and “terrificâ€\x9d, he held an abrupt press conference hours before ending his campaign at which he derided Trump as a “serial philandererâ€\x9d, an “amoral pathological liarâ€\x9d, and a “braggadocious, arrogant buffoonâ€\x9d. Nor would Cruz rule out returning to the campaign trail if “there’s a path to victoryâ€\x9d. The Texas senator suspended his campaign after losing the Indiana primary on 3 May by a margin of 53%-37%, and said that with the loss he no longer saw a path to the Republican nomination. On Tuesday, Cruz told Beck: “If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.â€\x9d However, Cruz’s campaign had a well-organized effort to put his supporters into positions of power among Republican delegates, who will elect the party’s nominee at the national convention in Cleveland this July. This effort means that although Trump is the only candidate left in the Republican primary, Cruz supporters will have significant influence on the convention floor, and that his delegates will probably hold control of crucial committees, such as those that write the convention rules and design the party’s platform. Cruz made clear that a return to the trail was very unlikely, though he would not rule it out. “I’m not holding my breath,â€\x9d he said, in response to questioning about a primary election in Nebraska, also on Tuesday, that he was once expected to win. The Texas senator did dismiss the possibility of running as a third-party candidate or supporting a third-party alternative in November. “I don’t think that’s very likely,â€\x9d he told Beck. “It’s always talked about; I don’t think it’s something that’s likely to happen.â€\x9d Cruz’s statements followed Trump’s continued failure to unite the Republican party behind him. Two former presidents have said they will not back him and key party figures like the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, have declined to endorse him, at least for the present. The former reality television star is scheduled to meet Republican congressional leaders in Washington on Thursday, as part of his effort to heal the rifts within the party. Rubio said while he stood by his prior criticisms of Trump – which included dubbing his former opponent “an erratic con artistâ€\x9d – Republican primary voters had made their choice clear. “My differences with Donald – both my reservations about his campaign and my policy differences with him – are well documented and they remain,â€\x9d Rubio said. “But I’m not going to sit here right now and become his chief critic over the next six months, because he deserves the opportunity to go forward and make his argument and try to win.â€\x9d He added: “I know what I said during the campaign; I enunciated those things repeatedly. And voters chose a different direction. I stand by the things that I said.â€\x9d Rubio nonetheless declined to offer Trump an explicit endorsement, hedging when asked if he planned to vote for the billionaire in November. “I intend to support the nominee,â€\x9d Rubio said. Pressed again by the CNN host Jake Tapper on whether that meant casting a ballot in Trump’s favor, Rubio responded: “I’m not voting for Hillary Clinton. I’m not throwing away my vote.â€\x9d',
 'Steve Young obituary The singer and songwriter Steve Young, who has died aged 73 from a head injury sustained after a fall, won the admiration of critics and fellow artists in a recording career spanning almost 50 years, while remaining little known outside a hard core of appreciative fans. Nonetheless, he was influential in the country-rock movement of the 1960s and 70s, and was closely allied with the outlaw country movement, which introduced a defiant rock’n’roll attitude into Nashville’s middle-of-the-road country music. Young’s best-known song is Seven Bridges Road, which has been covered by numerous artists including Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, Iain Matthews and Dolly Parton. The song gave Young his closest brush with stardom when the Eagles released their live recording of it as a single in 1980. Their version (extracted from the Eagles Live concert album) reached 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also became a hit on the country charts. Other Young songs made famous by big-name artists were Montgomery in the Rain, which was recorded by Hank Williams Jr in 1977, and Lonesome, On’ry and Mean, the title song of the 1973 album by Waylon Jennings which helped to establish Jennings’s “outlawâ€\x9d credentials. Young was born in Georgia and spent his early years moving around Georgia and Alabama as his half-Cherokee father struggled to find work. He regarded Gadsden, Alabama – where his maternal grandmother lived – as the nearest thing he had to a home town. “My father began sharecropping when he was 13 and his sister Eula, who worked with him, was 10,â€\x9d Young recalled. “I was from a really dysfunctional family. My father would just disappear sometimes … He left us when I was very young.â€\x9d Nonetheless, both his mother and father had an interest in country and gospel music, and the young Steve developed an ambition to become a musician. His mother eventually bought him a Gibson electric guitar. She remarried and moved, with her son, to Beaumont, Texas, where Steve graduated from high school (he was in the same class as the aspiring blues guitarist Johnny Winter). He played gigs in Texas before moving back to Alabama, but his fondness for playing politically charged folk songs, including some of Bob Dylan’s, made him unpopular in the reactionary Deep South. Having received threats from the Ku Klux Klan, he fled to California with two local folk musicians, Richard Lockmiller and Jim Connor, who had a deal with Capitol Records as Richard & Jim. He played lead guitar in the Skip Battin Band (Battin would later join the Byrds) and joined Van Dyke Parks and Stephen Stills in the Gas Company. Then he was invited to join Stone Country, who recorded an album for RCA that brought Young to the notice of other record companies. He signed a solo deal with A&M and recorded his debut album, Rock Salt & Nails (1969); it comprised mostly cover versions, and featured two former member of the Byrds, Gene Clark and Gram Parsons, but also contained the first recording of Seven Bridges Road. Young’s evocative mix of country, gospel, folk and bluegrass styles was already forming. The album failed to sell, and Young, already tired of the music business, moved to San Francisco with his new wife, the folk singer Terrye Newkirk. He opened a guitar shop in San Anselmo, where his customers included Jerry Garcia and Van Morrison. However, Reprise records lured him with a new deal, and sent him to Nashville to record the album Seven Bridges Road (1972). This too was a flop, despite some enthusiastic reviews. Now with a young son, Young moved to Nashville, but lack of money and his escalating alcohol consumption prompted him to separate from Terrye in 1974 (they later divorced). In 1975-76, he was filmed for the documentary Heartworn Highways, alongside other upcoming “outlawâ€\x9d performers including Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle, but the film was not released until 1981. Young scuffled a living as a travelling troubadour, when the opportunity arose making albums, which included Honky Tonk Man (1975) and two critically acclaimed albums for RCA, Renegade Picker (1976) and No Place to Fall (1978). These did not sell, driving Young into a pit of alcoholic gloom that took him into rehab at Meharry hospital, Nashville. After a reissue of Seven Bridges Road and a new album, To Satisfy You (1981), failed to ring the cash registers, Young was invited to tour Norway with the Jonas Fjeld Band, and made the album Look Homeward Angel (1986) for the Swedish label Mill Records. He moved to Austin, Texas and cut the album Solo/Live (1991) for Watermelon Records, followed by the studio album Switchblades of Love (1993), a collection of songs that proved Young was still potent creatively, if not financially. After releasing Primal Young (2000), he concocted a plan to re-record his back catalogue, since his rights to his original recordings were entangled with various record labels. This resulted in Songlines Revisited, Vol 1 (2005). His latest release was the live album Stories Round the Horseshoe Bend (2007). His son, Jubal Lee, survives him. • Steve Young, singer and songwriter, born 12 July 1942; died 17 March 2016',
 'Donald Trump is a pretend populist – just look at his economic policy When Donald Trump pitched an economic policy platform nakedly contrived to benefit other multi-millionaires to an assembled crowd in Detroit this Monday, it was quite a spectacle. If there was ever any doubt about the absurdity of the signifier of populism in American politics, it should have been dashed there and then. What’s clear by now is that Donald Trump’s populist appeal is limited to a very specific populace, by design. The question of whether Trump’s support is predicated on race versus class isn’t really a question anymore. It’s the kind of thing that can be tested with polls and multivariate regression models. Which is exactly what political scientist Philip Klinkner did, and found that, controlling for one another, pessimism about the economy doesn’t predict support for Trump; resentment toward African Americans and Muslims does. It’s the reason why Trump won’t win over Sanders supporters: however much he invokes Nafta and the decline of manufacturing in the Midwest, as he did in his Detroit speech, trade just isn’t as politically salient as he thinks. Most voters don’t rank trade as a top issue. And most of Trump’s supporters care far more about immigration and terrorism, which makes his frequent racist and Islamophobic dog whistles far more effective at shoring up his base. There are, of course, many on the left who wish trade was more of a salient issue, just as many wish the US had stronger unions and an honest-to-God populist party. But given our history as a country founded on white supremacy, the dream of a kind of pure populism, unadulterated by racism and xenophobia, has always been elusive. Trump’s platform and rhetoric neatly dovetail with those of earlier American populist parties, the Know Nothings (for whom their alien scourge was Catholics) and the People’s Party (who called for restricting immigration in their founding document). Which is why it doesn’t really matter that Trump gets so much wrong on economics. Just in this one speech, he asserted, without evidence, that the Department of Labor is misreporting unemployment figures, apparently confusing their U3 and U6 rates. He conflated retirees with people out of work. He used out-of-date census data to say that household income dropped $4,000 in 16 years, which is not true. He claimed a Congressional Budget Office report says “Obamacare will cost the economy two million full-time jobs,â€\x9d when the report says no such thing. He flat out made things up about Clinton’s tax plan. He called for repealing an estate tax that affects only him and a handful of his richest peers, a display of self interest that’s so unabashed it’s impressive. Make me president and I’ll end the tax on private jets and orange hair weaves. He can get all this wrong and it won’t matter. Just as it doesn’t matter that a man who appears to use bankruptcy as a business model can claim to be a jobs candidate. Just as it didn’t matter that the last movement to be called populist, the Tea Party, had average incomes well above the US median. It’s not about jobs and it’s not about income. Even if it should be. To be sure, the Democrats’ allergy to anything resembling class-based politics does much to enable Trump, and the continuation of a racialized populism largely divorced from economics. When Democrats say “middle classâ€\x9d, they mean “working classâ€\x9d, and when Republicans say “working classâ€\x9d, they mean “white peopleâ€\x9d. To be called working class in America means being an evangelical, being a gun owner, living in a rural area, not being black or Latino or Asian – being, in other words, a typical Republican. So when Democrats flip flop on trade, and cozy up to Wall Street while keeping unions at arms length, who can blame Republicans for seizing an opportunity to fill the void? And the more Trump’s racialized populism alienates establishment Republicans, the more Clinton embraces them, trumpeting an elite Washington consensus that she is the only responsible candidate in the race. Which may be true. But if there’s anything that feeds the Trump phenomenon more than racial resentment, it’s suspicion of an elite Washington consensus. When class disappears, being declared wrong by the whole of the establishment is enough to qualify you as a populist.',
 'Government inaction on obesity is a scandal Obesity is the biggest public health crisis facing the UK and it is crucial that we tackle this issue directly (Ministers accused of backtracking on childhood obesity plan, 31 October). It is staggering that this government is choosing to ignore the problem. Is it acceptable that a third of children aged two to 15 are overweight or obese, putting them in danger of a variety of long-term health problems? The government had a fantastic opportunity to introduce tangible measures that could have initiated a culture change, but this strategy barely touched the surface. In 2013, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges produced a report, Measuring Up, that identified actions to tackle obesity, including banning junk food advertising before 9pm. We hear that restrictions on junk food advertising were originally included in the government strategy, so why were these and other measures supported by medical experts, removed? We know what the issues are and what needs to be done to make a difference, so what is stopping our politicians from getting things moving? If we don’t act soon, the number of people living with illnesses caused by obesity will increase significantly and the financial burden on the NHS will continue to rise. We can’t afford to wait any longer to confront this problem head on. Dr Sheena Bedi Chief executive, ABL Health • You rightly focused on nutrition, but the issue of physical activity is also crucial. I’m told by teachers that secondary schools are ceasing teaching PE altogether and using the time in the pursuit of academic exam results. There is no requirement to teach PE and what schools should cover is also not prescribed. If PE is not taught, it will be a disaster not just for kids’ health but their development, confidence, social skills and general education. Lee Adams Sheffield • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 "Gillian Armstrong: I used to think, 'I did it, why can't all the other women?' The footpath outside the Orana Cinema in Busselton, Western Australia, is inscribed with names of Australian cinematic royalty: Jack Thompson. Hugo Weaving. David Wenham. Steve Bisley. Bryan Brown. Koko, the dog from Red Dog. It is somewhat striking that of the nine names that have been featured on CinefestOz’s walk of fame, kelpies are better represented than women – but this year’s festival brought with it a new addition: the acclaimed director Gillian Armstrong. Armstrong, the director of My Brilliant Career and Little Women, received CinefestOz’s Screen Legend award at the festival’s gala event on Saturday night, making her the first woman to feature on the Busselton footpath. Speaking to Australia at one of the many boozy lunches that mark the festival, which is spread across the Margaret River wine region in Western Australia, the director expresses delight in the award: “Now people can walk all over me!â€\x9d Armstrong knows well the hard-fought battle of gender diversity in the Australian film industry. A key supporter of Screen Australia’s Gender Matters initiative, she now sits on a panel, formed by the Australian Directors Guild, which oversees the program’s Brilliant Careers branch, to create industry support for female directors. Armstrong was instrumental in getting the panel off the ground. When she saw an alarming report in the Australian Film Television and Radio School’s Lumina magazine, which indicated that only 16% of Australian directors working between 1970 and 2014 were women (though she herself would have estimated the figure closer to 40%), she lobbied Kingston Anderson, the chief executive of the Australian Directors Guild, to pay greater attention to gender diversity. “I said to Kingston, the ADG should get together and talk about this, because it’s 50-50 going to film school, and in every short film award there’s women nominated. So what’s going wrong? It’s obvious that it’s not a level playing field.â€\x9d “The film industry is not full of misogynists,â€\x9d Armstrong says. “It’s investors and producers risking money on a project, and underneath, no matter what they think, there’s a greater trust in the visual image of a guy with a baseball hat on.â€\x9d She speculates also that the “boys’ clubâ€\x9d of the advertising industry in Australia is inhibiting the progress of female directors, with many ad agencies offering commercial opportunities to young guys headhunted out of film school, giving men the additional training and skills that lay the foundation for feature work. Armstrong credits an encounter with the Swedish Film Institute chief executive, Anna Serner, at a Toronto film festival event last year with informing her thinking on affirmative action in screen funding. In 2011 only 26% of Swedish government film funding went to female directors. Serner set out to achieve gender parity by the end of four years and reached her goal in two and a half. Armstrong has spent her career resisting being characterised as a “feminist directorâ€\x9d, a term that has dogged her since her acclaimed feature debut, My Brilliant Career, in 1979. “I got branded as a feminist director because it was a feminist story, but then that’s all I was offered: women achievers – first woman to fly a plane, climb a mountain, ride a camel. I really fought against that labelling. I like to say my characters, male and female, are complicated, and not formulaic, and have depth and layers.â€\x9d Searching out a change of subject, Armstrong fought to direct the 1982 musical Starstruck – only to have it branded in the press as another Armstrong film about a “redhead who wants to be an achieverâ€\x9d. One dismissal that particularly stung was an Australian notice given to her underrated 1987 heartbreaker High Tide, which stars Judy Davis as an itinerant showgirl alcoholic who re-encounters the daughter she gave up as an infant. “It wasn’t particularly the review,â€\x9d Armstrong says, “it was a subeditor. I’ll remember this forever. The heading was ‘Woman’s Weepy’. We were so upset.â€\x9d One of Armstrong earliest works, the film she remembers as her first paid director’s job, was the short documentary Smoke and Lollies (1976): a portrait of three 14-year-old Adelaide schoolgirls, which was funded through the South Australian Film Corporation. Armstrong later extended this project, revisiting the three women across four subsequent documentaries, most recently Love, Lust and Lies in 2009. Though money for the film was allocated from a one-off program targeting female directors, Armstrong says she never felt that her career was made on the back of this diversity initiative – after all, she characterises her early documentary work as a sidebar to her work in drama. But she acknowledges that her support for gender diversity-targeted funding is the result of an ongoing attitude shift. “I used to think, ‘I did it, why can’t all the other women?’ There were women’s initiatives and film groups, and I was actually a bit snobby about all that. I was like, well, you’ve just to make a good film. It’s about your individual talent. That’s why this has been a big change for me to speak out about it.â€\x9d Armstrong says she’s heard the resentments of male directors who feel shut out from funding opportunities, but insists the industry is tough for anyone. “The women that have got through over the years — Jane Campion and Jocelyn Moorhouse and so on — have worked 10 times as hard as the men. They’re 10 times as good as the men. There won’t be equality until there are as many mediocre women directors as there are mediocre men.â€\x9d",
 'Dennis Viollet: A United Man review – Manchester United survivor turned American pioneer Here is a respectful profile of Manchester United forward Dennis Viollet, who had an eventful enough life in the English game: he was part of the original Busby Babes, survived the Munich air crash, claimed United’s record for most league goals in a season (32, it still stands), before being shipped out by Busby to Stoke after developing a reputation as a bit of a party animal. Even with United’s sizeable fanbase, it’s hard to see how any of this is worthy of wider interest than a slot on MUTV – until it becomes apparent that Viollet’s career had an interesting second act: he moved to the US in 1969 and helped set up professional soccer there. It seems that Viollet took readily to life in the US, attempting to nurture homegrown talent alongside the starry imports, and he is spoken extremely fondly of by some of the former players whom he coached. The film is directed by Viollet’s daughter Rachel, which makes it very much a family affair.',
 'Pro-Brexit bosses include retirees and tax avoidance experts Business figures who signed an open letter supporting Brexit include tax avoidance specialists, dozens of retirees and the publisher of a book about Ukip introduced by Nigel Farage. The list of more than 300 people also includes the bosses of dormant companies and a law firm that admits leaving the European Union could lead to a repeal of workers’ rights. In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph, the business names claim Brexit would create more jobs, adding that the UK’s competitiveness is being “undermined by our membershipâ€\x9d. While signatories include heavyweight names, such as former HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan and the Wetherspoons chairman, Tim Martin, the leadership credentials of many others are less clear. Several preside over companies listed as “dormantâ€\x9d by Companies House, while 23 are no longer active in the business world. One signatory is John Kersey, managing director of Preston hair salon Kersey Hairdressing, a business with net assets of £313. The list also includes the bosses of a clutch of firms with a history of facilitating tax avoidance. Robert Hiscox, honorary president of Hiscox Insurance, has been an outspoken defender of tax avoidance, having moved his company to Bermuda to slash its tax bill. Fellow signatory Martin Bellamy is the chairman and chief executive of Salamanca Group, which advertises “dynastic estate-planningâ€\x9d for “ultra-high net worth familiesâ€\x9d. It offers advice on ways on offshore trusts and foreign investments for those keen on “passing wealth or holding wealth for the next generationâ€\x9d or those who want to keep their affairs “outside the public domainâ€\x9d. Salamanca also boasts of setting up offshore employee benefit trusts, a tax-efficient means of paying staff that the Treasury has said it wants to crack down on. Another signatory, Clive Thorne, is a partner at Wedlake Bell, a law firm that offers “imaginativeâ€\x9d tax-planning strategies for business “both onshore and offshoreâ€\x9d. In an article on the company’s website, the firm admits that leaving the EU could result in a raft of workers’ rights being abolished. “A number of key employment rights derive from EU legislation, in particular those relating to equal opportunities, holiday and working time. A departure from the EU could allow such legislation to be weakened or even repealed,â€\x9d the article says. Labour MP Wes Streeting said the number of City financiers on the list showed the Brexit campaign was dominated by those who do not have ordinary workers’ best interests at heart. “These fat cats thrive off market disruption and insecurity,â€\x9d he said. “But the disruption caused by our leaving the EU’s single market would damage our economy to the tune of £4,300 a year per household, hitting working people the hardest. “The facts are clear – working people are better off in Europe. Leaving would be a leap in the dark that would put trade, jobs and rights at risk.â€\x9d Some of the business leaders mentioned are not as senior as their titles might suggest. The letter is signed by David Sismey, a managing director at Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs, where many hundreds of middle-ranking staff have the same title. Another signatory is David Barnby, proprietor of Books2BuyBooks2Write and publisher of Hard Pounding: The Ukip Story, which includes a foreword by the party’s leader, Nigel Farage. A few of the firms appear concerned largely with the interests of the wealthy elite, such as private security firm Veritas International, whose chief executive Simon Rowland put his name to the letter. Veritas offers services such as armed guards for superyachts and private chaperones for children on their gap years. Robin Ronaldshay, who signed as director of Zetland Estates, is also known as Robin Dundas, Earl of Ronaldshay, heir to the title of Marquess of Zetland.',
 'The view on cyberbullying “Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?â€\x9d These are the questions Lucy Alexander’s open letter implored people to ask themselves before posting anything on social media. It was written after her son, Felix, killed himself, aged 17, after suffering years of cyberbullying and online abuse. This is something we should all reflect on as anti-bullying week begins on Monday. If we asked ourselves those questions more frequently, Prince Harry might not have felt forced to issue a statement about the treatment of his girlfriend, Meghan Markle, on social media and in the tabloid press. Fewer women might have to put up with vile misogynist online abuse, including rape and death threats. Fewer celebrities might see themselves mauled online in sidebars of shame. Cyberbullying can be particularly pernicious. Unrestricted to a particular location, it can be impossible to escape. The degree of anonymity afforded by the online world can embolden perpetrators to behave in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. Perpetrators rarely witness the emotional reaction of their victims, dampening any empathy they might feel. And things can go viral fast, with potentially unlimited reach. Cyberbullying may be perpetrated thoughtlessly, but with devastating consequences. Lucy Nesbitt-Comaskey, a woman who was in Nice during the terrorist attack in July, gave an interview to Sky News while she was still in shock and made the mistake of talking about her shopping. She was torn apart by the tabloid press and called “the most hated woman in Englandâ€\x9d on Twitter. Tim Hunt, a Nobel laureate who made an ill-judged joke widely deemed to be offensive about women working in science, was subjected to a vicious social media campaign and forced to resign from his honorary professorship at University College London as a result. Cyberbullying is particularly pernicious when it comes to children, who lack the emotional resilience of adults. Children are increasingly inhabiting adult worlds online, with adult rules and few restrictions about what they can see and take part in. Most children have used at least one social network by the age of 10 and 52% of children age 8-16 have ignored Facebook’s official minimum age of 13. Around one in four children have experienced some form of cyberbullying. These children are more likely to experience greater stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness, with one study suggesting the experience of being cyberbullied almost doubles the risk of children attempting suicide. This is not an issue that comes with a ready-made solution. Because it is about social behavioural norms – what is and is not considered to be acceptable online – it is something that can only be tackled through collective action. Parents often lack confidence in understanding how their children are using social media and need information and support in how to look for the warning signs their child is being bullied online. There should be more of a focus in the school curriculum on digital resilience – developing young people’s ability to deal with the risks they encounter online. Social media platforms could do much more to police their age restrictions meaningfully, ensure they have transparent, accessible and child-friendly systems for reporting online abuse and to positively promote support for those being cyberbullied. But we need to go beyond protecting young people by educating them about online risk – we have a responsibility to teach children how to behave in a healthy and positive way online. For example, cybersmarties.com is a social network designed exclusively for primary-school children in Ireland. Users are authenticated as real children via their school. The network is designed to teach positive online behaviour for life, focusing on self-esteem and empathy. If the tech industry were really taking its responsibilities in this area seriously, it would be investing in similar initiatives that do not just teach children how to react to cyberbullying, but do more to discourage it in the first place. But there is perhaps little point in teaching children positive behaviour if, as adults, we are unwilling to model it ourselves. This is why Prince Harry is to be commended for speaking out against the harassment and bullying directed at Meghan Markle. We all have a responsibility to call out toxic bullying wherever it exists. “Is it kind?â€\x9d Out of respect to Felix Alexander and other victims who have lost their lives to bullying, we should endeavour to ask ourselves this question before we post anything online.',
 "Anthrax's Scott Ian's playlist: Iron Maiden, Fall Out Boy and more The Promise – Sturgill Simpson It’s rare that I like a cover version more than the original. But maybe not so rare when I don’t like the original anyway, as is the case with The Promise. Sturgill Simpson owns this When in Rome song. The heartbreak in his voice is palpable and it gets me every time. Beautiful. The Devil Named Music – Chris Stapleton I’m sticking with the country theme. It’s difficult to pick one song from Stapleton’s brilliant Traveller album, so I picked the one that tells the story of my life. The Phoenix – Fall Out Boy I am a sucker for a good hook, and this is a pure pop gem with a furious urgency. Undeniably catchy and just fucking good. Cowboy Song – Thin Lizzy Phil Lynott was the Cormac McCarthy of hard rock. I have no idea what that means but it feels right. Listen to this song and read Blood Meridian. Purgatory – Iron Maiden I have been a fan of Iron Maiden since 1980. I buy their albums, I buy their merchandise and now I get to go on Ed Force One and tour Mexico, Central and South America with them. Dreams do come true. Thank you heavy metal. • Anthrax’s new album, For All Kings, is out now via Nuclear Blast",
 'Bank bosses will be forced to explain their actions every year, Malcolm Turnbull announces Bank bosses will have to front up to a parliamentary committee annually to explain their actions on interest rates and other behaviour under new rules announced by Malcolm Turnbull. The announcement came as Bill Shorten ramped up pressure for a royal commission into the banks, saying the industry would only respect the government if such an inquiry were implemented. The prime minister said the move would ensure the big banks were regularly accountable to elected members in the same way as the Reserve Bank or the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA). Turnbull said the banks would appear before the house committee on economics. This would avoid the scrutiny of the Senate where long time campaigners on bank behaviour, such as Nationals senator John Williams, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and Labor’s Sam Dastyari reside. Asked how the government would enforce the requirement to appear, Turnbull said “the parliament has powers but they won’t be necessary, the banks will certainly appearâ€\x9d. Steven Munchenberg, chief executive officer of the Australian Bankers Association (ABA), said while the federal government was entitled to the move, no other commercial businesses were required to justify pricing decisions in this way. “We are confident banks can explain why the interest rates they set for borrowers are determined largely by the cost of funds and the pressures of a highly competitive market, not the Reserve Bank cash rate,â€\x9d Munchenberg said. The requirement is only for the big four banks, Commonwealth, ANZ, National Australia Bank and Westpac – though the committee does have the power to call anyone it chooses. Morrison, who spoke to the banks prior to the announcement, said the government was frustrated over the banks failure to pass on the interest rate cut and needed to do practical things to increase transparency. “Clearly the intention of the Reserve Bank by cutting the rates was to see it pass through and follow through into the broader economy so obviously the extent to which that is not achieved actually frustrates the intention of the bank in making that decision and this is why we are frustrated,â€\x9d Morrison said. The economics committee which will scrutinise the banks is yet to be reformed after the election. Turnbull said the process would provide ongoing accountability, rather than a one off investigation and report under a royal commission. But it is unclear whether the economics committee would have additional powers – such as those available to a royal commission – to compel witnesses, take evidence in camera, provide parliamentary privilege for witnesses or impose any penalties for non-compliance. “They’ve got the opportunity to build confidence or they might, when they contemplate being more open and more accountable ... contemplate changing some policies and practices as a consequence,â€\x9d Turnbull said. Shorten said the moved showed Turnbull was “in the pocket of the banksâ€\x9d. “There is nothing Mr Turnbull won’t do to protect the big banks from a Royal Commission,â€\x9d Shorten said. “After giving them a $7bn tax cut, he’s now inviting them to lunch in Canberra once a year so he can wag his finger at them. This is a friendly catch-up, not an investigation.â€\x9d It comes after recently retired Reserve Bank board member John Edwards backed an inquiry into the banks and Turnbull called on the industry to pass on the full cut in the cash rate announced by the Reserve Bank earlier this week. “The banks will only respect the government if the government is serious about a royal commission. Nothing less is going to make the banks respect the politicians,â€\x9d Shorten said earlier in the day. Williams also renewed his call for a royal commission. “I have been seven years trying to fix up this industry and getting people to listen,â€\x9d Williams said. “We have been through the financial planning scandals, bad advice, Ponzi schemes, managed investment schemes, and even the life insurance industry is now under scrutiny. “Banks should realise they are in the public spotlight and they are doing little to instil public confidence in them. It seems to be profit before people. I’ve always supported a royal commission.â€\x9d Williams was involved in a Senate inquiry into financial advisers at the Commonwealth Bank. NAB, ANZ and Westpac have faced rate rigging allegations. Asic is also investigating Comminsure – the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank – which has been accused of manipulating reports to avoid life insurance payouts to sick and dying customers. But new cabinet minister Matt Canavan, who had previously supported a royal commission, told Australia he no longer supported one, due to increased funding to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic). “The government has responded with substantial investments in Asic and the powers that Asic has match or exceed those of any royal commission. A royal commission would be a distraction from Asic doing its job.â€\x9d A royal commission can be established only by the government. It cannot be forced by legislation. As a result, Labor is considering using the parliamentary committee process to start an inquiry, with a view to pressuring the government if further evidence of bad banking practice is revealed. With the final Senate results now clear, the Senate crossbench includes four from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, three from Nick Xenophon’s NXT party, Jacqui Lambie, Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, Family First’s Bob Day and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party. Whish-Wilson has also long campaigned on cleaning up the banking sector and has supported a royal commission, as does Lambie. But Whish-Wilson told Australia that Australia needed to move beyond Senate inquiries that deliver “headlines for politicians and no changes to law and no justice for victims of these repeated white-collar crimesâ€\x9d. “If I was to support more Senate inquiries I would want to see [them] push the limits of what the Senate can do with its powers. “[An inquiry] would need to be properly resourced and be willing to compel witnesses from within banks and financial services companies, starting with every single board member and working our way down through the CEO and management through to the workers.â€\x9d Whish-Wilson would only support a Senate inquiry that not only compelled witnesses to appear but was properly resourced, as the previous Senate inquiry did not have the funds to hold banks to account. He also called for whistleblower protection. “I do not want to build up hopes of victims that the banks are going to be properly held to account and justice delivered, if that promise cannot be fulfilled,â€\x9d Whish-Wilson said. Xenophon promised to work with Labor and the crossbench to keep pressure on the financial services industry. He supports the royal commission Labor proposes for the banking industry, but he says the approach through the parliament needs to be targeted. “We need to have a compensation scheme of last resort,â€\x9d he said. “Having a royal commission for the sake of beating up the banks might make some people feel good, but it won’t do much good. It needs to be much more comprehensive than that. For instance, I think commercial banks that don’t pass on the full interest rate cut should face a statutory obligation to take out a full-page newspaper ad to explain why.â€\x9d But Steven Munchenberg, chief executive officer of the Australian Bankers Association (ABA), said a royal commission was unnecessary given the banks had already put measures in place. “The industry has put in place initiatives to fix issues that Bill Shorten has said are the reasons for a royal commission,â€\x9d Munchenberg said. “We acknowledge there are problems but rather than having a royal commission we would like to fix them immediately.â€\x9d Earlier this year, the industry established a number of initiatives in response to the scandals, promising to set up a consumer advocate, a register for individuals involved in past malpractice, protection for whistleblowers, an independent review of banking codes of practice, and an independent review of commissions for financial products. Munchenberg said the cash rate, which was cut by 0.25 percentage points to a record low of 1.5%, did not mirror banking costs. He said banks did increase deposit rates to attract more funds.',
 'Homecoming: a starstudded psychological thriller in podcast form In the post-Serial world, drama podcasts have been upping their game and now Homecoming (iTunes, Gimlet Media) takes the format to another level. It’s impossible not to become immersed in the opening episode of the psychological thriller. Catherine Keener stars as Heidi Bergman, a caseworker from an experimental facility who’s helping soldiers integrate back into the community. She’s focusing on Walter Cruz (Star Wars’ Oscar Isaac), who is trying to live a normal life and keep his inner darkness at bay. It’s not easy, as he reveals his thoughts about harming himself: “I saw the desk and I just imagine leaning way back and slamming my forehead into the corner as hard as I could, over and over, into my eye,â€\x9d he tells her. “But that was an extreme. It’s not like that all the time.â€\x9d Bergman is keen to take a holistic approach, which is not good news for Colin Belfast, her take-no-prisoners boss, played by David Schwimmer. He is heard rushing through the airport, tripping over a little girl’s backpack as he instructs Bergman to “get really granular with all that shitâ€\x9d. He even provides a moment of light relief. “This is a walkway!â€\x9d he rages, incredulously. “All right. Goodbye. Good talk.â€\x9d Homecoming is the first scripted series for Gimlet Media, producers of podcast hits such as Heavyweight, StartUp and Reply All. The quality of the acting draws you in, then stops you in your tracks. (Arrested Development’s David Cross and comedian Amy Sedaris are also on the cast list.) It nails the feeling that characters are doing what they’re supposed to do, rather than standing huddled around a microphone. Subtle sound effects, such as a fishtank bubbling away in the background, and not-so-subtle ones like the noise of a busy airport, make it more akin to a lavish TV production than a staged radio drama. As the narrative flips back and forth from Heidi’s time as a caseworker to five years later, when she’s waitressing, mystery surrounds what brought her there. Ending on a cliffhanger after only 19 minutes, Homecoming leaves you wanting more. Good job there’s another five episodes in the first season. If you like this, try this: Limetown, a mysterious tale of a place where everyone disappeared.',
 'GDP growth confirmed in three months after Brexit vote British businesses continued to invest and consumers carried on spending in the months following the Brexit vote, defying predictions that a wave of uncertainty would hit economic activity. In the first official estimate of how firms’ spending fared after the referendum, the Office for National Statistics said business investment rose 0.9% in the July-to-September quarter. That was only a small slowdown from 1% growth in the previous quarter and beat forecasts for 0.6% growth in a Reuters poll of economists. The figures echoed business surveys suggesting companies have shrugged off the shock of the referendum result for now. The ONS confirmed its earlier estimate that GDP expanded 0.5% in the third quarter, only a small slowdown from 0.7% growth in the second quarter and stronger than most economists had predicted in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result. But there were warnings the brunt of the Brexit vote would be felt next year as the weak pound stokes inflation and as negotiations over leaving the EU begin. Providing more details of the third quarter in Friday’s update, statisticians said consumer spending continued to be the main driver of economic growth, fuelled by rising household incomes. There was also a contribution to growth from net trade – the difference between what the UK exports and imports. That came as imports fell but exports grew, probably helped by the weakness of the pound since the Brexit vote, which makes UK goods more competitive in overseas markets. But the data also confirmed earlier estimates showing that the construction sector had fallen into a technical recession, contracting for two straight quarters, while output was down for manufacturers and the wider industrial sector. The ONS said that since the referendum in June, GDP growth had been in line with recent trends, suggesting “limited effect so farâ€\x9d from the referendum. Darren Morgan, head of GDP at the ONS said: “Investment by businesses held up well in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum, though it’s likely most of those investment decisions were taken before polling day. “That, coupled with growing consumer spending fuelled by rising household income, and a strong performance in the dominant service industries, kept the economy expanding broadly in line with its historic average.â€\x9d Economists were quick to warn the recent pace of growth would be hard to sustain. The government’s independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility, predict growth will slow to 1.4% in 2017 from 2.1% this year as business investment slows and as incomes are squeezed by higher living costs. Inflation is expected to pick up because the weaker pound makes imports to the UK more expensive. The data company IHS Markit said its surveys pointed to the firms’ and households’ resilience continuing into the final quarter of this year. But it too was cautious about the year ahead. “For the moment, the data suggest that the economy has exhibited greater than anticipated resilience in the face of headwinds such as Brexit worries and rising prices. However, it seems likely that growth will slow further in coming months as these headwinds intensify,â€\x9d said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit. Ruth Gregory at the consultancy Capital Economics said importers and retailers would likely absorb some of the increase in costs from the weak pound, ensuring that the squeeze on household incomes is not too intense. Low interest rates would also help support consumers, she said. “With ultra-accommodative monetary policy continuing to support spending and discourage saving, we don’t think a sharp slowdown in spending is on the cards.â€\x9d A leading thinktank warned this week that the combination of rising inflation and weaker pay growth as Brexit unfolds will mean UK workers face the longest squeeze on their pay for 70 years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the recovery in real wages – pay adjusted for inflation – will now be so slow that by 2021 they will still not be back to their 2008 level before the global financial crisis hit. For now, however, the ONS figures showed consumers remained the biggest driving force behind GDP growth. Household spending rose 0.7% in the third quarter, down only slightly from 0.9% growth in the second quarter. Kallum Pickering, senior UK economist at the bank Berenberg said: “Rather than postponing spending decisions amid the heightened uncertainty following the Brexit vote, good fundamentals – a strong labour market, rising house prices and improving credit conditions – supported a continued expansion in household spending.â€\x9d',
 "Pow! This isn't Batman v Superman. Whack! It's Wonder Woman v Supersexism What are we to make of the gender codes in Batman v Superman? Is it confused or certain, modern or prehistoric? To reach a clear conclusion, I might have to tell you the end, or at least flesh out my analysis that the lasso in the final battle is a metaphor for the omnipotent but non-lethal vagina. How do you like my spoiler huh? HUH? Everyone knows how to adjudicate the sexism in a normal film: do the women have agency, or are they perpetually needing rescue? Are the women naked more often than the men, for no clear reason? Does it pass the Bechdel test – do two women have a conversation in a film about something other than a man? (This criterion is met so rarely now that it’s pretty much the definition of arthouse.) In the more likely event that the women talk about nothing but men, is their dialogue at all sophisticated, or – going by their words alone – could they be any age from five? Upon these foundations, you can begin to adjudicate the film as you would a person, weigh it up for sleaziness, slut-shaming, the whole busy toolkit by which women are undermined; although then you get into the territory of “does the film think that, or just the character, and is misogyny actually conceived as a slur on that character in order that he might ‘go on a journey’?â€\x9d The distinction is incredibly easy to make in real life, but could happily take Twitter 20,000 years. The motifs of the superhero film complicate this slightly: nobody really talks about anything but good and evil; everybody’s clothes are so tight that they all may as well be naked. In a world where things are always catching fire for no reason, even your eyeballs, who can really say how much nudity is practical and how much titillating? Yet in the respects that Batman v Superman differs from the norm, it has quite a lot to say, albeit not all of it egalitarian or hugely consistent. Lois Lane is your classic spunky heroine, quick with the self-believing backchat, very slow in the matter of staying alive without constant assistance. Here she is in the desert, interviewing a terrorist, who unaccountably offered safe passage to a reporter from a seemingly local newspaper without knowing anything about her. “They didn’t tell me you were a lady,â€\x9d says the terrorist, to which she shoots back, “I’m not a lady, I’m a journalist.â€\x9d There’s a set of journalistic tropes which subvert the damsel in distress norm (broadly: critical thinking, tenacity and boldness). If we take survival as the main aim of any sensible person, these traits don’t help, but they’re a start, right? On the matter of nudity, Lane has her main emotional journey while in the bath – don’t we all? Then Superman gets into the bath, fully clothed, to cheer her up, which is a new cinematic shorthand for “evolved man who sees you as an equalâ€\x9d (cf Daniel Craig in Casino Royale – the significance is that he is macho enough not to care about his clothes getting wet even if they’re leather, while feminine enough to see that a supportive gesture is required. It’s genius, really.) Lois isn’t woeful, but breaks no moulds in terms of what she brings to the narrative; her sex appeal is built around peril, and her intimacy is in her helplessness. The headline act is Wonder Woman (we’ll come to the maternal ideal later; it will be much later, and will only take a second, because it is pretty basic). Her only skill, for a long time, is in managing to steal something from Batman which he left in a perfectly visible place where any of us could have stolen it. “You know it’s true what they say about little boys,â€\x9d she tells him, “born with no natural inclination to share. I didn’t steal it, I borrowed it.â€\x9d Weirdly, people actually don’t say that about little boys. Babies of both genders are shown to have a sense of fairness, from which sharing naturally proceeds, from the age of about six months. I baulk anyway at having to go through this phase of “women [superheroes] are innately betterâ€\x9d before you get to a place where you acknowledge that essentialism has all been a giant delusion. Besides the stealing/borrowing, she has a show-stopping cleavage, unleashed to maximum effect in a series of asymmetrical clothes whose only internal logic is to make sure you can see her breasts but her neck is covered (otherwise it all goes a bit Bet Lynch). Furthermore, the stolen/borrowed files are no good to her, since she is foxed by the encryption, while Batman cracks into them with no problem at all, a plot element that has literally no purpose except to underscore that, even in the distant future, when you don’t need shelves put up because you no longer read books, women will still need men for IT support. As we approach the final battle, her power is completely unknown, seeded by nothing except a photograph. From this standing start, she joins the fight with an urgent yet unhurried mien, in a spirit of cooperation rather than bashing the boys’ heads together (which would have been patronising to a walk-outable degree). She retains an ability to process information: “[this gigantic demon] seems to feed on energyâ€\x9d. The military men on the ground figured this out already, probably with computers, but her behaviour nonetheless registers in stark contrast with that of Batman and Superman who, once engaged in battle, can’t think about anything and can barely keep their pointy ears on straight. She does not launch the decisive attack. She is not the first among equals. Her weapon, at the climactic moment, is the lasso, just a holding device. It bothers me that if we do buy this as a metaphor for the female pudenda – as I think we must – then her gender becomes her status. There is no way for the female superhero to be anything but a wingman or helpmeet, in this framing. No monster died from not being able to use his arms. Yet I’ll take, in consolation, the change in her costume; the star-spangled pants have gone, the all-American colour-scheme has been muted into a kind of elemental Celtic mud. Compared to every Wonder Woman in history, she has a brute force; and set against Batman and Superman, she is the least kitsch, which may on some elemental level *MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT* account for her survival. One final note on the mothers: in the most preposterous plot twist, Batman and Superman, geared up for the whole film for an epic war in which personal animus mingles with a wider collision over their different interpretations of a superhero’s quiddity, manage to come together because their mothers are both called Martha. A kind of Kray twins sentimentality mixed with a nerd’s love of banal coincidence, this is about the least feminist updating of anything ever. Plainly, it will take more than Wonder Woman to smash the patriarchy, but she’s a start.",
 'Hooked online or able to switch off? Tell us about your relationship with the web If you’ve ever been to dinner with someone constantly Googling on their phone, then you won’t be surprised by a new study that exposes our internet obsession. The annual Communications Market Report from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom has – for the first time – looked at how people cope with spending so much time connected, finding that more than a third of UK internet users are taking “digital detoxâ€\x9d breaks from the web. It found an increasing amount of time we spend online is leading to lost sleep, neglected housework and less time spent with friends and family. So, what’s your relationship like with the world wide web? Do you spend too long online or have you got the balance right, and if so, how? Share your experiences with us.',
 'The view on the automated future: fewer shops and fewer people Automation may put a third of a million retail employees out of work in the next eight years, according to the British Retail Consortium. Across the sector as a whole fewer people are now working, and are paid less, than in 2008. Competition, the move online and the welcome rise in the minimum wage are all accelerating the job losses. But it is the rise in technology that will go furthest. Robotics and artificial intelligence are moving to eliminate all kinds of work that had seemed reserved for humans, even those tasks that had appeared too personal or lowly paid to be vulnerable. Most of the automations of the 20th century eliminated unskilled male labour. Now it is the turn of unskilled women. The process is already under way. Salespeople are increasingly regimented and scripted in their interactions, a process that might be called artificial stupidity, while ever greater intelligence and ingenuity is demanded of the customer who tries to navigate an automated checkout. That “unexpected item in the bagging areaâ€\x9d is your vestigial humanity. Retail banks provide a foretaste of this future: tellers have been replaced by machines, and the humans visible in the branches are there to sell products, not to help you. With a lot of shopping, there is no need for human salespeople. That is the principle on which self-service supermarkets were founded, and now it is being extended online. There’s still a great deal of conscious effort to sell in supermarkets, as there is on Amazon’s websites, but it is all done at one or two removes, by the designers of the layout and the programmers of the experience. Analogue, mammalian verbal persuasion has been abolished. The humans you speak to are far more likely to be apologising for the failure of computer systems than to be helping or encouraging you to buy things. Even online, where all of the effort is made by the shopper, the giant companies regard wages as they regard taxes, as a legacy problem to be eliminated in the frictionless and almost post-human future. Amazon workers presently walk anything up to 11 miles a day in the warehouses to stock their trolleys, but the company is hoping to produce robot pallets that will steer themselves to the workers who need them. Then, outside the warehouse, there is the hope of robot delivery vehicles, whether in the air, or on the ground. Even if wholly driverless cars and lorries may never be seen on the road, the human driver will increasingly become a supervisor rather than a hands-on controller. We already have cars that parallel park better than most people. Soon, automation will mean that one driver can direct half a dozen lorries down the motorway, and a cost saving like that will be hard for any haulage company to resist. Our own greed as customers is propelling this development. It’s already clear where it is going. Poorer communities will be left without shops at all, or with a poor choice of bad ones. Pleasant and prosperous enclaves will become more pleasant and more prosperous, with food, drink and even clothing produced in small, artisanal batches for anyone able and willing to pay a premium for human service and even human flattery. This process, too, is already well under way and can be expected only to accelerate. The rich get richer, and their lives get more enjoyable. Poor communities grow poorer and more hollowed out. It’s another example of the way that economic efficiency, narrowly measured, increases inequality. An optimist might say that this kind of change has been constant for the past 200 years. The jobs that automation has replaced have mostly been dirty, dangerous, or disagreeable. There have never been as many people employed in Britain as today, and certainly never as many women. Nonetheless, change has seldom been quicker and more vertiginous than today and we’ll need human intelligence to reach a better future. We can’t trust the computers to get us there on their own.',
 'Getting down with the kids: children review music’s top tips for 2016 My first memory is of music. I’m two-and-a-half, standing on a stool in my grandmother’s kitchen; she has let me help her wash the dishes, which is quite the grown-up honour. I am spinning records in the sink – essentially circling the water with a cleaning brush – because the music on the radio has moved me so much. “Trou-per-per! Trou-per-per!â€\x9d the song goes, brightly. I am shining like the sun, feeling like a number one. On that dull autumn afternoon, in a small Swansea scullery, began a little girl’s 35-year (to date) love affair with ABBA, and a connection with Super Trouper that would grow through her life (Teens: wow, it’s about touring! Twenties: it’s about the essential melancholy of fame! Thirties: God, how did they all cope doing songs like this while they were divorcing?). Yes, that was me, but what do today’s kids think of pop? Are they more jaded and cynical because they have unlimited access to music? Or do their hearts still burst at the sound of a kick-drum, a synthesiser, a song? I’ve just written a book for young kids called Pop!, about the capacities this music can have, and the things it can do. I did it because I had a baby a few years ago, and felt my relationship to music go through a seismic shift. I wasn’t having much fun: I was often sleep-deprived, and covered with Calpol or dribble, so I’d listen constantly to nostalgia radio stations, seeking out old favourite songs, and singing their lyrics directly, soppily, to my son. An old primary school disco favourite took on a new, rosy glow (thanks Yazz: “The only way is up, baby, for you and me nowâ€\x9d). A song I’d first loved on the soundtrack of Dirty Dancing now meant something quite different (bless the Ronettes’ Be My Baby). I wanted to play these songs to my son (now 21 months) because they gave me comfort, of course, but I also wanted to enjoy his primal reactions to them. They took a while, but they came. His first proper, joyful wriggle? To something that I loved in my teens: Future Sound of London’s Papua New Guinea (he’s clearly a raver). One of his first standing-up dances? To the Archies’ bubblegum pop hit Sugar, Sugar (he loves something with a handclap). His first vocal response? To the Beatles’ She Loves You. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mammy!â€\x9d, he said, just the other week. “Yeah, yeah, yeah!â€\x9d It may sound pretentious, but one of the ideas behind my book was to give pop the credit it deserves as an art form that moves us. As I write in the book, people can use pop “to express their feelings about all the things happening in their livesâ€\x9d. This also went for the way I was feeling. My listening habits in my son’s early months transported me to the easier days of my childhood, but also to pop stars who opened my mind, widened my eyes, pumped my heart – larger-than-life creatures such as Adam Ant, Boy George, and, yes, David Bowie, who took me by the hand, and showed me a wider, bolder world. More than anything, I wanted to let children know that pop, at its best, is about self-expression, and that it “lets you be whomever you want to beâ€\x9d. So what would children make of the crop of 2016’s most-likely-tos, the artists filling all those one-to-watch lists? On a Saturday morning at HQ, I get six- and seven-year-olds Bert, Juno, Xavier, Pearl and Jack to talk to me about pop and rate tracks by five rising stars (results on the panel over the page). Be warned: they’re a discerning bunch of critics. OK, they’re not great at spotting instruments or accents, and things can get a little chaotic (the idea that Jack Garratt was a carrot was a difficult concept to shake from them), but for stinging responses and irreverent comment, they’re your gang. Their tastes are often split on gender lines (dispiritingly common at this age, according to their parents), something also reflected in their favourite songs. The boys all love Everything Is Awesome from The Lego Movie (“BECAUSE IT’S AWE-SUMMMMM!â€\x9d, they explain, jumping off their chairs, screaming). The girls adore Katy Perry’s Roar (Juno: “because it’s bouncyâ€\x9d ) and the Frozen soundtrack’s Let It Go (Pearl: “my mum said to me the other day, ‘Can we turn this off now?’â€\x9d). The girls take the reviewing task seriously, and whisper their ideas to each other. The boys try to impress each other, and affect suspicion of “quiet, pretty musicâ€\x9d (although I spot their heads nodding when I’m not looking). Everyone also seems to like music their parents like, which wasn’t always the way for my generation (I liked my mum’s Beatles tapes, but thought David Essex was awful). This panel’s parents had a much broader musical education, though, mainly because of their age. They grew up with acid house and Britpop, hip-hop and heavy metal, and most likely spent their teenage years reading music magazines that taught them, lengthily, about the past. Favourites of the panel today include Björk, the Bangles and Arctic Monkeys. Juno even comes along listening to a Spotify playlist, featuring Steve Miller Band’s The Joker and Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman. But when the children are asked why they like things, they’re not always sure. I was like this at their age: I remember falling in love with Wham!’s Freedom when I was six, without understanding it, only knowing that the bit that went “you know that I’ll forgive you/just this once, twice, foreverâ€\x9d put butterflies in my tummy. Years later, I know how that song references Motown, how descending basslines push emotional buttons, and how hugely yearning those lyrics are. But most importantly: those butterflies are still there. While I fondly remember enjoying 60s cassettes in the car with my mum, the sharing of pop between the generations these days is a much bigger deal. My bum-wiggling toddler and I have attended countless classes led by long-suffering musicians with a keen eye on extra income (although watching a room full of babies shake rattles to La Bamba and We Will Rock You is quite fun for parents, admittedly). I’ve also DJed several times for Big Fish Little Fish, the national music and events crew who put on unpretentious “family ravesâ€\x9d on Sunday afternoons (their brilliant slogan: “2-4 hour party peopleâ€\x9d). It is run by ex-senior civil servant, Hannah Saunders, who gave up a 20-year career to set it up, a career change which reminds us that we’ve entered a new age for parenting: one in which mums and dads are allowed to have as much fun as their offspring. Pop is also about dancing, of course, and vivid, physical reactions. This is what I will remember most warmly from our perky pop panel: the arms flailing, the kids windmilling so unguardedly, so joyfully. But I’ll also remember their little reactions about melancholy, and the elaborate, silly stories they concocted, as small songs set off their imaginations in a million directions. By the end of our hour, Pearl and Juno had even decided to form a band and held their first meeting behind an executive chair (“Go away, Dad!â€\x9d, Juno’s father was told when he tried to take her home). Who knows? In 35 years’ time, they may still have a special memory to relate, and a shared love of certain songs that have changed and grown with them. Either way, they’re super troupers, every one. Pop! by Jude Rogers and Alex Farebrother-Naylor is out now (Fisherton Press £6.99) Jack Garratt – Worry (Island Records) Post Ed-Sheeran, eElectronica-drizzled, beardy singer-songwriter of the moment. BBC Sound Of 2016 winner [Uproarious laughter from all the children as soon as song starts] Jack: Jack Garratt? He’s a carrot! Xavier: And he sounds like a carrot! Carrots are boring. Pearl: [sensibly]: He sounds like he’s sleeping. Juno: [thoughtfully]: It doesn’t sound happy or sad. It sounds in the middle between happy and sad. And his voice is a bit funny. He’s all up and down. I think he’s singing to the audience because he’s worried and he wants help. Bert: It’s too peaceful. Jack: He sounds weird. Like a drunk carrot. Pearl: It sounds a bit like rap at the end. I like rap. Rap is really fast. Xavier: He’s crazy like a carrot. Bert: [talking about the title] It’s not working for me because I worry about lots of things. Pearl: I’d like some more rap. Juno: [thoughtfully]: He sounds more like broccoli to me. Bert: 0, Jack: 0, Juno: 3, Pearl: 4, Xavier: 0 TOTAL: 7/25 Rat Boy – Sign On (Parlophone) Jamie T-style tearaway indie-punk, with; lyrics about Wetherspoons and the lottery Jack: Is his first name Rat? Bert: It sounds like he’s driving fast to work, driving in his car. Xavier: The song goes like this [jumps up, mimes steering wheel manoeuvres of Formula 1 winner]. Bert: I think he sounds like he’s going to the beach. Jack: Or going to the bank. Juno: Maybe there’s a fire at his home ‘cos it’s really, really fast. It’s bouncy. [They are asked where he sounds like he’s from] Bert: America? Pearl: South America. Jack: Norway. Juno: [sensibly] Scotland. Pearl: It’s got big, big drums and electric guitars. He sounds old, like he’s from the 70s. Like ABBA, but different. I like ABBA. Juno: It’s too noisy for me. Jack: I like it because it sounds violent. Xavier: [hears lyric] Maybe he’s stealing from the bank? Jack: Maybe he’s driving fast because he was late to steal from the bank, because he was sleeping in the pub, because he was so drunk. Bert: 4, Jack: 4, Juno: 2, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 4 TOTAL: 19/25 Billie Marten – As Long As (Sony/Chess Club) Sensitively intelligent acoustic ballad by 16-year-old singer-songwriter Juno: It reminds me of It’s Oh So Quiet. I like that song. I like the bit where she shouts “Zing-boomâ€\x9d. Xavier: [grumpy] It’s a zero. Bert: Minus zero. Jack: Zero, zero, zero. It’s too peaceful. It sounds like a rabbit. A really peaceful rabbit. Juno: I think it sounded like a flower. Jack: A rabbit at night, jumping around quietly, trying to find its food without the foxes eating it. Xavier: It sounds like someone I met with a very weird voice. Or a violin singing. Pearl: Or a butterfly. It reminds me of Silent Night, like a song to help you go to sleep. It has a nice guitar, like a lullaby. I think she sounds pretty. Juno: I think she’s an old lady. [They are told her age] Xavier: She’s a kid! A baby goat. She sounds a bit like a goat [quietly makes goat noise]. Bert: 0, Jack: 0, Juno: 5, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 0 TOTAL: 10/25 Blossoms – At Most a Kiss (Virgin EMI) Synthy guitar-rock from five young overcoat-endorsing northerners [The kids are told the title] All the boys: URRGGGGGGH!!! Jack: I hate kissing! Bert: YUCK! [sticks fingers in his ears. Juno and Pearl are dancing around smiling] Pearl: This would be good at a roller disco. It’s fast and loud. It needs some more rap. Juno: It’s a bit crazy. Xavier: [listens grudgingly] It’s an electric piano, I think. [copies sci-fi riff] Dun-dun-dun-dun-DUN! Jack: I’d like to listen to this if there was a future world war. Juno: It’s jazz. It’s very noisy and a bit bouncy. Pearl: I reckon the person who makes it is a bit ugly. Bert: And wears grey glasses. Juno: I think he sounds a bit stinky. Xavier: I think he’s got a funny moustache. Bert: 1, Jack: 3, Juno: 5, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 2 TOTAL: 16/25 Lizzo – BGSW (BGSW Records) Riot grrrl-influenced, Prince-endorsed rapper, with a bark as loud as her bite [Song begins slow and soulful, then explodes into a fast, starkly accompanied rap] Bert: The start is weird. I felt there was nothing inside me. Juno: I like the slow bit, middle bit, and the fast! Jack: I hated the start when it was quiet. The loud bit, I liked. Bert: It’s like a snail that goes really slow, then really fast and crashes into a car. Jack: Maybe it’s a snail that’s had fast potion poured on it. Pearl: I like that it stopped for a second, then started again. Jack: She’s angry because she’s shouty. Pearl: She thinks she’s like a boy, because she’s doing lots of shouting. But I like it. Bert: Maybe she’s a girl snail that’s so angry that she jumps into the middle of the Earth and explodes. Pearl: She sounds like she’s in a space rocket and she can’t talk properly, then she’s shouting in space. It’s a bit of a joke, because she was only pretending she can’t speak, so that’s why she shouts. Like this bit! [entire room breaks out in dancing] Bert: 5, Jack: 5, Juno: 5, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 5 TOTAL: 25 (WINNER!)',
 'Brits are thin on the ground as May rolls out red carpet for Polish PM It could have been that Boris Johnson had managed to insult his opposite number. It could have been that Michael Fallon had been too keen to find out a little more about the Polish defence minister’s conviction that the hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion pamphlet alleging a Jewish conspiracy for world domination may be real. Either way, when the two delegations trooped into the Downing Street press conference more than an hour later than planned, the Brits were thin on the ground. On the left side of the room was half the Polish government; on the right just David Davis, the Brexit minister. Lucky Poles. It wasn’t hard to get the impression that the Brits weren’t taking this UK-Polish summit quite as seriously as their counterparts. With most EU countries not really in the mood to talk to Britain until after article 50 has been triggered – and even then only if they really must – Theresa May has found herself short of countries willing to indulge her desire to shoot the breeze about foreign policy. So when Poland indicated it was willing to have a bilateral meeting, May was only too keen to roll out the red carpet. Schmoozing a rightwing, xenophobic government might not have been the best of looks when Britain was trying to reposition itself as open and friendly to Europe, but beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, we did have some hate crime fences to mend. “We’ve had an excellent and historic first summit,â€\x9d said Theresa at her most Maybotic, frantically racking her brains for anything memorable that had been discussed. After saying she was sorry for all the attacks on Poles in the UK since the EU referendum, the conversation had rather dried up. There had been a bit of chat about how much they both hated the Russians and she’d got away with making the 150 squaddies she had already promised to send to the Polish eastern border sound like a new commitment. But that was about it. “I did also update Prime Minister SzydÅ‚o on the work we are doing on Brexit,â€\x9d she added as an afterthought. Best not to mention that had taken all of 30 seconds. The Polish PM, Beata SzydÅ‚o, had looked on impassively as the Maybot ran through her highlights package of the day’s events. She recalled it all rather differently. “Great Britain doesn’t have summits with countries like Poland very often,â€\x9d she observed. And she was looking forward to many more in the coming months. Starting in Warsaw next year. The Maybot looked startled. Had she really agreed to that? The Polish interpreter whispered into her earpiece, assuring her that she had. “We’ve had useful bilateral talks about the role of small- and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] in Poland and England,â€\x9d SzydÅ‚o continued. “We have also discussed having a chair of Polish studies at Cambridge University and making sure that Polish was taught in primary schools.â€\x9d SzydÅ‚o’s delivery is entirely deadpan, so it was hard to gauge if this was her idea of a joke or whether she was deadly serious. The Maybot may feel a bit guilty about the rise in hate crimes against Poles in England, but not enough to enrage the Eurosceptics in her party by teaching Polish to the Poles. This level of detail wasn’t what the British government or the media had come to hear, and when the Maybot reluctantly took her two questions from the British media the attention switched back to Brexit. A Sunday Times interview had quoted the prime minister as saying she was losing sleep over Brexit. Was this true? “There may have been an overinterpretation of my sleepless Brexit nights,â€\x9d she said, anxious to make it look as if she wasn’t in the slightest bit panicky. “The Polish prime minister and I had some useful discussions about Brexit today. “No we didn’t,â€\x9d said SzydÅ‚o. “Yes we did,â€\x9d said the Maybot, hastily rewriting history. “We talked a lot about Brexit.â€\x9d SzydÅ‚o had no memory of this. Much as she might have wanted some reassurances that Poles living in the UK would be allowed to stay after Brexit, she wasn’t about to break ranks with the rest of the EU and sign up to a unilateral deal guaranteeing the rights of British people living in Poland. If May thought she could pick off the Poles as the weak link in the EU chain, she could think again. “All we had today was bilateral talks,â€\x9d SzydÅ‚o insisted. And she was looking forward to much more talk about SMEs in the near future. May groaned. If she hadn’t been having sleepless nights before today, she would now.',
 'Fire at Sea review – from the migrant crisis, a gentle poetry Sometimes real life provides us with symbolic imagery that is every bit as potent and sophisticated as anything you would find in a fictional narrative. And one of the great strengths of Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin film festival prize-winning documentary is that the director is able to look at a dauntingly huge topic of global import – the migrant crisis – and find within it the little moments of poetic resonance that illuminate the human lives behind the stark statistics. The film takes place on, and around, the island of Lampedusa, 20 sq km of arid scrubland and arcane traditions. Since the early 00s, this isolated fishing community, located 127 miles from the southern coast of Sicily, has become one of the main entry points to Europe for refugees risking the treacherous sea crossing from north Africa. By focusing on Lampedusa, Rosi juxtaposes insular old Europe with a very 21st-century global reality. Migration is a topic that could hardly be more charged , but Rosi is no brow-beating polemicist. His approach is unobtrusive and observational rather than confrontational. The two worlds, that of the newly arrived refugees, adrift and traumatised, and the timeless locals, shaped by generations of devotion to the sea and the church, have surprisingly little interaction. However, Rosi seeks out threads between the two communities. The harrowing radio distress calls from sinking migrant vessels find an echo in the local radio station, where a young man plays songs from a bygone era and takes dedications from his most loyal listener, his aunt. A savagely beaten refugee gestures mutely to his facial injuries. On the rescue boat, he weeps tears mixed with blood. And in the most elegant of Rosi’s parallels, a boy on Lampedusa called Samuele is diagnosed with a lazy eye. Like most of Europe, he sees, but doesn’t see. This article was amended on 16 June 2016 to remove an incorrect reference to Lampedusa being the location for Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash. It was filmed on Pantelleria, about 100 mile to the north.',
 'Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur: match preview The mood at Manchester United is one of frustration mixed with confidence that very soon everything will begin to click and performance will match result. Tottenham Hotspur are six points ahead of José Mourinho’s side in fifth place and given Mauricio Pochettino was of interest to United before hiring the Portuguese each man may have a little extra motivation to deliver three points. Jamie Jackson Kick-off 2.15pm Venue Old Trafford Last season Man Utd 1 Tottenham 0 Live Sky Sports 1 Referee Robert Madley This season G10, Y49, R0, 4.9 cards per game Odds H 5-4 A 3-1 D 5-2 Manchester Utd Subs from Romero, Johnstone, Depay, Lingard, Fosu-Mensah, Tuanzebe, Schneiderlin, Young, Blind, Fellaini, Schweinsteiger, Rashford, Mata, Rojo, Rooney Doubtful None Injured Shaw (match fitness, 14 Dec), Smalling (toe, 17 Dec) Suspended None Form LDWDDD Discipline Y34 R1 Leading scorer Ibrahimovic 8 Tottenham Hotspur Subs from Vorm, López, Trippier, Davies, Dier, Wimmer, Carter-Vickers, Carroll, Winks, Onomah, Sissoko, Nkoudou Doubtful Davies (ankle) Injured Janssen (ankle, 28 Dec), Lamela (hip, unknown) Suspended None Form DDDWLW Discipline Y26 R0 Leading scorer Kane 7',
 "Donald Trump at the White House: Obama reports 'excellent conversation' – as it happened Are you adjusted to the New Normal yet? President-elect Donald Trump was accorded a chilly but deferential welcome at the White House this morning as the president-elect met with President Barack Obama for a 90-minute private meeting in the Oval Office. In the first stage of a 72-day transition process between Tuesday’s unexpected election victory and Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, Obama said the two men discussed “foreign and domestic policyâ€\x9d and how to ensure the handover of power went smoothly. “I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds,â€\x9d Obama told his successor during a brief photo opportunity afterwards. Jihadis have welcomed Trump’s surprise victory in the American presidential race, saying his election would sow greater division and expose what they described as the hatred and racism of the west towards Muslims. The endorsement of the election result by extreme Islamist figures highlighted fears that Trump’s divisive rhetoric and call to ban Muslims from entering the US could empower radicals who have argued that the west seeks Islam’s destruction and is at war with its adherents. Tens of thousands of Americans held further protests and acts of dissent against the election after a wave of demonstrations across the US on Wednesday night in which dozens were arrested. Protesters began mobilizing in major cities for a third day after crowds had descended on Trump buildings in New York, Chicago and Washington into the early hours to rail against the shock election result. There was a spate of claims of hate crimes in the US made on social media and to police today, in which the alleged victims said abusers had in some way cited Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.Social media was rife with accounts of sometimes violent incidents of hate targeted at Muslims, Latinos and African Americans. Samantha Bee blamed white people for ruining America: And the Trump transition team put forward a few key team members: Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott told ABC Radio National that the US and UK elections and Brexit vote show that the non-politically correct don’t want to tell pollsters what they really think because they would face “excoriation.â€\x9d President-elect Donald Trump has made his first swipe at the political media in his new role: President-elect Donald Trump reports that he had “great chemistryâ€\x9d with president Barack Obama: Given that Trump spent much of the mid-aughts attempting to prove that Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as president, this is surprising. Students at Cornell University held a “cry-inâ€\x9d after the election of president-elect Donald Trump, according to the Ivy League school’s student-run newspaper, where roughly 20 students met in the bleakness that is a November day in upstate New York to share tears, hugs and sorrows. “I am concerned how this is validating the behavior of a lot of people,â€\x9d a student sipping a cup of coffee said in the Cornell Daily Sun’s video, of the election. “I’m quite terrified, honestly,â€\x9d another student said. “It’s saying that people are really given into fear-mongering - they’re willing to put people down based on their identity just so that they would feel vindicated that they would be getting rid of ‘Crooked Hillary.’â€\x9d “I’d say the results are heartbreaking and such a slap in the face to so many of the populations that make up America,â€\x9d a professor said. “I think it’s also an indication that there and many many people who are suffering and feel that haven’t been heard and they believe that Trump will answer their needs.â€\x9d Donald Trump’s attorney told a federal judge on Thursday that he’s open to settlement talks in a class-action fraud lawsuit involving the president-elect and his now-defunct Trump University. Attorney Daniel Petrocelli also asked during a hearing that the trial be delayed until early next year because Trump needs time to work on the transition to the presidency. The lawsuit alleging Trump University failed on its promise to teach success in real estate is currently set to begin 28 November in San Diego. Petrocelli said he agreed to an offer by US district court Judge Gonzalo Curiel to have US district Judge Jeffrey Miller work with both sides on a possible settlement. “I can tell you right now I’m all ears,â€\x9d Petrocelli told Curiel. Petrocelli said he planned to file a formal request for a delay by Monday. Curiel didn’t say how he would rule but encouraged efforts to settle. Petrocelli said it didn’t appear possible for Trump to attend the trial, and Curiel said he didn’t expect attendance by the president-elect. “We’re in uncharted territory. We need a little bit of time,â€\x9d Petrocelli said. Earlier in the day Curiel, the Indiana-born jurist who was accused of bias by Trump over his Mexican heritage, tentatively denied a request to ban statements made by and about Trump during his campaign from being used at the trial. The highly unusual petition would apply to Trump’s tweets, a video of Trump making sexually predatory comments about women, his tax history, revelations about his private charitable foundation and the public criticism of the judge. Arizona senator Jeff Flake, speaking with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about the impending Trump administration, told the Meet the Press host that although he opposed Trump during the campaign, “there are a lot of things that we agree onâ€\x9d and that Trump has, so far, been “graciousâ€\x9d to his vanquished and/or conquered opponents. “I think all of us who have opposed him during the process of [have eaten] a huge helping of crow already,â€\x9d said the Republican senator. “I didn’t think that he would get this far, I really didn’t.â€\x9d “When there are areas of disagreement and there may be some, there will be some, we’ll push back,â€\x9d Flake continued. “But in the meantime, there are a lot of things that we agree on. I think he’s been gracious so far in terms of outreach and has done it right so far. And we’ll see where we go.â€\x9d President-elect Donald Trump has officially won the traditionally red state of Arizona, two days after election night. Heavy Latino turnout in the Grand Canyon State, as well as young people encouraged by a ballot initiative that would have regulated marijuana like alcohol, contributed to a massive groundswell of Democratic support, but apparently not enough for defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the state. Former president Bill Clinton has made a quick phone call to president-elect Donald Trump, wishing the newly minted 45th president of the United States and his wife’s former political rival well. “During the brief call, President Clinton congratulated Mr. Trump and wished him well,â€\x9d an aide to Clinton told ABC’s Liz Kreutz. Trump had long used Clinton’s personal peccadilloes as ammunition against the former secretary of state. Bygones, right? Because it’s 2016 and thus forbidden for a day to go past without an open letter appearing somewhere, here’s another one. This time it’s written by a fictional character, if that helps any: Leslie Knope, the relentlessly positive public servant from Park and Recreation, played by Amy Poehler. Upbeat, yes. Positive: not so much. I do not accept it. I acknowledge that Donald Trump is the president. I understand, intellectually, that he won the election. But I do not accept that our country has descended into the hatred-swirled slop pile that he lives in. I reject out of hand the notion that we have thrown up our hands and succumbed to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and crypto-fascism. I do not accept that. I reject that. I fight that. Today, and tomorrow, and every day until the next election, I reject and fight that story. Several hundred protesters are taking to the streets for the second night running to protest against Trump’s victory, though not yet on the scale of the thousands seen on Wednesday evening. In several places, high school and college students staged walk-out protests. At Baylor University in Texas, several dozen students have gathered: In Denver, Colorado, protesters are beginning to gather for a march scheduled to begin soon: Hundreds more gathered outside the Ohio statehouse in Columbus: And in Louisville, Kentucky: Around a thousand people have taken to the streets of Minneapolis, NBC is reporting, while students at the University of Minnesota also gathered for a protest: In Philadelphia, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in Center City for a candlelit vigil, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer. News that British prime minister Theresa May has finally had her phone call with Trump has certainly gladdened the hearts of some sections of the UK press: Peter Walker reports from London: In the call, Trump made reference to the famously close relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as a hopeful aim for their ties, a Downing Street source said. Trump “alluded to their relationship as a way to underline that he was keen to have a good personal working relationship, too,â€\x9d the source said. A Downing Street statement added that the prime minister called “to congratulate him on his hard-fought election campaign and victoryâ€\x9d, and confirmed May had been invited to visit the US “as soon as possibleâ€\x9d. “She noted President-elect Trump’s commitment in his acceptance speech to uniting people across America, which she said is a task we all need to focus on globally,â€\x9d read one section of the statement, which is as close as May has come so far to referring to Trump’s controversial and divisive campaign. The call came after concerns that the much-vaunted special relationship with the US might have suffered an early setback under Trump as he spoke to nine other world leaders in the 24 hours after his election win, without May getting a call. Thanks to the magic synchronicity of Twitter, we can confirm that the vice-president-elect has spoken to the British foreign secretary, and that the “special relationshipâ€\x9d remains … special: Edward Snowden has said he is unafraid of Russian president Vladimir Putin turning him over to the US as a favor to President-elect Donald Trump. The national security whistleblower, speaking during a webchat from Russia this afternoon, where he has been stranded since disclosing revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance in 2013, said it would be “crazy to dismissâ€\x9d the prospect of Trump striking a deal with Putin that leads to his extradition and trial. But he added: “If I was worried about safety, if the security and the future of myself was all that I cared about, I would still be in Hawaii.â€\x9d Snowden told the webchat hosted by the Dutch privacy-focused search engine StartPage he was comfortable with and proud of the choices he had made. “I think I did the right thing,â€\x9d he said. “While I can’t predict what the future looks like, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, I can be comfortable with the way I’ve lived to today.â€\x9d Trump, who has been complimentary about Putin and Russia in a manner that prompted accusations from his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that he was a “puppetâ€\x9d, has in the past mused about having Snowden killed. Trump’s major national security ally, the retired general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Michael Flynn, oversaw a highly speculative DIA report that claimed Snowden took from the NSA a larger trove of documents than ever confirmed based on what Snowden could access as a contract systems administrator. “Snowden is a spy who has caused great damage in the US. A spy in the old days, when our country was respected and strong, would be executed,â€\x9d Trump tweeted in 2014. All of that has prompted concern among Snowden’s supporters worldwide that the groundwork for an extradition is in place. But Snowden proclaimed himself unperturbed. The first sighting of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after her concession to president-elect Donald Trump yesterday afternoon: Dan Roberts takes a look a policies that could be implemented under President-elect Donald Trump. Another White House transition-team pool report: Hope Hicks has not responded to any additional emails with questions about the president-elect’s status, schedule or whereabouts since changing course and saying he was headed back to New York. If there is any other information that comes in, I will send it immediately, but otherwise I won’t have any further pool reports today. Thanks to you all for bearing with my failed attempts to get more out of the transition today. Little on-the-nose, don’t you think? Former Vermont governor and onetime presidential candidate Howard Dean has announced via Twitter that he is running to reclaim his old position as chair of the Democratic National Committee. Dean, who served as chair from 2005 to 2009, is running to replace interim chair Donna Brazile, who has served since July when Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigned in the wake of a Russian-sponsored hack of DNC servers that revealed high-level antipathy towards then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders among the DNC’s leadership. Video: President-elect Donald Trump appeared before the press to answer several questions this afternoon during a visit to Capitol Hill, and said that his first priorities once he is inaugurated will be controlling immigration, reforming healthcare and creating “big league jobs.â€\x9d (Or, possibly, “bigly jobs.â€\x9d We’ve never been totally sure!) Trump was in Washington to meet President Obama and also held discussions with key Republican figures including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. The president-elect’s staff has provided no information, despite being asked, about his schedule or activities since leaving Capitol Hill. This is the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime. Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard ... he connected in ways with people no one else did. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has announced that former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell will be in charge of handling domestic policy issues in relation to the upcoming Trump administration’s legislative and executive priorities in its first hundred days Blackwell, who currently works as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a Christian lobbying organization that lobbies lawmakers against LGBT rights, abortion and pornography, first gained national attention in 2006, when he was running to serve as Ohio’s governor. In an interview at the time, Blackwell declared that homosexuality was a “lifestyleâ€\x9d that “can be changed. “I think homosexuality is a lifestyle, it’s a choice, and that lifestyle can be changed,â€\x9d Blackwell told the Columbus Dispatch at the time. “I think it is a transgression against God’s law, God’s will.â€\x9d “The reality is, again,â€\x9d Blackwell continued, “that I think we make choices all the time. And I think you make good choices and bad choices in terms of lifestyle. Our expectation is that one’s genetic makeup might make one more inclined to be an arsonist or might make one more inclined to be a kleptomaniac. Do I think that they can be changed? Yes.â€\x9d Trump himself has said that, while he does not support same-sex marriage rights, he does support LGBT rights. Vice president-elect Mike Pence, on the other hand, first emerged on the national stage after signing an expansive anti-LGBT measure into law, and once signed into law a bill that would send same-sex couples attempting to obtain marriage licenses to jail. From the president-elect’s pool report: Hope Hicks sends the following update about the president-elect’s plans for tonight: ‘Now heading to NYC’ That is the full extent of what she has told me. She is not responding to questions about his schedule for the rest of the day The “dishonest pressâ€\x9d is getting its comeuppance from the new administration, it seems. President Barack Obama should urgently seek to impose constitutional checks on the US president’s access to “the most awesome assassination machine ever known to manâ€\x9d, a former state department official in the Obama administration said today. Jeremy Shapiro disclosed the Obama team before the 2012 elections had considered imposing such constitutional checks on the US president’s ability to order killings fearing Obama was about to lose the presidential elections to the Republicans. Speaking in London, Shapiro, a former special adviser an assistant secretary in the State Department, disclosed the Obama team in the State Department “in the run-up to the 2012 election the Obama thought might lose and there was some thinking - ‘Gee, we have created the most awesome assassination machine ever known to man whereby we can, with very little oversight, basically kill anyone in the world outside of America.’â€\x9d He added the Obama officials thought “We are using that responsibly because we are good people,â€\x9d but it was not institutionalized. “When people looked at it they thought, ‘Christ this is scary, what if we give this to the Republicans?’â€\x9d He said the Obama team “started to have a process to institutionalize the process, but it did not get very institutionalized.â€\x9d Leslie Vinjamuri, senior lecturer at SOAS, added Obama should put all his remaining energy in his final weeks in the Oval Office to “do anything he can to to regulate, to create norms, institutionalize, create blocking mechanisms.â€\x9d The academics were discussing Trump’s approach to foreign policy and the degree he will delegate or take personal charge. Shapiro warned: “in the last 15 years, power in foreign policy has centralized to an enormous extent within the presidency and Congress, and most of the institutions in foreign policy has become enormously supine in the face of what ever the [resident wants to do does in foreign policy. We have essentially by default almost given this to the president.â€\x9d Cora Currier writes for the : Audre Lorde once wrote that “poetry is not a luxuryâ€\x9d, and right now it is a necessity. What kind of poetry can get us through a Donald Trump presidency? We’ll need satire and spitting vitriol. We’ll need rallying cries. We’ll need reminders of human dignity. Each poet here has struggled with the relationship between poetry and action, with the question of poetry’s relevance in a time of crisis. Adrienne Rich said: “A poem can’t free us from the struggle for existence, but it can uncover desires and appetites buried under the accumulating emergencies of life.â€\x9d These are words carefully chosen not for solace but for strength, poems that dip into the reservoirs of literature to find fuel for the day ahead. They are, to borrow from WH Auden’s famous poem September 1, 1939, “ironic points of lightâ€\x9d that “flash out wherever the Just / exchange their messagesâ€\x9d. Poems that serve as signals through the ages that good exists, and that someone is awake and listening. Click through for: Gwendolyn Brooks – Langston Hughes Adrienne Rich – What Kind of Times Are These Nayyirah Waheed – Some words build houses in your throat Margaret Atwood – Men with the Heads of Eagles Muriel Rukeyser – Poem A US judge on Thursday tentatively rejected a bid by Donald Trump to keep a wide range of statements from the presidential campaign out of an upcoming fraud trial over his Trump University venture, Reuters reports: The ruling came in advance of a pretrial hearing later on Thursday where lawyers for the president-elect will square off against students who claim they were they were lured by false promises to pay up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing “secretsâ€\x9d from his “hand-pickedâ€\x9d instructors. Trump owned 92 percent of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, the students’ court papers say. The president-elect denies the allegations and has argued that he relied on others to manage the business. Trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28. In the ruling on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego said Trump’s lawyers can renew objections to specific campaign statements and evidence during trial. Trump’s attorneys had argued that jurors should not hear about statements Trump made during the campaign, including about Curiel himself. Trump attacked the judge as biased against him. He claimed Curiel, who was born in Indiana but is of Mexican descent, could not be impartial because of Trump’s pledge to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Read the full piece here. Here’s footage of the impromptu press conference, via the Huffington Post: Asked about his priorities, Trump mentions immigration, the border, health care and jobs, “big league jobs.â€\x9d Ohio governor John Kasich is praying for the success of Trump, whom he has come very close to openly despising. Trump has emerged from the meeting and started an impromptu gaggle with reporters that ended when he was asked about his plan to ban Muslims, CNN reports: Trump is still meeting with McConnell, the press pool reports: The President-elect is still in his meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, which an aide said should last up to an hour. The two walked by earlier, but have remained inside since. The Vice President-elect has already left the Capitol. Here’s a transcription via the Trump press pool of Trump’s meeting with speaker Paul Ryan: Ryan repeatedly chided reporters for shouting questions --- including how the “wall is going to be paid for.â€\x9d Ryan: Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen and we’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people, and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again.â€\x9d Trump: Speaker Ryan, thank you very much. We had a meeting, I met with president before, as you know. I think we are going to absolutely spectacular things for the American people and I look forward to starting --- quite frankly we can’t get started fast enough.â€\x9d [Inaudible] “… Whether it’s on healthcare or immigration so many different things. We’re going to lower taxes, so many different things we are going to be working on.â€\x9d “We had a very detailed meeting, and we’re going to lower taxes, as you know, health care we’re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on healthcare [inaudible]. As he wrapped up, Trump said he had a “great meetingâ€\x9d with Ryan and then the Speaker led him out onto his balcony. The Obamas’ dogs got one whiff of Trump and ambled elsewhere. Trump will stay in DC for the night, spokeswoman Hope Hicks has informed the media pool. But no word on whether he’ll stay at his new hotel on Pennsylvania avenue. Endorse. From the piece: And she [the heavy-construction worker] shared an anecdote that reflected how differently Trump’s comments had been received in some places than others. “I’m setting steel for this new gas plant…I’m operating a rough terrain forklift,â€\x9d she wrote. “So today, I kept thinking about the debate and the audio was released … And I got underneath a load of steel and was moving it…I was laughing and laughing and one of the iron workers asked ‘what are u laughing at.’ I said ‘I grabbed that load right by the pussy’ and laughed some more…And said ‘when you’re an operator you can do that ya know’, laughed all fucking day.â€\x9d Just last week, I was back in Ohio, in the southeastern Appalachian corner. I was at a graduation ceremony for opiate addicts who had gone through a recovery program, and sitting with four women, all around 30, who were still in the program. Someone mentioned the election, and all four of them piped up that they were voting for the first time ever. For whom? I asked. They looked at me as if I had asked the dumbest question in the world. All four were for Trump. The most of the loquacious of the group, Tiffany Chesser, said she was voting for him because her boyfriend worked at a General Electric light-bulb plant nearby that was seeing more of its production lines being moved to Mexico. She saw voting for Trump as a straightforward transaction to save his job. “If he loses that job we’re screwed — I’ll lose my house,â€\x9d she said. “There used to be a full parking lot there — now you go by, there are just three trucks in the lot.â€\x9d Look who else is visiting the White House today! John Kasich, the Ohio governor who never gave Trump the time of day and voted for John McCain for president and whose state was then won by Trump by almost 9 points. That’s Kasich there at left. Oh yes and also that’s the NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers. LeBron James, who campaigned a lot for Clinton, is in the White House today. What he said. Obamacare enrollments (or preliminary signups? it’s not clear) spiked after the election, the secretary of health and human services reports: Now Trump and Pence and Melania Trump are meeting with senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill. McConnell said yesterday he expected to work with Trump on filling the supreme court vacancy, on tax reform, on Obamacare and more. Developing... There’s the Martin Luther King Jr bust Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office upon becoming president. Obama was criticized for moving a bust of Winston Churchill outside the Oval to make room for MLK. There are “only so many tables where you can put busts, otherwise it starts looking a little cluttered,â€\x9d Obama said. Anyone think the MLK Jr bust will stay there after January? Paul Ryan can see Donald Trump’s hotel from his house the Capitol balcony. That’s vice-president-elect Mike Pence and Melania Trump with them of course. Some initial footage, and the requisite “this meeting was wonderfulâ€\x9d quote from Ryan. Developing... Josh Earnest describes the Michelle Obama - Melania Trump meeting. They had tea, admired a balcony view and talked about raising kids in the White House. How different than what would have come to pass had Clinton won. Earnest: The first lady hosted Mrs Trump in the private residence... for some tea and a tour... part of that tour included stepping out onto the Truman balcony... you’ve heard the president and Mrs Obama describe the quality of time that they’ve spent on the Truman balcony.... there was also an opportunity for the two women to walk through the state floor of the White House... They also had a discussion about raising kids at the White House. The first lady’s two daughters spent their formative years here at the White House... After their tour concluded, the first lady and Mrs Trump walked over to the Oval Office and the two couples had a chance to speak. Obama on Monday called Trump “temperamentally unfitâ€\x9d and “uniquely unqualified.â€\x9d “The president’s views haven’t changed,â€\x9d the press secretary says. But it’s time for a successful transition. “The president’s plan to take a long vacation after he leaves office have not changed.â€\x9d – Josh Earnest Obama appreciated how George W Bush gave him space after Obama took office, giving him “some running room,â€\x9d Earnest says. “President Obama admired that.â€\x9d He doesn’t sound like he’s kidding: After dismissing the question multiple times, Earnest allows that yes, Obama may continue to think that Trump is unqualified to be president: Further to our earlier post about hate incidents since the election, the s’ Luis Echegaray flags a disturbing incident at Elon University in North Carolina: Here’s a further collection of such incidents: Earnest is asked about the anti-Trump protests across the country on Wednesday evening. Reply: We’ve got a carefully, constitutionally protected right to free speech... it is a right that should be exercised without violence. There are people disappointed in the outcome... but it’s important for us to remember that we’re Democrats and Republicans but we’re Americans and patriots first. Read further: Earnest is asked whether Obama still considers Trump unfit to be president. Reply: The two men did not re-litigate their differences in the Oval Office. We’re on to the next phase now. Via the house speaker’s spokesperson: The President-elect, Mrs. Trump, Vice President-elect, and the Speaker are having lunch and discussing the transition. The Speaker has also invited President-elect Trump to the Capitol after their meeting to show him where he’ll be sworn in on Inauguration Day. Press secretary Josh Earnest is talking about the big meeting. He says he met Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks. “I had the opportunity to meet with her briefly – to meet her, I should say.â€\x9d On the Obama-Trump meeting, Earnest has this to say: The meeting might have been a little less awkward than some might have expected. Trump referred in the Oval to some “high-flying assetsâ€\x9d the president had told him about, a reporter notes. What the heck was that about? Earnest refers the question to team Trump. Here’s some added color from inside the Oval office, via the Trump media pool, which Trump ditched again upon leaving the White House for his meeting with Paul Ryan: The president kept saying, “tell me when you’re readyâ€\x9d to reporters, as he waited to make a statement. The president-elect looked around the room, and at the floor, his hands tented below him. The only senior aide in the room spotted in the room from the White House was press secretary Josh Earnest. Trump aides Hope Hicks and Jared Kushner, who had been waiting in the Cabinet room until the meeting concluded, were in place as well. Kushner took iPhone photos as they spoke. Obama looked straight at Trump for the full statement, his hands clasped. He nodded at the end. Both men ignored shouted questions, including “Mr. President, do you still think he is a threat to the republic?â€\x9d Obama explained to Trump with a joke that the reporters always ask questions and they need to be shooed out, as he motioned with his hand. He singled out one aide who was wrangling the press, saying, “she’s small, but she’s tough.â€\x9d Trump said “she’s doing a very good job.â€\x9d Barack Obama: I just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy, we talked about domestic policy. And as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president elect is successful. And I have been very encouraged by the I think interest in president elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces and I believe that it is important for all of us regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together, to deal with the many challenges that we face. And in the meantime Michelle has had a chance to greet the incoming first lady and we had an excellent conversation with her as well. And we want to make sure they feel welcome as they prepare to make this transition. And most of all I want to emphasize to you, Mr President Elect, that we now are gonna want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed then the country succeeds. Please [indicates Trump should speak]. Donald Trump: Well, thank you very much President Obama. This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and we were just going to get to know each other. We had never met each other. I have great respect- the meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half, and it could have, as far as I’m concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer. We really, we discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. He’s explained some of the difficulties, some of the high flying assets and some of the really great things that have been achieved. So Mr President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future. Obama: Thank you everybody – we are not going to be taking any questions. [To Trump:] Always a good rule: don’t answer any questions when they just start yelling. Here’s a video of Obama and Trump’s full remarks following their Oval Office meeting: Remember Aaron Schock, the former Illinois congressman whose sketchy use of his congressional allowance and campaign funds was exposed after a reporter spoke with the interior decorator of his office who said she’d been inspired by Downton Abbey? He’s been indicted. Now to hatch plans with his Republican colleagues for next steps. Trump is in a motorcade en route to meet with House speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol Hill Club and majority leader Mitch McConnell at Capitol Hill. Here’s a media pool transcription of president Obama’s remarks: We talked about some of organizational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy. As I sat last night, my number one in the next coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful and I have been very encouraged by the interest by the President-elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces. I believe that it is important for all regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together to deal with the many challenges we face. More video and photos of the meeting: An amicable – if a bit stiff, and did we notice strained on the president’s part? – appearance before the cameras for the two men. Obama says “I have been very encouraged by an interest in president-elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that the country faces... it is important for all of us ... to now come together, work together... Michelle’s had the chance to greet the incoming first lady, and we’ve had an excellent conversation and want to make sure they feel welcome... We now are gonna want to do everything we can because if you succeed the country succeeds. Trump: We had never met.. The meeting was supposed to last 10 minutes... I have great respect... it went on for an hour-and-a-half and as far as I’m concerned it could have gone on longer... we really we discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. Mr president, was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many many more times in the future. According to reports and photos shown to me by a friend in the room, a grinning Trump patted Obama on the back as they got up to leave, though there was only one handshake between the two men in front of the brief photo opportunity. You don’t see that expression on Obama’s face often. Obama said the number one priority was to ensure a smooth transition, so Trump could be a successful president. “If he succeeds, the country succeeds,â€\x9d Obama said. Trump said he had “respect for the presidentâ€\x9d and said they talked about some wonderful things and some difficult things. Asked if he would seek the advice of the president, Trump said Obama was a “very fine man.â€\x9d Trump also boasted of how long their meeting had been. He said it was scheduled for ten minutes but lasted for an hour and a half, and could have gone on much longer. Obama and Trump talked about foreign and domestic policy according to initial pool chatter in the press room. More to come.... In short remarks, the president said the two had an “excellent conversation.â€\x9d The Obamas canceled a photo-op of the current and future first couples outside the south entrance of the White House, the Wall Street Journal reports. But we’re about to get photos from inside the Oval office. The media pool is going into the Oval Office now. That suggests a 90-minute meeting. POTUS and PEOTUS were seated in the high-backed armchairs at the end of the room, as is typical for when the President speaks to world leaders. Both men spoke briefly. Remarks to come... At least we’ll have access to the vice president? That’s pretty important, right? Still meeting. President Barack Obama and president-elect Donald Trump have been meeting for about 90 minutes now. What are they talking about do you think? Is Obama lecturing Trump about keeping a cool head? Is Trump lecturing Obama about leadership? Are they comparing notes on what it feels like to give electrifying speeches to thousands of people across the country? Is Obama telling Trump about how much his hate speech wounds individual Americans and the country and world at large? Is he lecturing Trump on the constitution? Is Trump asking to “try out that chairâ€\x9d? Are they talking about family, about Vladimir Putin, about government surveillance, about filling the role of mourner-in-chief after mass shootings, about protocol, about climate change? Trump’s traveling press pool continues to track Kushner and McDonough. Kushner, the scion of a New Jersey real estate empire that dwarfs Trump’s, was a key adviser to his father-in-law throughout the campaign. It’s unclear what role he would have in the White House. The pool report: McDonough and Kushner walked back from the lawn and across the Rose Garden at 12:07. McDonough led him up the colonnade, followed by the same group of aides who’d left them on their own for the walk. They entered the White House, looked up briefly when a reporter called out “Denis!â€\x9d but did not respond. Trump and Obama are still meeting. What are they talking about? Obamacare? Here’s a photo of Jared Kushner and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough: Following his meeting with Obama today, president-elect Trump will meet with House speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol Hill Club and majority leader Mitch McConnell at Capitol Hill. Trump has been hard on Ryan, attacking him repeatedly during the campaign as a weak leader. Ryan canceled a plan campaign appearance with Trump after the emergence of hot-mic video in which Trump described grabbing women’s genitals without their consent. Members of Trump’s staff including campaign chairman Stephen Bannon have called for Ryan’s head and it’s possible the president-elect will seek to torpedo Ryan’s reelection as House speaker. But on Wednesday, Ryan put a good face on the relationship, saying he had spoken with Trump twice and was eager to work with him and calling Trump’s election good for the country. McConnell voiced a similar view. Three Republican men in control of the legislative and executive branches. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has been offered a White House job, she tweets. Conway is the first woman ever to have run a successful presidential campaign. (Donna Brazile was Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000; he lost?) What are they doing in there? Dan Roberts reports from the White House: The press pool still has not gone into the Oval Office, which suggests the meeting is going on longer than some of us expected. From the media pool assigned to Trump which Trump has ditched, a sighting of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough was just spotted leading Jared Kushner and other Trump aides, including Dan Scavino, across the back edge of the Rose Garden. McDonough led Kushner on a walk down the South Lawn as the others dispersed. Reminds us of the time in 2006 that Kushner and Peter Kaplan went to that Yankees game. Seemed high-stakes at the time; Kushner had just purchased the New York , where Kaplan was editor, which nobody wanted to see fail. Kaplan died of cancer in 2013. Kushner’s now getting the keys to the White House. Here’s an interesting phenomenon. Trump supporters coming out of the woodwork post-election. Maybe the sign instead of being an expression of support for Trump in particular is a general expression of patriotic hope for a steady future for the country? Hm. But wouldn’t an American flag work better in that case? (h/t @loisbeckett) The press pool is going in now, in the first sign that the Obama-Trump meeting is coming close to an end. The pool includes members of the separate press pool which has been covering Trump but has been barred for being with him since the election. The press pool has just been informed that in 10 minutes they will be going back to prepare for a “sprayâ€\x9d. What will happen is they will stand in a West Wing corridor, for what I guess will be 15-20 minutes, while they wait for the private Obama-Trump meeting to finish. Then they will be ushered inside the Oval Office to take pictures of Trump and Obama and record what we expect to be brief remarks from each. It is possible, though unlikely, that Trump may come out to another “stake-outâ€\x9d location outside the front of the West Wing afterwards to make separate remarks to the wider press corps. More likely he will depart, as he arrived, out of public sight. A spokesperson for British prime minister Theresa May releases this description of a conversation between May and Trump: The Prime Minister spoke to US President-elect Donald Trump earlier today to congratulate him on his hard-fought election campaign and victory. The President-elect said he very much looked forward to working with the Prime Minister and congratulated her on her recent appointment. The Prime Minister and President-elect Trump agreed that the US-UK relationship was very important and very special, and that building on this would be a priority for them both. President-elect Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the UK. He said he was confident that the special relationship would go from strength to strength. Trump’s staff has not released a description of the call. That’s unusual. Presidents typically release their own versions of such communications so they can frame the conversation their way instead of conceding to the foreign government’s framing. Trump’s staff is not informing the media of top-level – official now, aren’t they? – conversations Trump is having with foreign leaders, among who knows what other conversations. He’s here, reports Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts from the White House: Police are investigating the burning of a gay pride flag outside a home in Rochester, NY, as a potential hate crime, TWC news reports: Ventura said he connects this incident and another flag burning in the same neighborhood to the election. To help deal with what had happened, he joined dozens of others Wednesday night at the Gay Alliance LGBTQ Resource Center, where many were also feeling distressed about the election outcome. Reports of racist attacks and other hate-crime behavior have surfaced again and again since the election. Here’s one against Muslim-Americans in San Diego Wednesday and here is one against a Mexican restaurant in Boston. As Trump meets Obama, Michelle Obama is to take Melania Trump on a tour of the White House and the east wing where the family lives. This afternoon, vice president Joe Biden is to meet with vice-president-elect Mike Pence, a longtime legislator relatively well-known in Washington. There is not expected to be any live coverage of the Trump Obama meeting, but here is a live stream that may capture Trump’s arrival: Trump ditched his press pool this morning, in continuance of his late-campaign practice. Spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Trump’s pool that the White House would provide pool coverage of today’s meeting. The White House press pool of course is at the White House, not with Trump. So that doesn’t make any sense. The protective press pool attached to the president, when it works, increases the access of the public to the presidency and the White House. The press pool describes the daily movements of the president and remarks variations in those, introduces the public to the people and conversations in the president’s orbit, and provides coverage in case of unforeseen events extending to an emergency. Insofar as the media is a tool for the public to pry open and look inside the government – and we are keenly aware that a lot of people these days think “insofarâ€\x9d is “not very farâ€\x9d – the press pool is a tool for the larger media to keep an eye on the president. Trump’s ditching it, for now. Take him to our leader. The Canadian government has said it is open to renegotiating Nafta – the North American free-trade agreement, routinely described by Donald Trump on the campaign trail as the “worst deal in historyâ€\x9d – in a move that extends an olive branch to the incoming US administration. [Trump also described the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific partnership as the worst deals in history.] The ’s Ashifa Kassam reports from Toronto: David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, said on Wednesday the federal government was prepared to revisit the 1994 pact. “I think any agreement can be improved on,â€\x9d he told reporters. “If they want to have a discussion about improving Nafta, then we are ready to come to the table to try to put before the new administration anything that will benefit both Canada and the United States and obviously Mexico also,â€\x9d said MacNaughton. “So we are prepared to talk.â€\x9d Throughout the American election campaign, Trump vowed to renegotiate Nafta in order to secure a better deal for American workers. If this proved impossible, Trump said he would withdraw the US from the agreement. Doing so could wreak havoc on the Canadian economy, which in 2015 sent 77% of its exports to the United States. MacNaughton declined to offer details on what Canada would seek from the negotiations, save for noting that free trade on lumber, which has long ranked as an irritant between the two countries, would be among Canada’s demands. His remarks came hours before Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, spoke to Trump to congratulate him on his win and invite him to visit Canada. The president-elect is on the ground in Washington. No protesters yet at the White House in anticipation of Trump’s visit. Amnesty International is launching a billboard in Times Square today asking people to to post selfies in support of refugees. The billboard, by Amnesty International and media platform The Drum, hopes to challenge racism and xenophobia around refugees. The relevance of the billboard launching the same week that Donald Trump, who promises to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and tighten screening around Syrian refugees, didn’t go unnoticed. From the press release: Drum founder Gordon Young, who will be in Times Square to celebrate the billboard going live, today offered an open invitation to Donald Trump to attend the unveiling and show his support, “Congratulations to President-Elect Donald Trump. Now that he has succeeded, it is time to demonstrate how the responsibility of office can change campaigning rhetoric into real leadership. We invite him to extend an olive branch to refugees - Mexican or otherâ€\x9d Every media organization is publishing its version of “how Trump won,â€\x9d and this snippet from Time magazine is particularly interesting, looking at Trump voters in Pennsylvania: Chris Reilly, a commissioner in York County, Pennsylvania, has lived in the heavily Republican area north of Baltimore for 28 years. On the day in September after Mike Pence spoke to some 800 folks in downtown York, Reilly scanned a panoramic picture of the crowd in the local paper and had a shock. “I recognized one face,â€\x9d he said. That’s when the party stalwart knew something was going on. Then, on a recent Friday, Reilly got word that the county had received 9,000 absentee-ballot applications in a single day. It had to mail them out by Monday but had no money for extra help. So Reilly turned up at the election office on Saturday to stuff the applications into envelopes himself. As he did, he noticed something surprising. The applications were running 10 to 1 male. And when he peeked at the employment lines, he saw a pattern. “Dockworker. Forklift operator. Roofer,â€\x9d Reilly recalled. “Grouter. Warehouse stocker. These people had probably never voted before. They were coming out of nowhere.â€\x9d Hillary Clinton is still leading in the popular vote, with 59,923,033 votes (47.7%) to Donald Trump’s 59,692,978. That’s a pretty evenly split country, with just over 230,000 votes. The Federal Aviation Authority has listed Trump Tower in Midtown, home of Donald Trump, wife Melania and son Barron, in the no-fly zone. The FAA had placed “temporary flight restrictions for VIP Movementâ€\x9d on the area for election night but has now extended it indefinitely after Trump’s win. The area of Trump Tower is now, as New York magazine pointed out, a national-security site: The agency issued an administrative directive called a “Notice to Airmenâ€\x9d banning pilots from flying within two nautical miles of the geographical point located at 40º45’54â€\x9d north, 73º58’25â€\x9d west — that being the southeastern corner of Central Park, four blocks north of Trump Tower. As we prepare for President Obama to welcome President-elect Trump to the White House, let’s just enjoy this photo doing the rounds of social media of Obama’s staff listening to their boss make a gracious speech about Trump’s win. So perhaps Rudy Guiliani, former NYC mayor and one of Trump’s most ardent surrogates, won’t be Attorney General in the Trump administration. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s name is also being thrown around as possible AG contender. From the ’s Moscow correspondent... Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has said Moscow’s emissaries were in touch with people around the Trump campaign during the election process, despite repeated denials from the Trump campaign that such links existed. Ryabkov told Interfax they’ve reached out to Trump since his election win. “We are doing this and we have been doing so during the election campaign. Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage. Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions,â€\x9d he said. “I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives. We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes,â€\x9d Ryabkov said. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed to Bloomberg that Russian embassy staff met with Trump associates during the campaign, and said people around the Clinton campaign had rejected such contacts. It is not particularly surprising that Russian representatives would have made overtures to Trump during the campaign; it is standard practice in all election campaigns. It is interesting that Ryabkov has chosen to say this publicly, however, given the role alleged Russian interference played in the campaign and given Trump’s campaign publicly denied such contacts. Vice-president Joe Biden will meet with VP-elect Mike Pence at the White House at 2.45pm today. Thousands of Americans took to the streets in protest of the election of Donald Trump last night, chanting “not my presidentâ€\x9d and shutting down roadways. Cities including Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and Philadelphia all saw large protest turnout. Reporters Sam Levin in San Francisco, Zach Stafford in Chicago and Scott Bixby in New York covered last night’s protests. As night fell in midtown Manhattan, people took over Sixth Avenue and marched by Trump Tower, carrying signs that read “Not my presidentâ€\x9d, “She got more votesâ€\x9d and “Hands off my pussyâ€\x9d, a reference to a leaked recording where Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because of his fame. A number of arrests were made. Protesters who had marched all the way from Union Square – some 35 blocks downtown – continued past Trump Tower, with a crowd congregating in front of the president-elect’s building. “Fuck your tower! Fuck your wall!â€\x9d people chanted at Trump Tower’s brass-escutcheoned facade, as scores of NYPD officers manned barricades, behind which stood eight department of sanitation trucks filled with dirt. Read the rest of their coverage here. Were you at anti-Trump rallies last night? Tell us in the comments about your experience - and tweet photos and thoughts to me at @ambiej. Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright has warned Trump against American isolationism, telling him the US must play its part in the Nato alliance. “Nato is obviously key. We are responsible for each other, a two-way street,â€\x9d Albright told the in an interview on Wednesday. Trump alarmed many in July when, at the Republican national convention where he accepted his party’s nomination, he implied that the US might not protect other members of Nato if they were not contributing enough to the military costs, and hinted he could withdraw US forces from around the world. A cornerstone of Nato’s strength, and global security, is the pact that an attack on one member is an attack on all. “The US must be involved abroad. If we are not engaged, then the system doesn’t work at all, or, even, a new system cannot be created,â€\x9d she said. Many Ukrainians feel they were let down in the level of support they received from the west for fighting Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country, but a Donald Trump presidency brings a whole new level of fear, writes Shaun Walker. What really terrifies Kiev is the fact that Trump has hinted he could be amenable to the sort of Great Power politics that Putin enjoys: man-to-man summitry where geopolitical deals are struck. G Given the importance of Ukraine to Putin’s plans, he would be likely to demand the country is recognised as one where Russia has “special interestsâ€\x9d. In Putin’s dream world and Kiev’s nightmare, the recognition of annexed Crimea as part of Russia could even be up for discussion. A somewhat nervous statement was issued by Ukrainian president Poroshenko, congratulating Trump and noting he had been assured by the US ambassador that the incoming Trump administration “would remain a reliable partner in the struggle for democracyâ€\x9d. In reality, nobody knows what Trump’s position on Russia and Ukraine will be, including the US ambassador. As on so many policy positions, Trump has made contradictory statements, at times suggesting more should have been done to support Ukraine against Russia while at other times suggesting Crimea should be part of Russia. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has called for clarity from on issues in which Trump’s campaign remarks have rattled Europe, including s global trade, climate policy and future relations with Nato. “We would like to know how things will proceed with global trade policy,â€\x9d Juncker said at a business event in Berlin, according to Reuters. “We would like to know what intentions he has regarding the (Nato) alliance. We must know what climate policies he intends to pursue. This must be cleared up in the next few months.â€\x9d Juncker said he did not expect the trade deal between the United States and the European Union, currently being negotiated, to be finalised this year as previously planned. “The trade deal with the United States, I do not view that as something that would happen in the next two years,â€\x9d he said. A Russian diplomat says Moscow had contacts with the Trump campaign ahead of the election, AP reports. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency that “there were contactsâ€\x9d with influential people in Trump’s circle. “I don’t say that all of them, but a whole array of them, supported contacts with Russian representatives.â€\x9d The report did not elaborate. Russia was openly accused of interfering in favour of Trump during the campaign. The Obama administration claimed Russian authorities hacked damaging Democratic party emails that were then leaked to WikiLeaks. Russian president Vladimir Putin denied the claims. After Trump’s election he was quick to call for a new era of “fully fledged relationsâ€\x9d between Washington and Moscow. The American Civil Liberties Union is trying to tap into anxiety about civil liberties under Trump to raise some cash. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has spoken of his determination to dismantle Obama’s flagship health insurance policy as soon as possible. After speaking to Trump, McConnell said: “It’s pretty high on our agenda, as you know. I would be shocked if we didn’t move forward and keep our commitment to the American people.â€\x9d During the campaign Trump promised to immediately repeal Obamacare. But some commentators predict he may get cold feet because such a move would leave millions of Americans without health cover, and he has no alternative to help them. Pundits on The Weeds, Vox’s policy podcast, suggested he may be deploy a constantly extended sunset clause to keep Obamacare going. Meanwhile, health campaigners have pledged to wage “total warâ€\x9d in defence of Obamacare, according to Politico. In the UK chancellor Philip Hammond, is anxious that Trump’s protectionism could damage Britain. Hammond was asked by the BBC if he thought free trade deals needed to be fundamentally rethought, as Trump suggests. He suggested he didn’t: We believe that free trade and open markets are good for prosperity, good for the protection of jobs in this economy. But we do also recognise the concerns that there are around dumping and unfair practices, and it’s about getting the right balance in the global trading system so that we can have the benefits of open markets, while being properly and appropriately protected from unfair practices. Andrew Sparrow is following this and all the other Trump fallout in British politics at Politics Live. It was white women who pushed Trump to victory, according to exit poll data. Rejecting the candidate who had aimed to be America’s first female president, 53% of white women voted for Trump, according to CNN exit polls. White women without a college degree supported Trump over Hillary Clinton by nearly a two to one margin. White women with a college degree were more evenly divided, with 45% supporting Trump, compared with 51% supporting Clinton. Women of color, in contrast, voted overwhelmingly for Clinton: 94% of black women supported her, and 68% of Latino women. While exit polling data has flaws, the early responses underline a stark racial divide among American women: the majority of white women embraced Trump and his platform, while women of color rejected him. The strong support for Trump among white women suggests that many of them, if not “overtly racistâ€\x9d, simply “don’t think racism is a big dealâ€\x9d, said Mikki Kendall, a feminist cultural critic. Politics Weekly, The ’s political podcast, analyses Trump’s victory and looks ahead to a Trump presidency. Anushka Asthana is joined by Gary Younge, Randeep Ramesh, Hannah Peaker and Mona Chalabi Donald Trump is heading for the White House today after being elected as the 45th US president. Barack Obama is still in charge for now but he will host President-elect Trump at a meeting in the Oval Office as part of the transition of power. The meeting at (11am EST) could be an awkward encounter after what was said during a bitter campaign in which Obama branded Trump “unfitâ€\x9d for the presidency and “woefully unpreparedâ€\x9d. But part of Obama’s job now is to help prepare Trump for the presidency and he has urged American’s to respect the shock election result. Speaking from White House he said: “That’s what the country needs – a sense of unity; a sense of inclusion; a respect for our institutions, our way of life, rule of law; and a respect for each other.â€\x9d But many have been in no mood heed that call for unity. Thousands of demonstrators crowded into streets and surrounding his buildings in major American cities on Wednesday night, shouting “not my president.â€\x9d Some held banners saying “She got more votesâ€\x9d a reference to Hillary Clinton appearing poised to win the popular vote. Bernie Sanders reacted to Trump’s victory by acknowledging that he successfully tapped into antiestablishment rage but Sanders vowed to continue to challenge him. And international leaders have also been struggling in their own way to come to terms with Trump’s victory. Here’s some key questions we’ve been asking - and answering - since Trump’s victory. Who will be appointed to Trump’s cabinet? Will Trump destroy America? Why were the polls so wrong? How did the world’s press cover Trump’s victory? What will President Trump do? Readers outside the US: what does Trump’s win mean to you? Did the Simpsons really predict a Trump victory? What’s happening today The current and future first ladies, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump will also meet in the White House. Wonder if there will be chats about plagiarism? A US judge accused of bias by Donald Trump because of his Mexican heritage is to hold a pre-trial hearing on Thursday in a class-action lawsuit over the president-elect’s now-defunct Trump University. US district judge Gonzalo Curiel is holding the hearing to instruct the jury and examine what evidence to allow at trial, which begins on 28 November. Presidents enjoy immunity from their official duties, but this does not extend to acts alleged to have taken place prior to taking office. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has spoken to the president elect by phone and is due to meet him in New York next week. Trump’s unexpected victory has fanned Japan’s anxiety about Washington’s commitment to security arrangements in the face of a rising China and a volatile North Korea. Asia-Pacific markets staged a huge recovery after an election day wobble, as the region followed the lead of the US and Europe. There has been a rush of interest from Americans in emigrating to New Zealand. In the past 24 hours, the website of Immigration New Zealand (INZ) received 56,300 visits from the US – a huge rise on its daily average of 2,300.",
 'Elvis & Nixon review: Michael Shannon resurrects the King The meeting between Richard M Nixon and Elvis Presley on 21 December 1970, is so legendary that the photograph that immortalized the moment is still the most requested image in the National Archives. It’s a wonder, then, that it’s taken this long to imagine their summit on screen. Writers Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal and Cary Elwes take major artistic liberties to retell the story of that the encounter and the events leading up to it in Elvis & Nixon, a breezy comedy nimbly directed by Liza Johnson (Hateship Loveship). Given that the film is about two of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century, clearly casting is key to its success. Luckily, Johnson hit the jackpot by getting Michael Shannon on board as the King and Kevin Spacey to play the corrupt president. Although the film’s title suggests that it will be a two-hander, Nixon takes a back seat for much of the narrative to let Shannon take the lead as the King. His Presley is a star at a crossroads, firmly aware of his celebrity but having lost sight of himself as a person. “When I walk into a room, everyone remembers their first kiss watching one of my movies, but they never see me,â€\x9d he laments. “He’s buried under gold and money. I don’t know if I know who he is anymore.â€\x9d Probably in an effort to solve that conundrum (though he never explicitly says as much), Presley sets out on a mission to put his fame to use by vowing to fight for his country, which he believes to be in shambles with the Vietnam war raging and drugs flooding the country. Declaring “it’s make or break time for this country,â€\x9d he flies to the White House with the lofty goal of convincing the president to deputise him as “federal agent-at-largeâ€\x9d. In these opening scenes, Shannon manages to immediately pass as Elvis by grounding the icon in some semblance of reality – no small feat. He mildly modifies his voice and adopts some staccato mannerisms to resemble the Presley we know, but his interpretation succeeds largely because of his bold choice to underplay everything. Nothing in his Presley seems affected – he plays him raw to the bone. Spacey, given much less to do in the film, takes the opposite approach and goes broad. Because his appearance is so fleeting, it works. Playing Nixon strictly as a larger-than-life character serves to highlight Presley as the film’s lead. When the pair finally meet eye-to-eye (Nixon concedes to the meeting in an effort to appeal to the youth vote and get an autograph for his daughter), the stark contrast between the two provides Elvis & Nixon with its biggest laughs. However, Johnson’s film falters when it veers from its titular duo to focus on the tangential ones who were along for the ride. Colin Hanks is amusing to watch as the stressed-out Nixon staffer who orchestrates the main event. But a side plot involving Presley’s friend, Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), and his desperate need to return back to Los Angeles to propose to his girlfriend (Sky Ferreira) falls completely flat. When you have two of today’s best working actors acting on a high-wire to do justice to two of the most recognisable figures of the 20th century, it’s best to keep the focus solely located on them.',
 "Michael Bay's Benghazi movie 13 Hours is 'inaccurate', according to CIA officer Michael Bay has assured audiences that his Libyan-set military thriller 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is an accurate retelling of the events surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi in 2013, which resulted in the death of four people, including the US ambassador to Libya. But according to the CIA officer in charge of the American intelligence agency’s top-secret Benghazi facility that night, one of the most important moments of the film is entirely wrong. “There never was a stand-down order,â€\x9d the officer – the former chief of the so-called Annex who identified himself as ‘Bob’ – told the Washington Post. “At no time did I ever second-guess that the team would depart.â€\x9d The scene in question features the fictionalized version of Bob ordering his security team to “stand downâ€\x9d rather than attempt to rescue the diplomat, then missing in the wake of an attack on the nearby American consulate. Not only was the stand-down order never given, Bob said, but nothing he said in the aftermath of the consulate siege could even be “interpreted as equivalentâ€\x9d to such an order. “I thought I would regret it if I didn’tâ€\x9d speak out about the inaccuracies, Bob said. “So much of this information has been wrong.â€\x9d Although Bob has not yet seen the film, which is based on a book co-written by US contractors hired to protect the Annex, he said he was familiar with the contents of both the film and the book. Despite Bay’s claims that 13 Hours has “no political agendaâ€\x9d beyond a faithful retelling of the events in Benghazi, studio sources told the Hollywood Reporter that the thriller is being marketed specifically to conservative audiences, including advertising and press in right-leaning media outlets and the choice of demographically friendly “red stateâ€\x9d audiences for pre-release screenings. For example, lead actor John Krasinski gave an exclusive interview to the conservative Townhall.com, and television advertisements for the film ran multiple times during Thursday night’s Republican presidential primary debate on the Fox Business Network. When asked how his film deals with the stand-down order – an anecdote that was debunked by the US Senate select committee on intelligence’s 15 January 2014 review of the attacks – Bay said said that his film is even-handed. “It does deal with the stand-down order, but I show both sides of the story,â€\x9d Bay told the Hollywood Reporter. “I met with the CIA on this movie and I show the whole situation.â€\x9d According to Bay, the research he did into the lead-up to the attack and its aftermath was more comprehensive than anything cinema goers have seen in the news media. “You don’t hear it on the talking points on the news,â€\x9d Bay continued. “This is a much more in-depth look at what’s going on inside that CIA base, and it shows it from both sides,â€\x9d he said.",
 'New band of the week: Starchild & The New Romantic (No 100) Hometown: Harlem. The lineup: Bryndon Cook (vocals, music). The background: As though by magic … Of course there’s no substitute for the real thing, but Bryndon Cook, AKA Starchild & The New Romantic, does a fair approximation of 1980s Prince at his most synthy and slow. The 23-year-old New Yorker sings of “raptureâ€\x9d on the opening track to his debut EP, Crucial, but this is exaltation with a side order of sad. It’s almost as though Cook could see what was coming. Listening to the eight tracks on Crucial is like hearing an extended tribute to the purple deity. He even took the title of the EP from a bootleg of studio out-takes apocryphally credited to Prince and Miles Davis. It’s not all Prince worship. Cook grew up loving everyone from Sade to George Clinton. Starchild is partially attributed to a name from P-Funk mythology – something about an alien who arrives by spacecraft to bring the Holy Funk – and nods to Cook’s upbringing in a house across the street from the Nasa Headquarters in Greenbelt. Coming from the state of Maryland also meant exposure to go-go, jazz and gospel (“My roots,â€\x9d says Cook), though he spent four formative years in Atlanta, home of black futurism (not to mention Future). He continued to look far and wide for other influences: his first mixtape was called Rad! and featured him rapping over David Axelrod and Washed Out. In the last couple of years, he has worked with Solange, Kindness, and Chairlift as touring guitarist, and has collaborated with Dev Hynes. But Prince is his primary influence, and he freely admits it. “I look at him as a whole genre,â€\x9d he says. “Within the genre of Prince, there is so much to discover.â€\x9d Like his idol, Starchild played and recorded every note of Crucial on his own, on his laptop. He gives the music a wooziness, like soul with a chillwave gauze (Cook was once an intern at Pitchfork), and keeps it mainly – as we said – nice and slow. There’s a good reason for this: he calls what he does Champion Music for the Heartbroken, describing his songs as “diary entries from the end of my teenage years, where I’m trying to reconcile heartbreak and rejection with escapismâ€\x9d. He adds: “I always appreciated music that lent a helping hand and said, ‘Hey, are you with me? Because I am with you.’ I hope I can do that for someone, somewhere. If I’m lucky.â€\x9d All My Lovers is like Purple Rain on downers, although as with most soundalikes, the closer you inspect it, the less it sounds like the artist it’s paying homage to, and the more it assumes an identity of its own. Still, this is definitely Prince-like, if not Prince-lite. Slammin’ Mannequin is the one fast song, moving at I Would Die 4 U pace. It sounds as though Cook went out and bought a Linn drum and some of the other equipment Prince used to record his early-’80s output, especially Purple Rain. Listen out for the fiery, fierce guitar solo at the end. Love Interlude features waves of synth while Cook uses his falsetto to impressive effect. Woman’s Dress finds Starchild in self-doubting mood (“Will I ever be enough for you?â€\x9d), while New Romantic is an object lesson in how to construct the perfect 80s slow jam, all shimmery synths and rubbery bassline. The title track ends the EP as it began, with Starchild lost in a synth murk. It’s as though Cook anticipated the tragic events of 21 April , 2016 before he made this glorious, stately yet sorrowful “computer blueâ€\x9d music. It’s one way to remember Prince. The buzz: “In the style of his personal lodestar, Prince, Cook performed and recorded Crucial entirely on his own.â€\x9d The truth: Baby, he’s a star(child). Most likely to: Die 4 U. Least likely to: Go crazy. What to buy: The Crucial EP is out now on Ghostly International. File next to: Prince, Dev Hynes, Frank Ocean, Shamir. Links: facebook.com/thisisstarchild. Ones to watch: Globelamp, Kllo, Demotaped, Colour, Charlotte Day Wilson.',
 'Yeezus rises: Kanye West releases remix of The Life of Pablo song on Easter Sunday In the latest of Kanye West’s GOOD Friday releases, the artist also known as Yeezus has marked Easter Sunday with an alternate version of his song Ultralight Beam. Ultralight Prayer includes an extended cameo by the gospel singer Kirk Franklin, who was featured on the original version of the song. While Ultralight Beam was about West’s faith in God – including lyrics such as “I’m tryna keep my faith / But I’m looking for more / Somewhere I can feel safe / And end my holy warâ€\x9d – the new version is solely centred around an impassioned prayer by the gospel musician and author, and reads as below: Father, This prayer is for everyone that feels they’re not good enough This prayer’s for everybody that feels they’re too messed up For everyone that feels they’ve said ‘I’m sorry’ too many times Let them know that’s why you took the nail So we could have eternal life If all God’s children would get down on their knees and pray And give up all of those things that pull our hearts away You will forgive all of our wrong and make us brand new again But I won’t make it, God, if you let go of my hand That’s why we need more faith Yes, I’m searching for you, I’m looking for more Yes I am, in your arms is where I feel safe They’re killing our babies in the streets, I call out for war I need just a little bit more of some faith Just a mustard seed, I’m looking for you, for more Prayer for our homes and our families We just wanna be safe Can’t you hear the trumpet sound, I think I hear war It’s just the latest extension of West’s new album, The Life of Pablo. The rapper has primarily been using Jay Z’s streaming service Tidal to upload variations of songs on the record (the song below is also available on Soundcloud). West has described the album as “a living, breathing, changing creative expressionâ€\x9d, and has periodically added edits of songs such as Wolves and Famous.',
 'Louis van Gaal admits ‘sad’ Manchester United unlikely to make top four Louis van Gaal admitted Manchester United are unlikely to secure a top-four finish and described his side’s 2-1 defeat at relegation-threatened Sunderland as a sad day for the club. Van Gaal lamented that United failed to cope with the home side’s aggression. “I have told the players the top four will be very difficult now,â€\x9d said the United manager, whose team are six points behind Manchester City, who are in the final Champions League spot. “You cannot close your eyes to that. It’s still possible but very difficult. We needed the points so much, everybody is very sad.â€\x9d Wayne Rooney suggested that it would now be easier for United to earn a place in next season’s Champions League by winning the Europa League. “It will be very difficult to qualify for the Champions League through the top four now. We know that. It’s a sad day for us,â€\x9d said the United captain. “Winning the Europa League might be the only way we can get into it.â€\x9d Van Gaal conceded that such an achievement will be not be straightforward. “The Europa League is easier for us but also not so [easy] because there is a fantastic level of European football in that cup.â€\x9d United’s Europa League campaign, after they dropped down from the Champions League, starts on Thursday with the first leg of their last-32 tie against Midtjylland in Denmark. United had come undone in the face of Wahbi Khazri’s excellent set-piece execution – Sunderland’s Tunisian playmaker scored one goal straight from a free-kick and delivered the corner that led to the winner, with Lamine Koné’s header going in off David de Gea. Van Gaal is well aware that the talk about José Mourinho succeeding him at Old Trafford in the summer is most certainly not going to go away after United’s first defeat at the Stadium of Light. Damningly, United’s points and goals scored tally is their lowest at this stage of a campaign in the Premier League era. “We can only blame ourselves,â€\x9d said Van Gaal, who did at least see Anthony Martial score a fine equaliser before his players folded under Sunderland’s second-half onslaught. “You have to win this type of game but we could not cope with Sunderland’s aggression and set pieces. We didn’t deliver and we feel disappointed and we feel sad. But we are working together.â€\x9d When asked if he was feeling the pressure, the Dutchman’s reply suggested a measure of resignation. “No,â€\x9d he said. “I’m doing my work and I can do no more.â€\x9d He accepts, though, that his best currently represents underachievement. “You cannot close your eyes from the top four being a minimum requirement. As Manchester United you have to keep the ball in spite of the pressure of Sunderland and create chances, but we didn’t have control.â€\x9d The result meant Sunderland ended a bad week with a measure of satisfaction, moving to a point below 17th-placed Norwich. The club sacked Adam Johnson after the winger pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl. They head for a training break in Dubai within touching distance of safety and Allardyce was delighted to see his £14m investment in Khazri, from Bordeaux, and Koné, a centre-half from Lorient, pay dividends. “Our new players have made a massive contribution and hopefully that bodes well for the rest of the season,â€\x9d he said. “Today showed me the squad is good enough to get out of the trouble we’re in. It was a really good performance with the right result. We’re getting better.â€\x9d',
 "Iain Duncan Smith: David Cameron's EU deal will do nothing to reduce migration David Cameron is campaigning to keep Britain in the EU on the basis of a deal that will do nothing to reduce net migration to the UK, and may actually lead to a sharp increase in arrivals as people try to beat an emergency welfare brake, Iain Duncan Smith has said. As Downing Street came under fire from the lord chancellor and justice secretary, Michael Gove, who questioned whether the EU deal was legally binding, the work and pensions secretary said the deal showed Britain still had no controls over its borders. In an interview on the eve of the release of the latest migration statistics, Duncan Smith said that he has warned the prime minister in private that a failure to control immigration would only encourage the equivalent of the French Front National. “If you do not control your borders my observation is that you get parties led by people like Marine Le Pen and others who feed off the back of this, and ordinary decent people feel life is out of control,â€\x9d the work and pensions secretary said. The statistics are likely to fuel the debate over immigration to Britain from the EU, one of the most contentious topics in the referendum. But Downing Street received a boost on Wednesday night when Christine Lagarde, the French managing director of the IMF, warned of the dangers of a UK exit from the EU. “My hunch … is that it is bound to be a negative on all fronts,â€\x9d she told CNN. Duncan Smith has now become the second cabinet “outerâ€\x9d to raise questions about the EU deal after No 10 was forced onto the defensive following Gove’s claim the agreement could be overruled by the European court of justice. Gove and Duncan Smith spoke out after Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, issued fresh guidelines that banned officials from providing ministers backing the leave campaign access to departmental documents drawn up since the prime minister agreed his EU deal. The understands the guidelines were drawn up with the specific intention of preventing Duncan Smith from commissioning officials to carry out research to prove his doubts about the welfare elements of the EU deal. But Duncan Smith showed that he still remains a potent force in the referendum campaign when he told the that the deal would do nothing to bring down net immigration. Stressing that he did not know the figures to be released on Thursday, he said: “I would lay even money that they follow the trend over the past two quarters showing an ever-increasing number of migrants from eastern Europe. So is this agreement negotiated in Brussels going to limit the numbers coming into the UK? My answer to that is no. The truth is, there is one clear way that we could be sure to deliver on that manifesto commitment – and that’s to regain control of our borders.â€\x9d The work and pensions secretary offered some support for the prime minister by saying that a four-year emergency brake to limit access to in-work benefits for EU migrants, which can remain in force for seven years, will “send a signalâ€\x9d that people should contribute before claiming benefits. But he said the new system could actually increase migration as workers seek to beat a deadline. Noting that the brake will not come into force until April 2017 at the earliest, he said: “Anyone with any thought of coming to work in the UK in the foreseeable future will have a motivation to get over here and establish residency (even if only for a week) as that would in all likelihood qualify them for an exemption from the brake later.â€\x9d Britain may even find that the European Commission and European parliament may be in no mood to help out after a yes vote. Warning that Britain can only guarantee the reforms if it threatens to hold a second referendum, he said: “By that stage [after a yes vote] the pressure is off for them to do anything. We are reliant on their good will. They may well decide they have no need to rush this through and they can fiddle with it to suit them. Unless we are planning a second referendum, we are in the EU’s hands.â€\x9d Duncan Smith was scathing about one of the key elements of the deal – the plan to index child benefit to the cost of living in an EU migrant’s home country. He warned that the new system would be “fiendishly complicatedâ€\x9d and was “bound to cost moreâ€\x9d than the “relatively tinyâ€\x9d £30m that goes on child benefit to EU migrants. “If you have a Polish national (cue HMRC working out cost of living in Warsaw), who says that actually their child is resident in a country with higher cost of living ... then how the hell would you check this/ police itâ€\x9d? Duncan Smith, a member of the cabinet committee on the EU negotiations – some of whose members felt they were not properly briefed by the prime minister – warned that George Osborne’s new national living wage would act as a “significant pull factorâ€\x9d. Downing Street has prompted Duncan Smith to revise a long-standing calculation – that Britain’s in-work benefits do not encourage migration – after the European-wide publicity of what he regards as Britain’s generous system. “It may well be because there has been so much publicity in countries like Poland and in eastern Europe generally that some people know more about our benefits system than they did. Certainly there has been a lot of publicity – a highly proficient awareness raising campaign. Do people react to publicity? They do. It was not the purpose of the negotiations, of course, but it may be one of the by-products is that we see an increase in people coming here.â€\x9d The intervention by Duncan Smith caps a difficult 48 hours for Downing Street, after the prime minister upset the Leave camp by humiliating Boris Johnson in the Commons by suggesting that he was motivated by personal ambition. In one of the biggest blows to No 10, it was forced to apologise to General Sir Michael Rose, the former SAS commander, after wrongly including him in a list of former military chiefs who oppose the UK leaving the EU.",
 'UK health experts call for ban on tackling in school rugby More than 70 doctors and health experts have called for a ban on tackling in school rugby games. In an open letter that warns of the high risk of serious injury among under-18s playing rugby, they urge schools to move to touch and non-contact versions of the game. A government drive to boost participation in rugby in English schools by linking them with rugby clubs is also criticised by the health experts, who point out that the UN convention on the rights of the child obliges governments to inform children about injury risks. The letter – which is addressed to ministers, chief medical officers and children’s commissioners – describes rugby as a “high-impact collision sportâ€\x9d. “The majority of all injuries occur during contact or collision, such as the tackle and the scrum,â€\x9d it says. “These injuries, which include fractures, ligamentous tears, dislocated shoulders, spinal injuries and head injuries ,can have short-term, life-long and life-ending consequences for children.â€\x9d The letter is the first stage of a campaign that will include a petition on the change.org website which, if it receives 100,000 signatures, will trigger the consideration of a debate by MPs on the issue. Rugby is a compulsory part of the physical education curriculum from the age of 11 in many boys’ schools, particularly in the independent sector. The letter, signed by sport scholars, academics, doctors and public health professionals, says repeat concussions have been found to have a link to cognitive impairment, and an association with problems such as depression, memory loss and diminished verbal abilities. Children also took longer to recover to normal levels on measures of memory, reaction speed and post-concussive symptoms. The signatories included Prof Allyson Pollock, a professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary University of London, who has campaigned about the dangers of rugby. Stating that children are being exposed to serious and catastrophic risk of injury, she said: “Parents expect the state to look after their children when they are at school. Rugby is a high-impact collision sport and given that children are more susceptible to injuries such as concussion, the absence of injury surveillance systems and primary prevention strategies is worrying.â€\x9d Eric Anderson, a professor of sport, masculinities and sexualities at the University of Winchester, said the signatories did not have a contention with rugby, but with the collisions that occur in the sport. “School children should not be forced to collide with other children as part of the national curriculum for physical education,â€\x9d he said. “A more sensible approach is to play tag rugby.â€\x9d A Department for Education spokeswoman saidschools were expected to be aware of the risks associated with sporting activities and to provide a safe environment for pupils. “Team sports, such as rugby, play an important role in developing character,â€\x9d she said. “They can help children and young people develop positive traits, such as fair play, leadership and resilience, and teach them how to bounce back from defeat, how to respect others and how to work together in teams to achieve a goal. “We have given schools the flexibility to organise and deliver a diverse and challenging PE curriculum which best suits the needs of their students.â€\x9d The Rugby Football Union said it took player safety “extremely seriouslyâ€\x9d and that recent changes meant young players underwent a “gradual and managedâ€\x9d introduction to the contact version of the game. A spokesman said the union had also carried out a three-year injury prevention and surveillance study on schoolboy injuries, as well as implementing a guidance programme known as RugbySafe. He added: “We believe that high quality coaching, officiating, medical support and appropriate player behaviour in line with the core values all contribute to reducing the risk of injury occurring.â€\x9d • This article was amended on 2 March 2016. An earlier version referred to the petition on the government, rather than the change.org, website.',
 'Alter Bridge: The Last Hero review – exhausting bombast from arena-metal tryhards The main problem with Alter Bridge’s sixth album becomes apparent about six tracks in. Cradle to the Grave brings a few moments of delicate restraint to the party, but up to that point every last second of The Last Hero is purposefully, relentlessly bombastic, as if every fader has been shoved into the red. Still much heavier and more overtly metallic than their modern arena-rock peers, the Florida quartet have always made music designed to resonate around stadia, but 66 minutes of this kind of overwrought caterwauling is a little exhausting. That said, there are great songs here: opener Show Me a Leader is a dark, fiery anthem, The Other Side deftly salutes Metallica’s genre-defining crunch and Crows on a Wire is a fine showcase for guitarist Mark Tremonti’s love of nasty thrash. It falls some way short of 2010’s ABIII – still their best album by some distance – but The Last Hero can hardly be decried as half-arsed. It’s just that there is such a thing as trying too hard.',
 'José Holebas’ stunning strike lands spoils for Watford at Middlesbrough By the time the final whistle blew, the morning’s clouds and rain had cleared to leave the splendour of the Cleveland Hills clearly visible from the main stand. The only problem for Aitor Karanka was that the sun elected to shine on Watford rather than his increasingly struggling side, with José Holebas’s glorious winning goal highlighting Middlesbrough’s mounting problems. With Ã\x81lvaro Negredo and Gastón RamÃ\xadrez once again letting themselves down, Karanka’s horizon darkened appreciably as Boro rarely looked like curtailing a plummet down the table during which they have collected two points from six games and lost four of the past five. Their sole win came at Sunderland’s expense. Karanka blamed this latest setback on Watford’s ability to waste time – a black art apparently cultivated by their manager, Walter Mazzarri – but the visitors would not have been able to slow things down with such cute gamesmanship had Boro proved capable of stringing more than two consecutive passes together. “They made it impossible to play our game, it was impossible for us,â€\x9d lamented Karanka before defending his hallmark 4-2-3-1 system which some observers feel is turning into a straitjacket for Boro’s players, partly explaining why they have not won at home since April. “We have a style,â€\x9d the Spaniard countered. “I’ve built the squad to play that way, we won promotion with one up front. With that style we have a good chance. We have to keep going. It’s just October so we have a long time to go.â€\x9d Mazzarri affected to be taken aback by the time-wasting accusations. “I don’t know what he refers to,â€\x9d he said. “Honestly, I don’t think so.â€\x9d The Italian then reminded everyone that Boro’s Antonio Barragán should have been sent off for a second yellow-card offence in the first half. “We all know the rules and it was very evident. But I don’t comment on referees.â€\x9d Without a ball being kicked, the team-sheets alone created a measure of controversy. While Mazzarri preferred Isaac Success’s attacking potential to that of Odion Ighalo, Karanka recalled Negredo and RamÃ\xadrez, leaving Jordan Rhodes and Viktor Fischer warming the bench. When Younès Kaboul – operating on the right of Watford’s back three – swiftly turned slapdash and conceded possession the former pair had a chance to show Boro fans what they were really capable of but, after exchanging passes with Negredo, RamÃ\xadrez dragged a scuffed shot wide. Watford initially looked vulnerable but Boro’s problem was that RamÃ\xadrez – deployed in the No10 position behind Negredo that is so key to Karanka’s configuration – seemed to have developed an unfortunate penchant for persistently picking the wrong pass. Even when he took a corner, the Uruguayan RamÃ\xadrez overhit it, leaving the ball sailing out of play. Negredo was similarly off key but, in mitigation, that pair were hardly helped by Marten de Roon’s lack of control in a midfield anchoring role. Seeking a lucky break, Boro appealed for a handball penalty against Nordin Amrabat but, correctly, Roger East, the referee, refused to buy it and boos rang around a stadium studded with empty red seats. The stay-aways quite possibly called it right. Although Watford improved as their formation gradually morphed from 3-4-3 to a defensive 5-4-1, the general standard was poor with far too many miscued passes and suspect first touches. If Karanka had reason to be content with Calum Chambers’ and Ben Gibson’s containment of Troy Deeney, Boro’s manager must have been relieved that Barragán was not dismissed after committing that second bookable offence. Already handed a yellow card for hauling down Success, the right-back was fortunate to escape a second for pulling back the same player 10 minutes later. It seemed one of those afternoons when there would be more bookings than shots on target but Watford emphasised their efficiency by scoring with their first. Pouncing on a Boro clearance, Holebas took a steadying touch, before unleashing an elegant yet vicious 25-yard left-foot shot which defied the stretching VÃ\xadctor Valdés en route to the top corner. After that it was all about Boro’s lack of a Plan B and Watford’s Italianesque determination to hold on to the win. Perhaps fortunately for Karanka, local anger was directed towards East. “We’ve had some shit refs but you are the worst,â€\x9d they chorused after Holebas tripped Chambers on the edge of the area and no penalty was awarded. Replays showed the contact came fractionally outside the box. Indeed, the referee was the wrong target; arguably East’s only key mistake was not handing Barragán a red card for that second bookable offence and, wisely, Karanka refrained from criticising him. Right now a manager who surely delayed too long in liberating Rhodes from the bench has bigger things to worry about.',
 'Finally, someone at EDF sees the £18bn farce that is Hinkley Point Hallelujah, at last somebody close to Hinkley Point farce can see that the £18bn nuclear adventure makes no sense. EDF’s finance director has quit rather than be associated with a project that – we must assume – he judges so financially risky that it could sink the French energy firm. Last week, the official line from the Anglo-French summit maintained that “major progressâ€\x9d was being made in getting Hinkley towards sign-off. The reality, we can now see, is that there has been a major row and EDF remains mired in confusion. The good news is that Thomas Piquemal’s resignation should oblige the governments of France and the UK to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact about Hinkley that, until now, they have preferred to brush away. It’s simple: EDF’s nuclear technology for Hinkley hasn’t been proven to work. Until it can be shown to be reliable, there will always be a material risk that the Somerset project becomes a disaster for both buyer and supplier. EDF is building two other reactors in Europe to the same European pressurised reactor (EPR) design and, instead of low-carbon nuclear power, both have produced only massive cost overruns. The plant in Finland is nine years late and the one in Flamanville in Normandy is four years behind schedule. EDF’s crisis flows from those flops and Piquemal’s analysis that the company can’t afford to double-down on its EPR bet is surely correct. As it is, the debt-laden firm’s share price has fallen 90% over the past decade and there are other calls on its capital and resources, not least France’s nuclear power stations, which require an expensive upgrade. The now ex-finance director wanted the investment decision on Hinkley to be delayed by three years, which would be wise from EDF’s point of view. The trouble is, the UK cannot afford yet more delays. Our crisis in energy generation will arrive in the mid-2020s and Hinkley, according to the official script, was supposed to do much more than merely produce 7% of the UK’s energy. The plant was also intended to help develop the infrastructure to support other companies’ new nuclear plants. If Hinkley were to be delayed by three years, the UK hasn’t got an energy policy worthy of the name. The latest saga should lead to a simple conclusion in Downing Street: EDF and its unreliable EPRs were always the wrong choice for the UK. Consider how many subsidies have already been promised to compensate for EDF’s weaknesses and the unproven nature of its EPR. EDF was given 10 years to build Hinkley and the UK guaranteed to buy its output at twice the current wholesale price for 35 years in an inflation-linked contract. This was almost case of pricing in the cost over-runs and delays before they had even happened, with UK consumers footing the bill. The best approach now would be to call the whole thing off. EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy may continue to whistle cheerfully about Hinkley but his company looks to be only one more resignation away from capitulation. Abandonment would be politically embarrassing for chancellor George Osborne (remember last year’s grovel for Chinese cash to shore up the financing) but it would be far worse to let this show drag on. If the UK’s future is nuclear, there are alternative suppliers – from Japan, the US, and China – who have smaller models that can be built more quickly, but their willingness to commit capital won’t be encouraged by the sight of the current Hinkley shambles. If the future is non-nuclear, then get on with the job of making hard choices about the best infrastructure. Either way, the important thing for the UK is to have an energy policy that doesn’t rely on paying top-dollar to an over-stretched supplier that hasn’t been able to get its new kit to work. Banking reforms look set to disappoint The Competition and Markets Authority’s final report into the banking industry, due in May, will now appear in the dog days of August. This is not because the contents will be so frightening that leading bankers will need to lie down on the nearest beach. We already know the CMA has rejected structural reforms, such as a break-up of the big banks, in favour of technocratic fiddles, such as setting up a comparison website to encourage punters to shop around. Such a remedy was damned as feeble by most observers when it was announced at the interim stage last October. That, presumably, is why the CMA has given itself an extension to come up with something that sounds more chunky. Caps on overdraft charges and grace periods for customers to avoid the same charges may improve the lot of a few. But none of these late additions by the CMA will deliver a shot in the arm for competition in the banking industry. Blame Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank has turned the process of separating 300 Williams & Glyn branches into something resembling the labours of Hercules, thereby killing all appetite for further structural reform. Thus the “strikingâ€\x9d stability in market shares identified by the CMA is virtually guaranteed to be striking in another decade’s time. The interim report felt like a missed opportunity; prepare to be disappointed again. SNP donor in tax pickle Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish first minister and leader of Scottish National party, is a fierce opponent of the artificial tax tactics of some major companies. So, here you would think, is an open goal – a court defeat for a Scottish company that used a complex scheme to wipe £11m off its tax bill. The company is Stagecoach, whose chairman, Sir Brian Souter, happens to have been a major donor to the SNP. Sturgeon’s condemnation, one trusts, will be forthcoming anyway.',
 'As publishers lose control, are newspaper websites a dead parrot? A truth is dawning on media owners (or in many cases it has dawned, but they don’t like to talk about it). Publishing is over. Obviously this isn’t true in its purest sense; publishing is actually flourishing, just not for publishers. As Facebook last week extended the reach of its instant articles to anyone, as Google invests in making news articles load lightning fast, as virtual reality can be produced by a £200 kit, it is fair to say we have more opportunity today to put out remarkable works of fact and fiction to the world than ever before. However, defining decisions about formats and revenue are dictated at platform level, Facebook and others, or at carrier level, or even, in the case of Apple’s stance against the FBI, at device level. The biggest news for media owners in the UK last week was that a phone company, Three, is introducing adblocking across its network. Essentially this means that if you have a Three mobile phone, you will no longer see ads on the articles and pages you look at on your phone. Mobile advertising is still a very small revenue stream for most publishers, but in many cases it is the only one showing any growth. Phone companies such as Three see an opportunity to make more money and retain customers by purging annoying ads or making advertisers pay for the data consumption. Unless and until this is killed by the European regulators, it threatens to snuff out the lifeline of mobile advertising for digital publishers. Last week we also saw China, which is a hostile media market owing to censorship, announce that it would effectively ban any non-Chinese owned media from operating inside the country. India, in a very different way, asserted its own right to choose a separate path for its communications future when it ruled out Facebook’s Free Basics. Regulation is increasingly being seen as the only way that any plurality or regional difference will be exerted over a media market which tolerates the micro, favours the mega and rolls over most entities in between. The mobile advertising market is already effectively owned by Facebook, so with the stick of adblocking and the carrot of instant articles publishers are finding themselves surrendering what were previously the most important parts of their businesses. Last week I spoke to numerous publishers who were largely though not exclusively in agreement on one thing: “We know that the business of packaging and publishing by ourselves is over, the question for everyone now is what next?â€\x9d, said one. Another noted “we look at distribution for the social platforms and they are doing really well, we look at the opportunities for creation and they are plentiful, the piece in the middle, where traditional publishers and broadcasters sit, that doesn’t look so great.â€\x9d The prognostication game has hitherto been about the speed at which newspapers will go out of print. Now it shifts up a gear to the more pressing question of which companies will start to jettison websites and other digital infrastructure accumulated in the past two decades. Having a legacy business configured around a website is now almost as much of a headache as the rumbling printing press, fuelled by paper and money. It is likely we will start to see studio or agency models emerge where publishing models once were, trying to create value around relationships and services rather than packages and products. In a lengthy article praising publisher BuzzFeed as being the “world’s most innovative companyâ€\x9d last week, its founder Jonah Peretti used Paramount Pictures as an example of a company he draw inspiration from. It was he said, a demonstration of how owning all the elements of the businesses, from cast to crew to theatres, fuelled creative success. The new paradigm however raises the question of whether that aspiration to scale can really ever exist again for a purely creative company. Part of the answer is already obvious, even the BuzzFeeds and BBCs of the world will struggle to gain leverage against gatekeepers, be they regulators, phone companies or distribution channels. As the pipes of distribution have merged with the advertising sales functions, the publishing tools and even the customer relations and data, the best a traditional publisher can hope for is that they will be favoured by the distributors or that they can build value separately. This is most likely to be through relationships with either advertisers or their own customers, hence the most closely watched models are those based on becoming a new type of advertising agency (BuzzFeed and Vice) or subscriptions based on brand loyalty (the New York Times). Given the disorienting speed of change and a dozen announcements a week that potentially upend your business model, maybe publishing is not in fact dead, but like the proverbial Monty Python parrot, lying on the floor of its cage, eyes screwed tightly shut.',
 'Strikes have no winners – and the junior doctors’ dispute is no exception Most strikes end sadly, and some – like the miners’ – very badly. Junior doctors have yet to vote on the peace terms agreed by their leaders on Wednesday, but the odds are that most will accept. Yet they will stay angry, and with good reason. After eight strike days, the public has stayed staunchly supportive of their cause, even when they walked out of A&E, and even when tens of thousands of operations were cancelled. But there is an ebb and flow, a rhythm in the emotional rollercoaster of a strike, and the time feels right to call it a day – before public support wanes, and when the junior doctors know their point about life within the NHS has been well made. But nearly all strikes end with a painful sense of giving in, by a workforce driven back to work – even when they have won important concessions. The rhetoric, the political passion, the indignation all have to be toned down, in ways that make the workforce feel they are swallowing more pride than the employers are. It hurts – and the bitterness lasts. That’s why strikes are usually a bad thing, a last-resort breakdown in relations. The thrill of rebelling is intoxicating, but usually ends in burst-balloon disappointment. I have covered hundreds of strikes, but rarely seen happy workers marching back in with a sense of victory. The latest I wrote about was the well-justified strike by National Gallery staff: settlement didn’t leave them a happier workforce. Jeremy Hunt provoked this strike, possibly deliberately, imagining he would emerge a hero to his party for taking on the “vested interestsâ€\x9d of the public sector. But he ended up the political loser, with the public understanding the doctors’ alarm at the state of his NHS and the rising pressures on all who work in it. Digging through the details of the actual deal, neither side won. It looks more like a stalemate, with some changes around the edges. Hunt’s claim to have got seven-day working – but with no new money, inside the same pay envelope while conceding on some of the more extreme antisocial-hours issues – looks like magical accounting. Besides, during the course of this long strike, the original research suggesting 11,000 more patients die after admission at weekends has been decisively shredded: it’s all in the different case-mix at weekends. Nor, if there are genuinely extra deaths at weekends, is there any evidence that junior doctors, who work more weekends than other staff, are the key. Nor, say health economists, is there any evidence that heavy investment in extra weekend staff delivers good value for money in lives saved, compared with other spending. But health is politics. Hunt wanted a fight, and he got one, but it has ended any leadership hopes he once had. No tears shed there. Far worse is the long-term effect this will have on the junior doctors themselves. Many more are likely to flee abroad or go into some other occupation after experiencing the grinding exhaustion and high anxiety of their job being met with such cynical political ingratitude and incomprehension. The shortage of doctors is acute, and some specialisms can’t fill their rotas. Nurses too are in critically short supply. Why anyone would think this is a good time to end bursaries for trainee nurses is a mystery. The NHS itself is now registering its worst ever results since waiting times were recorded: for A&E, operations, cancer treatment and ambulance times. As the situation worsens, this strike, with its popular support, will have helped place the blame firmly where it belongs – with a government that pretended to promise ringfenced funding, but which has given the NHS its lowest increase over the last six years than at any time since 1948 – 0.8% against an average 4% rise to cover a growing and ageing population. The UK is tumbling down the international league table for health spending. Frankly, the wonder is how well it has managed, when many health economists predicted it wouldn’t. But the pressure building up in lack of staff will blow the lid off, as overstretched managers try to keep the wheels turning while repairing the unfathomable organisational mayhem caused by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Even if they vote to accept the deal, even if they feel deflated, as all strikers do, the junior doctors will have scored an important victory in telling the public exactly what’s happening inside the NHS.',
 'UK Asset Resolution deal triggers bonuses for 2,000 employees A deal to outsource mortgage processing at the government-owned Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley will trigger bonuses for nearly 2,000 employees, including more than £200,000 to the outgoing chief executive, Richard Banks. Banks, whose pay rose by a third to almost £1m last year, has been leading the move to wind down the mortgage books of Northern Rock and B&B, which were bailed out in 2008. At the time the two businesses had 800,000 mortgage customers, now reduced to 238,000 as people have repaid loans or their mortgages have been sold off. He is leaving UK Asset Resolution, the body that controls both businesses, to run Computershare, the organisation that is taking over the processing of outstanding home loans. UKAR’s annual report discloses that Banks will receive a bonus of £211,750 through a scheme known as the Phoenix incentive plan, designed to reward staff for the sell-off of the mortgage processing operation. This bonus scheme means that about 1,900 staff are in line for as much as £1,500 each in the new financial year. Some 1,700 staff will be transferring to the new Computershare venture, while 200 staff will remain at UKAR to continue winding down the operation and oversee the government’s help to buy mortgage incentive programme. Banks insisted no jobs would be lost. He will not receive a payoff for moving across to the new operation. Last year, UKAR caused controversy by selling £13bn of mortgages to the private equity firm Cerberus, in a deal that allowed a bonus scheme for executives to vest a year earlier than planned. It will pay out next year. In the budget, George Osborne had said that about another £16bn of B&B mortgages would be sold off and Banks’s replacement as chief executive, the current finance director, Ian Hares, said this was expected to take place by 2018. UKAR’s aim is to reduce the size of its balance sheet – which is now £72.5bn (63%) smaller than it was when the body was created in 2010 – and repay the government loan used to keep it afloat. UKAR has repaid £20.4bn of the government loans, reducing its size by 42%. While profits were down 25% to £1bn, this was in line with expectations because of the reduction in the value of lending. UKAR is closed to new business but its longest mortgage runs to February 2049. Richard Pym is also stepping down as chairman to be replaced by the non-executive John Tattersall. Pym will waive any future fees. No details were given of Hare’s pay for when he becomes chief executive, but he received £718,000 in 2015.',
 'Why Brexit is not music to the ears of British bands touring Europe Europe is closing. “Brexit means Brexit,â€\x9d reiterates PM Theresa May, buying time until the negotiations for this apparent “hard Brexitâ€\x9d are hammered out. In this political purgatory, businesses are left floundering, unsure about what it will actually mean for them. For British bands touring on the continent, the uncertainty about one of their only certain means of income could not have come at a worse time. It’s not just bands, agents and tour managers voicing worries about the miasma of ambiguity. Sir John Sorrell, the founder of the Creative Industries Federation, has recently argued that touring acts could be driven off the road due to visa and carnet costs in a post-Brexit Europe. (Carnet is a system governing transportation of equipment across borders without having to complete customs declarations on every item, but they could run up to £2,000 a year.) These will all slash the margins of an artist’s primary source of income. Sorrell said the creative sector is “a key driver of wealth and global successâ€\x9d for the UK. “To imperil that would be to imperil our wider economy.â€\x9d Touring agents and managers that I have spoken to off the record in recent months all revealed enormous uncertainty about what will happen to British acts playing shows and festivals across Europe in the aftershock of Brexit. They are trying to put a brave face on things but most are fearing the worst – namely the closure of opportunities and escalating running costs that could make touring utterly unsustainable. “I think the biggest thing for me as a production manager would be the addition of a carnet for every show outside the UK,â€\x9d Joel Stanley, production manager at Production Value, told live industry trade magazine IQ in March. “Currently we only ever have to show proof of ownership with the bond and have it stamped in and out if we go outside of the EU – mainly Switzerland – but [post-Brexit we’d need a carnet] even for a one-off show in France.â€\x9d Agents and touring artists are already dealing with the aftermath of the decline of the CD business. In the boom years, labels would underwrite shows with tour support and regard this as a marketing investment to break new acts that would then go on, ideally, to sell lots of records, thereby covering that development cost. That is now evaporating to the point where 20-date European tours are being truncated to 10 or eight-date jaunts around Europe, with days off a rare thing because days off mean no money is coming in. The net effect could be that acts will just focus on a handful of big European cities – but if they all do that, the shrunken market will quickly become over-saturated and everyone will lose. Add in the possibility of requiring a work visa for every European country and costs could spiral before acts have even played their first show of a European tour. This is already making it hard in other major markets; the same system in Europe could be catastrophic. “Getting visas is an absolute minefield and it costs a lot of money, and it’s the reason that a lot of people don’t get to tour America,â€\x9d Colin Roberts of Big Life Management told Pitchfork in June. “Even going to a country like Japan where visas are quite easy to get, I know how difficult it is having to factor in the cost and the time to acquire a visa.â€\x9d The government loves to pay lip service to the export power of British music, braying and gloating from boxes at the Brit awards about how proud they are of our globally successful artists. Britain, since Beatlemania, has been the second biggest exporter of music globally after the US. There is a huge amount of money at stake here for both artists and the UK economy. A study by UK Music this summer found there were 10.4m “music touristsâ€\x9d coming to the UK in 2015 and their direct and indirect spend was £3.7bn. These are people drawn to the UK because of the live market, its successful music exports and its diverse grassroots scenes. On top of this, the BPI reports that British acts accounted for one in seven albums sold globally in 2014, with their record sales generating approximately $2.75bn that year. So there are really two issues here: the outbound earnings of the acts on the road, and the inbound earnings that come from the UK being seen as a global force in music. There is an argument that just because the UK has successfully exported the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Coldplay, Adele and so on, it will just keep doing so forever. It won’t. It needs support and infrastructure at all levels (not just for superstars). It’s an industry truism that the old model of touring as a loss leader to sell albums has been inverted – records are now loss leaders to promote tours. But if you garrotte the touring opportunities, then everyone down the pecking order suffers, and those at the very bottom suffer first and hardest. Couple this with the systematic closure of key grassroots venues around the UK – something the Music Venue Trust was set up as a registered charity in 2014 to lobby against – and things are starting to look very bleak indeed for the future of British live music.',
 'Michelle Rodriguez gender transition thriller added to Toronto lineup A controversial thriller about a hitman forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery has been added to the lineup of next month’s Toronto international film festival. (Re) Assignment, formerly known as Tomboy, a Revenger’s Tale, stars Michelle Rodriguez as a male assassin who undergoes a transition against his will at the hands of a rogue surgeon, played by Sigourney Weaver. The film, which is directed by The Warriors’ Walter Hill, was criticised last year by the LGBT group Glaad, which called the premise “sensationalisticâ€\x9d and said the film undermined the progress of transgender rights. The film festival’s press release makes no mention of the transgender theme, describing the story as “a trail of self-discovery and redemption against a criminal mastermind opponentâ€\x9d. (Re) Assignment joins a slew of other world premieres announced by festival organisers. Other high-profile titles include Burn Your Maps, a drama about an eight-year-old boy (played by Room star Jacob Tremblay) who persuades his family to take him on an epic journey after becoming convinced he is a Mongolian goat herder. Also appearing at the festival is Brain on Fire, director Gerard Barrett’s film about a New York Post journalist (Chloë Grace Moretz) who experienced seizures, hallucinations and violent outbursts. Meanwhile, in The Exception offers mind games with higher stakes as rival agents wrestle over the fate of the abdicated German Kaiser (Christopher Plummer) in the middle of the second world war. It also stars Lily James, Jai Courtney and Janet McTeer, and is the feature-film debut of the theatre director David Leveaux. The Duelist, by Russian director Alexey Mizgirev, is about a St Petersburg gun-for-hire who takes on other people’s fights, while Rage, directed by Sang-il Lee, is a grisly three-part thriller that hops between Japanese cities and stars Ken Watanabe. The Long Excuse, also set in Japan, is a comedy-drama about a man (Masahiro Motoki) who offers to care for the children of another man who is widowed by the same crash that killed his own wife. The Toronto film festival runs from 8-18 September.',
 'Officer and a gentleman: how Sidney Poitier united a divided America Sidney Poitier’s skill was that, more than almost any other actor of his time, he gave to audiences an essential reassurance; Poitier’s problem was that in the era of the Black Panthers, reassurance looked like collusion. He was the Martin Luther King character, entirely dignified, in contrast to Malcolm X, whose very persona was a sharp rebuff to worried whites. It was the paradox of his career that Poitier’s genius should be expressed in a culture that found consensus suspect. Yet the audience he won over was no homogeneous entity, but a crowd suffused with contention. What we see in Poitier’s extraordinary run of movies, from The Defiant Ones (1958) to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), is the record of a divided America’s growing desire to unite around their affection for this shyest of stars. Race complicates this bashful love; Poitier’s essential apartness as a person is what is being screened. At the inception of the permissive society, Poitier stood as the restrained, courteous and uncorrupted star, someone truly heroic. His reiterated attempt to express the dignity of an adult man is a social project, an assertion of the deepest possible civil right. Poitier was the first black male star to engage the American national consciousness at a time when the prevailing image of a film star was still that of someone white. In a 1967 interview, Poitier declared that when he first began appearing in films, “the kind of Negro played on the screen was always negative, buffoons, clowns, shuffling butlers, really misfits. This was the background when I came along 20 years ago and I chose not to be a party to the stereotyping … I want people to feel when they leave the theatre that life and human beings are worthwhile. That is my only philosophy about the pictures I do … I have four children … They go to movies all the time but they rarely see themselves reflected there.â€\x9d It would be hard to overstate the strength and depth of the prejudices that an actor such as Poitier had to overcome. When she received an Oscar for best supporting actress for Gone With the Wind in 1940, Hattie McDaniels was made to sit at a separate table from the white cast. Given these attitudes, it’s extraordinary that, in a 1968 Motion Picture Herald poll, Poitier was named the No 1 money-making film star in the world. As the series of his films being screened as part of the BFI’s Black Star season demonstrate, the time was right for Poitier. That time began with Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones (1958), which has Poitier on the run from the chain gang, while handcuffed to a racist fellow con, played by Tony Curtis. On screen, Poitier was often paired up, even bound together, with racist characters. In Pressure Point (1962), he is a prison psychiatrist obliged to treat a pathologically racist American Nazi (played by Bobby Darin). The Defiant Ones displays a strange fascination with the physical proximity of the two men, a closeness always threatening to turn to violence. It’s a staging of a baffled and beguiling closeness between black and white characters that will run through many of Poitier’s greatest films. In A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Poitier is firmly at home with a mainly black cast, a thwarted son and husband blocked in his attempt to step out of the ghetto. Poitier here can define himself in relation to other African-American characters, a route to maturity he was rarely offered in his best films. Poitier’s greatest role, and the one for which he won a Golden Globe and an Oscar, is Homer Smith in Ralph Nelson’s stirring Lilies of the Field (1963). It’s hard to think of a less fashionable film; no movie that ends with a hymn and a resounding “Amenâ€\x9d is likely to be popular again. Poitier is a drifter who finds himself taken in by a group of German-speaking nuns eager to have him build them a chapel in the middle of the Arizona desert. Lilies of the Field creates a utopian space, remote as it can be from racist contempt, establishing a realm for hard‑working migrants. The only person in the film to express racist views is a middle-aged white boss; it’s a movie made to foster agreement. That last “Amenâ€\x9d is apt in a parable about coming together, reaching accord. In Guy Green’s A Patch of Blue (1965), Poitier plays an office clerk who decides to help a young blind woman, someone who has been confined to her room by her manipulative mother (an Oscar-winning performance by Shelley Winters). Set in a racist southern city, it’s a kind of fable about race relations. As Selina (Elizabeth Hartman) is blind, she only notices Poitier’s kindness, humour and concern, and when she discovers he is black, she does not stop loving him. Her mother is a prostitute, and Selina ends up being pushed into prostitution herself. It’s a grimly sexualised world, and amid its voyeuristic complicities, only Poitier seems to stand above the ruthlessness of desire. In his 1950s and 60s movies, Poitier was not allowed to display much, if any, evidence of sexuality. At the time, some critics worried that his character’s apparent lack of sexual interest in Selina was a cop-out, a refusal to own up to adult facts. Certainly, there was an investment in imagining Poitier as chaste. The reassurance he offers is itself “sexyâ€\x9d, I feel, though in part because it transcends the possibility of actual sex. That sexiness would be most at issue, perhaps, in his playing the charismatic school teacher in the British film directed by James Clavell To Sir, With Love (1967), where the circumstances insist on Poitier’s wistful avoidance of his pupil Judy Geeson’s schoolgirl crush. Here his self-imposed restraint makes sense, and undoubtedly if he flirted back or responded in kind, we’d think less of him. The film makes explicit the ways in which Poitier’s movies preoccupy themselves with the exploration of his on-screen appeal. Playing one of his young East End pupils, Lulu speculates: “You’re like us, but you ain’t.â€\x9d Poitier was always “like usâ€\x9d, while being in indefinable ways better: more courteous, more courageous. He places himself here on one side of the generation gap, standing in for an authority that youth might still respect. (A dozen years before, Poitier had himself played a classroom hooligan in Blackboard Jungle .) In his other two great films of 1967, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Poitier is more firmly on the boundary between the two generations. In the first, he is at once an earnest policeman and an example of young African-American self-assertion; in the second, he is a mature doctor and a rebellious son. It’s clear from all three 1967 films how much Poitier became necessary as a way to figure a route out of the conflict in American life. He was on both sides at once, not as a dupe or an “Uncle Tomâ€\x9d, but as a genuinely responsible, realised man. Poitier recently won a BFI poll for the best ever performance by a black actor for his role as Virgil Tibbs in Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night. It’s certainly one of his best films, though in terms of his acting, it’s remarkable chiefly for how fiercely he puts himself in abeyance. His restraint is what’s on show, and it is more than ever a film about our distance and closeness to the star. Three times, our hero tenderly touches the white characters, crossing an indefinable borderline. We see it in the compassionate attentiveness with which he examines the murder victim’s body; it’s there in the careful grasp with which he caresses the first major suspect; it’s present most tentatively in the restrained touch with which he endeavours to comfort the grieving widow. It’s a film about needing help, and the detective plot is a mere McGuffin around those touches and the sympathetic reaching out enacted between bullish, put-upon Rod Steiger and Poitier. The parody of these intimacies comes with the returned slap that Poitier gives to the racist plantation owner. That hard blow shows he’s no cheek-turning Christian but a person asserting himself in the world. Watching Poitier’s films, I lost count of the moments where white characters call him “boyâ€\x9d. With that in mind, the simple statement, “They call me Mr Tibbsâ€\x9d, is a declaration of independence. If we want to place these touches in context, it is good to remember the scandal caused in March 1968, when Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte’s arm on television, or the furore around the first TV “interracicalâ€\x9d kiss that November, between Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhuru and Captain Kirk. Only in 1967 did the US supreme court unanimously rule that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. There was a taboo on tenderness: the feelings inspired by Poitier had to remain attenuated, distanced ones. It’s especially good to bear all this in mind when watching Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a cotton-wool unreality of a movie. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s bubbly innocent daughter is set to marry Poitier, a widowed older doctor; his parents, and hers, are unhappy about it. It’s not that they are racist, the film tells us, more that they worry about the problems and prejudices such a couple will face. In the end, naturally, love conquers all. The movie’s real subject is again the generational divide, with Poitier a 37-year-old who is still primarily a son. He stands up for the younger generation, declaring to his father: “You think of yourself as a coloured man, I think of myself as a man.â€\x9d It was, in its way, Poitier’s last great statement of belief, an assertion of his right to be a person on film. After the great year of 1967, he kept making movies, but nothing ever again matched the impact and power of the films he had made in the previous 10 years. He trod old ground, reprising the role of Tibbs, twice, and even doing the TV film To Sir, With Love II; he played Nelson Mandela alongside Michael Caine as FW de Klerk, and was as good as ever. Yet, US cinema could no longer find a significant place for him. Still, the impact of those movies and the ways they changed American life are being felt today. In these films, Poitier will always be a living example of a star and of a good man, an actor carrying movie stardom and even the idea of personhood itself forward through a period of profound change. • In the Heat of the Night is re-released nationally on 18 November. Films in the Black Star season are in UK cinemas and on BFI Player until December. bfi.org.uk/black-star',
 "Department of Health adviser 'gagged' in Sky interview on junior doctors' strike Department of Health staff intervened to stop a Sky News journalist from asking one of its advisers why Jeremy Hunt was not giving interviews on the eve of the junior doctors’ strike. Following requests from journalists for Hunt to talk about the strike, the department put forward Professor Sir Norman Williams for a pool interview with Sky correspondent Darren McCaffrey to be distributed to news outlets on Monday evening. After asking where Hunt was, and being told by Williams that he was “at his deskâ€\x9d at the Department of Health, McCaffrey asked whether “it’s good that doctors on the eve of a strike and indeed the people that use the NHS aren’t able to hear from the secretary of state?â€\x9d Before Williams can answer, a Department of Health aide could be heard intervening to stop the line of questioning, saying: “Hang on a second, we’re not doing this nonsense like…â€\x9d He then says “we agreed a series of questionsâ€\x9d, prompting McCaffery to respond that he hadn’t agreed to any line of questioning. The exchange was later broadcast on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show and then shared by junior doctors and others on Twitter. The Department of Health refused to comment on whether it was normal for aides to intervene to block reporters’ questions, but pointed to Hunt’s subsequent media appearances on the day of the strike itself. McCaffrey wrote in a post on Sky’s website on Tuesday afternoon: “It was a reasonable enough question on the eve of the junior doctors strike ... although it appears the Department of Health didn’t feel quite the same way.â€\x9d",
 'Watford v Manchester City: Premier League – as it happened Peep! Peep! Peeeeeeep! It’s all over! Manchester City end their poor run of form on the road by snatching victory from Watford with two goals in the final 10 minutes. For the second match in succession, Watford lose out to a late sucker punch, but their fans can take great heart from a fine performance in defeat. They remain in ninth place in the Premier League table, while City stay in third, three points behind leaders Arsenal. 90+4 min: Watford embark on one last attack, with Cathcart sending the ball long to Troy Deeney. He attempts to find Ighalo with a header, but Joe Hart clears up for City. 90+3 min: Aleksandar Kolarov is forced to intervene as Ighalo attempts to control a headed through ball from Troy Deeney. 90+2 min: Ighalo wins a throw-in deep in Manchester City territory and the ball makes it’s way to Allan Nyom on the right flank. He stands the ball up for Ben Watson in the penalty area, but Joe Hart punches clear. 90 min: The fourth official suggests four minutes of added time. Can Watford rescue a point? They almost certainly deserve one, having played so well and lead until the 81st minute. 87 min: Ighalo spurns a wonderful chance to restore parity for Watford, swivelling to shoot straight at Joe Hart from seven or eight yards out after latching on to a through ball from Geudioura. 87 min: Watford substitution from a few minutes ago: Adlene Geudioura on for Jose Jurado. Manchester City substitution: Martin Demichelis on for Sergio Aguero. 85 min: That was a fine goal from Aguero. Running down the right touchline on the overlap, Bacary Sagna swung a cross into the edge of the six yard box. Bursting between Watford’s centre-backs, Aguero leapt to send a header into the bottom corner. Sergio Aguero puts Manchester City ahead with a fine header from the edge of the six-yard box. 83 min: That was a brilliant finish from Yaya Toure. As Aleksandar Kolarov shaped to take a corner, Toure jogged into position about 10 yards from goal in line with the near post. With his marker standing behind him, he made his unstoppable volley past Gomes look completely effortless. Don’t be fooled - his technique was flawless. 81 min: Yaya Toure equalises with a splendid near post volley to convert an Aleksandar Kolarov corner. That’s a wonderful finish. 79 min: Etienne Capoue advances into Manchester City territory, nutmegs Sergio Aguero on the edge of the penalty area and shoots high over the bar when he should have scored. 77 min: Allan Nyom kicks fresh air while attempting to clear a bouncing ball, allowing Kevin De Bruyne to drill a cross into the penalty area. They survive the scare and clear. 75 min: Bony is quickly into action, but not quite quickly enough. Despite his best attempts, he’s unable to get to a low cross from Kevin De Bruyne before it rolls into the arms of a grateful Heurelho Gomes in the Watford goal. 74 min: Almen Abdi drags a shot well wide from distance. Manchester City substitution: Wilfried Bony on, Eliaquim Mangala off after another torrid day at the office. 72 min: Yaya Toure has a pop from about 25 yards out, but drags his daisy-cutter well wide of the left upright, earning himself hoots and whistles of derision from various Watford fans. 71 min: Nothing comes of the corner as the game enters its final 20 minutes. 69 min: Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva exchange passes in a wonderful one-two just outside the Watford penalty area. From the edge of the D, DeBruyne unleashes a low, venomous drive that looks to be heading for the bottom lewft-hand corner until Heurelho Gomes dives to put it around the upright for a corner. 67 min: Kevin De Bruyne gallops down the left flank before pulling the ball back into the path of Yaya Toure in the penalty area. It’s a glorious scoring opportunity, but the big Ivorian sends the ball high over the cross-bar. 65 min: Jesus Navas gets in behind Holebas on the right flank and sends a looping cross into the Watford penalty area. It’s cleared. 64 min: City win a corner. With the ball arrowing towards Fernandinho on the edge of the six-yard box, Etienne Capoue does just enough to knock him off his stride and prevent an equaliser. Fernandinho goes to ground and appeals for a penalty, but none is forthcoming. 63 min: More pressure from Watford, with left-back Jose Holebas jinking his way past two City defenders, before unleashing a shot that takes a deflection off one of his team-mates and going wide for a goal-kick. 62 min: From the right flank, Allan Nyom sends a cross into the City penalty area, but Otamendi heads clear. 60 min: With half an hour to go, City are struggling away from home once again. Watford are showing no signs that they intend to sit back and try to protect their leaqd and continue to take the game to their visitors. 59 min: Watford win a free-kick in the centre-circle for a push in the back by Aguero. Manuel Pellegrini makes his first change, removing Raheem Sterling and replacing him with Jesus Navas. 56 min: Originally, there was a suggestion that Watson had scored directly from the corner, but replays show that Kolarov helped the ball on its way with a glancing header. Without Kolarov’s intervention, Joe Hart would almost certainly have punched clear, so Kolarov will be credited with the goal. But in a world where so few players are capable of taking corners properly, Watson can be very pleased with his assist. Watford win a corner, which Ben Watson curls in towards the near post. His inswinger is sublime and Aleksandar Kolarov can only head it into his own net as he attempts to defend it. Watford lead 1-0. 53 min: A chance for City! From the corner, Fernandinho gets a free header, but sends his effort over the bar. 52 min: Sterling plays the ball wide to Kevin De Bruyne on the left flank and he cuts inside and takes a shot, which is deflected out for a corner. In the penalty area, Silva has a go at De Bruyne for not playing the ball into his path. 52 min: Sterling tries to prod the ball in behind the Watford defence for Sergio Aguero to chase, but his attempted pass is blocked. Aguero’s seen very little of the ball this evening, which seems surprising considering the talent of his support network. 49 min: Good defending from Sagna, who hooks the ball clear as it bounces across the edge of the six yard box. He needed to be decisive, as Troy Deeney was lurking with menacing intent behind the full-back, waiting to pounce on any scraps that came his way. 48 min: From the corner, Hart punches clear, Watford enjoy a period of sustained pressure until Fernandinho sticks a boot in and tries to send Sergio Aguero on his way with a long ball up the field. There’s too much welly on his through ball, which Aguero is unable to latch on to despite staying onside. Gomes mops up at the back for Watford. 47 min: From a throw-in, the ball finds it’s way to Ben Watson on the edge of the Manchester City penalty area. His low drive was heading wide, but not by so far that Joe Hart didn’t feel compelled to dive and turn it around the post for a corner. 46 min: Abdi sends the ball wide to Allan Nyom, who plays it back inside to Ben Watson. Britos, Holebas and Capoue all get early second half touches as the home side spray the ball around the field in search of an opening. Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney get the second half party started, with no changes in personnel instigated by either manager at the break. It’s all square at half-time in a match Watford dominated in the opening stages. Manchester City played their way back into the game and dominated for 20 minutes or so, but Watford probably had the better of the closing 10 minutes of the half. Both sides have had their chances - although Watford’s were more clear cut - and level-pegging seems fair enough at the interval. Here’s hoping for more of the same in the second half. 44 min: The fourth official suggests one additional minute of added time. 42 min: Fernandinho is penalised for a foul on Etienne Capoue, giving Watford a free-kick about 50 yards from the City goal. Ben Watson aims for the head of Miguel Britos as the centre-half darts into the penalty area. He wins the ball, but not cleanly and Manchester City are able to clear their lines. 39 min: Watford win a free-kick some distance out from the City goal, which Ben Watson sends into the penalty area. The ball’s cleared, but only as far as Jose Jurado on the angle of the penalty area, left-hand side. With Deeney, Ighalo and others calling for a cross, he attempts to curl the ball into the top right-hand corner. His effort sails wide of the angle of crossbar and upright. 38 min: Allan Nyom tries to make his way into the Manchester City penalty area, only to find his path blocked by Fernandinho. The Manchester City midfielder shapes to tackle the right-back, only to pull out of the challenge. Unperturbed, Nyom goes to ground anyway, flinging himself theatrically in a manner that earns him a yellow card. He can have no grumbles about that one. 37 min: Watford attack on the break, with Abdi galloping down the right flank. Fernandinho does well to get back and dispossess the winger with a good tackle. Watford were breaking in numbers and his intervention was crucial. 36 min: Having been dominated for 10 or so, Watford enjoy some moments of respite as they get the ball out of their own half for the first time in what seems like an age. 33 min: Having picked up a pass from deep from Toure, Sergio Aguero is unable to make room for a shot himself, but picks out Kevin De Bruyne in space in the penalty area. His effort is blocked and rebounds into the path of David Silva on the edge of the penalty area. The Spaniard shoots, but De Bruyne is unable to get out of his way and unintentionally deflects the ball away from the target. It goes out for a corner, from which nothing comes. 31 min: Now it’s Kolarov’s turn to have a potshot. His effort fizzes over the bar. 30 min: As Manchester City begin to dominate, Sergio Aguero shoots wide from a promising position. 29 min: David Silva links up well with Fernandinho as they charge down the inside right channel. A promising move comes to naught when Raheem Sterling blasts over the bar following Watford’s failure to clear an attempted David Silva bicycle kick properly. Moments before Silva’s acrobatic effort, Fernandinho had a shot saved by Gomes. 28 min: Raheem Sterling picks up the ball on the left flank, makes his way past Allan Nyom, only to run a blind alley with Craig Cathcart waiting in the shadows. The Watford centre-half robs the winger of possession and clears. 26 min: With Toure back on his feet, play resumes. David Silva wriggles his way down the inside right and into the Watford penalty area, but is unable to get a cross in to Sergio Aguero, who’s cutting a rather forlorn figure. 24 min: Yaya Toure goes down holding his left shin after a bruising challenge from behind by Almen Abdi. The Watford midfielder seems lucky to have avoided a booking there. 22 min: It’s worth noting that the previous corner was conceded by Eliaquim Mangala, who’s being given the absolute run-around by Odion Ighalo. Mangala looks a bag of nerves and looks good for at least one bit of slapstick defending that could result in a Watford goal. 21 min: Watford win a corner, which Ben Watson sends into the mixer. The ball drops out of the night sky, bounces off Craig Cathcart’s thigh and into the hands of Joe Hart. Cathcart didn’t seem to be expecting that - had he been more alert, he could have converted a fairly easy chance from no more than seven or eight yards out. 19 min: Kevin De Bruyne tries his luck from distance, with a clever shot that pitches up just in front of Heurelho Gomes, but the Brazilian goalkeeper isn’t unduly troubled by the audacious effort. 17 min: Watford win a free-kick about 35 yards from the Manchester City goal. Ben Watson and Jose Holebas stand over it as Joe Hart instructs his defensive wall. Watson, who headed Wigan’s winner against City in the FA Cup final three years ago, takes the free-kick, but his effort is poor. The ball sails high and wide of Joe Hart’s goal. On Sky Sports, co-comms man Alan Smith suggests he should have taken advantage of the wet conditions and greasy surface to shoot low and hard in a bid to test Joe Hart. 13 min: With his back to goal on the edge of the City penalty area, Ighalo demonstrates a wonderful first touch to turn Otamendi and leave himself with only Joe Hart to beat. The City goalkeeper rushes off his line to smother the ball, which breaks in the penalty area. City’s desperate defenders manage to prevent any Watford players from converting the rebound. This is a cracking game - long may it continue. 11 min: With Troy Deeney through on goal after an idiotic pass from Otamendi, Aleksandar Kolarov performs heroics to get back and muscle him off the ball. Deeney goes down in a heap and there’s a huge shout from the stands for a penalty, but Martin Atkinson doesn’t give one. Replays suggest it’s the correct decision. 9 min: With Eliaquim Mangala caught out of position, Nicolas Otamendi does well to get back and cover as Odion Ighalko attempts to latch on to a long ball through the centre. His excellent covering tackle results in a corner for Watford, but nothing comes of it. 9 min: Etienne Capoue miscontrols a pass in midfield and cedes possession to Yaya Toure, who advances. The ball finds its way to Heurelho Gomes in the Watford goal. 8 min: Raheem Sterling gets on the ball on the left touchline, cuts inside and links up with David Silva on the edge of the Watford penalty area. The hosts clear. 7 min: Capoue attempts to play the ball into the penalty area towards Ighalop and Deeney, but his intentions are well read by Kolarov, who heads clear. It’s been a lively, entertaining start from two teams who look fairly evenly matched at this early stage. 5 min: More good play from Watford out on the right flank, with Etieene Capoue and Abdi combining well. Making his way into the penalty area, the former goes down under a challenge from Mangala and appeals for a free-kick, but doesn’t get one. 4 min: With plenty of Manchester City players in the Watford penalty area, Aleksandar Kolarov blows a decent opportunity to deliver a good ball from, the left. 2 min: Almen Abdi takes the first shot in anger and it’s not too far away! After good build-up play in which Jose Jurado ghosted past Yaya Toure, the ball found its way to Abdi on the edge of the area. He unleashed a surface to air screamer that fizzed narrowly wide of the top right-hand corner. 2 min: Manchester City dominate possession in the opening exchanges, although Mangala is forced to put the ball out of play halfway inside his own half to concede a throw-in. 1 min: Manchester City get the ball rolling at Vicarage Road at referee Martin Atkinson’s signal. It’s wet and windy in Watford tonight. Not long now: The teams make their way out of the tunnel and line up for the pre-match niceties. Watford’s players wear their customary home kit of yellow shirts with thin black stripes down the front, black shorts and black socks. Manchester City’s wear their usual light blue shirts, white shorts and light blue socks. They’ll be kicking off in a moment or two. It’s difficult to imagine tonight’s match concluding without a few goals, considering that Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo have scored 20 between them already this season in the top flight, while Manchester City’s front four of David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero are a fairly terrifying proposition for any defence preparing to face them. More than three goals is the shout for me, which means a dull scoreless draw is almost certainly inevitable. Their players are warming up wearing T-shirts designed by Callum Ballantine, a 19-year-old from Didsbury who recently died from a rare form of bone cancer and will auction them for charity after the game. Along with his friend Samir Kamani, Callum designed a “Made from Manchesterâ€\x9d range of clothing to help raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Callum and Samir raised over £20,000 for the charity before the former’s sad death on December 20th. Hats off to the lad, may he rest in peace. Having just beaten Newcastle at the Emirates, Arsenal have extended their lead at the top of the table to two points, as Leicester could only draw at home to Bournemouth. A win for Manchester City this evening will keep them in third place, three points behind Arsenal and two behind Leicester. A win for ninth-placed Watford will see them overtake Liverpool and Crystal Palace by moving into seventh place. Watford: Gomes, Nyom, Cathcart, Britos, Holebas, Abdi, Capoue, Watson, Jurado, Ighalo, Deeney. Subs: Prodl, Behrami, Oulare, Guedioura, Berghuis, Anya, Arlauskis. Man City: Hart, Sagna, Otamendi, Mangala, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Toure, De Bruyne, Silva, Sterling, Aguero. Subs: Zabaleta, Fernando, Caballero, Bony, Jesus Navas, Clichy, Demichelis. Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) Manchester City get another opportunity to arrest their puzzling slump in away form with a trip to Vicarage Road, where they’ll face a Watford side who’d won four and drawn one before Monday’s reverse at the hands of Spurs. City have failed to win any of their last six on the road, losing against Tottenham, Stoke and Arsenal in the process. If they are to beat Watford today, they will have to do so without Vincent Kompany, who is suffering from a calf injury. In better news for Manuel Pellegrini, Fernando, Fabian Delph and Gael Clichy are all available for selection after spells in the treatment room. For Watford, Nathan Ake will sit this one out on the naughty step after being show a straight red card for a high challenge on Erik Lamela shortly after the hour against Tottenham. Defenders Tommie Hoban and Joel Ekstrand also remain absent through injury.',
 'Promised £8bn extra for NHS is not enough, says hospitals boss Theresa May will have to rip up the government’s financial plans for the NHS and commit more than the promised £8bn extra by 2020, a hospitals boss has said. Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said ministers must come up with a new plan to fix the health service’s crumbling finances or risk it becoming unable to function properly. In a submission to the Treasury before next week’s autumn statement, NHS Providers, which represents 96% of NHS trusts in England, says a rethink is necessary because the calculations underlying the government’s £8bn pledge are flawed. It says demand for care is rising faster than envisaged in the blueprint drawn up by NHS bosses in 2014, the Five-Year Forward View, and social care has deteriorated. Hopson said: “Some of the key assumptions in the Five-Year Forward View, on which the current financial and NHS delivery plans for this parliament are based, have turned out to be wrong. There is now a clear and widening gap between what is being asked of the NHS and the funding available to deliver it. “The NHS simply cannot do all that it is currently doing and is being asked to do in future on these funding levels.â€\x9d Andrew Lansley, the health secretary from 2010 to 2012 in the coalition government, recently said the NHS needed a “Brexit bonusâ€\x9d of £5bn on top of the £8bn already pledged, given the widespread public demand for higher NHS funding revealed by the EU referendum. NHS Providers does not specify how much more it wants invested. But Hopson said more than £8bn was justified because “demand for care is a lot higher, social care is in a much worse state, general practice is turning out to be more unstable, and the starting point for the deficit among hospital, mental health, community and ambulance trusts has turned out to be much larger.â€\x9d He said the overall health budget would go up by only £4.5bn by 2020, not the £8bn ministers pledged last year, because money was being taken from key areas such as public health in order to give the NHS its promised increase. Independent experts agree £4.5bn is the true increase that healthcare will get. The NHS’s inability to deliver the £22bn of savings it had promised to make by 2020 – a target that had always been “too ambitiousâ€\x9d – further underlined the need for more money to be found before the end of this parliament, said Hopson. May has been under pressure recently over her repeated claims that the government is giving the NHS £10bn more, and more than the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, asked for in 2014. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the Commons health select committee, and other members of the committee wrote to the chancellor Philip Hammond to say the claims were untrue. Labour has asked the UK Statistics Authority to rule on whether the £10bn claim is justified. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has subtly distanced himself from the £10bn figure and said the NHS will need a lot more money after 2020, at the end of its unprecedented decade-long budget squeeze. Ministers have already told Stevens that the NHS will not receive a funding boost in the autumn statement. But NHS and local council leaders hope the chancellor may find some extra money to prop up the ailing social care system. “NHS funding increases from next year onwards are not enough to maintain standards of care, meet rising demand from patients and deliver essential changes to services,â€\x9d said Richard Murray, director of policy at the King’s Fund thinktank. “If additional [NHS] funding is not forthcoming later in the parliament, the government will need to be honest with the public about the impact on quality of care and access to services.â€\x9d The Department of Health did not respond directly to Hopson’s comments. A spokesman said: “This government has taken tough economic decisions that have allowed us to invest in our NHS, which is meeting record patient demand whilst improving standards of care. We have prioritised funding for the NHS with £4bn extra this year.â€\x9d',
 "'You want to know what they're writing, even if it hurts': my online abuse Lindsy Van Gelder, journalist, San Diego, 1985 When I bought a computer, in the 1980s, it was a different world. I joined Compuserve, the first major commercial online service in the US, in 1982. It was like Facebook, but all text. Now we would complain it was slow and expensive, but at the time it was radical to be able to sit in your house and talk to people all over the world. The online world seemed like a utopia; you had no idea of the race or gender of the person you were talking to, yet it was intimate. Compuserve was quite intellectual, but we had silly chats. It was mostly men using it. If you got on with someone you could go into a little corner of the site to text privately. That’s where the “compusexâ€\x9d, the sexting of its time, happened. I never did it myself, because my partner at the time was not keen. Joan was a kind of celebrity on Compuserve; a brilliant neuroscientist in her late 20s who was disabled and disfigured after a terrible car accident. She could no longer talk, but she could type, and she was surrounded by admirers. She formed close friendships with many female users, although she often tried to talk them into having Compusex. For one woman in particular, Janis, Joan was a real support. Janis had ongoing health problems and was mourning the death of her brother. The two became very close. A year later Joan enthusiastically introduced Janis to another Compuserve user called Alex. Janis and Alex, an able-bodied, male, New York psychiatrist in his 50s, met up offline and started a relationship. Meanwhile Joan wrote about her own whirlwind romance, meeting and marrying a police officer. But other Compuserve users became suspicious of Joan’s dazzling romance and success. Months later Joan was confronted by one distrustful user and admitted she was not just friends with Alex – she was Alex. Traumatised and angry, Janis said at the time she “wanted to jump off a bridgeâ€\x9d. To me that was everyone’s nightmare of betrayal by a lover. When I contacted him as a journalist, Alex refused to return my call. He continued to be a prominent psychiatrist who won major honours for his work, until his death a few years ago. I wrote about the story for Ms magazine, in a piece called The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover. Although I knew his real identity, Ms wouldn’t publish it because they were in a financially precarious position and a lawsuit – even if they won – would have finished them. Alex claimed he wanted to try communicating as a woman. Some people on Compuserve felt sorry for him. Me? I think he was despicable. It certainly taught us the online world was not all rainbows and unicorns – that creepy people could take advantage of the most entrancing things about the medium. Now everyone knows what the online and offline worlds are. It’s not a rarefied, weird corner of life. It’s certainly not an escape anymore. Ellen Spertus, professor of computer science, California, 1996 I first used the computer network Usenet as an undergraduate in the late 1980s. There was no commercialism – no spam, if you can imagine that – and it was mostly used by students or people who worked in technology. It seemed like a pretty safe place. I used my own name, and so did many other people. There were discussion groups divided into sections. Some were high minded, about science or maths, but others were more lowbrow. There was a kerfuffle around a group called rec.humour.funny, for instance, because the moderator accepted racist and sexist jokes. People argued that there shouldn’t be censorship online. Back then we all thought that the online world would be more egalitarian because we weren’t judging people on race or sex. Instead there has been a dehumanising effect because we don’t see people face to face. In 1996, a man called Robert Toups started a site called Babes on the Web, displaying the names and photographs of women who had home pages (which had just begun), along with ratings based on the attractiveness of their photographs. When they asked him to remove them, he refused. He claimed he was being satirical. I was one of the women listed. I can’t say I was shocked, but it was unexpected and unpleasant. It was part of the beginning of the fall – the realisation this was not a safe place, that it was not true that the online world would be sexism-free. Some women responded by changing their image to that of a “beefcakeâ€\x9d picture. Someone else created a site to get people to rate Toups. I was a graduate student and wrote a paper called Social and Technical Means for Fighting On-Line Harassment, including this as one of the first major incidents of sexism that occurred on the web. I wanted to try to improve the situation for others. I thought social pressure would solve issues like this; because Toups would be lowering his reputation in front of women who would go on to be in positions of power. To some extent it’s true – I went on to become a professor and an engineer at Google. But my prediction that social pressures would solve the problem was wrong. Today I would say the situation for women online is just horrific. I advise my female students to use a pseudonym if they are writing about something like Gamergate. If you write about sexism or racism, people who have a powerful social media following can harass you. Take the case of Adria Richards; she tweeted about two men making sexist jokes at a tech conference, and one of them was fired. She received death threats and rape threats for speaking up. She had to leave her home because it was so terrible. I have offered a place to stay to women who can’t stay in their homes because of threats they receive. I am glad I am no longer on the frontline. Jill Filipovic, lawyer and writer, 2006 Towards the end of my first semester of law school, a classmate mentioned a website where my name came up a lot. When another acquaintance mentioned the same thing I Googled around and found a message board for law school students called AutoAdmit. I read a couple of the threads, and they just seemed a little weird and creepy. If something came up about my law school, they would mention me. For instance, when someone wrote “Someone barfed in the law school libraryâ€\x9d the first comment would be “Was it JillF?â€\x9d I don’t know why they started on me, but I think it was because I was a feminist blogger, who wrote for Feministe. I was used to nasty comments from the blog, but then I found a post called “The official Jill Filipovic rape threadâ€\x9d. Elsewhere there were long discussions about whether posters would like to “hate-fuckâ€\x9d me. One post read “I want to brutally rape that Jill slut.â€\x9d Another: “I’m 98% sure that she should be raped.â€\x9d There were a bunch of photos of me, my Facebook profile had been copied and pasted, my email address was on there. The psychological turning point was reading comments like, “I saw her in class today and she said this… â€\x9d Suddenly I realised those same people writing rape fantasies about me could be sitting next to me in contract law class. It wasn’t just a nasty comment on the internet anymore. It felt very intimidating. I corresponded privately with the people who ran the website, but they wouldn’t do anything about the posts. The university was very sympathetic, but said there wasn’t anything they could do. I stopped going to class for some time. When I did go, I would wear a hooded sweatshirt or hide my face. I felt very suspicious and isolated. My friends didn’t understand blogs or message boards so it was hard to explain it to them. In the end I went to therapy, which really helped. There were two episodes when it crossed over into my real life. Once a man sent me an email saying he had been to New York University and spoken to my professors about what a “dumb cuntâ€\x9d I was. The second was when I was studying in the law school office with a friend. A man came to the door and asked me if I was Jill, then started screaming at me. Finally two other women who had been posted about on AutoAdmit sued the men who ran it. One of the men was a law student, and when the case made the papers his law firm rescinded their offer of a contract. The forum had a lot of users, many who said they were practising lawyers, and the legal industry is small. I felt like my identity was being filtered through this one site. I worked in a law firm for four years, but at networking events whenever someone stared at my name tag I worried they recognised me from those threads. Had they seen the pictures of me in a bikini that were posted? It had a huge impact on me. I spent years in fight or flight mode. Now I am very quick to be defensive online. I think having people who can support you (bloggers, or friends) is key. If I write something controversial, I give a friend my Twitter login so they can block abusive messages before I see them. I’m glad that harassment against women online is talked about properly now. I am so hardened to it, I don’t get upset about much anymore. Natalie Farzaneh, 19, retail assistant, London, 2009 I was bullied at school, but being bullied online was even worse. Growing up I lived in a very white, middle class village outside York. My father is Iranian and that was always an issue. I was also bigger than the other children – taller and overweight too. At school I was called Paki, Terrorist or Taliban and the children would make fun of my weight and my thick, curly hair. I was pushed down the stairs, and kids would throw chewing gum in my hair. Because I was lonely, I joined Facebook. I got lots of friend requests. I didn’t realise they were just being sarcastic, taking screenshots of my page and laughing about it with their friends. Sometimes people would do weird Photoshopped pictures of my head on a pig’s body. One of the worst points was when someone wrote on the school’s Facebook page “That awkward moment when you realise you are Natalie Farzanehâ€\x9d. I felt like I was being attacked from all sides. As a lonely teenager you will try anything and go anywhere to make friends so I tried another site, Ask.fm. On it people can ask you questions anonymously – I thought it would help show people I was a nice person. Instead I got horrible messages, saying “Why are you so ugly?â€\x9d Or “Why are you so fat?â€\x9d I didn’t really tell my parents how bad things were. My mother and teachers knew I was picked on at school, and I had a youth worker who was great. But online things got worse. People would post things like, “Kill yourself tonight or someone will do it tomorrowâ€\x9d or “Watch your backâ€\x9d or “I hope your parents get cancerâ€\x9d. Because they were anonymous it made me paranoid. I would be sitting in a class full of people, worrying who was sending them. I started self harming and felt suicidal. People who haven’t been bullied online will say “Why didn’t you just turn off your computer?â€\x9d But they don’t understand. You want to know what people are writing, even if it hurts. One day reading my Ask.fm inbox I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart was racing. I went to my mum and said “I think I am dying.â€\x9d She took me to the hospital, and said it was just a panic attack. Later I was diagnosed with anxiety – I was about 12. When I was 16 I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. What helped was finding an online bullying charity when I was 14. I applied to be one of their ambassadors and I started doing media interviews. Although my parents were heartbroken when they heard how bad things had got, telling other people that help was available made me feel stronger. Other victims would say I made them feel less alone and had stopped them doing something stupid. I felt like I was turning a negative into a positive. When the kids in school saw me on TV and in newspapers some of them also started realising the effect they’d had. Some would say “I hope you realise it was just banter.â€\x9d Some of my teachers also said they hadn’t known how hard it had been. Today I am very happy, living in London with my boyfriend, and being a body positive blogger. I might get the odd nasty comment online but now I am older I don’t obsess over hateful things. I still work as an anti-bullying ambassador and wish people would take online bullying more seriously. Bruises and cuts heal but you don’t forget the names people call you. Darsh Singh, portfolio manager at an alternative investment company, Texas, 2015 I first realised I had become a viral meme in 2011. As a student I was the first American Sikh to play for the National Collegiate Athletic Association in a turban. I was captain of the team in my final year, and my jersey was put on display in the Smithsonian. Because of this, there was a picture of me playing online, and someone thought it would be funny to put Islamophobic captions on it. There were different versions but one read: “Nobody wants to guard Muhammed, he’s too explosiveâ€\x9d. To be honest I just thought, “Here is another way people are expressing their hatred.â€\x9d When you play sports at collegiate level, you get used to people yelling nasty things. It’s the usual names, which of course shouldn’t be “usualâ€\x9d; things like “towelheadâ€\x9d, “fucking terroristâ€\x9d and lots of references to Osama bin Laden. So when I saw the meme on the web I thought, “This is not a personal attack, it’s a stupid picture and an expression of ignorance.â€\x9d I just wrote something like, “It doesn’t matter what you say, haha.â€\x9d My wife replied on Twitter saying something like, “That’s my husband and he’s a nice person,â€\x9d which helped. If you put people in context – someone’s husband or son – the conversation changes. Without it you are just a concept, and people are more comfortable yelling at a concept. The meme popped up again from time to time over the next few years, but I just ignored it. The internet is the worst place to argue with people – it’s a wasteland in terms of logic and thoughtfulness. Would it have helped if I pointed out I was Sikh, not Muslim? Maybe, but saying, “I’m the wrong brown guy – go catch those other ones!â€\x9d is not in line with my beliefs. Sikhs stand in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. Last year the meme flared up again, and one of my friend’s brothers, Greg Worthington, wrote a long message on Facebook. He explained who I was and why my jersey was in the Smithsonian. The post was really, really kind. It got a huge reaction. Then the Smithsonian group created a new meme to share with Greg’s post, and a hashtag #BelikeDarsh, which went viral. I was shocked. It showed me the power of online advocacy. I was interviewed by media outlets and TV stations and got so many messages and calls from sympathetic people. I found it very weird, but I realised that I had this megaphone so I should try and re-direct the love and attention. I wrote a post asking people to take care of others, in line with Sikhism’s golden traditions; offer love to the people around you, be a voice for those who need it the most. Becoming the subject of a racist meme can be incredibly toxic. It is challenging to be in a world where people are anonymous and don’t show compassion. You need a level of support in real life that many people don’t have. Cyberbullying: a brief and partial history 1973 The Community Memory digital service in Berkeley, California, charges 25 cents per post to reduce abuse. 1998 In the first successful US prosecution of a hate crime on the internet, a former California university student is convicted for emailing death threats to Asian students. 2003 Film of Canadian schoolboy Ghyslain Raza with a ‘light sabre’ is uploaded and the ‘Star Wars kid’ goes viral. Raza becomes a victim of a cyberbullying attack, and later speaks publicly about its impact. 2005 A student on the Seoul subway refuses to clean up after her dog and is vilified as ‘dog poo girl’ after a photo goes viral. 2008 First US cyber-bullying trial in US, the United States vs Lori Drew, follows death of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Drew, the mother of Meier’s friend (who posed as Josh Evans online), is acquitted but the case leads to the introduction of a Missouri state law. Unofficially known as Megan’s law, this takes a tougher stance on cyberbullying. 2009 A teenager becomes the first British person to be jailed for bullying on social media. 2010 Paul Chambers is convicted (overturned on appeal) for tweeting a joke about blowing up an airport in the UK. 2011 A man is jailed in Manchester for harassing his ex-girlfriend online via a series of blogposts ‘warning’ men about her. 2012 Lord McAlpine is defamed in tweets by Sally Bercow, who later agrees to pay undisclosed damages. 2013 Caroline Criado-Perez receives death threats after winning her battle to reinstate a woman on English banknotes. This leads to three arrests; Twitter announces a new one-click action to report abuse. 2014 Supporters of a disparaging blogpost about games developer Zoë Quinn, written by her ex-boyfriend, start a misogynistic campaign under the hashtag #gamergate, seen as a backlash against equality in gaming. 2014 Nude pictures of more than 100 celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence are published on 4chan. 2015 Luke King, 21, is thought to be the first man convicted of revenge porn in the UK; he is sentenced after pleading guilty to harassment after posting photographs of his ex-girlfriend on WhatsApp. September 2015 A survey carried out by Vodafone and YouGov reveals one in five young people has been cyberbullied, according to research across 11 countries, making it a more common problem than drug abuse. March 2016 NSPCC condemns ‘baiting out’ videos, where teenagers shame friends as promiscuous or disloyal. • Are you a victim of online abuse? Go to stoponlineabuse.org.uk for help and advice. Because of the personal and sensitive nature of this piece comments will be pre-moderated.",
 "Live Q&A: What's the best way to tackle Zika? For the expectant mothers of Recife, in Pernambuco state Brazil, the city at the heart of the Zika virus epidemic, trips to the hospital to check on their unborn children have become an ordeal. A third of Brazil’s 3,893 Zika virus cases recorded by January 2020 have been found in Pernambuco. The mosquito-born disease causes fever, joint pain and rashes, as well as microcephaly, a condition which affects brain development and head size of babies. Recife resident Gleyse Kelly told the last month that she had discovered that her unborn daughter had an abnormally small head when she was seven months pregnant. “It was devastating,â€\x9d she said. “But we had no time to react.â€\x9d Her daughter Maria was born the next day. The Zika virus was declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organisation on 1 February. Across Latin America, governments have reacted to the virus with dramatic measures. In El Salvador, a country with restrictive laws on abortion, the government told its citizens to avoid getting pregnant until 2018. Now as the virus spreads to the US and Europe, a sense of urgency has grown in the international community. Pharmaceutical companies are reportedly working to develop a vaccine. Elsewhere, scientists have been searching for an answer to why the virus was able to spread so far, so quickly; with some pointing to the impact of climate change. In 2014, only 150 cases were recorded in the whole of Brazil. How do we overcome this disease? Would it help to swamp Zika-infected areas with pesticides, or would that make things worse? Should we simply look to eradicate mosquitos altogether? Join a panel of experts on Thursday 18 February from 1pm GMT to discuss these questions and more. The panel Peter Mills, head of Technical Advisory Services, Malaria Consortium, London, UK @PeteMills4 @fightingmalaria Peter coordinates the work of Malaria Consortium’s global team of experts in disease control João Nunes, lecturer in International Relations, University of York, York, UK @Dr_JoaoNunes @UniOfYork João writes on neglected issues in global health, community-driven responses and Brazilian health policy Jo Lines, reader in Vector Biology and Malaria Control, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK Jo has been researching technologies for mosquito control, especially treated nets for malaria control for three decades. He has also worked for the World Health Organisation Maryam Z. Deloffre, assistant professor of political science, Arcadia University Philadelphia, United States Maryam’s research and publications examine transnational NGO accountability, the professionalisation and standardisation of NGOs, human security and global health crises and global humanitarian governance. Denis Coulombier, head of unit, surveillance and response support, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden Dr Denis Coulombier is a medical doctor and a specialist in tropical diseases and public health with extensive international experience. Nicola Wardrop, research fellow, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Nicola Wardrop is an infectious disease epidemiologist who focuses on zoonotic, vector-borne and water-borne diseases. Ralph Huits, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium Medical doctor, infectious disease consultant and researcher at ITM Antwerp. Research interests include tropical febrile illness and arboviral infections. Dino J. Martins, entomologist, Mpala Research Centre, Nanyuki, Kenya Entomologist, interested in understanding the intricacies of insect life, and its impacts (both good and bad!) on humanity. Jamie Bedson, international director, Restless Development, Seattle, United States, @RestlessDev, @JamieBedson1 Jamie Bedson is international director with Restless Development, formerly Sierra Leone Country Director during the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak. Eugenio Donadio, emergency coordinator, Plan UK, London, UK, @PlanUK Humanitarian aid worker with several years of experience working in humanitarian emergency responses in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.",
 'FCA not fit for purpose as Pure Gym float favours institutional investors Here’s an interesting business on its way to the stock market to raise £190m. Pure Gym is chaired by Tony Ball, who as chief executive of BSkyB in its early years helped to change television viewing habits in the UK. The gym chain is another tale of “disruptionâ€\x9d, promises Ball, which might encourage some of the 785,000 members to think of backing the IPO, or flotation, with a few quid. Forget it, unless you are a gym-goer who is also a fund manager. Yes, this IPO is another dreary institutions-only offering, which is par for the course when, as here, the seller comes from the land of private equity. Ordinary investors’ first chance to buy arrives only when the shares start trading. Worse, the whole IPO process could almost be designed to discourage general interest. If you wish to chew over Pure Gym’s financial numbers at leisure, for example, you’re a second-class citizen. The institutional crew will get their “pathfinderâ€\x9d prospectus, which includes all the important data, well in advance. Outsiders’ first sight will come when the full version is published a couple of days before the float actually happens. In the meantime, ordinary mortals must make do with edited highlights. There were interesting lines in Wednesday’s intention-to-float document, like the fact that Pure Gym claims a 47% return on capital at its “matureâ€\x9d gyms. But you will search in vain for up-to-date figures for pre-tax profit or even debt. Nobody could sensibly make an investment decision without those numbers. The real culprit is the Financial Conduct Authority and its predecessor, which over two decades has allowed retail punters to be squeezed out of the IPO game. Back in April, the regulator discussed some sensible reforms. Prospectuses could be published a fortnight before trading day, suggested the FCA, and independent analysts should not be gagged by lack of access to management. Five months later there is no sign of the FCA leaping into action. Those politicians who say from time to time that they want to promote a “shareholding democracyâ€\x9d should start by telling the FCA to pull its finger out. Banks won’t be hurried over Brexit decisions The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, trying to hurry things along and get the Brexit show on the road, clearly hasn’t met many British bankers. Douglas Flint, chairman of HSBC, and Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, head of the European end of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, are not chaps who like to be rushed. Solemnly, and in turns, they told the House of Lords on Wednesday that upending the European financial services industry can’t be done lightly, quickly, or at all without risking serious instability. The cheerful interpretation, from the point of view of the City, is that a lot of jobs look safer than when some banks were threatening an exodus if the UK voted for Brexit. Big banks are so inflexible, it seems, that change throws them into confusion. That is easy to believe. The big four lenders were given half a decade to erect a ringfence around their retail operations in the UK and still they grumble about the pace of regulatory upheaval. Or, as Flint himself put it, it’s taken HSBC three years to move 1,000 jobs from London to Birmingham, so switching to Paris would be a “non-trivialâ€\x9d undertaking. But Flint and Wilmot-Sitwell were not speaking out of patriotism. They were making the serious – and surely correct – point that both the UK and the EU would suffer if the European financial system is rejigged overnight. Frankfurt and Paris simply aren’t in a position to perform London’s pan-European role. If the financial services industry is forced to jump through too many new licensing hoops too quickly, it could fail in its day job of lending. That point is understood in the UK, as you’d expect, so Flint and Wilmot-Sitwell need to preach to the non-converted. They’ll never persuade François Hollande, who wants euro-denominated trades to be cleared in the eurozone, that it is in France’s own interests not to wreck the City. But HSBC and co could do everyone a service by prodding their big corporate clients on the continent to speak up. It’s now up to PM to reduce the cost of her Hinkley Point mistake It is too late, it seems, to persuade Theresa May that Hinkley Point is a colossal waste of money. But, at a bare minimum, let’s hope the prime minister has succeeded in reducing the scandalous cost to consumers. EDF and its Chinese backers could expect to make a 10% rate of return under the old terms agreed in 2012. In today’s world, 7% would be generous.',
 'Laurent Koscielny tap-in gives Arsenal win against Newcastle United Back in the height of summer when Petr Cech made his move across London, it was games as ragged and rickety as this that John Terry had in mind when he suggested the goalkeeper could be worth 12-15 points a season to Arsenal. Arsène Wenger’s team were below par, the radar was off, the fatigue had set in, and they came up against a Newcastle team who made more than enough chances to upset the league leaders. Cech dealt with assurance with Newcastle’s best efforts, which gave Arsenal the platform to eke out a win. Earning the points required resilience and the capacity to dig deep into their energy reserves. It was appropriate, perhaps, that the matchwinner was Laurent Koscielny, restored to the starting lineup after a much-needed breather. It was indicative of how this game went that Wenger confessed he felt for his opponents. “Honestly I am long enough in football to know if you are in Newcastle’s place you feel sorry for them because they played very well,â€\x9d he said. “I know also when you are capable to win and you haven’t played well it shows a mental aspect of your team that is very important.â€\x9d It left Steve McClaren ruing the outcome when he felt his players had earned the right to take something with them on the journey north. “I’m scratching my head as to how we got nothing from that game,â€\x9d he said. “Not many teams will come here and do that to Arsenal without getting something. “We were aggressive, kept control, created chances. I couldn’t fault what we tried to do. It was the complete performance without getting a result. It’s about putting the ball in the back of the net which is why they have the points and we don’t.â€\x9d Asked if the answer to his head scratching could take the form of a giant 33-year-old goalkeeper, McClaren did not disagree. “Goalkeepers win you matches and he certainly won that game,â€\x9d he said. There were two particularly influential stops. In the first half Cech was alert to parry away Giorginio Wijnaldum’s firm shot, and tidy up when Jack Colback followed up. At the start of the second half Aaron Ramsey ceded possession and the game opened up once again for the visitors. Ayoze Pérez dinked a perfect pass for Wijnaldum. Cech spread himself to smother superbly. His interventions were hugely important on a day when Arsenal struggled to find their fluency. One of the perils of the festive football calendar is the likelihood of busy players looking as if they barely know if they are coming or going. There were leggy performances, lapses of concentration, and off-key passes scattered liberally across the drenched Emirates pitch. Wenger watched on from his dugout, quietly frustrated that his team were not functioning properly. Mesut Özil’s touch and movement were typically deft, but those around him strained to reach his level. The energy levels improved in the second half as the game opened up and both teams became more cavalier and increasingly desperate in their search for a goal. Newcastle came close as Aleksandar Mitrovic and Chancel Mbemba threatened. Arsenal perked up when Olivier Giroud flashed a header across goal, and then Özil squeezed a brilliant pass towards Ramsey, whose shot was too tame to test Rob Elliot. In need of some inspiration, someone to take a risk or try something to force the issue, Koscielny stepped up to deliver in the 72nd minute. Giroud won headers in the box not once but twice after Özil floated in a corner. Koscielny was alive to sneak in at the far post to plant a shot past Elliot. Wenger was more than satisfied with the outcome as an example they may need to draw on as the season wears on. “Not to drop points when you play like we did today is very important. It helps the team – the memory of having done that before and winning the game helps you to hang on sometimes.â€\x9d Trying to look at the bigger picture, he was in no mood to read too much into this match in terms of the title challenge. “It’s too early. We have 42 points, let’s be realistic. “Let’s focus that we are in a strong position. We have given a lot over Christmas. At the end of the day how many points have you made in four games? We knew nine points would be acceptable, 10 ideal.â€\x9d He made the point that only Manchester City managed 10 points last season. And they did not go on to win the Premier League. Wenger and McClaren were quiet about any potential business to strengthen their squads over January but admitted they are hard at work to bolster their options. The intensity of four festive games over, there is still not much time to pause for a moment, regroup, and go again.',
 'NatWest criticised over loan to firm that evicted vulnerable families A bank in the majority taxpayer-owned RBS group lent money to property speculators for a deal that will see dozens of families evicted from their homes, it has emerged, prompting condemnation from the local MP and residents. NatWest has defended its decision to lend millions of pounds to the firm that bought 63 flats on a London estate so it could evict long-standing tenants and re-sell the homes for a profit, saying its only responsibility was to the customer who took out the loan. Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow who has campaigned stop the eviction of residents on the Butterfields estate in north-east London, said this made no sense. “For NatWest to try to wash their hands of this doesn’t stack up,â€\x9d she said. “We bailed out NatWest and they promised us we could now trust them to do the right thing. The right thing here is for NatWest to use their power to stop these evictions so we can get to the bottom of just what kind of deal has been done, which means the Butterfields residents are being made homeless.â€\x9d For decades, the homes were owned by a local charity, Glasspool Trust, which makes grants to households in poverty. While not a housing charity it historically offered reduced rents, and many of the flats were occupied long-term by vulnerable families. But late last year the charity sold all its flats to a property developers without telling tenants, who only learned when the new owners began serving eviction notices in January. The developers, called Butterfields E17 Ltd, have since re-sold some of the flats for a profit. Companies House records show the firm took mortgages with NatWest against all 63 flats to buy them, and that the bank must approve any re-sale. A spokesman for the bank said he could not discuss individual cases but confirmed that it would be normal when a company is being lent a significant sum for it to talk the bank through the business plan for repaying the sum. Butterfields E17 Ltd has told the its plan is to evict the tenants from all 63 flats over time and seek to sell the properties for a profit. The spokesman said it was not up to the bank to take a moral view on such plans. He added: “Our defined responsibilities are to the customer who took these loans. These responsibilities do not extend to the day-to-day management of their property portfolio.â€\x9d The fact the bank must approve any resale is a standard mortgage measure to ensure this was used to repay the mortgage, he added. The RBS group has a public sustainability and ethics policy, mainly connected to areas such as the environment and armaments. However, the policy says RBS tries not to make loans “which could damage the bank’s reputationâ€\x9d. Its executives have also talked repeatedly about seeking to be an ethical bank in the light of its 2008 takeover by the government, which still owns a majority of RBS shares. One of the Butterfields residents facing eviction, Nicole Holgate, called the NatWest justification “kind of patheticâ€\x9d. “If they claim to have any wider social and ethical responsibility then it’s a horrendous move if a load of people are decamped from an area where they were making a perfectly reasonable living,â€\x9d she said. “They’re going to potentially have to get housing benefit wherever they end up, or a few people are eligible for council help.â€\x9d Holgate, 28, lives with a flatmate, saying they were unusual among the dozen or so households currently facing eviction, with almost all the others having children. “This is a huge problem for them,â€\x9d she said. “They’re in local schools, going to local churches and playgroups. They have really solid lives here and the societal cost of what an upheaval like this does to children is massive. “It’s all just going to become more of a bill for everyone paying taxes.â€\x9d The decision by Glasspool to sell the flats has prompted considerable local opposition. Creasy met the chair of the charity, Keith Nunn, at the Commons last month to seek an explanation for the deal. The meeting ended with the MP asking a policeman to escort Nunn out of parliament after, by her account, he said of the impact on tenants: “It happens.â€\x9d The directors of Butterfields E17, listed as Jasbir Singh Jhumat and Pardeep Singh Jhumat, have declined to comment throughout. However, another staff member told the they planned to evict more of the families and sell their flats in the future, depending on how well the properties sold.',
 "Amazon and Morrisons tie-up: a customer's guide What will Amazon sell? Amazon will offer customers hundreds of Morrisons products through its existing services, including fresh, frozen and chilled foods. Amazon will be able to choose which Morrisons products it sells and their price because the agreement is a standard wholesale deal between a retailer, Amazon, and a supplier, Morrisons. Amazon is unlikely to undercut Morrisons’ prices dramatically, however, because the supermarket chain could choose to pull out of the deal. The full list of products has not been released but Amazon says it will include orange juice, chocolate, spaghetti and soup. When will Morrisons products be available on Amazon? The partnership will start within the “coming monthsâ€\x9d. Do I need to switch from Morrisons.com to Amazon? No. Morrisons online service and supermarket will not be affected. Will Morrisons products be available nationwide on Amazon? Yes, although one-hour deliveries through Prime Now are currently available only in London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool. Will I be able to buy Morrisons products as part of a wider shop on Amazon including other brands? Yes, Morrisons products will appear on Amazon in the same way that thousands of other brands do. Why has Morrisons signed up with a rival retailer? Amazon offers Morrisons another way to sell its products. Morrisons is one of the country’s biggest food manufacturers, producing much of its own-brand food. Its factories have empty capacity after the company closed shops, so this is a way to utilise them more effectively. Amazon is growing quickly in the grocery market and has powerful ambitions, with or without Morrisons, so this gives the Bradford-based retailer a way to benefit from its growth.",
 'Paul McCartney strikes out to gain control of his share of the Beatles catalogue Paul McCartney has begun the process of regaining control of his share of the US publishing rights in the Beatles’ catalogue. The publishing is currently owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, but US law allows living artists to apply to take back the right 56 years after initial publication, meaning the Lennon-McCartney catalogue becomes available in 2018. Billboard reports that McCartney began the process to taking control of his half of the Beatles publishing on 15 December 2015. Under the US copyright act of 1976, songwriter must file a claim with the copyright office two to 10 years before the 56 years elapse. McCartney filed a termination notice for 32 songs at the end of last year. However, John Lennon’s half of the publishing – all their songs were credited to Lennon-McCartney, regardless of who wrote them – will remain with Sony/ATV which reportedly made a deal with Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. The Beatles lost control of their publishing early on. The company Northern Songs was founded by Lennon, McCartney, their manager Brian Epstein and publisher Dick James in 1963, James, however, sold his stake to the UK firm Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and Lennon and McCartney failed in an attempt to regain their rights. Another attempt by the music manager Allen Klein to set up a deal for the Beatles’ Apple Corps to buy out ATV also failed. Michael Jackson bought ATV Music for $47.5m (£33m) in 1985, which was reputed to have soured his friendship with McCartney, and merged his catalogue with Sony in 1995, for a payment of around £59m, resulting in the formation of Sony/ATV. In 2006, in financial trouble, Jackson struck a further deal with Sony, giving the former the right to buy his half of Sony/ATV. It was finally announced last week that the Jackson estate was to sell its 50% stake to Sony for $750m.',
 'Elvis Costello: 10 of the best 1. Less Than Zero That Declan MacManus had been renamed Elvis Costello in the year that Elvis Presley died was merely a stroke of luck. When news filtered through that the King had died, a period of anxiety gripped the offices of the normally publicity savvy Stiff Records, though they needn’t have worried; the seemingly disrespectful timing only added to the withering persona of the new upstart and agitator they were looking to promote. Whether apocryphal or not, the tale that NME were planning on running an Elvis vs Elvis: which one is a Stiff artist? editorial before good taste prevailed makes a good story. MacManus had spent considerable time honing his act with weekly shows at the Half Moon pub in Putney for 50p and a plate of sandwiches in the mid-70s, so by the time Stiff picked him up, he was able to emerge more or less fully formed into the public’s consciousness, a man as erudite as he was angry. His first single, Less Than Zero, was fittingly vituperative, spitting venom at the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, accusing him of engaging in incest to boot (“the song was more of a slandering fantasy than a reasoned argument,â€\x9d said the author). Mosley had apparently been the subject of a then recent TV documentary in which he reminisced misty-eyed about the Blackshirts. Whether American novelist Bret Easton Ellis had a grip on 1930s British politics or not, he named his first book after the song, and also his last novel to date – the sequel – pluralising Costello’s Imperial Bedroom. Less Than Zero the single is madly catchy and slightly unhinged, and simplistic enough that it fitted in with the burgeoning DIY punk movement; more musically accomplished offerings, like the 1940s-inspired Wave a White Flag, were quietly forgotten about. 2. Radio Radio Perhaps owing more to luck than judgment, Costello assembled one of the finest bands of the late 70s and early 80s in the Attractions, who appeared for the first time on his magnificent, Clash-mimicking first hit single, Watching the Detectives. By the time recording for the album This Year’s Model came around, they were knocking off mod-stomping classics like Pump it Up and (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea in one afternoon with Nick Lowe in the control booth. Another muscular anthem rescued from Elvis’s days in the virtually unheard of pre-punk band Flip City, Radio Radio, was updated in order to bite the hand that fed him. “And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools,â€\x9d he spat, “tryin’ to anaesthetise the way you feel.â€\x9d With a sharp hook, a thumping rhythm and Steve Nieve’s trademark swirly organ, the band were able to perform the song on Top of the Pops and sing the words right at presenter Tony Blackburn. The song caused further controversy in the US, when Elvis and the Attractions appeared on Saturday Night Live. Halfway through Less Than Zero the band suddenly stopped and played the prohibited Radio Radio instead. Elvis was banned for life from the show, a banishment that lasted all of 12 years. 3. Oliver’s Army Having grown up a Beatles fanatic, Costello would have been honoured and presumably ecstatic when in 1987 the call came from Paul McCartney to write with him. Perhaps Costello could have imparted some tricks to McCartney, like how to write a protest song, especially regarding British colonialism and the Irish question. Musical genius he might be, but McCartney’s Give Ireland Back to the Irish was one of the limpest musical protests in the history of song, whereas Oliver’s Army was so smart and subversive that many were unaware it was a protest song at all. They just heard the earworm on the radio, joined in with the singalong chorus and lapped up Steve Nieve’s sparkling piano part, which owes a huge debt to Abba’s Dancing Queen, and then they went out and bought it in large numbers. According to Graeme Thomson’s Costello biography, Complicated Shadows, the band had no greater expectation for the song than for it to appear as a B-side when they premiered it at the Roskilde festival in Denmark in 1978. The following year, though, it reached No 2 in the charts, only kept off the top by the Bee Gees and then by Gloria Gaynor. The line “one more widow, one less white niggerâ€\x9d caused little controversy at the time, though when Costello dropped the N-bomb into an argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett at a Holiday Inn in Ohio in March 1979 – he provoked the row, and described Ray Charles as “a blind, ignorant niggerâ€\x9d – it had a disastrous effect on his US popularity. Allegedly high on amphetamines and booze and out to shock, Costello refused to apologise in a press conference for his remarks (his defence at the time was a curt “I’m not a racistâ€\x9d, and he had indeed played Rock Against Racism gigs), but he has been contrite on plenty of occasions since, a transgression presumably high up in his list of regrets. 4. Man Out of Time Whether it was the Holiday Inn incident or just the natural process of growing up, Costello slowly unwound as the 80s gathered pace. He still unleashed unbridled scorn now and again – on Margaret Thatcher on 1989’s Tramp the Dirt Down and on Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas on 1991’s How to Be Dumb – but he also appeared to become more reflective and less confrontational. The phrase “angry young manâ€\x9d uses all three components for good reason, and by the time Costello came to record Imperial Bedroom with Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick in London in 1982, he was approaching 28 years old. “At the time of Imperial Bedroom, I came to terms with the fact that I was sacrificing the power of certain songs to this mad pursuit of tempo,â€\x9d he later reflected. “Everything had to be delivered forcefully. I don’t know whether it was just a natural process or, literally, cumulative exhaustion of what were very intense years. Man Out of Time is the one time I said, ‘No, stop. Let’s play this at the right tempo.’â€\x9d Bookended by an earlier noisier version, the song in between seemingly floats on some Dylanesque Highway 61-era Wurlitzer organ, carried along by a noirish narrative about a cabinet minister hiding out from a sex scandal. It also features the amusing rhyming couplet: “H’s got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge / He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege.â€\x9d Imperial Bedroom is for good or bad a record of maturity, with Man Out of Time the centrepiece around which everything falls. Costello sometimes overreaches, trying to accommodate too much in a song, but not here, somehow. (And when he does, well you can’t fault him for his ambition.) 5. Shipbuilding Another protest song, this time about the Falklands war, Shipbuilding made the connection between a thriving shipyard – a source of working-class pride – and the fact fathers were sending their sons to war and to their deaths. Gritty, humane and deeply moving, Shipbuilding rates as one of Costello’s best lyrics, a fact not lost on the singer himself, who declared it so on several occasions. The music was written by Clive Langer with Robert Wyatt in mind, with the latter recording released on Rough Trade in 1982. Langer also produced Costello’s version when they worked together on the patchy Punch the Clock album in 1983, the song proving to be the highlight. Costello’s version gets the nod over the Wyatt version thanks to the stunning, mournful Chet Baker trumpet solo. “Chet Baker, this wizened corpse on death’s door, strung out, just played,â€\x9d said Bruce Thomas later. “He followed this bass line and played his solo, so simple, with so much soul in it. It really touched me.â€\x9d 6. I Want You Artists with a certain desperation are often the ones that impress Costello the most, from Springsteen and Van Morrison to Jeff Buckley, whom he picked to perform at the Queen Elizabeth Hall when curator of Meltdown in 1995 (it was to be Buckley’s last UK performance). Perhaps Costello’s most risque and desperate (on many levels) song is I Want You, a creeping first-person narrative that takes us through a fetid, all-consuming obsession. Sung to the object of the piece, it begins with what sounds like a lullaby, before quickly turning nasty, with the verses scratched out over some dampened chords while the voice barely conceals the anger of belonging to an unwelcome suitor. Each verse becomes a little more desperate, a little more deranged, while each line begins with the words “I want youâ€\x9d, an emphatic refrain that becomes more and more awkward each time he utters it. “It’s knowing that he knows you now after only guessing,â€\x9d he sings, horrifying and horrified. “It’s the thought of him undressing you or you undressing.â€\x9d The lyrics and music together are intimately intense, like someone breathing down your own neck, making you shudder, but the melody is irresistible too. 7. Veronica If Costello was the master of smuggling dark subject matter into the charts without most people knowing what he was actually singing about (which actually annoyed him immensely), then 1989’s Veronica might well be the first top 40 hit that broached the difficult subject matter of Alzheimer’s. “She’d talk about who knows what and the next minute it’d be 40 years later,â€\x9d says Costello, singing on a chair in a now vacant bedroom at the beginning of the video, “so you’d just sit there and bounce around the years with her.â€\x9d The Veronica in question was his own grandmother Mabel (Veronica was her middle name), and one of his finest, most immediate choruses, becomes a heartbreaker when you scratch a little deeper. Paul McCartney has a songwriting credit on the song, and also contributed Hofner bass (the Attractions had been jettisoned for a revolving door of musicians, as well as frequent contributors such as T-Bone Burnett). The working relationship between McCartney and Costello proved fruitful, and included one album, Flowers in the Dirt, though owing to creative differences related to production, Costello was apparently unhappy with the finished product, and his contribution was eventually somewhat diminished when the record finally surfaced. 8. The Other Side of Summer In 1991 Costello recorded Mighty Like a Rose – which became known as the “beard albumâ€\x9d, on account of the fact he grew a beard, which would have been unthinkable in the clean-shaven punk years. Costello, a former computer operator (for Elizabeth Arden in Acton, before he hit the big time), discovered the practical merits of working with computer software whilst writing Mighty Like a Rose, which may explain why so much of the album is cluttered with melodies and yet more countermelodies. On the opening track, The Other Side of Summer, it works though; the song is a sarcastic Brian Wilson pastiche, a spectacular takedown of all things LA, with Costello in biting mood. “From the foaming breakers of the poisonous surf,â€\x9d he sings cheerfully, “to the burning forests in the hills of Astroturf.â€\x9d There’s an environmental undercurrent too, and at the conclusion he warns: “Goodnight, God bless, and kiss goodbye to the earth.â€\x9d Many of the lyrics on Mighty Like a Rose reflect apocalyptic concerns, with Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over) coming across as just plain paranoid. Because of the clutter, the double tracking and maybe the beard, the words aren’t always the easiest to decipher, though whether meanings were conveyed or not, The Other Side of Summer is a nailed-down fantastic tune that belongs in the canon. 9. London’s Brilliant Parade Stick around for long enough in rock’n’roll and proclamations of comebacks are all but inevitable. Costello’s supposed dalliances with classical music with the Brodsky Quartet, and the album Now Ain’t the Time for Your Tears penned for Wendy James over a weekend with then partner Cait O’Riordan, had for many detracted from his main body of work. So when he was heard to be back in the studio with Nick Lowe and members of the erstwhile Attractions it was all too much for some. The reviews for Brutal Youth were positive, the “reunionâ€\x9d somewhat overegged, overshadowing what might be Costello’s finest work. Still Too Soon to Know, 13 Steps Lead Down, Kinder Murder, This is Hell, Sulky Girl, You Tripped at Every Step … every one is a classic. London’s Brilliant Parade gets the nod because it’s a beautifully nostalgic love letter to a city that once was, with little trace of Costello’s normally world-wearing irony or malice. The lyrics evoke the plot of a beloved old movie too: “She’s one of those girls that you just can’t place / You feel guilty desiring such an innocent face,â€\x9d sings Costello, “but of course they knew that when they cast her / Along with the red Routemaster.â€\x9d Glorious. 10. When I Was Cruel No 2 2002’s When I Was Cruel was supposedly another return to form, or if that wasn’t quite true, it at least resembled the Costello brand. Featuring new band the Imposters, the album also marked a new fascination with looping drumbeats, best exemplified on the epic When I Was Cruel No 2. It is an ambient seven-minute exploration that’s more trip-hop than anything else; looping ad infinitum with a ghostly woman’s voice at the end of each bar that also recalls Gainsbourg and Bardot’s Bonnie & Clyde. When I Was Cruel was released on Def Jam, and his curiosity about hip-hop culminated in a collaboration with the Roots in 2013, with mixed results. Most of the choices in this 10 of the best were selected from within the realms of rock, often at its most straightforward, because despite his obvious abilities, acerbic rock’n’roll is what Elvis Costello does best (whether he likes it or not).',
 'RBS suffers fresh setback in Williams & Glyn spin-off plan Royal Bank of Scotland’s attempts to spin off 315 branches have received another setback after one of the highest-profile bidders pulled out. Santander, which originally had an agreement to buy the branches in 2012, has withdrawn from talks again in a blow to the latest efforts by the bailed-out bank to dispose of the branches. The 73% taxpayer-owned RBS has been instructed to spin off the branches – which it is rebranding Williams & Glyn – by the EU as a penalty for its 2008 taxpayer rescue. Lloyds Banking Group was required to sell off TSB, which after a brief period on the stock market has since been bought by Sabadell of Spain. The disposal of W&G is proving troublesome and expensive for RBS, which stunned the City last month by admitting it was abandoning its attempt to float the business on the stock market. RBS has spent £1.5bn trying to carve out the branches, largely comprising NatWest locations in Scotland and RBS outlets in England and Wales, which employ 5,500. The new branch network has been a key plank of government plans to create fresh competition on the high street. It is thought to be valued at £1.3bn. As the result of a complex deal agreed by RBS in 2013, after the first Santander talks broke down, the abandonment of the flotation means that the bailed-out bank is paying millions of pounds to a private equity consortium, which was due to back the share offering. The consortium includes the Church of England. Other possible bidders for W&G branches include the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banking group, which was sold off by National Australia Bank earlier this year. RBS and the UK arm of Santander declined to comment.',
 'Walter Mazzarri hails Stefano Okaka after Watford rally to hold off Everton Ronald Koeman has made his reputation as a canny, pragmatic manager in the Premier League but his Everton side were made to look naive by Watford as they maximised their opportunities to take all three points. After being outplayed on the pitch, the Dutchman failed to cover himself in glory after the match either. Rightly furious at his team letting a 1-0 lead become a 3-1 deficit before Romelu Lukaku’s second restored a sheen of credibility, he described his team as “reactive, not proactiveâ€\x9d. But he also saw fit to criticise, more than once, his opponents’ style of play. Walter Mazzarri smiled when he heard that the Dutchman had described his team as “direct and aggressiveâ€\x9d. Yes, his side had scored twice from set pieces, and yes the move that led to their opening goal had begun with a long ball from the back. But Mazzarri knew what had happened on the pitch, and Watford had been better in every department. “Each person has his opinion, luckily we all have eyes to see,â€\x9d the Italian said through his interpreter. “I think you have all seen who played better today, who played good football. Every person has an opinion, but I don’t agree with him.â€\x9d Watford’s star performer was Stefano Okaka. The striker arrived from Anderlecht in the summer for an undisclosed fee but his season has been disrupted by injury. This was only his second start of the season, his first came last week, but he looked anything but rusty as he pirouetted to score Watford’s equaliser in the 36th minute. After Sebastian Prödl gave Watford the lead with a towering header in the 59th minute, Okaka produced one of his own four minutes later. He lost his marker to meet José Holebas’s corner at the near post and flick the ball past Maarten Stekelenburg. The Italian was withdrawn late on to a standing ovation. “I’ve known him since he was very young and playing for Roma, he’s a great talent,â€\x9d said Mazzari, who gave the striker a bear hug after his opening goal. “We had the opportunity to sign him in the summer and we took it. He is perfect for the Premier League because he doesn’t only help himself but helps his team-mates to play well and score.â€\x9d Where Everton would have been without their own two-goal striker is anyone’s guess. Lukaku opened the scoring when he coolly finished off Gareth Barry’s wonderful long ball, ironically Everton’s best pass of the game. The Belgian closed it out with a surefire header from the substitute Aaron Lennon’s cross. In between times, however, he was largely marooned, waiting hopefully for crosses that rarely came. After criticising Ross Barkley’s lack of productivity during the week, Koeman once again left the England international on the bench. His replacement, James McCarthy, looked entirely at sea in a nominal No10 role. Gerard Deulofeu tried hard on the right-hand side, while Kevin Mirallas was anonymous on the left. And these are the players who apparently make Everton more of a footballing side than their opponents. “The Premier League is not always about football qualities, it’s about physicality, about second balls and in that respect the team is too weak,â€\x9d Koeman said. “We have too much to do when teams like this play direct and aggressive. “We have different players, different qualities but in that aspect we have to improve and do better. You can’t change that in two weeks. You need January, you need the summer to change what you need as a team. We need a better balance.â€\x9d Everton had a late penalty appeal when Miguel Britos manhandled the substitute Enner Valencia to prevent him jumping for a cross but Watford now sit in the top half of the table, with Mazzarri about to get his first experience of the Premier League Christmas period. “In Italy we don’t have games so close at Christmas but I’m not worried about it,â€\x9d Mazzarri said. “All I’m worried about is that my squad is not fully fit. If we had the complete squad I’d be very happy.â€\x9d',
 "HSBC's gunboat diplomacy worked well. Too well Spring 2015 HSBC announces during the general election campaign that it is thinking about moving its global HQ from London to Kong Kong, citing unhappiness about City regulation in general and George Osborne’s bank levy in particular. Summer 2015 Newly reappointed chancellor in a majority Conservative government, Osborne announces he is going to reform the bank levy in a way that makes it less onerous for HSBC. The chancellor says it is time for a new settlement with the City, and demonstrates what that means by getting rid of Martin Wheatley as chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority. Wheatley’s crime? Being too tough on the banks. February 2016 HSBC announces that, following an exhaustive, bottom-up review, it has decided to remain domiciled in London. The bank’s chairman, Douglas Flint, insists there was no deal with the government; no arm-twisting from an institution that is one of the biggest companies quoted on the FTSE 100; certainly not a gigantic game of bluff. Three big questions arise from the HSBC decision. The first is whether the bank ever really intended to leave the UK. As Andre Spicer of the Cass Business School notes, the assumption that multinational corporations are footloose and fancy free doesn’t really square with the facts. Between 1996 and 2006, a decade that could be argued was the high point of globalisation, only 6% of multinationals moved their HQ. London is a good place for an international bank to be domiciled. The time zone is right, a dense network of support services is available, and executives feel at home. It would probably have taken more than a gripe about the bank levy and unhappiness about Wheatley’s “shoot first, ask questions laterâ€\x9d approach to have prompted HSBC to uproot. The second question is whether, in the light of that, Osborne paid too high a price to keep HSBC here. The answer to that is that he did. The changes have resulted in the tax burden being shifted to the new challenger banks which are meant to be providing much-needed competition to the high street big four, leaving weaker oversight of the financial system. Osborne may live to regret this if the gyrations in the markets really do portend a re-run of 2008. Finally, what does this episode say about the power of the banks? Quite a lot. HSBC was founded in 1865, a year that coincided with the death of Lord Palmerston, famed as foreign secretary for his gunboat diplomacy. Flint sailed his gunboat up the Thames from Canary Wharf and moored it within sight of the Palace of Westminster. There didn’t need to be any negotiation. Osborne got the message.",
 'Is pessimism really bad for you? The glass can be half-full, or it can be half-empty, depending on your outlook on life – or on which side of the bed you get out of any particular morning. But can optimism or indeed pessimism really affect your health? It’s been a bone of contention for many years, and the issue has spawned a plethora of self-help guides on how to be “positiveâ€\x9d, especially in the face of serious illness. But the scientific evidence in support of a sunny disposition is contentious, contradictory and controversial. The latest study comes from Finland, a land not noted for its joie de vivre. The conclusion of this research, published last week in BMC Public Health, found that pessimism was associated with an increased risk of death from coronary heart disease. Of the 121 Finnish men and women who had died from coronary heart disease during the study’s 11-year follow-up period – out of 2,267 participants – the researchers found a significant preponderance of pessimism when the study began. Comparing the higher and lower quartiles (the top and bottom 25%), people in the higher quartile for pessimism had a 2.2-fold higher risk of dying from heart disease than those in the lower quartile. It seemed to support the idea that optimism is good for you. But hang on. There was a catch – because the researchers also looked at optimism in the same group of middle-aged Finns and failed to find any association with a decreased risk of coronary heart disease. So what’s going on? Well, one of the problems in previous studies on optimism and pessimism is that the two attitudes have been treated much like opposite ends of the same emotional spectrum. This produced conflicting results, according to the researchers, led by Mikko Pankalainen, a psychiatrist at the Paijat-Hame hospital in Lahti, southern Finland. “People should not be categorised as optimists or pessimists,â€\x9d the researchers concluded. “Pessimism seems to be quite a significant risk factor for death from coronary heart disease both in men and women, while optimism does not protect from it.â€\x9d It is not the first time that pessimism has been linked with ill health, although this study claims to be the first to link it negatively with coronary heart disease. “High levels of pessimism have previously been linked to factors that affect cardiac death, such as inflammation, but data on the connection between risk of death from coronary heart disease and optimism and pessimism as personality traits are relatively scarce,â€\x9d Pankalainen said. But it must be emphasised that these studies only point to an association, rather than cause and effect. None can claim to show that being pessimistic actually causes someone to die prematurely. Levels of pessimism could be measured “quite easilyâ€\x9d, Pankalainen said, by asking people to respond to a series of gloomy statements, such as “if something can go wrong for me, it willâ€\x9d. Measuring optimism, on the other hand, relied on responses to statements such as “in uncertain times, I usually expect the bestâ€\x9d. When they carried out the statistical analysis on the two sets of outlooks, the researchers found no link between risk of heart deaths and optimism. This runs contrary to a previous study of optimism, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association in 2011. It measured optimism levels on a 16-point scale in a “representative groupâ€\x9d of just over 6,000 men and women and found that for every point increase in optimism, there was a corresponding 9% decrease in acute strokes over the two-year follow-up period. “Our work suggests that people who expect the best things in life actively take steps to promote health,â€\x9d lead author Eric Kim of the University of Michigan said at the time. “Optimism seems to have a swift impact on stroke.â€\x9d So the suggestion here was that optimistic people tended to look after themselves better than pessimistic individuals – so they perhaps had better diets and exercised more. However, there are no shortage of claims that optimism can also have a physical effect on the body by, for instance, boosting the immune system. One such study carried out on 124 law students in the US in 2010 showed how the immune response waxed and waned depending on a person’s optimism or pessimism. Although there seems no getting away from the fact that most studies show that being optimistic can increase the chances of surviving with cancer, or improve the wellbeing of those with neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s, the optimists do not always have it all their own way. At least one study has shown that older people with an optimistic outlook on life were more likely than pessimists to suffer disability and death within the following decade. Being grumpy when you are old may actually pay off. And if you are a glass-half-empty person desperately trying to see it as half-full for the sake of your health, there is bad news from yet another study carried out in 2006, showing that we learn to be positive or negative in childhood. And one of the best ways of predicting a person’s optimism turns out to be whether they were raised in a family where the parents were of a high socioeconomic status. Who said money isn’t everything?',
 'Did arthouse horror hit The Witch trick mainstream US audiences? Critically acclaimed horror film The Witch broke out from the arthouse circuit at the weekend and became a surprise hit with mainstream audiences, making $8.4m (£6m) from a budget of just $1m. Good news all round, huh? Well, certainly for indie distributors A24, who have previously had relatively small successes with Ex Machina and Room. The opening was the biggest they’ve ever had and its screen average was second only to Deadpool in the Top 10. Also for critics, who had championed the film since it screened at last year’s Sundance and whose words had graced the film’s haunting marketing campaign. But there was one important group who walked away feeling cheated: the audience. While The Witch landed with almost universally positive reviews (it’s at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes), most came with an important caveat. Yes, the film, a 17th-century-set tale of alleged witchcraft and mass hysteria, has been called “unsettlingâ€\x9d and “chillingâ€\x9d but it’s also been referred to as difficult. The ’s Jordan Hoffman said that it was “too slow and verbose to become the next breakout horror hitâ€\x9d, while the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane said audiences will “rightly ask if The Witch even deserves to be called a horror flickâ€\x9d. Due to the more cerebral nature of the film, A24’s original plan was to give it a limited theatrical run, accompanied by a simultaneous VOD release, in what has become a more standard strategy for films of this size. But, given the film’s easy-to-market title, a range of excitable reviews and the fact that horror films are still reliable money-makers, their plan shifted and an arthouse pic was suddenly being offered up alongside Deadpool in more than 2,000 US cinemas. It was also a smartly picked weekend with just under-the-radar titles such as faith-based epic Risen and sports biopic Race to compete with. After Thursday previews, A24 knew their gamble had paid off with a $630k start, implying a weekend total of $16m. But word of mouth soon spread and the film ended with half that – admirable for a film of this scale but it was already a victim of thwarted expectations. Opening-night audiences were surveyed and it received a disappointing C- grade via Cinemascore, a company that specialises in gauging the opinion of cinemagoers. The reaction on social media was similarly underwhelmed. Horror is one of the few genres that manages to draw crowds in without having to rely on big stars and brand awareness. This year alone, films with similarly opaque titles such as The Boy and The Forest have managed decent totals ($33m and $26m) from small budgets. The majority of audiences weren’t going to see The Witch because they loved Kate Dickie in Red Road; they were hoping to be scared. But it’s not the first horror film to have pleased critics but frustrated the masses: The Blair Witch Project (Rotten Tomatoes: 86%, Cinemascore: C+) The Cabin in the Woods (Rotten Tomatoes: 92%, Cinemascore: C) Let Me In (Rotten Tomatoes: 88%, Cinemascore: C+) Oculus (Rotten Tomatoes: 73%, Cinemascore: C) Piranha 3D (Rotten Tomatoes: 73%, Cinemascore: C) The Mist (Rotten Tomatoes: 73%, Cinemascore: C) Even for those who shell out for tickets, horror is incredibly divisive. If a film is too gory or too nasty then it can offend (both Wolf Creek and Saw received an F), while if you leave audiences scared but depressed they will also be unhappy (even hits like Sinister and The Purge could only manage a C+ and a C). But what audiences hate the most is feeling cheated. In 2012, low-budget horror The Devil Inside came out of nowhere to make a remarkable $33m in its opening weekend but the crowds turned against it with a toxic F rating and a second week decline of 76%. Why? The film ends with an unresolved incident and a URL directing viewers to find out more information. Hardly going to lead to ringing endorsements all round ... But while audiences might have headed to see a new film called The Witch and expected to see something far more conventional, can distributors A24 really be to blame? What’s interesting about the film’s relative success is that the marketing campaign was fairly muted and mainly digitally focused. The film’s TV spots were surprisingly restrained and artful, refraining from pushing it as something it clearly wasn’t. Any expectations were based on what one might expect from a horror film being released on such a wide scale, rather than what the film was sold as. While it’s likely that the film will suffer in its second week, it’s of little consequence. A small budget and a cheap marketing spend mean that the film is already in profit. It’s also pleased critics that a horror film of this quality is being seen by so many people, having already outgrossed other recent favourite The Babadook and likely to eclipse It Follows within the next week. The genre is, quite fairly, still maligned by most, with cookie-cutter dross dumped in cinemas month after month (The Boy and The Forest managed 30% and 10% on Rotten Tomatoes). It might also lead to other small distributors rethinking release strategies for modest genre fare, ideally titles that start with “Theâ€\x9d followed by a creepy word. So, while the social media fury may still continue (“The witch was the worst movie fucking made mad I wasted my money on that shitâ€\x9d), the scariest thing for many fans is that they might end up watching other films that don’t conform to their expectations and one day – gasp – they might actually start enjoying them.',
 'The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK: No 7 Little Men Ira Sachs’s Little Men is a beautifully acted generational drama, a coming of age, boy’s own story of lost friendship and a pessimistic satire about gentrification – all composed with scrupulous observational care. Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle play Brian and Kathy, a decent if somewhat self-pitying guy and his wife. Brian is an actor whose career is dying, and when he inherits a property in Brooklyn from his late father there is a chance for some real financial stability. He realises he is within his rights to hike the rent being charged to the woman who has a dress shop in the downstairs apartment. But the exquisitely painful problem – quite aside from their liberal middle-class embarrassment at needing or wanting to do this – is that the woman’s son has befriended their son, and saved him from loneliness. Brian and Kathy actually owe this woman a lot. But Brian also owes something to his sister, who has her own money worries, and they overwhelmingly feel that they owe themselves a fair bit as well. It is an agonising anatomy of divided loyalties, made much more poignant and real by the lovely performances of Michael Barbieri and Theo Taplitz as the two teenagers whose friendship continues alongside, or above, the adults’ undignified wrangling over money. There is something quietly and intimately tragic about how this relationship pans out, and their final scene together is haunting. The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK',
 'How to blag a job in finance: buy some black shoes and ​talk like an aristocrat There’s supposed to be a war for talent. If so, it became pretty clear last week why Britain’s investment banks are losing it. The recruitment filter, revealed in a report from the Social Mobility Commission, works like this: you can only join the customer-facing part of an investment bank if you went to one of four public schools; got a first from one of five universities; and possess “sheenâ€\x9d. Yes, sheen. And polish. No matter how good you are, if your tie is not right or your suit does not fit like a glove, you are destined to take your excellence somewhere else. Little wonder, then, that the world of investment banking suffers from group-think on a scale that crashed the world markets in 2008 and has led to wave after wave of fines for fraudulent behaviour. Given that the signifiers are so clear and obvious, how would you scam your way in? How would you hoodwink the informal process based on “specific behaviours, speech patterns and dress codesâ€\x9d? Unwittingly, the commission’s report provides plenty of clues. First, the obvious don’ts. No beards. Not Muslim ones, not hipster ones, not the stubble worn by movie stars. None. One of the clearest demographic faultlines in the world runs along White Kennett Street, in east London – where the beards of hipsterland begin and the twice-shaven faces of the City end. Also, no brown shoes. In fact, the brown-shoes thing, plus numerous other faux-pas, can be easily avoided by reading GQ magazine. But buy the British edition because if you read the Italian one you are going to arrive in the wrong kind of suit, shoes and – very important, this – socks. I once met a management whizz-kid thrown out of his City internship for wearing plaid socks. You need the haircut, the suit, the shoes, the tie. They are all – like the outmoded economic theories you will have to waffle on about – available as a job lot in and around Savile Row. The suit has to be blue or grey. Sure, you will see electric-blue suits, or pinstripes, on the streets of the Square Mile, but don’t try to pull this off unless your family’s yacht has a helicopter pad. Shoes have to be black leather and click as you strut along a corridor, shutting down venerated retail chains by text message. The bankers surveyed were disdainful of people who “can’t wear a suitâ€\x9d. To their jaundiced eyes, this means you have bought a suit off the peg, and cannot afford six grand to have one made that immobilises you at the armpits and makes your bum look like that of a figure skater. The haircut has to be bouffant. One of the surest signs you have walked into a workplace that recruits only from the elite is that the haircuts do not change. Neat back and sides, big bouffant quiff, no gel, no wax, no putty. These are the marks of convicts or advertising men, not the front-office banker. All this is fakeable, with money, practice, a willing tailor and obedient hair. But then you need to open your mouth to speak. Take careful note of what’s happening to the “poshâ€\x9d English accent. It is no longer enough to have the calm, fruitily inflected RP common among barristers. More fashionable now is the “Rees-Moggâ€\x9d – a throwback to the accent of the aristocracy in the 1920s, where the consonant “râ€\x9d migrates slightly towards “wâ€\x9d and even spontaneous utterances sound like they have been written by Michael Gove. This is achievable with practice. Next you need subject matter. The Laffer curve, which attempts to illustrate that taxing the rich is futile, is a good thing to talk about. Also the work of any fashionably rightwing African economist. And Venezuela. If in doubt, diss Venezuela. But – and this is critical – you must understand that words are not the primary medium of communication. If you are going organise a team to fix Libor, you don’t say “let’s fix Liborâ€\x9d. You use subtle understatements, allusions, metaphors, sentences that trail off, eyebrows that curl independently. To learn this you have to hang around in places like St Moritz, and not just for a single season. As to the CV, you must make it up. The four spring internships claimed by elite candidates in their first year at university (the new normal according to the report) come in limited supply. Apart from the sons and daughters of the bankers themselves, most other places will be reserved for the offspring of Arab despots and Russian crooks. And if you are proud of having climbed in Glencoe on your Duke of Edinburgh award, be aware that’s not good enough. You must have, at the very least, discovered a new species in the Amazon while in the lower sixth, or still better, a new tribe. You must have proof of this on Facebook and Instagram. Also references from Nobel prize-winning economists. Fortunately, it’s all fakeable. But here comes the unfakeable part. You must go into that interview not just with a tie from Ede & Ravenscroft and shoes from Lobb. You must go in believing that it is the duty of high finance to avoid tax, rewrite the law of sovereign states, enrich dictators, boost inequality and – in return – voluntarily clean up litter in Haringey on the annual away day. Above all, you must subscribe to the efficient-markets hypothesis so unequivocally that it becomes your religion. This says it’s the job of the financial market to allocate capital efficiently. Centuries of good practice show that capital can only be allocated efficiently when the participants in the deal played rugby with each other at the age of 12.',
 "God's Not Dead 2 review – only brief instances of transcendent badness When conversation turns to the entertainment value of the recent “faith-basedâ€\x9d films aimed at the US evangelical market, inevitably someone will say: “Nothing tops that Kevin Sorbo one.â€\x9d The picture in question is God’s Not Dead, an outrageously slapdash, inarticulate movie filled with ludicrous plotting, inelegant staging and one of cinema’s most absurd endings. (The big bad atheist gets hit by a car, just as the Christian rock band Newsboys tells everyone in the audience to text their friends that God isn’t dead.) Shot for only $2m, it grossed more than $60m, enabling its production company, Pure Flix, to release follow-ups such as Do You Believe? and Faith of Our Fathers. But franchises are the thing right now, so it’s not surprising that Pure Flix’s most bankable title would rise again. God’s Not Dead 2 is a much better movie than God’s Not Dead, but that’s a bit like saying a glass of milk left on the table hasn’t curdled and is merely sour. Though the main characters are different, a few of the side players have returned, and once again the big villain is academia – in this case a high school where Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan Hart), a very nice teacher and woman of faith, accidentally trips up and quotes scripture to her students. No reasonable person would ever accuse her of proselytising, but a conversation in her history class on the nonviolence of Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King also touches upon the teachings of Christ. Wesley specifically says “the author of the Gospels attributes Jesus as saying ...â€\x9d, but in the paranoid world of Harold Cronk’s film, it’s enough to open up the fires of damnation. Soon (ridiculously soon, if you know how the legal system works, but let’s not get into that) Grace Wesley is on trial. But what is really on trial here? It’s an obvious question, but in case you don’t ask it, you’ll be prompted by a reporter seated in the courtroom who whips out her notebook and writes “What’s really on trial here?â€\x9d in big letters. It’s that type of movie. She is not just any reporter – she is the liberal blogger from the first God’s Not Dead, Amy (Trisha LaFache), who had advanced cancer but, after meeting the Newsboys, accepted Jesus and is now cured. (No mention is given to the advances of medical science.) The other big connection to the first God’s Not Dead is that one of the jurors is the earlier film’s Pastor Dave (played by Pure Flix’s co-founder David AR White), whose scruffy blonde hair and worldly luck have just enough of that Jesus-is-just-alright-with-me vibe to make him extremely likable. Pastor Dave is calm, welcoming and warm, which is why it’s a bit surprising when God’s Not Dead 2 gets so belligerent in the face of perceived persecution. Dave and other local preachers are forced to turn in copies of their recent sermons to the authorities, “just like in Houstonâ€\x9d. This is a reference to a one-off, highly localised subpoena in a 2014 investigation into tax-exempt institutions violating civil rights, that was quickly rescinded. . That context isn’t discussed here. Instead, it’s like Roman times: there is a war over belief, and it is going to take sacrifice to win it. But much like the script of God’s Not Dead 2, we’re letting tangents distract us from the primary story: the trial. Ray Wise practically has a serpent’s tongue as the sleazy American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who wants to destroy this nice, blonde, cardigan-wearing teacher who lives with her ill father (Pat Boone!) and just wants to serve God. There are a number of witness-stand showdowns, such as with the daughter of the atheist parents leading the suit (who has since found Jesus – whoopsie!), and with the scholars who cite theories such as the “unintended eyewitness support systemâ€\x9d to “proveâ€\x9d that Jesus’s words were true. (Also, keep your ears open for plugs of Man Myth Messiah, the latest book by Rice Broocks, Pure Flix’s inhouse scribe.) For those looking to get riled up about how evil trends such as diversity are preventing people from believing in Jesus, there’s more than enough red meat in God’s Not Dead 2. For those looking to howl at wretched acting like in Kevin Sorbo’s death scene in the last one, alas, the sequel is a bit of a disappointment. It is unfortunately just professional enough that there are only brief instances of transcendent badness, rather than drawn-out sequences. Instead of a lengthy cameo from a member of the Duck Dynasty clan there is a brief talking-head moment from Mike Huckabee, and the most urgent speechifying here can’t hold a candle to anything in last summer’s surprise hit War Room in terms of church kitsch. The trial scenes go on forever, but despite the two-hour run time, it’s worth staying to the very end. Pure Flix has learned from Marvel, and a post-credits stinger tees up God’s Not Dead 3, whether we’ve prayed for it or not.",
 'Garry Marshall: a genuine mensch who made everything improbably joyous Even if Garry Marshall had put down his pen and stopped working entirely at the end of the 1970s, his career would still be hailed today with the cliche of legendary and his death would still feel as if it marked the similarly cliched end of an era. After working as a joke writer for comedians such as Joey Bishop and Jack Paar (whose names alone are as redolent of mid-20th-century America as an Edsel), he smoothly moved into TV production. In a near unrivalled run, he created The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, thereby helping to launch the careers of Ron Howard (who had been a child actor, but became an adult star after Happy Days), Henry Winkler, his sister, Penny Marshall, and, most of all, Robin Williams. It is almost impossible to imagine the world of 70s American television without Marshall. But Marshall, a cheerful workaholic, didn’t stop there. In the 80s and 90s, he branched out into movies, making two of the most beloved staples of girls’ nights in: Bette Midler’s schlocky celebration of female friendship, Beaches, and Pretty Woman, a film as bizarre for its sexual politics as it is irresistible. The 1987 film Overboard, in which a working-class handyman (Kurt Russell) tricks an amnesiac wealthy woman (Goldie Hawn) into being his wife, had an even more deranged storyline than Pretty Woman. Yet both exemplify Marshall’s lucrative skill at taking the most unlikely material and, with his light and jaunty touch, turning it into something improbably joyous. One of his earlier and best movies, 1984’s The Flamingo Kid, starring Matt Dillon and Héctor Elizondo, about a working-class boy who becomes enamoured of the wealthy lifestyles of the people whose towels he cleans at a posh beach club, took the grit of class angst and turned it into a pearl of a coming-of-age film. After establishing with Pretty Woman that the 90s would be the decade of big-budget romcoms, Marshall cannily followed his own trend. Runaway Bride was released in 1999, followed by The Princess Diaries in 2001, a movie that sensed the imminent Disney princess obsession. He was also a welcome presence as an actor, and it was always a thrill to hear his chewy Bronx accent on-screen, whether with a recurring role in the 90s TV show Murphy Brown, or a charming cameo, such as in Penny’s A League of Their Own in 1992. He maintained a wide-eyed eagerness to know what was hot with the kids up to the end, and recently appeared in cult TV shows Brooklyn Nine-Nine and BoJack Horseman. Marshall’s holiday-themed movies, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and Mother’s Day, have been mocked by everyone from film critics to Tina Fey. But the public liked them, and that’s all he ever cared about. The last of these came out this summer, starring Julia Roberts – his original Pretty Woman – because, even at the age of 81, Marshall just wanted to make people laugh. His memoirs, Wake Me When It’s Funny and My Happy Days in Hollywood, about his professional life and his 53-year marriage to Barbara and their three children, proved that Marshall was, as those who watched his work had long suspected, that rare thing: a Hollywood legend who was also a genuine mensch.',
 'Brains and bone saws: a day with the chief medical examiner of New York City The smell in the autopsy room is indescribable. It lingers on your clothes and in your hair long after you leave. Staff are constantly cleaning the linoleum floors and wiping down every surface with harsh disinfectants. But if anything, it adds to the uniquely acrid odor. You never get used to the smell, says Jennifer Hammers, deputy chief medical examiner for Kings County, New York – but you do get beyond it. I’ve been allowed a privileged glimpse at a regular Wednesday in the Brooklyn office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. The office is one of the busiest of its kind in the country. Around 70,000 people die in New York City each year, and about 8,000-9,000 of them end up at the medical examiner, requiring further investigation. Of those, 5,000 are autopsied. Only the lonely In the basement, the staff are hard at work in the autopsy suite, carefully examining the bodies and photographing relevant organs for their reports. Most cases brought to the medical examiner are not crime related. In a city of over 8 million people, with many immigrants and transplants from other parts of the country, there is no shortage of the lonely. Of the seven bodies brought in today, three have died alone in their apartments. In the summer, without air conditioning, it can take as little as two days before the smell of a body causes neighbors to make a call. One gentleman found alone in his home is now lying before me on a steel gurney. James Daniels, a lead forensic mortuary technician, is carefully removing the scalp before cutting the skull with a bone saw so the brain can be examined for any signs of aneurysm, stroke or other potential causes of death. Over 60 forensic mortuary technicians like Daniels work in New York City. While the 31 medical examiners in New York City are all highly trained physicians who completed special fellowships, technicians don’t have any educational requirements. Typically, technicians join when they are young and only have a high school education. They learn the intricacies of their job on site. Without them, the office would cease to function. They are the ones dispatched to collect the bodies for autopsy. They are often the first people from the office a family encounters when grieving. Being the doctor’s doctor In addition to the medical examiners, there are x-ray technicians who scan for bullets and broken bones; DNA and toxicology laboratory staff; consulting dentists for matching dental records for identification; anthropologists who specialize in discovering the race, age and height of skeletal remains and figuring out what tools caused blunt force traumas; mortuary technicians who assist with autopsies; a variety of administrators; death scene investigators; and professional photographers who take careful photos of every autopsy for detailed record keeping. One of the photographers on staff also takes professional photos of food, Hammers tells me with a smile. While the doctors examine the body and determine the cause of death, the technicians do a lot of careful and very skilled cutting to assist them. They also clean the bodies after the autopsy is completed, making sure that it is in a pristine state when handed over to a funeral director. For Daniels, who started with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as a young man in 1989, it was an unexpected career choice, as he hated the idea of being around dead bodies and avoided funerals entirely. Most of the medical examiners, on the other hand, said they always loved the idea of solving a mystery, of being “the doctor’s doctorâ€\x9d. They wanted to be the ones to determine the real cause of a death or diagnose a pathology. Daniels had a more pragmatic reason for joining the office: he needed a job, and working for the city meant stable employment. When he first started, he dreaded touching bodies and entering strangers’ homes. It was fear of the unknown, he explains. But these days, working as a lead technician, there is little left unknown when it comes to the dead. Daniels was on the job during 9/11. He also responded to Flight 587, which crashed in Queens in November 2001, killing everyone on board. That time created his worst memories of the job. But it also gave him the greatest sense of the work’s importance: none of those families would otherwise have had closure. He now “loves the jobâ€\x9d, he says. The case that hits home No matter how long they have been working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and how many bodies they have seen, everyone has a case that hits home. For Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner for New York City, it was a 9/11 case. The terror attack on 9/11, which Sampson refers to as the biggest homicide in US history, was a difficult time for all of the staff at the office. They worked round the clock to identify bodies, and the images they saw still haunt most of them fifteen years later. Identification often had to be done from DNA analysis of fragments of remains and is still ongoing as new DNA techniques are discovered. One particular case sticks out for Sampson: a Belgian man who died during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. His parents were elderly, and while they knew that he had died, without official scientific confirmation, they could not get closure. His remains had not been identified. They were afraid they would pass away never having his death confirmed. Two years ago, Sampson’s office was able to identify the Belgian man’s remains through DNA analysis. “I had the honor of telling them we had found their son. That was one of the most incredible experiences of my life,â€\x9d she says. Thirteen years after 9/11, the parents could finally put their son to rest. For Aglae Charlot, an elegant senior medical examiner with a pronounced French accent who has worked at the office since 1987, it was a teenage girl who came in a few years back. The girl died in the hospital of an unusual illness, from which her mother also suffered. The illness can be idiopathic or caused by Aids. The hospital had assumed it was idiopathic since the mother had the same illness. When Charlot investigated, she found the teenager did actually have Aids, which she must have been suffering from for five or six years. Upon further investigation, she discovered the mother’s boyfriend had died of Aids. Infecting a child and causing her death is murder, she explains to me, her jaw tensing. Charlot knew she could probably trace the particular strain of Aids back to the boyfriend, but what would it change? He was dead, so could not be charged, and it would only cause more pain for the living. She put Aids as the cause of death on the certificate, and left it at that. Seeing the lighter side “We all have an odd sense of humor,â€\x9d says Christopher Borck, a bearded young medical examiner sitting in front of a file cabinet covered by photos of his wife and two young children. “We are often smiling, and I think you have to when you are surrounded by this every day.â€\x9d In Hammers’s office, her crooked playfulness is on display in a framed, fake blood-spattered sign above her desk that reads: “Braainns.â€\x9d Humor can provide a release in an environment that is fraught with stress. “One of the things a lot of people don’t realize is that we deal with the living just as much as we deal with the dead,â€\x9d says Borck. “We provide answers to families.â€\x9d Much of the week is spent performing autopsies, and the rest of it filling out paperwork, testifying in court and speaking with the families of the dead. At a time when primary care physicians rarely have more than two minutes to speak with a living patient, it’s strange somehow that the medical examiners can spend hours explaining their findings to the families, comforting them and helping them deal with their grief. “Every family really wants to know what happened to their loved one and have their questions answered in order to have closure,â€\x9d says Hammers. “Even if it is a hard answer like in the case of a suicide, it wouldn’t be what they prefer to hear but it allows them to have an answer and then work their grief around that and move through it.â€\x9d As Borck puts it, when it comes to the deceased: “We are their last physicians.â€\x9d',
 'Malcolm Turnbull welcomes Trump plans for military buildup in Asia-Pacific Malcolm Turnbull has publicly endorsed the proposed US military buildup in the Asia-Pacific region which has been flagged by the incoming Trump administration, while launching a swingeing political attack on the federal opposition, alleging Labor is hopelessly split on the alliance. Asked on Wednesday whether he was at all concerned about talk in the US about the deployment of a giant US military force to counter China in the region, the Australian prime minister was unequivocal. He told reporters “a stronger United States means a safer worldâ€\x9d. The reported last week two senior Trump advisers had flagged the incoming administration’s desire to expand the US navy from 274 ships to 350 and to deploy more extensively in the region to counter China’s growing assertiveness. This talk has only gathered pace post-election, with public commentary over the past 24 hours from Rudy Giuliani, who is considered the frontrunner to be the new US secretary of state, about the proposed buildup. Giuliani reportedly told a business conference China would not be able to match the US in the Pacific if the navy increased to 350 vessels. “If you face them with a military that is modern, gigantic, overwhelming and unbelievably good at conventional and asymmetric warfare, [China] may challenge it, but I doubt it,â€\x9d Giuliani is reported to have said. Donald Trump also flagged his intentions during a 15-minute conversation with Turnbull immediately after his election. A more assertive US military posture in the region will likely inflame underlying tensions between Washington and Beijing, which have flared in the flashpoint of the South China Sea. On Wednesday Turnbull appeared sanguine about the development, telling reporters in Canberra Trump had “campaigned on a promise to increase investment in the US military and we support and welcome a strong United Statesâ€\x9d. “A stronger United States means a safer world,â€\x9d he said. Turnbull also doubled down on domestic politics, declaring Labor was split on the US alliance after the shadow foreign minister, Penny Wong, said on Tuesday that Australia was at a “change pointâ€\x9d in the bilateral relationship after the election of Trump. The prime minister declared that Wong wanted to cut ties with Washington, and “to move away from our most trusted, most enduring ally, move away, put our country at riskâ€\x9d. In a column published Tuesday, Wong did not argue that Australia should abandon the postwar alliance, but she said post-Trump: “We are at a change point, and face the possibility of a very different world and a very different America.â€\x9d “Our collective task now is to carefully and dispassionately consider Australia’s foreign policy and global interests over coming months, and how best to effect these within the alliance framework.â€\x9d Wong also argued Australia needed a better roadmap in Asia. Turnbull told reporters the Labor left had always been uncomfortable with the US alliance, and he contended commentary from Labor about the alliance was a distraction from internal divisions on national security and border protection. He pointed to separate commentary from the shadow defence minister, Richard Marles, who argued during a Sky News interview that it was important to have increased US presence in the region. Turnbull suggested the right faction, of which Marles is a member, was attempting to “crab walkâ€\x9d away from the Wong position. In Mackay the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, who has been critical of Trump’s policy positions, said he was optimistic about the future of the alliance. “We have shared values with the United States but we’re not exactly the same as the United States, so when people talk about the future of the American alliance, I’m optimistic about it, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t also be engaging in Asia,â€\x9d Shorten said. “Labor’s always had three pillars to our foreign policy and nothing’s changed: One is the American alliance, two is deeper engagement in our region, and three is respect for multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and international forums which deal with a whole range of important issues which effect the globe.â€\x9d As well as giving succour to Trump’s plans for the military buildup, the prime minister also on Wednesday gave a tacit endorsement to a criticism Trump made repeatedly during the presidential campaign about allies failing to contribute to the costs of their own defence. During the campaign, Trump suggested that key players in the Asia-Pacific region, like Japan and South Korea, needed to fund their own defence. On Wednesday Turnbull said: “I think the United States is entitled to expect its allies to make a commitment, a significant commitment, to their own defence and to that partnership, and Australia does.â€\x9d “No one can suggest that my government is not absolutely committed to ensuring that the men and women of the ADF have the capabilities, have the resources, to keep our nation safe.â€\x9d Earlier in the day the defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, noted that Australia pulled its weight in the alliance in terms of military spending. “Fortunately we are not strategic bludgers because we are at 2% of gross domestic product,â€\x9d Pyne said at a submarine event. “Given the spend of the Turnbull government into the next 10 years, I would imagine that will be surpassed at some stage in the future. So we are one of the countries that is pulling our weight.â€\x9d',
 '-backed John’s Campaign wins support from NHS A significant milestone has been reached by John’s Campaign, the rapidly growing project to break down institutionalised barriers in the NHS and allow carers of people with dementia who are admitted to hospital to be able to stay with them or visit them at any time. The campaign has been officially endorsed by NHS England in its newly published Commissioning for Quality and Innovation payment framework. It means a humanising change to the way hospitals respond to admissions of people with dementia – who currently occupy one in four hospital beds. From April, financial rewards will be available to healthcare providers who apply the principles espoused by John’s Campaign, which began after a powerful response by readers to an article written in 2014 by the novelist Nicci Gerrard. The piece followed the death of her father, Dr John Gerrard, who had been living well with Alzheimer’s until his admission to hospital for an unrelated condition earlier in the year. During his five-week stay, visits from his family had been severely restricted by hospital policy and his decline was catastrophic and irreversible. The public response to the feature made Gerrard and co-founder Julia Jones aware of the scale of the problem and they began John’s Campaign on 30 November 2014. There are more than 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia and as a group their experience of stays in hospital is significantly worse than other people of the same age. Julia Jones’s 92-year-old mother, June, lives with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, and the idea of an unsupported hospital admission for her is, said Julia, as unthinkable as it would be to expect a young child to cope alone in hospital. The campaign has had an enthusiastic response from its earliest days and to date 250 hospitals across the UK have pledged to welcome carers of people with dementia whenever the patient needs them. The campaigners are pushing to have this policy embedded nationwide. The action by NHS England has significantly moved the campaign forward by making the adoption of John’s Campaign one of the official choices available to clinical commissioning groups across the country from April. Alistair Burns, the national clinical director for dementia and mental health in older people with NHS England, said: “We would encourage hospital trusts, as part of the care they provide to individuals with dementia and their families, to consider facilitating an approach whereby the families and carers of people with dementia can support them fully while they are in hospital.â€\x9d Jane Cummings, chief nursing officer for England, was an early backer of John’s Campaign, calling it “practical, achievable and representing positive practice in terms of delivering truly person-centred care for people with dementiaâ€\x9d. “We agree that there should be open visiting rules for the carers of people with dementia,â€\x9d she said, “And the evidence has shown that this is good for patients, good for carers and good for NHS staff.â€\x9d',
 'Mighty mouse: how Disney has dominated the 2016 box office So far this year, Disney’s releases have racked up nearly $2bn in domestic grosses, twice those of its closest competitor, 20th Century Fox, according to data from BoxOffice Mojo. (Those figures include ticket sales from films that opened in 2015 but were still playing in theaters into this year.) Underscoring its dominance, Disney boasts four out of the five top-grossing films to date this year, in Finding Dory ($426m), Captain America: Civil War ($406m), The Jungle Book ($360m) and Zootopia ($341m). That’s just in the US; worldwide, those four films together have taken in more than $3.75bn. Disney’s hot streak could be chalked up to the random nature of the movie business, in which studios’ fortunes tend to rise and fall from year to year. Consider that last year Universal dominated the scene mainly on the strength of a surprise mega-movie – Jurassic World, which grossed $1.7bn globally. Without a Jurassic sequel due until 2018, Universal is now languishing behind Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros, with $603m in domestic ticket sales. That accounts for about 10% market share this year compared with almost a third for Disney. But with The Secret Life of Pets grossing more than $100m in its opening weekend, Universal looks to be back in the game. There’s more to Disney’s surge this year, however, than just a fortuitous run. Its impressive box office performance is the culmination of its three big film acquisitions over the last decade: Pixar, Marvel and, most recently, Lucasfilm. With the successful reboot of the Star Wars franchise last December, Disney now has all three of its key theatrical properties – animated features, Marvel and Star Wars – going full throttle at the same time. Call it the company’s version of Murderers’ Row. “[Disney’s] acquisitions in the last couple of years have really panned out for them –Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar – and that’s why we’re seeing such strong numbers,â€\x9d said Daniel LorÃ\xada, editorial director for Boxoffice Media. “Any studio in town would be happy to have just one of them.â€\x9d The studio-owning conglomerates competing with Disney aren’t just in awe. Comcast’s NBCUniversal division in April acquired DreamWorks Animation, best known for movies like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, for $3.8bn. “Competitors recognize that content is crucial in order to operate,â€\x9d noted Michael Mazzeo, an associate professor of strategy at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management who has studied Disney. “But other companies have to be careful of not just getting the leftovers.â€\x9d Blue-chip franchises don’t come cheap. Disney bought Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm for a combined total of about $15.5bn. “They paid really high price tags for those studios,â€\x9d said Mazzeo, noting it will still be years before Disney fully recoups its investment. That payoff comes not just in the form of box office receipts, of course, but through the full range of Disney’s business operations – DVD sales, merchandising, theme parks, resorts and the like, stemming from its movies, characters and other content. “Similar to the animated franchises, Disney arranged the Marvel Universe to create a series of interconnected films and product tie-ins. With the acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney appears to be positioning the Star Wars franchise in the same manner,â€\x9d wrote Morningstar equity analyst Neil Macker, in a May research note. That isn’t to say every Disney movie is a revenue gusher. Alice Through the Looking Glass, the follow-up to the 2010 hit Alice in Wonderland, flopped, taking in just over $76m to date against a production budget of $170m. The Steven Spielberg-directed BFG, which opened this month, has also disappointed. Last year’s The Good Dinosaur was a rare dud for Pixar. But the overall depth of Disney’s lineup more than makes up for the misfires. “Once you have that portfolio, as with finances, you have that balance, so that when one is up and the other is down, that reduces the variance you get,â€\x9d said Mazzeo. Within animated features, for example, the rejuvenation of Walt Disney Animated Studios in recent years that’s led to huge hits such as Frozen and Zootopia can help offset the occasional Good Dinosaur. But given Disney’s increasing reliance on franchise properties, one potential pitfall is that of sequel fatigue. Will audiences simply grow numb to yet another Marvel superheroes-save-the-world extravaganza? LorÃ\xada argues that as long as quality remains consistent across sequels, people will continue to show up. “If a film is able to connect with an audience, whether it’s a sequel or not, the audience will turn out,â€\x9d he said. Keep in mind, the next Star Wars film, Rogue One, isn’t strictly a sequel but the first standalone entry in the series. Whether audiences find it an intriguing variation on a theme or a B-version of the real thing won’t be known until its scheduled opening in November. But if the response is anything like that to The Force Awakens, it could cap a blowout box office year for Disney.',
 'This is not Labour MPs vs Corbyn. They’re at war with party members A swirling red mist has descended over the eyes of many Labour MPs. It is a mist that makes them blind to how their activities look to the world outside the Westminster village. If they don’t like Jeremy Corbyn (and despite their protestations to the contrary they give every appearance of not doing so) then they always had the option of a leadership challenge under the rule book. It could have been conducted in an orderly, perhaps low-key fashion, at least until parliament went into recess in just three weeks’ time. The aim would have been to try to concentrate on bringing the country together in a time of great peril after the Brexit vote. And it would have been important in these early days for the entire parliamentary party to focus on holding the Tories to account. Instead Labour MPs chose to stage a blood-stained three-ring circus. Instead of putting their energies into fighting the Tories, colleagues have been concentrating on orchestrating waves of MPs – whom no one has ever heard of – into resigning from jobs that nobody knew they had. Colleagues could have been providing leadership against the resurgent racism that so many of their constituents are terrified by. Instead Labour MPs have spent time in huddles with their fellow inhabitants of the Westminster bubble, lobby correspondents. These journalists, supposed political experts, did not see the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon coming last summer and have never supported him. Accordingly they are now using their columns to tell him to walk away. Colleagues have contrived a “vote of no confidenceâ€\x9d that has absolutely no basis in the rule book. There was no notice. It was tabled on Monday and the vote held the following day. No institution would run an important ballot in this way. And it was a secret ballot. All this was necessary because some Labour MPs expressly did not want any time to consult with ordinary party members. On the contrary they were terrified that their members might actually find out how they voted. Hence the haste and the secrecy. But the climax of all this was Monday’s parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting. MP after MP got up to attack Jeremy Corbyn in the most contemptuous terms possible, pausing only to text their abuse to journalists waiting outside. A non-Corbynista MP told me afterwards that he had never seen anything so horrible and he had felt himself reduced to tears. Nobody talked about Jeremy Corbyn’s politics. There was only one intention: to break him as a man. This attempt to hound Jeremy Corbyn out of the leadership has been planned for months and was entirely outside the rules. Blaming him for the Brexit vote was just a pretext. The truth is that Jeremy travelled thousands of miles mobilising Labour voters. Nearly two-thirds of Labour voted to remain. If David Cameron had been able to persuade a similar proportion of his Tories to vote for remain, we would still be in the EU. But colleagues went for lynch mob tactics because they didn’t actually want a leadership election with Jeremy on the ballot. Their fear is that he will win. Which brings us to the heart of the matter. This is not the PLP versus Jeremy Corbyn; this is the PLP versus the membership. It is the inhabitants of the Westminster bubble versus the ordinary men and women who make up the party in the country. Now, finally, after a hugely destructive attempt to drive Jeremy out of office, his enemies are poised to do what they have struggled to avoid. A formal leadership challenge is imminent. Hopefully the wider Labour party will now begin to leave behind the hysteria that has engulfed the PLP these past few days. Once again party members will be asked what sort of party they want to be and what sort of leadership they want. It can be imagined that they will not look kindly on those who have unleashed the utterly self-serving havoc of the past few days.',
 'Hugh Grant awarded British Film Institute fellowship The “comic timing, ironic self-deprecating and very British charmâ€\x9d of Hugh Grant has been celebrated by the British Film Institute which on Tuesday evening bestowed on him its highest honour. Grant was given a BFI fellowship, following in the footsteps of British actors who include Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, John Hurt, Elizabeth Taylor and Sir Michael Caine. The BFI said Grant, with films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, had “redefined the British leading man for a generationâ€\x9d. Its chairman, Greg Dyke, said: “With impeccable comic timing and huge doses of his unique, ironic self-deprecating and very British charm, Hugh always pulls off the hardest thing of all – a seemingly effortless performance. I can assure you it’s not. “Hugh’s acting talents are prodigious and his contribution to cinema enormous. He is a British icon and has been making literally billions of people all over the world laugh, cry – and fall in love with him of course – for over 30 years.â€\x9d Grant often plays down his talents as an actor and his response to the award was modest: “This is such a lovely surprise,â€\x9d he said. “And a great honour and I’m very grateful to the BFI for thinking of me.â€\x9d The fellowship was presented at a dinner in London by the film producer and co-chairman of Working Title, Eric Fellner. He said: “Hugh is one of those extraordinary British actors whose effortless performance and onscreen charm has endeared him to generations of audiences worldwide. “His success has helped British film as a whole carve out a place in the world with a distinct quality that easily rivals the best to come out of Hollywood and other countries. For that contribution alone he deserves this remarkable honour from the BFI.â€\x9d Grant’s first major film role was, for some, one of his finest, as the handsome upper-class Englishman repressing his homosexuality in Maurice. That won him a best actor award at the Venice film festival, shared with James Wilby, who played the title role. He went on to star in Ken Russell’s Lair of the White Worm, Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon and then, in 1994, his breakthrough role in Mike Newell’s Four Weddings and a Funeral. There have been some duds – Did You Hear About the Morgans? – but there has also been the two Bridget Jones movies and About a Boy. He will next be seen alongside Meryl Streep in Stephen Frears’ film about a deluded opera singer, Florence Foster Jenkins. More recently Grant has been vocal in his anger over phone hacking, appearing as a witness at the Leveson inquiry.',
 'Risen review – soft-centred Easter tale In 2004, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ became an astonishing Easter hit, depicting in horrifyingly graphic fashion the torture and crucifixion of Jesus. This “faith-basedâ€\x9d offering from Waterworld director Kevin Reynolds picks up where Gibson’s film left off (albeit in less brutal fashion), with Joseph Fiennes’s Roman tribune Clavius investigating reports that the man whose death he witnessed has risen from the grave. It’s solidly middling fare, soft of heart and script, and given to moments of foolishly miraculous folly. Peter Firth plays Pilate as a harassed fusspot, while Cliff Curtis (so brilliant in 2014’s The Dark Horse) is beamingly benign as the resurrected “Yeshuaâ€\x9d.',
 "'This is not America': a Chilean artist's newly electric message to Trump “This Is Not Americaâ€\x9d declare the yellow neon letters transposed on to a glowing outline map of the United States. “This Is Not America’s Flagâ€\x9d reads a following pixellated sentence, as the image changes to the stars and stripes. The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar’s billboard, named A Logo for America, was first shown in New York’s Times Square in 1987, and was remounted there in 2014. This summer, it will flash above London’s Piccadilly Circus, courtesy of the South London Gallery, as part of its exhibition of contemporary Latin American art called Under the Same Sun. Jaar’s artwork was doubtless pertinent in 1987, but now this neon message is truly electric. When Jaar created the original billboard, the relationship between the US and Latin America was a bubbling political and cultural issue. Today, that issue has reached a boiling point – becoming a hot excuse for hatred and bigotry, fear and loathing – as extreme nationalism and xenophobia are injected into the nation’s bloodstream by Donald Trump. For Trump, this IS America – and he wants to build a wall to keep it that way. Jaar’s work turns Trump’s rhetoric upside down. Who is Trump kidding? This really isn’t America. It stopped being so some time ago, and a wall won’t reverse history. What happens when his inhumane doctrines fail? Does a state that starts down a foul racist road reverse into liberalism when things don’t work out as promised – or does it accelerate towards fascism? A Logo for America turns René Magritte’s philosophical painting This Is Not a Pipe into a political provocation. The United States is not America, because America is a continent, not a single nation. That continent contains many Americas and many kinds of Americans. Rio de Janeiro is as American as apple pie. But Jaar’s statement is true in another way. As a Chilean artist based in New York, he is part of a new melting pot of the Americas, the wondrous and inevitable convergence of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America with Anglophone US, which cannot be reversed within any decent parameters of democratic government. More than 17% of the US population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. Spanish is the country’s second most-spoken language. This creates rich and complex cultural connections between the country that calls itself America and the American continent it is part of. It is not outrageous for Jaar to point out the fiction that America means just the US. What is shocking is Trump’s declaration of war on the rest of the continent. Liberals – and sane conservatives, for that matter – are still reeling from the monstrosity of Trump’s plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico. The truly frightening detail of his published plans is his policy of “compelling Mexico to pay for the wallâ€\x9d, a highly aggressive idea to blackmail Mexico into funding the venture. This does not resemble a reasonable democratic process; it is a series of ultimatums and deadlines. No one who has studied any history can fail to recognise the similarity to the kinds of ultimatums Germany issued in the 1930s. The United States is a big, generous country with lots to be proud of, and hospitality is its greatest virtue of all. Can the “Americaâ€\x9d that has engraved under its Statue of Liberty “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe freeâ€\x9d really elect Trump as president? That is not America.",
 'Deadpool review – crude superhero laughs “A fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break? That’s like… 16 walls.â€\x9d This relentlessly self-referential antihero romp comes on like a slightly smug corporate riposte to Matthew Vaughn’s altogether more anarchic Kick-Ass, flipping the bird at its own heritage (the opening titles tell us that it’s produced by “Ass-hatsâ€\x9d and directed by “an overpaid toolâ€\x9d) and cracking wise about how confusing these comic-strip timelines have become, and the cheapskate nature of the ever-expanding X-Men universe. Ryan Reynolds is the potty-mouthed avenger whose life is ruined when enforced mutation robs him of his Hugo Boss chops, leaving him looking “like Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utahâ€\x9d. Limb-lopping sweary ultra-violence ensues, offering a fairly consistent stream of dirty cheap laughs as Deadpool gets rear-ended by bullets and butt-plugs alike, while those around him lose their hearts and heads – but mostly their heads. Inevitably the final act descends into the usual punchy/smashy orgy of collapsing buildings that is a dreary franchise requirement. But for the most part it’s crudely disreputable fare, buoyed up by ironic bubblegum tunes (a Guantanamo-style torture montage to the strains of Mr Sandman is a nice touch) and driven by Viz-style “shit biscuitâ€\x9d profanity.',
 'The view on the economics of Brexit: a fact-based fear Every referendum is in the end a contest between the status quo and a change. It would hardly be worth having such a vote if it were not. Britain’s European Union referendum is certainly such a contest. In this case it’s a choice between the status quo, sticking with the EU, or a change, leaving it. The Scottish referendum two years ago was the same: the status quo of the union or a change in the shape of independence. It follows from this that any referendum is inherently a contest between the risks or rewards of change. That’s why it makes no sense to dismiss a defence of the status quo – remaining in the EU in the current case – as simply a Project Fear. This is an effective insult to throw at defenders of the status quo – as happened in Scotland – but ultimately an insult is all that it is. Defenders of the status quo are bound to emphasise the risk of change as part of their case. Sometimes it shows good judgment to warn. Sometimes it is wise, sensible and responsible to remind people to be fearful. Sometimes those who scream about Project Fear at every turn prove only that they are in denial about reality. Two months before polling day, and with public opinion too evenly divided for comfort, Britain’s EU referendum has now reached such a point. It is time to get serious about defending Britain’s place in Europe. There are many positive reasons – prominent among them strength in numbers, shared values, mutual protection and avoidance of war – why Britain should remain in the EU. They are a fundamental part of the case for remaining. They could and should help make an essential and inspiring case. But there are also a lot of real dangers to leaving, and these dangers need to be voiced loudly, repeatedly and without apology too. The Treasury is entirely right to make those dangers as clear as it can. It would be failing in its task if it did anything else. On Monday it published a very substantial assessment of the long-term economic impact of the different courses on which Britain will vote on 23 June. The bottom line is simply that Britain will be very significantly worse off as a country if it leaves the EU. The Treasury assessment concludes that economic slowdown following a Brexit and a new trading relationship with Europe would amount to the loss of £36bn in tax receipts. To recoup that would require an 8p rise on the basic rate of income tax or a 7p rise in VAT. Some of the figures in the Treasury document, those that relate to the state of the economy in 15 or 20 years, will prove to be wrong. But the general picture allows no get-out. Britain will be worse off leaving Europe. Short-term dislocation and long-term damage would be inevitable consequences. And those at the bottom of the economic ladder would suffer them most. It won’t do to dismiss the assessment as deeply flawed, as the leave campaign did on Monday, let alone to call such warnings “baloneyâ€\x9d as London’s mayor did in March. Responses of this sort are not serious. But they are the ones the leave campaign always prefers. The leavers seem incapable of saying in practical terms what their vision for Brexit Britain would look like or how it would add up in figures that can be tested. The Treasury’s assessment is in line with other assessments made here or abroad. It is not scaremongering. It is a reality check. British voters have every reason to be fearful of what the leave campaign would inflict on them.',
 'Games based on pop stars, yesterday afternoon, a bin, root canals – we review anything The contents of a bin Listen, I’ve sunk pretty low for Review Anything on occasion. For reasons I still do not fully grasp, I once reviewed a woollen ball. I reviewed pegs. Sodding clothes pegs. And yet... this. This is the lowest I’ve sunk on behalf of this feature. Rifling through bins. Here is an image of the contents I uncovered: Here is my review of those contents: The wrapper: I don’t know what this wrapper is for because finding out would mean touching it. It looks crisp, clear and presumably wrapped whatever it was wrapping ably. The tissue: I do know what these tissues are for because I put them in there roughly half an hour before this photograph was taken. The tissues were soft – Sainsbury’s Super Soft Aloe Vera, if memory serves – and smelled very fine indeed. A second wrapper (to left of image): Bananas. This definitely contained bananas. Technically, bananas already come bunched and encased within natural wrappers, so this artificial wrapper seems slightly unnecessary. I would like to add a final note: the bin I reviewed had been emptied fairly recently. Yet more proof that the ’s superlative facilities department is second to none, but not exactly conducive to a thrilling review. The bin’s contents: 4/10 The ’s facilities department: 10/10 LH Computer games based on pop stars The final clause of this suggestion is music to any time-pressed anything-reviewer’s ears, and I’m no exception. Conducting a comprehensive survey of “computer games based on pop starsâ€\x9d would be an actual journalistic enterprise that could potentially involve time and/or effort, so thank God I only had to look at about six pictures before extrapolating some intrinsically worthless judgment. (There was a YouTube video of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood game, but the amount of information contained therein was clearly not just superfluous, but actively contrary to Whitlock & Pope’s requirements. So that’s 22 minutes of my life I still have today.) You might think the more information you have, the easier it is to review anything: not so. In fact, information often complicates the reductive summaries every reviewer longs to write. So what observations can I make about computer games based on pop stars using the limited materials I have at my disposal? Well, the pixels are relatively large. Sometimes they are brightly coloured, sometimes they aren’t. Granted, attributing any sort of value to these observations is not that easy, but that’s why we employ a numerical system! 4/10 RA A chunk of yesterday afternoon 16.24 and all is well 16.25 I think I get a fav on a tweet about how much I hate cars. But then it disappears. 16.25 Someone’s phone goes. It has the Opening (default) ringtone. Every time I hear that ringtone now I always think of the Kanye West song 30 Hours. In that song Kanye is interrupted by the Opening (default) ringtone and he says, “It’s Gabe calling.â€\x9d When I hear the Opening (default) ringtone I often say “It’s Gabe callingâ€\x9d under my breath. 16.30 The BBC sport website posts “Lawro’s predictionsâ€\x9d. This week he has gone head to head with Idris “Heimdall from the Thor moviesâ€\x9d Elba to guess the results of this weekend’s Premier League football. Elba backs my team to lose at home against Sunderland on Saturday. I make a mental black mark against his name. 16.41 I start thinking about Corbyn: The Musical, which sounds like a load of self-satisfied rubbish and was written by a barrister with the face of a Victorian pie lover. It’s apparently full of cheap jokes at both the Labour leader’s expense and also, for some reason, prominent twitter feminists. I wonder what made the pie lover feel it was necessary to bring this to the world. 16.48 I google some quotes from The Big Lebowski. 16.53 I think a bit about giraffes and how sticky their tongues are. The sun comes out. 16.54 I think about how I am peckish, but yet not hungry. I wonder what this means. I decide that I have conditioned myself to be in a constant state of need, and that this is a consequence of living in a capitalist system. 16.59 I listen to Strive by A$AP Ferg and Missy Elliott. I can’t decide whether I like it or not. 17.00 I go into a meeting about the redesign of the Guide. It goes OK, but does drag on a bit. Overall this period of time was reasonably stimulating. But the period between 21.24 and 22.17 was to prove more stimulating. 6/10 PM Some dentistry I’m not entirely sure what a root canal is. I know what a canal is and I drank root beer once (mini Review Anything of root beer: vile. -10/10), so perhaps a combination of the two? What I do know is that people who have undergone root canal treatment talk about it in tones more commonly associated with survivors of combat. “You weren’t there, man! You didn’t have to endure what I had to endure.â€\x9d I’ve always assumed these people were a bit, well, soft. I mean, come on, it’s a tooth. How unpleasant can it… Oh. OH! *runs to Luke’s bin to vomit* I’m so sorry for doubting you and your kind, Chris Adams. From the expletive in your tweet, I gather this was a particularly savage root canalisation, and I hope that you can at least find some inner peace in the future. 1/10 GM Got a suggestion for next week’s Review Anything? Leave them in the comments or tweet them to @guideguardian',
 'Five of the best… films out now in the UK 1: Green Room (18) (Jeremy Saulnier, 2015, US) 95 mins This skilled siege thriller descends into horror when Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and co get holed up backstage at a lawless venue in the middle of nowhere, with Patrick Stewart and his neo-Nazi attack dogs baying for their blood. Be warned: the body count gets high. 2: Everybody Wants Some!! (15) (Richard Linklater, 2016, US) 117 mins America’s official youth historian casts his mind back to college life circa 1980: a time when disco was giving way to punk and men were inclined to sport tiny shorts, cut-off sleeves and handlebar moustaches. The focus this time is the jocks for a change, a campus baseball team whose pre-term bonding rituals, skirt-chasing expeditions and incurable competitiveness make for some delightful character comedy. 3: Mustang (15) (Deniz Gamze Ergüven, 2015, Fra/Ger/Tur/Qat) 97 mins In contrast to idyllic American boyhood, Turkish girlhood is literally a form of house arrest here. Life changes overnight for five orphaned sisters: from carefree school days to a regimen of curfews, virginity inspections and arranged marriages. Seeing the fate of her elder siblings, youngest sister Lale treats the situation like a prison break, which brings a note of tension into an all-too-believable scenario. 4: Captain America: Civil War (12A) (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2016, US) 147 mins The Marvel stable lines up behind either Chris Evans’s Captain or Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man for a superhero faceoff that lives up to expectations, and manages to touch on the real world in a way Batman v Superman didn’t. The comic-book character-packed cast makes it feel like another Avengers sequel; Avengers Disassemble, perhaps. 5: Son Of Saul (15) (László Nemes, 2015, Hun) 107 mins A Holocaust drama like no other, limiting its focus to a Jewish concentration-camp prisoner assisting the Nazis in the grimmest of tasks, while pursuing his own tragically futile agenda. We follow this stricken worker throughout, glimpsing the broader atrocities in the margins – but that is enough to communicate the full horror.',
 'If the City has truly found humility, it can still be useful to Britain The City is in a panic. Executives at the big banks, insurers and consultancies are stressing over the implications of something they never expected to happen. There is a frayed anxiety underlying all their conversations, even though they talk about the trapdoor marked Brexit not opening for at least two years and possibly longer (some still believe it will never happen). Brexit gives Europe a chance to wrest away some of the financial functions provided by London. Worse, outside the EU, London could face extra competition from centres closer to the global centre of economic gravity, like Singapore and Hong Kong. At an event last week staged by the lobbying organisation TheCityUK, senior figures in the industry attempted to help their peers figure out what they might do next. Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, had a warning for his colleagues: refrain from lobbying for the industry’s sectional interests; be very discreet; and be seen to be batting for Britain, not the City. David Sproul, boss of the accountancy firm Deloitte’s, went further. He said the City had overplayed its hand during the recovery, leaving behind people in towns like Sunderland and Hartlepool. Deloitte has apprentices with A-levels from some of the poorest districts in the country, he said, but the firm’s welcoming hand stretches only as far as London boroughs like Newham. The north-east was, he confessed, off its radar. Flint made a further stab at appearing contrite. Voters, he said, had rejected what he termed the “expert classâ€\x9d, referring to the widely reported jibe made by Tory leadership candidate Michael Gove. And bankers should welcome the stringent regulations of the post-crash world, drop their objections and accept it as the price of stability and citizen consent. Does that mean he told his pub mates the price of remaining in the EU was keeping the 50p tax rate, embracing the Vickers review and living a less ostentatious life? Possibly. He certainly said City folk needed to pay themselves less and workers more to assuage the resentment that he failed to recognise, but which was obvious for all to see before the referendum vote. And that must be the question for the City and to a great extent the nation, which has come to depend heavily on the financial services industry for jobs, tax revenue and especially foreign income. How can it prosper, moderate its risky behaviour and keep people in Stoke-on-Trent from using their democratic vote to poison the well, killing the banks and themselves at the same time? Painful though it is to think of, for the time being the economy needs the financial services industry. Some of the figures that illustrate its importance to Britain are startling. Together with the professional services firms that feed off the banks and insurers, the industry employs more than 7% of the UK workforce, producing nearly 12% of total economic output, and contributing 11% of tax revenues. Most importantly, the industry generates a trade surplus of £72bn a year. This surplus goes to close the gap created by an enormous deficit in imported goods, and a steep decline in Britain’s investment income from abroad in the last few years. Bank of England governor Mark Carney constantly battles those who believe the banks will cost more to save than they will ever generate for the economy. He was at pains last week to reassure the nation that the current swings in financial markets and the tumbling value of the pound were within the limits of the regulators’ capabilities. His backstop of £250bn, which he stands ready to pump into the markets if suddenly everyone wants to sell and nobody wants to buy, would be enough, along with all the capital reserves available to banks, to protect us from another crash, he said. Everyone wants to believe he is right. However, it’s just a tactical issue when the real problem is a strategic one – a problem that relates to Flint’s thoughts on finding a way to a more profitable but safer banking system. It is, of course, a circle that cannot be squared in Flint’s myopic worldview. Banks need to take risks if they are to recapture even half the 25% return on equity they enjoyed before 2008. At the moment it is 9%. But that’s impossible when there are trillions of dollars of savings chasing only a handful of investment opportunities. Tougher regulation of banks has only pushed the risky behaviour into other areas of the financial system. The Bank for International Settlements – known as the central bank of central bankers – has warned that a “risky trinityâ€\x9d of threats hangs over the financial system, including the huge amount of debt taken on by asset managers, pension funds and others away from the banking system. Anastasia Nesvetailova, the director of the Political Economy Research Centre at City University, argues this debt mountain is so large that if it collapses, engulfing the financial system, it will cause a depression worse than the one experienced in 2008. George Osborne’s decision to relax his fiscal rules could allow for higher government borrowing and greater public investment. This is a policy that Flint and his City colleagues must embrace. Unfortunately, the logic of safer borrowing by governments, as we move to a more sustainable balance of debt to spending, is at odds with their neoliberal ideology.',
 'The web startups looking to cash in on 1 billion African consumers It is a cliched image. Passengers lined up at the check-in desk for various flights back to African capitals, trolleys overloaded and suitcases straining at the weight limit. It reflects a reality of tough customs and import regimes, complex markets and challenging distribution networks that often leave only the lucky few with the means to travel to Europe, the US, the Gulf or other destinations where they are able to buy – and take home – the consumer goods they need or want. But this is beginning to change. The continent’s potential customer base of more than 1 billion, combined with an emerging middle class, has attracted investors to African retail. While the vast majority of trade still occurs through informal transactions in corner shops, and to a lesser degree in shopping malls, there is a slow, steady shift from offline to online. For Jumia Group (until recently known as Africa Internet Group), the continent’s first unicorn – a private tech startup with a valuation of over $1bn – tapping into Africa’s e-commerce potential is central to its business model. “We sell genuine branded products to the growing middle classes in each of the markets that we serve,â€\x9d said Sam Chappatte, the managing director of Jumia Kenya. “We want to provide the online shopping experience and quality products to everyone with an internet connection and disposable income.â€\x9d The French insurer Axa paid €75m for a stake in the company in February; other investors include Goldman Sachs, South Africa’s MTN Group and Rocket Internet from Germany. Its offerings include classifieds, food delivery, travel and real estate websites – all of which have been renamed in the recent rebranding – but its online retail arm, Jumia, has been perhaps its most recognisable. With an interface familiar to users of Amazon, Jumia acts as a marketplace for electronics, clothing, household items and more. It launched in Nigeria in 2012 and was recently named as one of the world’s top 50 smartest companies by MIT. Jumia is present in 11 countries across the continent, supplying brands and products that consumers often cannot otherwise access locally, with the added benefit of convenience. “Ordering online saves people time and effort. There are always issues of traffic, or when you get there you find that the retailer is out of stock of the product you want. And there are still doubts around authenticity,â€\x9d said Chappatte. “We have a big focus on trust. We have teams that spend their days screening the products that come on to our site.â€\x9d Jumia makes thousands of deliveries a day in Nigeria alone, and in the first nine months of 2015 recorded a transaction volume of €206m, a 265% increase on the previous year. It is one of the largest e-commerce enterprises operating in Africa, all of which are seeking to tap into the continent’s growing consumer market. A McKinsey Global Institute report published in 2013 suggested that e-commerce could account for 10% of retail sales – or $75bn – in Africa’s largest economies by 2025. Elsewhere, major websites – such as Cheki in Kenya, Zimbabwe and beyond, and bidorbuy in South Africa – sell new and used cars, deliver groceries and prepared food, or offer eBay-style marketplaces. The bigger they grow, the more local entrepreneurs and small businesses can connect with a wide customer base. But e-commerce remains a challenging space. The absence of formal addresses in most African countries means that more time and effort is spent locating customers. A preference for cash on delivery payments in many countries – due to low credit card penetration and anxieties around fraud – leaves delivery drivers handling and carrying large sums of money. A limited pool of talent and funding also causes drag on the sector. Multiple barriers hinder the development of cross-border e-commerce – including poor infrastructure, underdeveloped logistics and difficulties with international bank transactions. “Jumia has been very successful at fundraising and it is a real success story, but it needs to move to a sustainable business model,â€\x9d said Manuel Koser, founding partner at Silvertree Capital, and who used to work with Jumia. “Is it successful in terms of return on capital? It’s so far so good with Jumia, but it’s not a finished success story.â€\x9d And, as Chappatte acknowledged, the obvious limitation to all e-commerce initiatives is “people having an internet connectionâ€\x9d. Jumia’s response to this has been to launch its J-Force service, which works to bring off-data consumers into the online ordering space by using agents. These agents act like mini ordering and delivery hubs, earning commission in the process. “We’re betting on a channel shift from offline to online,â€\x9d said Koser, whose firm typically invests in the online and mobile sector. Despite the obstacles, with Africa’s digital divide narrowing, many agree it is a smart bet.',
 'The online tool that helps the public decode health research Health concerns every one of us. We all have questions about the impact of factors such as lifestyle and diet on our wellbeing. Yet for all our collective curiosity, it is immensely difficult to sift through the mountain of claims and counter-claims we’re exposed to each day. We are bombarded with declarations about our health and wellbeing, and frequently these assertions are conflicting. Sorting the signal from the noise is no small task. Traditionally, part of the problem has been access to information. Scientific journals charge for access to research papers, and the cost can be prohibitive to anyone - including researchers - bar institutional libraries . This has improved rapidly over recent years, with many research councils and funding bodies pushing towards open-access publishing, encouraging researchers to ensure their findings are made freely accessible to the public. This is hugely beneficial, but access is only half the battle. The vital issue of appraising medical findings still remains rather daunting for most of us. The reality is that studies can be notoriously difficult to decode in isolation. The mere fact a study exists showing a particular result is not in itself evidence that result is robust or true. It is crucial to be aware that not all studies are created equal, and some are much higher quality than others. This is a particular concern in the medical field, where confounding factors frequently skew conclusions. For example, studies with only a small number of participants are often statistically underpowered, and results from these might give a misleading picture of reality . Even with an adequate sample size, it can be difficult to distinguish causal relationships from mere correlation, and lurking variables or poor study design can throw out an entire analysis. Apparently conflicting findings can also occur, rendering a study’s conclusions ambiguous to a general audience, and making it difficult to draw inference with any certainty. Addressing the difficulties in interpreting research results has therefore been a driving motivation for a project undertaken by the Medical Research Council/Chief Scientist Office Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow (MRC/CSO SPHSU) at University of Glasgow. The result is Understanding Health Research (UHR), a free service created with the intention of helping people better understand health research in context. Essentially, UHR it functions as an interactive field-guide to evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of any given health paper. In addition, it gives clear and understandable explanations of important considerations like sampling, bias, uncertainty and replicability. This has the potential to be invaluable for improving public understanding of science and ultimately to improving our collective well-being. After all, as Dr Shona Hilton, deputy director of MRC/CSO SPHSU says “without the tools to assess contradictory health messages and claims about new discoveries and treatments, the public are vulnerable to false hope, emotional distress, financial exploitation and serious health risks.â€\x9d This is all too true. As Shakespeare pointed out “the devil can cite Scripture for his purposeâ€\x9d, and this remains especially true in health science, where misguided or unscrupulous operators can hide behind a veneer of science disguising dubious ideas or therapies. It is hoped that tools such as UHR will help the general public differentiate between high and low quality evidence. A dark example of the need for UHR is the panic over the MMR vaccine, which was partly based on what turned out to be a weak study published in the Lancet. The ensuing panic lowered vaccination rates and fuelled a persistent on-going crusade against vaccines. Over a decade later we are still haunted by the spectre of frequent measles outbreaks worldwide, many of which trace their lineage back to this debacle. Of course, science is inherently complex and findings often shaded with nuance, so no one tool can ever be expected to serve as a surrogate for expertise. Rather, UHR serves as an excellent place to start an investigation, giving people the ability to roughly assess how much stock they might place in a health finding or media story. In this era of rapidly perpetuating misinformation, useful and considered tools like this are a welcome antidote to unabated hyperbole, and a crucial vanguard in the campaign for better understanding of science and health.',
 'Leaked child cancer care review points to closure of Royal Marsden unit A leaked review into children’s cancer care in London that has remained unpublished for 14 months indicates that the Royal Marsden unit in south-west London which provides such treatment should close. The report recommends that cancer care for children be consolidated at a single principal treatment centre, which according to NHS experts is most likely to be at Great Ormond Street hospital in north London. Dr Andy Mitchell, the medical director of NHS London, requested the report which was submitted in February 2015. But the review, chaired by Mike Stevens, the professor of paediatric oncology at Bristol University, has yet to appear. “It was completed over a year ago and not a lot has happened; he’s very cross. Technically it’s not available,â€\x9d said an NHS insider. The Stevens review does not come up with explicit recommendations for the location of a single principal treatment centre but health experts say the Royal Marsden is in the firing line. “Anyone who knows the subject knows the implications for the Royal Marsden,â€\x9d said an NHS expert speaking on conditionof anonymity, who noted that one of its problems was that children in its care had to be bussed between the Royal Marsden in Sutton and St George’s in Tooting, also in south-west London. Since 2006, London has two designated principal treatment centres for children’s cancer services. Both operate on two sites and between two trusts. The one in north London consists of the Great Ormond Street hospital for children and a second site at University College hospital, seeing an average of 230 new patients each year. The distance between St George’s and Royal Marsden is 7.8 miles, whereas Great Ormond and University College are 1.3 miles apart. The Stevens review says stem cell transplants from another person to children with malignant diseases in London should be only undertaken on one site. Prince William is president of the Royal Marsden – whose main hospital site is in Chelsea, central London – a position previously held by his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. He visited the hospital in September 2011 with his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, to open the Oak Centre of Children and Young People, where children are treated for cancer, their first public engagement in the UK after their marriage. It sees about 180 new patients a year. NHS London commissioned the review in August 2014 amid longstanding concerns over the fragmentation of the treatment of children’s cancer in the capital. Elsewhere, the trend has been treatment at one site. The report followed a previous review published in May 2011 by the national clinical advisory team, triggered by the death of a child in 2009 who initially received treatment at the Royal Marsden but critical care at St George’s. The child died in December 2009 at St George’s, where he was admitted for febrile neutropenia. The Royal Marsden provided oncology services and radiotherapy for children with cancer while St George’s provided critical care services. Some of the short-term recommendations were implemented but no progress was made in delivering the longer aim of relocating the main treatment centre to one site, says the review. It outlines five options ranging from sticking to the status quo, to an increase in the number of principal treatment centres. But it comes down firmly in favour of one centre located at a single site with all necessary paediatric services – option three. “The review panel sees option three as the more visionary alternative and, subject to the necessary investment, carefully managed implementation and strong clinical leadership, believe this offers substantial potential for the delivery of the world-class service deserved by the children of London,â€\x9d says the review. Cally Palmer, the chief executive of the Royal Marsden, which could ultimately lose out if the one centre is backed, is also the national director for cancer at NHS England, which commissioned the still unpublished report. An NHS England London spokesperson said: “Children’s cancer services are generally of a very high standard, and survival rates are now the highest they’ve ever been. There are good clinical arguments for ensuring cancer specialist services are co-located as they currently are, just as there are alternative views about combining children’s services regardless of specialty discipline. “These are not black and white judgments and it’s important we take the time to get any future planning right. A report commissioned on this will be one input into this debate.â€\x9d',
 'Salomón Rondón denies Stoke first win with late equaliser for West Brom A first league victory of the season for Stoke was the only milestone that mattered to Mark Hughes on a day when Tony Pulis took charge of a team for the 1,000th time. Stoke looked on course for just that after Joe Allen scored in the 73rd minute. But they did not make it over the line, as Salomón Rondón headed into their net from a corner in stoppage time. Stoke used to celebrate late goals for Pulis’s team but they cursed this one. “It felt like a loss,â€\x9d said Hughes, who could take encouragement from a strong performance by his team and the fact that a point was enough to hoist them off the foot of the table. Pulis, who has spent nearly half of his career in the Stoke dugout, was welcomed back warmly to his old patch but Stoke fans’ affections did not extend to the visiting players, whose every touch was booed from the first second. That reflected defiance in the face of Stoke’s poor start to the season and was combined with loud encouragement for the home team. Stoke’s players were similarly upbeat, betraying no sign of disenchantment, just a hunger to quash Albion. It made for a rousing first period in which clear chances were scarce but the threat of a breakthrough was always present. Albion were no bystanders, indeed they fired the first shot. But Rondón’s curler in the sixth minute whizzed wide, meaning that Lee Grant did not have to make his first Premier League save since joining Stoke on loan from Derby County in the summer. The 33-year-old was picked instead of Shay Given as part of Hughes’s plan to solidify a leaky defence. Although Rondón had three more shots off target in the first half, Stoke were on top. Their midfield, with Allen thriving in an advanced role, pestered the visitors relentlessly and, when they won the ball, attacked immediately. In the 25th minute Glenn Whelan pinged a cross to Wilfried Bony, who headed the ball across the six-yard box. Glen Johnson lifted it over the advancing Ben Foster, only for Craig Dawson to head off the line. Twice Eric Pieters fell under untidy tackles by Matt Phillips but no penalties were given. Hughes ran through the full Basil Fawlty routine – in his technical area so as not to incur another fine – but conceded after seeing replays that “both were close calls, in fairnessâ€\x9d. Early in the second half Allen nearly gave Stoke the goal they craved but Dawson denied them again, deflecting the midfielder’s header over. Bony was the only home player to disappoint, strong in possession but lacking the mobility to be in regular synch with his team-mates. He was replaced on the hour by Peter Crouch. Stoke claimed the reward for their persistence in the 73rd minute when Xherdan Shaqiri crossed from the left and Jonny Evans failed to make a clean clearance owing to a challenge by Marko Arnautovic. Allen shot into the net from eight yards. He was a fitting scorer. “[Allen’s] got good anticipation of things dropping around the box and that showed for the goal,â€\x9d said Hughes. “That’s why he left Liverpool, because he wanted to play week in, week out and we’ve given him the run of games. He’s been a shining light for us, he’s been the one hitting the levels we expect.â€\x9d Grant preserved the lead with a fine save from a header by James McClean but he could not keep out Rondón’s header at the death. So it was yet another happy day at Stoke for Pulis. “The place is wonderful and the crowd were fantastic to me when I was here,â€\x9d said the Albion manager. “It’s been stitched into my body this football club. I’ll always have respect for them.â€\x9d',
 'Obama to offer his friendly opposition to Brexit during visit to UK Barack Obama will strike a delicate balance over Brexit during a visit to the UK next week, where he will host a town hall with youth and offer his view “as a friendâ€\x9d that Britain should remain in the EU. White House officials suggested on Thursday that the president will only wade into the contentious debate if asked, and reiterated Obama’s position that the US supports “a strong UK in the European Unionâ€\x9d. “He will make very clear that this is a matter the British people should decide when they head to the polls in June,â€\x9d Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters. “We believe that all of us benefit when the EU can speak with a strong and a single voice and can work with us to advance our shared interests whether on security or prosperity,â€\x9d he added. “We believe that the UK has benefitted from the single market that is good for the British economy and that, in turn, is good for the United States economy.â€\x9d Although Obama has made his position clear before, the president risks potential backlash by weighing in on Brexit with two months remaining before Britons go to the polls on 23 June to vote on the referendum. It is uncommon for the White House to involve itself in matters pertaining to elections in other countries, and the administration typically tries to avoid doing so when scheduling both overseas trips and invitations of foreign leaders to Washington. But while in the UK, Obama will also hold a joint press conference with the prime minister, David Cameron, with whom the US president shares a close bond. Cameron has referred to Britain leaving the EU as “the gamble of the centuryâ€\x9d. The White House remained cautious about the optics of Obama’s visit, underscoring that the president had traveled to the UK several times before and that the focus of this trip would include counterterrorism and the fight against the Islamic State. “I think his approach will be that if he’s asked his view as a friend, he will offer it, but he will make very clear that this is a matter the British people should decide when they head to the polls in June,â€\x9d Rhodes said. Officials cited the economic interest of keeping Britain within the EU, framing its argument in similar terms deployed by the International Monetary Fund this week: the potential disruption of trade and commerce, and job losses in both the UK and Europe. “The United Kingdom has exercised an outsized influence in the world for the last several centuries and it’s one of the countries that has most shaped the modern era,â€\x9d said Charlie Kupchan, a special assistant to Obama and the senior director for European Affairs at the White House. “And we hope that that outsized influence continues and we think that in today’s world, that kind of influence is best exercised through clubs, through multilateralism, through teamwork. And in that respect, it’s our estimate that the United Kingdom will continue to play that role most effectively if it remains part of the European Union.â€\x9d',
 'Year of electoral tests may end European Union as we know it In Italy and Austria this weekend a shaken EU faces the first of a series of pivotal electoral tests that could profoundly change the political landscape of the bloc, and conceivably herald the end of the European project in its current form. Shortly before last May’s G7 meeting in Tokyo, Martin Selmayr, the senior Brussels official who runs the cabinet of the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted what he described as his populist “horror scenarioâ€\x9d. Imagine, he said, if instead of Barack Obama, François Hollande, David Cameron and Matteo Renzi, next year’s summit were to feature Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Boris Johnson and Beppe Grillo. Selmayr was right about Trump, now the US president-elect. He was half-right about Johnson, who missed out on the job of prime minister after Cameron resigned following Britain’s Brexit vote, but did become foreign secretary. If he proves right on the rest, Europe will be in serious trouble. The angry, anti-establishment, nation-first tide that voted to sweep the UK out of the EU and Trump into the White House – in what the billionaire property developer himself called a “Brexit plus, plus, plusâ€\x9d – is rising steadily across the continent. It is still far from certain to carry all before it. But over the next 12 months, EU member states face a dozen referendums and parliamentary and presidential elections, many contested by populist, Eurosceptic parties whose members believe that what happened in the UK and the US can now happen in Europe. The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, has said “Europe could dieâ€\x9d in the face of “attacks from the populistsâ€\x9d. German’s doughty finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has warned of the scourge of “demagogic populismâ€\x9d, while the EU’s economic affairs commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, suggested Europe’s voters might be poised “to destroy itâ€\x9d. The first two tests will be on Sunday. In Austria, voters elect a new president after their first attempt was annulled. In a race currently too close to call, Norbert Hofer, of the anti-immigration Freedom party, could become the first freely elected far-right head of state in western Europe since the second world war. On the same day, Italians vote in a referendum on constitutional reforms on which Renzi has staked his political future. Polls have suggested the prime minister will lose – potentially bringing Grillo’s fiercely anti-establishment Five Star Movement a step closer to power. The Netherlands goes to the polls on 15 March. There, Geert Wilders and his Eurosceptic, anti-Islam Freedom party is tied in the polls with the prime minister, Mark Rutte’s liberal VVD. In France, the first round of presidential elections is on 23 April. The leader of the far-right, anti-European Front National, Marine Le Pen, is expected to advance from this to the runoff stage the following month. Germany votes later, in federal elections that could well see the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) enter parliament as the third-largest party, on the back of strong opposition to Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy. And in the Czech Republic in October, the populists of ANO 2011, the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens, are forecast to win in the general elections. Simon Tilford, of the Centre for European Reform thinktank, said the two big flashpoints for the union would be Italy’s constitutional referendum and France’s presidential election. “In Italy, if Renzi loses the referendum, can’t survive, and elections then return a government committed to a referendum on taking [the country] out of the euro … that could produce a real standoff,â€\x9d Tilford said. “And in France, if Le Pen should win ... We don’t know what would happen, but she’s talked of a referendum on the euro, and on France’s EU membership. A strongly Eurosceptic government in France would mean a full-blown crisis in Europe.â€\x9d All this is by no means certain, of course. The populists’ confidence could be misplaced. All were quick to welcome the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory as events that, in Le Pen’s words, “made possible what was considered impossibleâ€\x9d. But in such uncertain times, voters could opt for continuity and stability: polls show support for the EU has surged since Britain voted to leave, and polling since the US election suggests no immediate “Trump bounceâ€\x9d for the Eurosceptics. A victory in Austria by Hofer, the candidate from a party founded by a former SS officer, would be a huge symbolic blow for Europe and could presage worse in parliamentary elections to follow in 2018. Some, however, argue that its actual consequences may be limited: the presidential role is largely ceremonial. In Italy, Renzi could cling on, or be replaced by a technocratic government committed to continuing steady, incremental reform. And if snap elections do follow, Italy’s electoral system does not necessarily make it easy for a single party to gain a majority in both houses of parliament. In France, every poll so far has predicted Le Pen will lose heavily in the second round to a more centrist rival, who, on current form, is likely to be the conservative François Fillon. In the Netherlands, even if his toxic party emerges as the largest, Wilders is unlikely to be able to form a majority. But regardless of the electoral outcomes, Europe’s upstarts will still shape the debate. Analysts point to the enormous influence exercised by the former Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, even though he was never elected to Westminster, and how mainstream, centrist parties, particularly on the right, have been pulled inexorably to the more radical edge in the Netherlands and France. Mainstream leaders such as Merkel or Fillon would find themselves weakened, heading countries arguably more deeply divided than at any time in the postwar era, and struggling to push through their programmes. For the European project itself, its confidence knocked by Brexit, the upcoming Trump presidency, a continuing migrant crisis, the terrorism threat, an agonisingly slow return to strong economic growth and the gathering Eurosceptic backlash, the consequences could be serious. Faced with a more pressing need than ever to “get our act together, bring back a sense of direction, confidence, orderâ€\x9d – as the European council president, Donald Tusk, put it – the bloc may find itself less able than ever to actually do so. Its instinct, certainly, will be to pull together and maintain unity at all costs – not, from the UK’s perspective, a good sign for productive Brexit negotiations – and move forward forcefully where it can. The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said the bloc’s challenge must be to provide “outcomes that are both more efficient, and more directly aimed at the people, their needs and their fears – not towards institution-buildingâ€\x9d. Trump’s apparent fondness for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, along with his suggestion that US support for Nato – the security umbrella that for 60 years has made European stability and prosperity possible – may not be unconditional, has already prompted progress in one area. A Franco-German defence and security initiative launched in September has gained fresh impetus, with foreign and defence ministers agreeing concrete steps to bolster the bloc’s capacity to respond to conflicts and crises on its borders. The influential German MEP Manfred Weber said Trump “will force Europe to grow upâ€\x9d. Beyond security, analysts say, the union’s most pressing priority must be economic recovery, wage growth, the return of some sense of wellbeing. “Not that the whole anti-European backlash is solely attributable to that,â€\x9d said Tilford. “But the poor performance of the EU economy is a very big factor.â€\x9d In fact, said Gianni Pittella, the leader of the European parliament’s Socialist group, Brexit and Trump had created a “huge opportunityâ€\x9d for strong, pragmatic EU initiatives. Will they happen? Will Europe advance, or crumble? The coming months and years will be critical. If anti-Europeans win national elections and the EU fails to rise to the nation-first challenge, it will struggle to survive in its present form. Few think it will break up entirely. But its ambitions may shrink; it could become more of commercial association than a 60-year-old, overarching political project. A hard eurozone core may ultimately emerge, with satellite “associateâ€\x9d members. Some, including in Britain, would regard that as a good thing. But according to Mark Leonard, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, in a less open world of trade barriers and anti-migrant walls, where solidarity among old allies must pass a cost-benefit analysis, they should be careful what they wish for. Ultimately, Leonard said in an article for Social Europe, “even Europe’s most Trump-like leaders will find it harder to defend their national interest if they try to go it alone. To survive in Trump’s world, they should try to make Europe great again.â€\x9d',
 'Doctors to lobby for opt-out organ donor system Doctors will try to persuade ministers at Westminster, Holyrood and Stormont to introduce an opt-out system for organ donation to prevent 1,000 deaths a year because of organ shortages. The British Medical Association will lobby the three parliaments to follow the lead set by Wales, which in December introduced presumed consent for organ retrieval. Under this system people who die in hospital are presumed to have consented to their organs being used for transplantation unless they have expressly indicated otherwise. The doctors’ union believes that the dozens of lives estimated to have been saved in Wales since it adopted this approach means England, Scotland and Northern Ireland should do the same. The BMA voted at its annual conference to actively lobby to get the same approach adopted across the UK. “As a doctor, it is difficult to see your patients dying and suffering when their lives could be saved or dramatically improved by a transplant,â€\x9d said John Chisholm, chair of the BMA’s public health medicine committee, who proposed the motion. “It is even more difficult when we know that lives are being lost unnecessarily because of poor organisation, lack of funding or because people who are willing to donate organs after their death simply never get around to making their views known, resulting in relatives making a decision without knowing whether the individual was willing to donate.â€\x9d Figures from UK Blood and Transplant, the NHS agency which manages organ transplantation, show that 6,485 seriously ill patients are currently on the waiting list to receive a new organ. Three people a day die because they do not get a new liver, heart, lungs or other body part. Thirty-one people who died in Wales between the start of December and the end of May donated 60 organs between them. Of these, 10 had their consent presumed because they had neither opted out nor joined the organ donor register. (That figure was up from 23 donors in the same six months the year before.) Of the 60 organs, 32 came from the 10 people whose consent was presumed under the new set-up. NHS Blood and Transplant said: “We welcome activity that encourages people to discuss organ donation and to donate their organs for transplant. Our role is to work within whatever legislative frameworks are in place across the UK.â€\x9d Meanwhile, Mark Porter, chair of the BMA, faces being ousted on Thursday amid discontent in the organisation, with members suggesting he is too “detached and remoteâ€\x9d and has not done enough to highlight growing problems in the NHS. Porter, who has led the 170,000-strong doctors’ union for the last four years, is being challenged as chair of the BMA’s ruling council. JS Bamrah, a senior NHS consultant psychiatrist in Manchester, is seeking to replace him. BMA insiders say it is “50/50â€\x9d whether Porter, a consultant anaesthetist in Coventry, secures the required 17 votes when the 33-member council debates the issue at lunchtime on Thursday. A group of up to possibly 10 council members are disillusioned with his leadership, claiming he has become out of touch with many grassroots doctors and saying they are keen to see a change. The council’s four representatives of NHS junior doctors, whom sources say are undecided about which way to vote, are likely to prove significant in determining if Porter stays for his fifth and final year in office. Bamrah declined to speak to the media ahead of the vote. His Twitter account says his passions include the “NHS, mental health, parity and diversityâ€\x9d. If he wins, he is set to lead the BMA for three years.',
 'Deutsche Bank shares fall to new low after another turbulent day Deutsche Bank has endured another turbulent day on the stock market amid questions about its ability to pay a penalty to the US authorities and whether Angela Merkel will need to intervene in the plight of Germany’s biggest bank. As shares in Deutsche Bank fell to fresh lows, the German chancellor was quoted by news agencies as saying: “Deutsche Bank is one part of the German banking and financial sector, and of course we wish all companies, even when they are experiencing temporarily difficulties, to perform well. Apart from this, I don’t want to comment.â€\x9d She had been asked whether she believed the German government should support Deutsche Bank, which has endured a torrid year on the stock market where its shares have fallen more than 50%. The latest slide began on Monday after the bank was forced to deny it had asked for help from Merkel over the potential $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty it faces from the Department of Justice over mortgage bond mis-selling a decade ago. Deutsche Bank – which has insisted it does not need government help and has no intention of paying that sum – has also said it had enough capital although analysts said fears it would need to tap investors for funds was one of the reasons the shares were under pressure. Following Monday’s 7.5% fall to levels last reached in the 1980s, the shares fell another 3% on Tuesday to €10.19 before ending the day on the Frankfurt stock exchange flat at €10.55. The market is fixated on how the bank will tackle the negotiations with the DoJ and how large the penalty will eventually be. “If the DoJ’s fine is in the area of $6bn or higher, our view is that a capital raise will become necessary,â€\x9d said Carlo Mareels, a credit analyst at stockbroker MUFG Securities. “Equity investors are fearful they will have to be called upon to support the capital position of the ailing Deutsche Bank, as equity prices are down 64% since October 2015,â€\x9d said Tomas Kinmonth at Dutch bank ABN Amro. “Their capital position needs to be improved, and the ability of it to achieve this naturally is being severely questioned. Significant restructuring, including major asset sales, will likely be needed if Deutsche Bank wishes to achieve an increased capital position without calling on shareholders,â€\x9d said Kinmonth. Deutsche Bank’s chief executive, John Cryan, is also selling off its Chinese bank, Hua Xia, but there are some suggestions that its asset management division could also be put on the block. Some are pondering the wider ramifications. Paresh Davdra, co-founder of RationalFX, said the situation was rattling investors and raising parallels with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The German bank is not the only one facing discussions with the DoJ over the sale of the so-called residential mortgage-backed securities. Royal Bank of Scotland’s chief executive, Ross McEwan, told a conference on Tuesday that the bank had not yet begun discussions with the DoJ over the bailed-out bank’s possible settlement. Analysts have calculated this could reach £9bn. Shares in RBS, 73% owned by taxpayers, fell 2.5% as McEwan also warned of “unchartered territoryâ€\x9d if the bank failed to dispose of 600 branches mandated by the EU under the terms of its bailout. Other bank shares were also lower after another German bank, NordLB, postponed a bond issue. Former chancellor Norman Lamont told the Institute of Directors conference that German banks were in a dangerous situation: “The biggest threat, I think, to Europe is the banking crisis. I think Italian banks are in a very serious situation; I think German banks are probably in a very serious situation, too.â€\x9d •This article was amended on Thursday 29 September to correctly assert that Deutsche Bank had insisted it does not need government help.',
 'From Molenbeek to Hollywood – why Belgian thriller Black is the new La Haine When Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah first read Dirk Bracke’s novel Black, they sarcastically joked that it would be their “ticket to Hollywoodâ€\x9d, never imagining that such a thing was possible. As second-generation Moroccan-Belgians, they found that Black and its sequel – a sort of West Side Story set in the immigrant suburbs of Brussels – spoke to them. But as Arab teenagers seeking to break into Belgium’s tiny, overwhelmingly white film industry, the odds were stacked against them. Especially as it turned out someone else was already making a film of the book. Added to which, at the time, El Arbi and Fallah were in their first year at film school, which they duly flunked. And yet, 10 years later, here they are, on a blindingly sunny rooftop in downtown Los Angeles, thanks to Black – which, of course, they ended up making after all. It’s difficult to imagine two more disparate places in the popular imagination than Hollywood and Molenbeek – the Belgian suburb where Black was shot, now synonymous with Islamist terrorism. All of which makes their journey one of the most astonishing in recent cinema. Yet far from being culture-shocked, the pair seem completely at home. Fallah is even wearing an LA Dodgers baseball cap back-to-front. They have only been here three months, but between their street style, their Americanised English and the way they converse in tandem like a rap duo, you would never guess they were foreigners. As they re-enact the moment they got the call from Hollywood, they look and sound just like locals. Fallah: “I was in my apartment [in Brussels], around midnight. I looked on my phone and it said ‘Beverly Hills’. What the fuck? ‘Hello, it’s Daniel Rappaport from Management 360.’ I was, like, ‘Is this for real?’â€\x9d El Arbi: “We were like: ‘Oh shit! American voice! Cool!’â€\x9d Fallah: “Then they asked us what kind of movies we wanted to make. We said, ‘Big shit! Gladiator or Star Wars.’â€\x9d El Arbi: “They said come to LA. We said, ‘We got no money y’all.’ So they came over to Brussels for 24 hours, we made a deal, then it was Toronto [film festival].â€\x9d Fallah: “In Toronto, that was the first taste we got of Hollywood. We saw big actors like Idris Elba and Naomi Watts. It was, like, ‘Holy shit, it’s becoming real.’â€\x9d It’s about to get realer. They are about to begin shooting in South Central LA: a pilot for the FX network for a series on the city’s 1980s crack cocaine epidemic. Titled Snowfall, it is being produced by the legendary John Singleton, director of 1990s classic Boyz N the Hood – a movie Bilall and El Arbi cite as one of their inspirations. Snowfall could almost be Boyz N the Hood the series, it seems. Other reference points they cite include The Wire and The Shield. In their round of Hollywood meetings, they also talked with uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the man behind Pirates of the Caribbean, Top Gun and innumerable other hits. “We asked him: ‘Hey! Can we do Bad Boys 3?’â€\x9d says El Arbi. “He said: ‘There’s a director already on that.’ He doesn’t talk a lot.â€\x9d But Bruckheimer did ask them to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4, Eddie Murphy’s long-stalled comeback vehicle, which is now set for release next year. They haven’t met Murphy yet, but apparently he personally approved them. “So that’s already a big-ass honour,â€\x9d says Fallah. El Arbi: “We can’t say too much but it’s not an accident that they chose us. It’s more Detroit than Beverly Hills, that’s the general idea.â€\x9d Fallah: “It’s going to be a comedy, obviously, but it’s going to also be edgy and harsh and real.â€\x9d El Arbi: “We know those kinds of places.â€\x9d That is undeniable. Black, which went on to win the Discovery award at Toronto, hinges on the romance between a Moroccan petty criminal and a recently arrived Congolese girl, which sparks a war between their respective gangs, the 1080 and the Black Bronx. It’s a stylish, technically slick movie, full of dynamic camera moves and scored by a blend of Belgian hip-hop and north African beats (plus a local cover of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black). Yet it depicts an all-too-believable landscape of gang violence, criminality, discrimination, deprivation and rape. Black’s closest equivalent, and an influence the film-makers readily acknowledge, would be Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, which pulled off a similar trick of capturing both the youthful energy and the circumscribed prospects of Europe’s immigrant margins, treading a fine line between commercial entertainment and gritty realism. “That [La Haine] was 1995,â€\x9d says El Arbi, “and when you look around, nothing’s really changed. It’s actually worse.â€\x9d Ironically, Black has been banned in France, he points out. “They said the overall atmosphere and theme of the movie doesn’t match with the political climate of the country.â€\x9d El Arbi and Fallah make no apologies for wanting to make a commercially minded movie rather than a sombre social-realist drama. “This should be told to as many people as possible,â€\x9d says El Arbi, “even though it’s a really harsh kind of story. If you’re gonna do social commentary and not have cinematic value to it, then not a lot of people are going to see it.â€\x9d But there’s a palpable authenticity to Black. The story unfolds in subway stations and housing estates, primarily in Molenbeek and Matonge, respectively the north-African Arab and sub-Saharan African (primarily Congolese) districts of Brussels. The movie was shot on the streets and cast from them, too. And to the directors’ credit, there’s barely a false note in the performances, particularly from the two leads, Martha Canga Antonio and Aboubakr Bensaihi. Fallah: “You don’t have Moroccan or black actors. Certainly not between 15 and 21 years old. So, out of necessity, we had to go into the streets and into schools and on social media to find those actors.â€\x9d El Arbi: “Belgian cinema really is white. You go to casting agencies and acting schools – everybody’s white. We got together 400 people and selected the 16 best.â€\x9d Fallah: “And for every character, there was a lot of choice. There’s so much talent walking around.â€\x9d How did they get such good performances out of them? El Arbi: “The thing we said to every person was, ‘Did you ever lie to your mother to go out? Or lie to your teacher?’ And then they knew, ‘Ah, OK. Actors are liars!’â€\x9d It’s clear that the directors know this landscape intimately. Growing up in Belgium (El Arbi is 30, Fallah 28), they experienced the same prejudices and disadvantages their young cast face today. “Antwerp was really one of the most racist cities in Europe,â€\x9d says Fallah, who grew up there. “It was the golden age of the Flemish Block, the racist party which won every fucking election during the 1990s. The only reason they never had power is because all the other parties had to club together and form a group against them.â€\x9d He went to a predominantly white, Catholic school. “In the beginning, you don’t realise you’re different. You think you’re all the same, but after 9/11 happened, you came to school and everybody was, like, ‘Are you happy now?’â€\x9d El Arbi, who grew up in Brussels, also remembers that time. “We knew back then, it was gonna be a suckass 10 years for us. We didn’t imagine 15 years later it would be even worse.â€\x9d Fallah and El Arbi both have family in Molenbeek. Both are saddened at the district’s current infamy as “jihadi centralâ€\x9d, owing to the fact that many of those responsible for Islamist attacks across Europe hailed from there. Belgium’s policy of “ghettoisingâ€\x9d its immigrant communities in discrete areas is part of the problem, they say. They describe Molenbeek as “a different countryâ€\x9d. The stores are all Moroccan; only Arabic or French are heard on the streets. It’s similar with Matonge. “It’s like visiting Africa,â€\x9d says Fallah. “But if you go one street to the right, you’re in a different world. That’s typically Brussels.â€\x9d The only white faces we see in Black are those of police officers. “If you don’t take people into society, you create a little bubble that doesn’t interact with the real world, then you create those monsters,â€\x9d he says. “Even if probably 90% of the people there are just normal people working and struggling.â€\x9d “There’s no trust,â€\x9d El Arbi adds, “It’s not inclusive. The people that were in charge said, ‘We’re not gonna help you, but we’re not gonna bother you either. That is the most deadly combination ever. If you just let things happen, it’s gonna be tough for good people to do good stuff and it’s gonna be easy for evil people to do the evil stuff.â€\x9d Black exposes more than one faultline running through Europe as a whole and Belgium in particular. On top of Islamophobia and racial discrimination (although tensions between Moroccan and Congolese communities are relatively rare in real life, they point out), the country is riven by a giant cultural divide: between the northern, Dutch-speaking Flemish community and the southern, French-speaking community. Thus, there’s an extra layer of social nuance in terms of language, El Arbi explains. “If you talk French on the streets with your buddies, then you’re cool, but if you talk Flemish, then you’re a sellout. Flemish is the language of the rich people.â€\x9d By the time Black adds in generational and gender divides, you are left wondering how Belgian society holds together at all. Fallah: “Belgium doesn’t have an identity. You don’t have a big history like France or Holland. Belgium is a young country.â€\x9d El Arbi: “It’s like a buffer, made by the UK and Germany.â€\x9d Fallah: “It’s artificial. It’s two worlds in one that they want to keep together.â€\x9d El Arbi: “And when you’re 15 and young, you want to have an identity. You want something clear. Blacks, Moroccans, they’ll never feel 100% Belgian. Even Belgians don’t feel 100% Belgian. But drop them in Morocco or Congo, they will never be 100% either. So a gang or an extremist organisation can say: ‘Come with us. You will have a name. You will be something. You are 1080 or Black Bronx – or Isis.â€\x9d The two film-makers formed their own gang at film school, being not just the only two non-white students but also the only ones with unashamedly commercial ambitions. Not that they don’t worship the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke and Lars Von Trier as well, they hasten to add. El Arbi: “It was pre-hipster, but they were hipsters doing hipster movies – poetic bullshit that you don’t understand with no action in it, no conflict either, no ending. Just one character struggling with himself, and some water, some cryptic dialogue, some closeup shaky shit. Oh man!â€\x9d Fallah: “We were the only two Moroccans, but we were also the only two who wanted to go to Hollywood, and we referenced, like, Steven Spielberg ...â€\x9d El Arbi: “... Jerry Bruckheimer. That was, like, the big ‘no’ word. You don’t mention Jerry Bruckheimer’s name there. That’s why we clicked together so well.â€\x9d Fallah: “It was us against the world.â€\x9d They did find some allies, though. Their mentor at film school was Michaël Roskam, director of the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (which first brought actor Matthias Schoenaerts to attention). When they failed their first year (“We were making war movies, comedy shit, it didn’t really work out,â€\x9d says Fallah), Roskam suggested they make movies more connected to their own backgrounds and identities. They won a prize with one of their first short films: funding to make another short. Instead, they used the money – €120,000 (£100,000) – to make a feature: Image, a thriller, again set in Molenbeek. It was a commercial success, though they describe it more as a “practice runâ€\x9d. Another crucial ally was Hans Herbots, an established Belgian film-maker. He was the one who was already making Black, the movie. On the strength of Image, and their personal connection to the subject matter, Herbots generously suggested that they direct Black instead of him, El Arbi explains. “Also I think he was thinking: ‘Fuck! A month in the hood in Molenbeek and me a white guy from Antwerp.’â€\x9d When El Arbi and Fallah step into South Central a few days hence, they won’t feel quite so intimidated. They can’t believe how smoothly everything happens here in Hollywood, compared with Belgium. They had sleepless nights on Black wondering if enough extras would turn up the next day, says El Arbi. “Here, it’s like: ‘You need 100 extras? All right. And they’ll be there, in 1983 period clothing and hairstyles, period cars on the streets, the LAPD closing the roads. In Belgium, the cops give you authorisation to shoot and that’s it. If there’s a gang member coming to threaten you with a knife, which happened on the first day in Matonge, they will not be there.â€\x9d As with Black, though, the most important thing is the permission of the neighbourhoods where the real, often harrowing history they are recreating took place not so long ago. They have made efforts to include the communities where they are shooting, discussing and explaining the project, sometimes via “gang liaisonâ€\x9d intermediaries. “You gotta have the streets on your side,â€\x9d says El Arbi. “These are their stories.â€\x9d The response has been broadly supportive, they say, even if locals don’t always know what to make of them. “They’re like, ‘Where you from?’â€\x9d says El Arbi. “We say Belgium and Morocco. They’re like Morocco ... Africa!â€\x9d He holds out a silver pendant around his neck in the shape of Africa. They’re honorary boyz in the hood. Perhaps they haven’t come such a long way after all. El Arbi and Fallah haven’t forgotten where they come from yet, they say. They are planning to make another movie there, after Snowfall and Beverly Hills Cop 4. But they also talk of shooting in Morocco, in Japan, of creating their own big-budget Hollywood science-fiction franchise. What were once dreams are now more like plans. And given their career trajectory so far, who is to say any of them are unrealistic? • Black is released in UK cinemas and on VOD platforms on 19 August',
 'Cameron’s cosy Christmas with Murdoch makes you admire Trump’s fighting talk Watch David Cameron start dropping round for seasonal drinks with Rupert and Rebekah again and it almost makes you warm to Donald Trump. The Donald wasn’t endorsed by New Hampshire’s most powerfully portentous newspaper for the coming primary test. The Union Leader is backing Chris Christie via a big front-page message from its publisher, Joseph McQuaid. But Trump doesn’t take it gently, or nip round for a quiet gin and tonic. “You have a very dishonest newspaper here,â€\x9d he says. “It’s also a failing newspaper. It’s going down the tubes. I remember when this was the big newspaper. Look at the size of this, now. If they cut it down any more, you won’t be able to find it.â€\x9d As for McQuaid? “I’ve watched this guy and, honestly, he’s a loser.â€\x9d Pass the peanuts, prime minister. â–  Pundits looking back at 2015 may wonder who got the general election result right. Zilch, nada, humiliation (for everyone up to and including David Cameron). Or who, as Ed Miliband resigned, would succeed him as Labour leader. Nada continued. But at least we can all unite now to blame HMG for its pitiful flood planning and inept reaction to the great rains. As the Daily Express declared last April: “Hosepipe bans and speed showers could become the theme of the summer after experts warn that a drought could take over Britain.â€\x9d Or, the same dear old Express warned last September: “Four months of heavy snow: Shock UK long-range weather forecast for THIS winter.â€\x9d Drought, frost, tempest… It makes spotting the rise of Jeremy Corbyn seem a breeze. â–  When I wrote (30 December) about EU referendum deal negotiations, I mentioned different talks between the FT and its journalists’ union over pension changes. FT management wishes me to point out that they, not the new Nikkei owners, are pursuing these “for the long-term sustainabilityâ€\x9d of the paper – and that while 92% of NUJ members who voted (157 out of 171) wished to enable a strike, 89 other members didn’t return a ballot form. So “only 7% of FT employeesâ€\x9d are involved in this dispute. Whether or not that makes for a happy new year we’ll have to wait and see.',
 'Judge orders internet providers to block illegal downloading websites The federal court has ordered internet providers to block major illegal download or torrenting websites, such as Pirate Bay and Torrentz, in a bid to crack down on online copyright infringement. Justice John Nicholas handed down his judgment on Thursday afternoon in Sydney, ordering internet service providers to “take reasonable steps to disable accessâ€\x9d to Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and the streaming service SolarMovie within 15 working days. Foxtel and Village Roadshow filed their application in February. Village Roadshow sought to have SolarMovie blocked, while Foxtel targeted the four other sites. Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2 were the major respondents. It is the first time laws introduced with the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act have been successfully applied since it passed in June last year. The federal court has allowed ISPs to determine how best to enact the order, with blocking domain names, IP addresses or target URLs among the possible strategies. Any other alternative means must be agreed upon in writing with the applicants. TPG has proposed using domain name system (DNS) blocking to target the sites to prevent them from getting around the ban by changing their IP addresses. Though Village Roadshow and Foxtel had proposed that the ISPs pay their own costs of compliance, the respondents uniformly opposed it. Nicholas said that there had been “a large measure of co-operation between the applicants and the respondentsâ€\x9d. He proposed a “uniform amount for compliance costsâ€\x9d determined by the number of domain names that the ISPs would be required to block. Peter Tonagh, the chief executive of Foxtel, welcomed the federal court’s ruling in a statement provided to the ABC. “This judgment is a major step in both directly combating piracy and educating the public that accessing content through these sites is not OK, in fact it is theft. “This judgment gives us another tool to fight the international criminals who seek to profit from the hard work of actors, writers, directors and other creators the world over.â€\x9d Foxtel or Village Roadshow will have to apply to have any new websites added to the judgement. Universal Music’s action to have Kickass Torrents blocked remains active. A landmark case against Australian internet users accused of pirating the film Dallas Buyers Club was dropped by the plaintiff, DBC LLC, in February. A federal court judge had said it was “wholly unrealisticâ€\x9d for the ISP iiNet to hand over the personal details of almost 5,000 customers who were accused of having downloaded the film.',
 "Battleground states: North Carolina's sharp divides put election on knife-edge North Carolina has been in the eye of many storms this year. The state of emergency declared by Governor Pat McCrory ahead of the expected arrival of Hurricane Matthew this weekend follows similar civil measures in September when the police killing of a black man set off a wave of angry protests on the streets of the state’s largest city, Charlotte. Few of the tempests to sweep by in 2016 have defined the national mood quite as much, though, as the political maelstrom battering this state. A vital battleground in the presidential election, North Carolina could determine whether Donald Trump manages to assemble enough angry white voters to make it all the way to the White House. A “bathroom banâ€\x9d preventing transgender students from using toilets not matching the gender on their birth certificates has reopened the wounds of America’s culture wars, leading to a boycott by college sport authorities and protests from leading employers such as Apple, American Airlines and Bank of America. But the conservative wave that allowed Republicans to take control of all layers of local government in the state is now threatening to drown the party itself. The fervour stoked by battles over gay rights, voter registration laws, and immigration is putting off many moderates and could yet see Democrats win presidential, Senate and gubernatorial races here in November. What has made such controversies so shocking to many outsiders is that the Tar Heel state had long since stopped conforming to any easy stereotypes of a politically conservative southern backwater. The recent protests against the killing of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte took place among gleaming downtown high-rises of the New South – race riots shattering the calm of what otherwise appears a diverse and progressive boomtown at the heart of one of America’s major transport and financial hubs. Pride in North Carolina’s modern and open economy is still visible, despite the high-profile battles over sexual and racial equality. Drive into the state from the north, and road signs quickly herald its repeated ability to win Nobel prizes, celebrating last year’s award of the chemistry prize to a Turkish American biochemist, Aziz Sancar, based at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill. He proudly spoke of being a US Muslim at his acceptance speech and told a Turkish newspaper that Trump should not be allowed to obscure America’s multicultural progress in the eyes of the world. The US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the first African American woman to hold the nation’s highest law enforcement job, is another famous North Carolinian. She clashed with the Republican governor, McCrory, when he signed the bathroom ban into law, filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the legislation known as HB2, and she has spoken eloquently about the danger that recent clashes between police and violent protesters in Charlotte “drown out the voices of changeâ€\x9d in the country. Yet many young liberals in North Carolina are reeling from recent events, worried about the way their state is perceived around the country in ways that echo how many Americans feel about what Trump is doing to the image of the United States internationally. “It embarrasses me,â€\x9d says Jamisen Moore, a young medical engineering student at the UNC campus in Greensboro, a town once famous for civil rights protests at a segregated Woolworth counter that is now trying to buck the conservative backlash. “There is a weird mood politically,â€\x9d she explains. “It brings out all the people who are at one extreme or another. People who think it’s a good idea are really vocal but the people who don’t are not, even though they think it’s bad, they are not out there and as loud.â€\x9d UNC Greensboro was one of the campuses that refused to implement the state-wide ban on allowing transgender students to use bathroom facilities of their choice. Yet the university has nonetheless been swept up in the backlash. In September, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) pulled a high-profile basketball tournament out of the state in protest at what it saw as unacceptable discrimination. Days later, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) did the same with big football games. “Duke [University] and UNC is the biggest rivalry in college basketball and we were going to be able to host it in our state but now we won’t be able to because of HB2,â€\x9d says Moore, who believes the decisions have helped “wake people upâ€\x9d to the cost of being a pariah state. It is not just students and sports fans who are appalled either. The mayor of Greensboro, Nancy Vaughan, describes the fight over civil liberties as the “best of times and the worst of timesâ€\x9d because it is also helping galvanize moderate voters to stand up against those who pushed through the law and tend to lean more loudly toward Trump. “These things have a habit of sorting themselves out and we will prevail,â€\x9d said Vaughan during a recent rally at the campus by Hillary Clinton. “I bet there are people right here in this room who didn’t vote in the last council election … You know what? You are the problem. We need to get new voters to the polls in November.â€\x9d But in the meantime, the economic cost is high. The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than 1,000 jobs lost and $285m in economic damage has been caused by companies shunning the state in reaction to its illiberal policies. “A state that sanctions discrimination will never be a world leader; instead, we’ll have to play second fiddle to other groups.â€\x9d wrote local businessman Lloyd Smith after he was challenged to intervene by a customer who called the state “backwardâ€\x9d for allowing HB2. “It is the antithesis of building an economy for everyone,â€\x9d added Mayor Vaughan. “This is a law that hurts our families our social fabric and our economy.â€\x9d Even Governor McCrory seems anxious to mitigate the worst affects of the legislation, signing an executive order protecting state employees from being fired for being gay or transgender after state lawmakers threatened to introduce anti-discrimination safeguards. And he seems acutely conscious that the state’s reputation could be further hurt by the national controversy over police violence. “Charlotte is a great city and we are not going to let a few hours make a negative impact,â€\x9d said the governor in statement after the first night of disturbances over the killing of 43-year-old Scott. McCrory was lagging in the polls when he first appeased the Tea Party right by signing HB2 into law, and dismissed critics in Trumpian terms by claiming “political correctness [had] run amokâ€\x9d, but Trump’s surge in North Carolina may be fading too and both could lose here in November. Recent polls also reveal the social fragmentation driving state and national politics. Few swing states are as polarized, with Trump ahead by up to 53% to 28% among white voters, while Clinton has overwhelming black support at 86% to 3%. North Carolina also has a huge split among educational lines, with college-educated voters flocking to her and those without qualifications drawn to him. For all the vaunted success of the so-called “research triangleâ€\x9d, Nobel prize-winning research does not employ enough to make up for the collapse in manufacturing jobs elsewhere in the state. One town just outside the gleaming new economy, Goldsboro, recently came bottom of a national league table for declines in its middle class. It is no surprise that both Trump and Clinton are spending more time in North Carolina than almost any other state in the country.",
 'Stiff upper lip or man on the edge? How movies see real-life heroes This week’s biggest film release in the US is Deepwater Horizon – a film that, despite its title, is neither an underwater sequel to Event Horizon nor a delicate coming-of-age story about waifish teens growing up in rural Sweden. It’s the very real, very tragic tale of the 2010 oil rig explosion that killed 11 people and caused an environmentally catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, the chief electrician aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the man tasked with saving as many of its occupants as possible. The film is the latest in a parade of gritty, true stories hitting cinemas as we stumble into the fall awards season. It was only a few weeks ago that audiences were exposed to Clint Eastwood’s Sully, another dramatization of a simple hero thrust unwillingly into a position to have to rescue dozens of people. That’s how we like our real-life protagonists – stoic, grimly determined and covered in motor oil. We also like them to suffer for their good works. Poor Sully lands an airplane on the Hudson river, no one dies, and he still gets chastised by those damn bureaucrats (please read in gravelly Clint Eastwood voice) when he gets home. Brave Mike Williams survives the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but those dastardly oil barons at BP (please read in nasally Dave Schilling voice) don’t go to jail. Time after time, the system fails the noble working man in American cinema. Considering my unique position working for a major British media company, I couldn’t help but wonder what the British equivalent of our tradition of ripped-from-the-headlines stories of valor is. Let’s just say that they’re not all that similar. American real-life heroes What we just can’t get enough of these days are stories about small figures caught up in tide of major global events. Oliver Stone’s Snowden doesn’t turn the soft-spoken whistleblower Edward Snowden into a swashbuckler for truth and justice. The real Snowden is quiet, thoughtful and deeply beholden to his own personal moral compass. Deepwater Horizon director Peter Berg also helmed another Mark Wahlberg working-class tragedy called Lone Survivor, which is about a group of Navy Seals fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Last year’s little-seen Chris Pine movie The Finest Hours is about a coastguard rescue of a sinking oil tanker. What is it with the production of fossil fuels and calamity? You’d almost think it was a horrible idea which is slowly killing the planet. Tom Hanks knows this genre well, not just as Sully, but also as the titular Captain Phillips. But it’s not just modern movies. Go back to the 1970s, after the obsession with retelling the legends of world war two wore off, to find a multitude of films about the common man. By the way, I don’t use the word “manâ€\x9d here casually. Unfortunately, most of the movies in this genre are about men. Serpico is easily in the top five films of this genre, placing Al Pacino in the role of Frank Serpico, another whistleblower who uncovers rampant corruption within the New York police department. Even if he had one of the coolest names in history, Serpico’s story is not an epic one. At the end of the film, he retires a physically broken man who’s merely done what any righteous person should in his situation. He spoke up. He just happened to speak up in a situation where there were guns, drugs and death involved, which makes his life far more cinematic than, say, mine. You won’t get much excitement out of watching me type and eat chips for eight hours a day, which leads me to the grand tradition of the British real-life drama. British real-life heroes I hope that you’ve all already watched Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, because I’m about to spoil it for you. In this film, the Nazis lose the second world war. If you weren’t aware and didn’t heed my spoiler warning, I’m sorry. I lobbied my editors for a page break, just in case, but I was denied. The Imitation Game is but the most recent addition to the grand tradition of the British based-on-a-true-story film. Imitation Game’s hero, brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, is also a reluctant hero, as in the American tradition. He suffers the slings and arrows of a system that does not understand him nor is willing to recognize his contribution to the war effort. His cracking of the Enigma code is crucial to the Allied cause, but because he was gay, the military history books relegated him to footnote status until very recently. So, what’s different between Alan Turing and Sully Sullenberg besides differing tastes in facial hair? First of all, Alan Turing knows he’s brilliant. What propels him to continue working on the machine that would help break the code and to defy superiors who doubted his efforts is self-belief. Turing’s lack of social graces in the film means that he often says what he is thinking, which is that he knows better. It’s safe to say the protagonist of Deepwater Horizon lacks this rarefied air. This is not to say that the average British hero is some strutting peacock and the American is a stern puritan. It’s notable only in that it’s a subversion of audience stereotypes and expectations. What’s more pressing in this analysis is the contrast between the man of action and the man of principle, or in the case of the 2010 film Made in Dagenham, the woman. Made in Dagenham does not have explosions, gunfire or sweaty dudes covered in grease. Sally Hawkins stars as a fictional character plopped into the true story of a workers’ strike at a Ford motor company sewing plant in the Dagenham area of London. Note that a protagonist was invented for the purposes of dramatizing this story. In order to make a movie out of a collective social action, a person had to be invented. Similarly, the Sally Field film Norma Rae, an American film about the labor movement, fictionalized Crystal Lee Sutton. Norma Rae is something of an outlier in American film in that it’s a movie that glorifies the unionization of labor rather than exalting the “lone survivorâ€\x9d story that we Yankees crave, while the British routinely revel in films like Pride, about LGBT activists who get involved in the 1984 British miners’ strike. Pride is an unabashed ensemble piece about how collective action can uplift people of all stripes. Modern Britain does seem to be becoming less and less amenable to progressive ideas, but there still remains that kernel of the European fascination with democratic socialism. In these British films, the system is still the enemy, but it can only be defeated with a group effort. When the story is one of individual effort, British film tends to focus on the criminal figure – Roger Daltry in McVicar or more recently, Tom Hardy as the Kray brothers in Legend. It’s no coincidence that British true-story films that do well in America are usually ones that narrow their focus to one transcendent figure – King George VI in The King’s Speech, Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, or Alan Turing. Americans want heroes who succeed in spite of others, but in Britain, sometimes it’s OK for those heroes to succeed because of others.',
 'Clear your diary – the anti-Europe pop gig is off Once more, dear hipsters, to the Brexit concert – or Bpoplive as it is catchily entitled. This is the event scheduled for 8 May at Birmingham’s 16,000-capacity NEC, which the Grassroots Out campaign promised would intersperse Brexit-pushing speakers with some of “Britain’s hottest artistsâ€\x9d. Last week, we detailed the personnel issues facing the organisers, as various acts pulled out once they discovered the nature of the event. Alas, I am afraid there is now more bad news for the six political journalists, five sketchwriters, and two recent head trauma victims who are thus far assumed to have bought tickets for it. In short, the concert is no longer taking place on 8 May. Furthermore, the nice lady at the NEC is unable to tell me when it will take place. Bpoplive seems to have gone down over the showbiz Bermuda Triangle. It is unknown whether Phats and Small managed to eject in time. Of course, it’s too early to call off the search entirely. The possibility of the entire event being rescheduled at this notice for another night at the NEC – or indeed another venue, such as a small pub – must not be discounted. Even so, those keen to listen to 90s one-hit wonders with a side order of George Galloway or Mike Read are warned to prepare for disappointment. The minute Lost in Showbiz knows more, so will you.',
 'A Trump trainwreck is the only thing that will save the Republican party Republicans face a lot of difficult decisions this year, but for the party to come back strong after Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy – for it to keep its brand as the free-market, democracy-loving, opportunity-focused alternative to the Democrats – the least-worst option is a major loss in the presidential race. By selecting a nominee who does not reflect the usual fiscal policies, a victory for Trump will mean a shift in the party’s focus. Even if the rest of the GOP holds fast to the platform or to traditional conservative values, the president’s policies always reshape the party. If you have ever promoted a local candidate to voters, you know this is true – the public looks at the top of the ticket first and judges the party by that person’s views. Many Trump supporters will see his win as a referendum on their policies and will work to make the party reflect that. Fellow Republicans will either need to accept that or leave. We have no idea what a Trump presidency will look like, but based on his campaign, it will be filled with outrageous gaffes, inarticulate interviews on policy and offensive media blitzes focused on non-issues. Trump will most likely lose minorities and women, creating a wider divide that the GOP must bridge in the future. Many young voters will continue to associate Trump with the party long after he leaves office. This would only further damage Republicans and set us up for heavy losses in 2018. Not to mention the party will continue to hemorrhage its best and brightest. Candidates, staff and volunteers have already walked away from Trump, and there’s no question it will keep happening. If Trump gains a greater control of the party, these people might even be forced out. But let’s say Trump doesn’t win and Hillary Clinton claims the White House. If Trump only trails her by a few points, you can bet he will blame the Republicans who voted their conscience. Or he’ll kick up dirt over the “riggedâ€\x9d system, as he has already alluded to. Trump supporters in the party will go on a witch-hunt, looking for anyone who acted disloyally to the Republican nominee. That in-fighting could destroy the party. Only a loss by a wide margin would send a clear message to the Republican party: this is the wrong choice for America. If Trump loses the swing states and also sees lower numbers in deeply red states, the party would have to accept that even Republicans could not vote for this candidate. This doesn’t mean Republicans need to lose down-ballot, though Trump will make it an uphill battle. The GOP has a strong hold on the House of Representatives, which is unlikely to be shaken this election (though a President Trump could alter that security in two years). Red states won’t suddenly lose their conservative ideals and vote out the representatives that reflect them. Even the Senate could remain in Republican control if the RNC focuses on securing weak candidates. Those worried that a vote for Trump is the only way to balance the US supreme court should refocus their efforts on the Senate, where the real decisions are made. Without the Senate’s approval, a permanent supreme court justice cannot be appointed. All is not lost without the presidency; Congress is still the power behind the throne. Republicans need to take a sincere look at how we run our primaries. We also need to find ways to address the concerns of members who voted for Trump – without losing sight of what it means to be a Republican. This will take time, and the healing will be slow. But a stronger party could rise up, and unlike many Trump supporters, the Republicans who will not vote for Trump will happily return to rebuild the GOP if they are invited.',
 "Fox News' structure is changing – but don't expect its coverage to do the same A glance at the headlines would have you believe Fox News is on the ropes. Its former chairman, CEO and spiritual leader, Roger Ailes, has not only been ousted but buried under a pile of sexual abuse allegations. New horror stories from female employees trickle out every week, with top brass implicated in a pervasive culture of misogyny and harassment. Meanwhile, its audience is dying off: the median Fox viewer is 67 yearsold, according to Nielsen. All these things are true, and tend to fuel speculation that the network will have to clean house, name a successor, and move away from fire and brimstone toward a fresher, gentler Fox News. That possibility is shrinking faster than Donald Trump’s poll numbers. On Friday, with a certain Spartan vibe, Rupert Murdoch created a new Fox News co-presidency shared by longtime Ailes lieutenant Bill Shine, who may yet be implicated in enabling Fox’s epidemic of sexual abuse, and local TV chief Jack Abernethy. It was a symbolic double-promotion, but both are under daddy’s supervision. The true successor to Ailes – who is still fighting the abuse allegations and vehemently denies wrongdoing – will be the next CEO and chairman. Candidates range from insiders such as executive editor John Moody and head of news Jay Wallace to superstar outsiders such as CBS president David Rhodes. But whoever shows up won’t have anything close to the control of “the Chairmanâ€\x9d, whose influence at Fox operates on a genetic level. Ailes has been banished, but the creature he electrified to life two decades ago now roams free on its own. “Don’t expect them to make a big change in their coverage,â€\x9d said Jane Hall, former Fox contributor and professor of media studies at American University. “It’s a highly successful formula.â€\x9d Fox is a money monster, pumping out over $1bn in profits a year. It rakes in about 20% of 21st Century Fox’s earnings, the most profitable unit in the empire. Perhaps that’s why the Murdoch brothers, Lachlan and James, heirs to News Corp patriarch Rupert and no fans of Ailes, told investors last week that they had no intention of tinkering with the “unique and important voiceâ€\x9d of their moneymaker. Despite all the drama, former employees say that Fox is a money machine that can run the way it always has – and make the profits it always has – in a post-Ailes era. “The network can coast for years just on the institutional memory,â€\x9d said Joe Muto, who worked as a producer for Fox star Bill O’Reilly for eight years before eventually going out in a blaze of glory after dishing the dirt on his employer to Gawker. “Ailes wanted to be successful, powerful and, yes, wanted to push his ideology,â€\x9d Muto said. “Murdoch, I think, is less ideological, but he will default to whatever makes him money. And Fox has been a piggy bank. You look at their balance sheet and Fox underwrites other losses.â€\x9d The idea that a new CEO could steer Fox into something closer to CNN, or the smaller, friendlier conservative outlet Newsmax, presupposes that the profit motive is not driving one of the biggest media conglomerates on the planet. Not only does it continue to dominate ratings, it’s such an essential part of America’s media diet that most of its money comes from “carriageâ€\x9d fees paid by the cable companies. And then there’s the very good chance that this fall, voters will gift Fox another Clinton in the White House. Not only would it keep the network in the simple, righteous role of loyal opposition to liberal tyranny, it would also be a great return to the climate of Clinton-bashing that put Fox on the map back in the 90s. “I think a Hillary presidency would guarantee the network maintains its rightwing bent for a few more years, even with the Murdoch brothers in control,â€\x9d said one ex-producer. Muto had a colorful metaphor at the ready: “I would compare it to Batman and the Joker. Batman is a much more interesting character when he has the Joker as a foil. And Hillary Clinton is the Joker to Fox’s Batman.â€\x9d If Trump won, the network would have a trickier time. For one thing, Fox generally does better under a Democratic reign. It’s true that the network became No 1 under Bush’s first term, but that was no doubt fuelled by the nonstop drama of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan, a climate of paranoia, and the culmination of the Iraq war – which, of course, Fox helped sell skillfully. “I don’t know how it would have played out without 9/11 and the Iraq war,â€\x9d Hall said. But eventually, Bush proved to be thin gruel, ratings-wise. “I think Bush winning in ’04 was a triumph for the network, but it went downhill quickly from there,â€\x9d Muto said. “The war started going badly. Hurricane Katrina happened. There was this sense that the network was having trouble carrying water for Bush any more. There was an overall sense of doom at Fox between Katrina and when the 2008 primaries began heating up.â€\x9d The ratings tell that story: from 2006 to 2007, Fox dropped to 1.4 million average viewers, down from 1.7 million a year before, according to Nielsen. By the end of 2008, they had shot up to 2 million. “It felt like the network was licking its chops for Hillary in 2008,â€\x9d said Muto. “‘Our old nemesis is back.’ Then when Obama showed up, it was even better.â€\x9d By 2009, the numbers were up to almost 2.2 million. Ratings have dipped in the latter half of Obama’s second term, but a Clinton regime could be just the thing to reignite the base. “They can continue to attack the flaws of Bill Clinton through her,â€\x9d said Hall. “She’s also, obviously, a woman. I’m sure that if she wins they’ll go after her as a ‘socialist’, go after her in every way, personally. She’s much better for them.â€\x9d Trump, on the other hand, would probably continue to fracture any sense of unity on the right, which is no good for Fox’s narratives of right v wrong, secular liberals v decent Americans. Then there’s just Trump’s unpredictability. “To me, the worst thing that can happen for the network is Trump gets elected,â€\x9d said Muto. “The prospect of carrying his water for four or eight years is unthinkable. Hannity will obviously give it a shot, Fox and Friends will try as hard as they can. But when you have him attacking the parents of war heroes, Fox is not gonna defend that for that long.â€\x9d Politics aside, Fox has a more concrete problem. The generational scare is real: the 25-54 demographic is only 17% of its audience and younger conservatives are generally far less interested in enlisting to fight against the “war on Christmasâ€\x9d. Its digital presence, the portal to that treasured younger audience, is lacking. Among competitors like CNN (which spent $20m expanding online operations), Yahoo, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, last year Fox ranked third place in multi-platform views, sixth place in video streams, and trailed on social. Fox gets good play on Facebook, but that’s thanks to brand recognition rather than deliberate strategy or forging partnerships with emerging distributors like Snapchat. “Digital always did seem like it was never part of the strategy – that was never the thinking,â€\x9d Muto said. “The whole network was very ratings-focused, short-sighted. If they want to attract a younger audience and eyeballs on digital, they need to recruit some new talent who knows how to do that.â€\x9d An ex-producer agrees: “One of the more puzzling things about Fox News is that they actually do have some legitimately talented field reporters – people who could conceivably get a scoop, break it on Twitter, and post an article that goes viral. But they don’t really do that ever.â€\x9d “CNN has become the model for this, and part of me thinks Roger long wanted to resist copying them lest he admit they did something better,â€\x9d the onetime employee said. Perhaps now with Ailes gone, and President Hillary Clinton possibly on the way, Fox can get started on catching up. Fox News did not respond to requests for comment.",
 'Led Zeppelin to release expanded version of their BBC Sessions compilation Just when you thought your bank account and shelves were safe, Led Zeppelin have announced another mammoth deluxe reissue, following the complete remastering of their Atlantic Records catalogue over the last few years. This time it’s The Complete BBC Sessions, an upgrade on the BBC Sessions album released in 1997. The unique selling point this time is a third disc, featuring eight previously unrecorded recordings, including a “lost sessionâ€\x9d the BBC had wiped from its archive – the version of that session comes from a fan’s radio recording. That session includes one Zeppelin song unavailable in any form on any other release, Sunshine Woman (though, naturally, you can hear it in seconds if you search YouTube), which was recorded for Alexis Korner’s Rhythm and Blues programme on the BBC World Service on 19 March 1969. All the sessions were recorded between 1969 and 1971, and feature songs dating up to the fourth Zeppelin album, including a version of Stairway to Heaven recorded on 1 April 1971. Naturally, there is no ordinary edition of the set. The entry-level version is a 3CD or 5LP “deluxe editionâ€\x9d. Those willing to mortgage their houses or sell one of their children’s kidneys can go for the super deluxe box set, with both vinyl and CDs and the additional baubles – a book, a print, a download code. The full CD tracklisting is: Disc One 1. You Shook Me 2. I Can’t Quit You Baby 3. Communication Breakdown 4. Dazed and Confused 5. The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair 6. What Is and What Should Never Be 7. Communication Breakdown 8. Travelling Riverside Blues 9. Whole Lotta Love 10. Somethin’ Else 11. Communication Breakdown 12. I Can’t Quit You Baby 13. You Shook Me 14. How Many More Times Disc Two 1. Immigrant Song 2. Heartbreaker 3. Since I’ve Been Loving You 4. Black Dog 5. Dazed and Confused 6. Stairway to Heaven 7. Going to California 8. That’s the Way 9. Whole Lotta Love (Medley: Boogie Chillun/Fixin’ to Die/That’s Alright Mama/A Mess of Blues) 10. Thank You Disc Three 1. Communication Breakdown* 2. What Is and What Should Never Be* 3. Dazed and Confused * 4. White Summer 5. What Is and What Should Never Be* 6. Communication Breakdown* 7. I Can’t Quit You Baby* 8. You Shook Me* 9. Sunshine Woman* * previously unreleased',
 'Minimum UK alcohol pricing gets backing of official health advisers A review commissioned by the government from its health advisers has concluded that ministers should introduce minimum unit pricing of alcohol to tackle the grim medical, economic and social toll of drink-related harm. The in-depth study(pdf) has found that drink is now the biggest killer of people aged between 15 and 49 in England. It accounts for 167,000 years of lost productivity each year and is a factor in more than 200 different illnesses. It leads to such huge harm that the lost economic activity it produces, through early death and disability among workers, is more than that for the 10 most common cancers combined, the review found. The study’s publication by Public Health England (PHE) is an embarrassment for ministers because it says they should embrace a policy that they have rejected due to an alleged lack of evidence. The report says: “Policies that reduce the affordability of alcohol are the most effective, and cost-effective, approaches to prevention and health improvement … Implementing an MUP [minimum unit price] is a highly targeted measure which ensures any resulting price increases are passed on to the consumer, improving the health of the heaviest drinkers who experience the greatest amount of harm. MUP would have a negligible impact on moderate drinkers and the price of alcohol sold in pubs, bars and restaurants.â€\x9d The coalition government pledged in March 2012 to bring in the policy, but it made a U-turn in July 2013, earning condemnation from medical organisations and arousing strong suspicions that it had caved in to intense lobbying by the alcohol industry. PHE, the government’s advisory agency on public health issues including obesity and smoking, published its “comprehensive review of the evidence on alcohol harm and its impact in Englandâ€\x9d in the Lancet medical journal on Friday. Sources say senior PHE officials feel its remit prevents it from explicitly backing minimum pricing, though ministerial opposition may also be a factor. Nevertheless, the report leaves little doubt regarding its support for the policy, observing that “the financial burden which alcohol-related harm places on society is not reflected in its market price, with taxpayers picking up a larger amount of the overall cost compared to the individual drinkersâ€\x9d. It says pricing policies should be updated in line with changes in income and inflation, “in order to retain their relative affordability and therefore be able to impact upon alcohol-related harmâ€\x9d. The new analysis has examined all the available evidence globally on alcohol harm and the steps effective in reducing it. PHE makes clear that the pricing of drink and the way it is marketed – issues of concern to medical groups – need to be urgently re-examined. It says policies can “address market failures by protecting people from the harm caused by other people’s drinking, deterring children from drinking, and improving consumer awareness of the risks of alcohol consumption.â€\x9d The review, undertaken by PHE and researchers from Sheffield University, found that the economic burden of health, social and economic alcohol-related harm was substantial, with estimates placing the annual cost at between 1.3% and 2.7% of annual GDP. “In 2015 there were an estimated 167,000 working years lost due to alcohol, 16% of all working years lost in England,â€\x9d it says. “More working years are lost to alcohol than the 10 most frequent cancer types combined.â€\x9d The authors’ conclusions will pose difficulties for the Department of Health, which asked PHE to undertake the assessment of the latest research. It will now face questions about why the government is not pushing ahead with introducing the policy, given that the evidence suggests it would be effective. In 2013 the government justified abandoning its plans by saying public consultation had “not provided evidence that conclusively demonstrates that minimum unit pricing will actually do what it is meant to: reduce problem drinking without penalising all those who drink responsibly.â€\x9d It is unclear how Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, will respond to the results of a review that his own department asked PHE to instigate. Medical groups want ministers to take tougher action on alcohol. Although total alcohol consumption has fallen since 2008, that has not been accompanied by a drop in alcohol-related harm. Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National party government in Edinburgh plans to introduce minimum unit pricing in Scotland if it successfully sees off a legal challenge against the policy brought by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA). The Holyrood administration won the last round of the battle in the courts in Edinburgh in October, but the SWA is appealing against that decision at the UK supreme court in London. The Scottish government hopes to set a minimum price of 50p a unit, the level backed by many doctors. The scrapped Westminster plan was to have set the level at 45p a unit. Medical and public health groups are likely to welcome the new findings but alcohol firms are expected to dismiss them. Manufacturers often argue that a minimum unit price would penalise responsible drinkers who stick to the amounts of alcohol recommended by the chief medical officers of the four home nations. That guidance was revised in January to set a weekly consumption limit of 14 units for men as well as women, down from the 21 units previously advised for males. However, previous evidence has concluded that the move would save thousands of lives because the heaviest drinkers are most likely to consume less as a result of the hike in price. • This article was amended on 2 December 2016 to add a mention of the Scotch Whisky Association’s legal challenge to plans for minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland. An earlier version said the SNP government was “pressing aheadâ€\x9d with the introduction of the policy.',
 "Donald Trump to Dr Oz: I feel 'as good today as I did at 30' On the day Donald Trump told TV host Dr Oz he feels “as good today as I did at 30â€\x9d, the 70-year-old Republican presidential nominee released the most detailed assessment yet of his physical condition. The Trump campaign used the release to take a swipe at Hillary Clinton, lauding the billionaire’s ability to “endure – uninterrupted – the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaignâ€\x9d. Clinton temporarily withdrew from the campaign trail after stumbling as she left a 9/11 memorial service in New York City on Sunday. Her campaign subsequently said she had pneumonia. In a taped interview with Dr Oz scheduled to be aired later on Thursday, Trump admitted that at 236lb he is overweight, but said he had bolstered his physical condition by giving speeches on the campaign trail. “It’s a lot of work,â€\x9d he said. “You know, when I’m speaking in front of 15, 20,000 people and I’m up there using a lot of motion, I guess in its own way it’s a pretty healthy act. “A lot of times these rooms are really hot, like saunas, and I guess that’s a form of exercise.â€\x9d Trump also plays golf. Before Trump’s interview with Dr Oz, his campaign released a statement from Dr Harold Bornstein, the same physician who in December said in a shorter note he could “state unequivocally, [Trump] will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidencyâ€\x9d. Bornstein later admitted the note had been “rushedâ€\x9d while a limo from the campaign waited outside his office. On Thursday, the reported that according to court papers, in April 2002 Bornstein agreed to pay $86,250 to the family of a patient, Janet Levin, who allegedly died after falling when she took “unhealthy amountsâ€\x9d of prescription drugs Bornstein had given her. Before settling, Bornstein denied all the allegations against him. The report on Trump’s health released on Thursday was based on an examination conducted on Friday 9 September. It was less hyperbolic than Bornstein’s first note, but still glowing. “Mr Trump is in excellent physical health,â€\x9d Bornstein wrote, adding that Trump’s liver and thyroid functions were within the normal range, and that a cardiac evaluation was normal. Trump takes medication to lower cholesterol Trump’s testosterone was listed at 441.6. “He doesn’t have unusually high testosterone nor does he have unusually low testosterone,â€\x9d said Dr Abraham Morgentaler, author of the book Testosterone for Life, adding that “450 or so is an average testosterone level in adult menâ€\x9d. Trump’s most recent colonoscopy was conducted on 10 July 2013, Bornstein said. It revealed no polyps. On the Dr Oz Show, Trump said that when he looks in the mirror he does not see a 70-year-old man. “I would say I see a person that’s 35 years old,â€\x9d he said. The campaign did not release any ophthalmic results. Trump told Oz he sometimes plays golf with the 39-year-old New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. “I feel I’m the same age as him. It’s crazy,â€\x9d Trump said. Clips released in advance of the show’s broadcast saw Oz noting that Trump would be the oldest person ever to be elected president. Trump said that he was not that much older than one previous Republican president. “Just about the same age as Ronald Reagan,â€\x9d he said. “And Hillary’s a year behind me. I actually feel as good today as I did at 30.â€\x9d Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became president, in 1981. Hillary Clinton will turn 69 on 26 October. The notes from Trump’s physical state that he is is 6ft 3in and 236lb, giving him a body mass index of 29.5, which is considered overweight. The businessman, who is known for eating McDonald’s, KFC and on at least one occasion a taco bowl, told Oz he would like to lose 15lb.",
 'Bank branch closures trigger high street alarm bells When the shutters come down on the Barclays branch in Bexley in a fortnight’s time, the south-east London suburb will be left without a high street bank. Nine customers used the branch “regularlyâ€\x9d over the last 12 months without interacting with the bank in any other way, Barclays told locals as it prepared for the closure, which was delayed by six months because repairs to a local bridge hindered access to the alternative branch. It is a situation repeated across the UK, as banks scramble to save costs to bolster profits just as historic low interest rates are punishing their profitability and customers migrate to smartphones and the internet to access their accounts. In Dinas Powys, just outside Cardiff, the NatWest branch is also the last remaining on the high street – it would have closed in August if it were not for problems at the designated alternative branch. NatWest, which is owned by the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, pointed to a 56% fall in transactions at the branch since 2011. Local Plaid Cymru councillor Chris Franks said there were concerns for local business people – not just individuals – about how they can pay in cash. “The irony is not lost on people that the public purse has paid a fortune for these banks and they are now abandoning taxpayers,â€\x9d said Franks. RBS argues it reviews each branch on a case-by-case basis. About 1,500 communities have already been left without a bank on their high street, according to the Campaign for Community Banking Service (CCBS), which predicts an inexorable decline in the number of branches. One of the findings of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into high street banking competition published earlier this month, was that a branch network was no longer a barrier to entry for challengers to the “big fourâ€\x9d – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays. “Previous reviews have found the authorisation process for banks, the cost of IT and access to branches as barriers to entry or expansion in retail banking. We no longer find this to be the case,â€\x9d the CMA said. Along with Santander, the big four have closed an estimated 1,700 branches in the last five years.When bailed-out Lloyds, the owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland (HBOS), announced 200 unit closures last month it said use of branches had fallen by 15% year on year. Some new branches have appeared. Metro Bank was, in 2010, the first startup to open on high streets for more than a century and now has 41 branches. Both Lloyds and RBS were forced to carve out branch networks as a penalty from the EU for their taxpayer bailouts. The network created – TSB – is owned by Sabadell and now has 598 branches compared with 631 when it started. RBS has abandoned attempts to spin out its 300 branches of Williams & Glyn and is looking for a trade buyer. However, Age UK, the charity which works with older people, is concerned. Journeys to branches are getting longer and for some older people not ready to embrace digital, there are other consequences. “Small business will also take fright of having to go long distances to a bank,â€\x9d a spokesman for Age UK said. That could prompt an exodus of other businesses from high streets. “We’re asking [older] people to lead more independent lives in the community and then cutting it away,â€\x9d the Age UK spokesman said. Last year, the industry was forced to agree to a “protocolâ€\x9d that requires them to publish impact statements with information about counter usage, regular customers and location of the nearest alternative bank, cash machine and Post Office. This is currently under review, with the outcome expected in the autumn. Nick Kennett, financial services director at the Post Office, said that when each branch closes, discussions are held about the services the Post Office can offer over its 11,500 counters. Customers of different banks at present have access to different services. He is working on a standardised service, by January, that means when each bank closes, cash withdrawals, deposit enquiries and deposit services are available for customers and small businesses to get small change. Campaigners against branch closures have long argued that branch sharing would be a solution. Derek French, who has run the CCBS since 1998, is now closing the website down. While he agrees with analysis by the consultancy CACI, cited by the CMA, that it is possible that just 600 branches will “deliver effective nationwide customer coverage in five years’ timeâ€\x9d, he thinks there will still be a need for banking services through other outlets. The banks themselves argue that branches will remain. Barclays said: “The number of physical Barclays branches will reduce overall but our branch network and the colleagues who work in them remain a vital part of our offeringâ€\x9d.',
 'Julie Bishop raises concerns over US foreign policy under Donald Trump Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has raised concerns about the unclear direction of US foreign policy if Donald Trump becomes president. She said the federal government had considered what a Clinton administration would mean for Australia and it knew what to expect. But if Donald Trump won the US presidency she indicated the government would have to work hard to ensure Australia’s interests were still looked after. With less than two weeks to go before the US federal election, Bishop said Trump was a “much lesser-known quantityâ€\x9d than Hillary Clinton. “I believe there will be continuity in foreign policy from the Obama administration, should it be a Clinton administration. She [Clinton] sees the US as having a global leadership role,â€\x9d Bishop told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday. “Candidate Donald Trump does not. He sees the US as having got a raw deal from globalisation and he would focus more on domestic matters. “We have seen Hillary Clinton, particularly as secretary of state, have a view that the US should take a leadership role in the Middle East, in hot spots around the world. She was the principal architect of the rebalance to the Asia Pacific in 2011. “The US became a member of the East Asia Summit with Australia, China and others. US engagement in our region is important for us. I believe that will continue under Hillary Clinton. “It will be up to our region, including Australia, to persuade a Trump administration to focus on the Asia Pacific,â€\x9d she said. Bishop said she had met Clinton many times, and Clinton appeared to be pragmatic. She said Clinton understood Australia’s place in the world and had a deep understanding of the US-Australia alliance. “Donald Trump is a much lesser known quantity, as far as Australia is concerned,â€\x9d she said. “He doesn’t have a record in government; in public office. We are looking closely at the policy pronouncements he has made.â€\x9d In February Trump said he wanted to shrink the American presence in Asia and charge allies billions of dollars for protection, complaining “richâ€\x9d countries like Japan and South Korea had been freeloading on the US and the US was getting little in return. “We’re constantly, you know, sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games, doing other,â€\x9d he said. “We’re reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.â€\x9d Bishop said Australia would also be monitoring carefully comments from the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte. She said Duterte recently “raised eyebrowsâ€\x9d when he told Chinese officials that he wanted to separate from the US, but had clarified his comments to say he was only talking about pursuing an independent foreign policy from the United States, which she said was not a remarkable statement. “There will be concerns if he does seek to distance the Philippines from the United States because the United States has been the principal security guarantor for our region and many nations, including the Philippines, and Australia has benefited enormously from the US presence,â€\x9d Bishop said. “He has gone on to say that in Japan he would like to see US troops leave but that he is not going to break any agreements at this point. We will monitor his statements carefully.â€\x9d Last month Bishop met with Trump’s campaign team in the US and said she had been assured Australia was a “close and strong ally of the United Statesâ€\x9d. After the meeting, she said from Australia’s point of view the alliance would hold up under a Trump presidency. “I am confident that whomever the American people in their wisdom choose to be president, there will be an ongoing strong connection with Australia,â€\x9d she said.',
 'The view on Brexit and the Lords: power to examine A protocol of British democracy is that the House of Lords shows humility in recognition that its members are not elected, in exchange for which the Commons retains a degree of deference to the ancient pedigree of the upper house. This arrangement, underpinned by convention and statute, is tested whenever peers thwart some cherished government ambition. Such protocols did not prevent the Lords from sabotaging George Osborne’s plans to cut tax credits last year. David Cameron’s government threatened to retaliate with legislation making curtailment of peer power more explicit. Theresa May’s government has now suspended that threat but with a proviso. Baroness Evans, leader of the Lords, has warned her upper house colleagues that they must exhibit “discipline and self-regulationâ€\x9d, especially where scrutiny of Brexit is concerned. She is right that unelected peers would be unwise to adopt a wrecking stance towards a policy mandated by popular vote in the referendum. But there is no sign that the Lords have wholly obstructive intent, and they do have a right of critical engagement. An undertaking to comply with the prime minister’s Brexit timetable is not one the Lords can reasonably give, nor one that government should seek.',
 'Matthew McConaughey turns bourbon ambassador and has a quiet night out The warmest of congratulations to cinema’s Matthew McConaughey, whose first opus as “creative directorâ€\x9d of Wild Turkey bourbon is already upon us. It was only last month that the bourbon brand announced the Oscar-winning star had signed a multi-year deal to “serve as the chief storyteller for Wild Turkey both behind the camera and in front of itâ€\x9d. I wouldn’t like to hazard how much Wild Turkey Matthew had in him to make the following statement, but it’s good to learn how much of Matthew there seems to be in Wild Turkey. “Wild Turkey has the history and qualities of a brand that depicts the dedication of someone to do something their own way,â€\x9d he announced solemnly, “even if that way isn’t always the most popular.â€\x9d Well quite. This is a bourbon still prickly about having spent most of the noughties imprisoned in second-tier romcoms with Kate Hudson, or defending its naked bongo-playing arrest. And so to Matthew’s first commercial distillation of the brand, which is unlikely to win any prizes for originality, given that it opens with him drawling “We’re not in a rush to be most popular …â€\x9d Well, of course not. It is, after all, an immutable advertising law that dictates this type of hard liquor must always be styled as the laconic choice, the laidback choice, the almost insufferably slow-moving choice. And yet, as anyone who has ever had a proper night on the stuff will tell you, this could scarcely be more at odds with the user experience. The one thing you can bet your pickup truck on is that they’re sweeping up teeth come chucking-out time in Jack Daniels Hollow, where a mere naked bongo arrest must surely be regarded as having had a quiet one.',
 'The view on the American presidential election It was a week when the 2016 American presidential election appeared to boil down to a contest between two individuals: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both candidates achieved sweeping victories across the Super Tuesday states. Both immediately began to adjust their campaign rhetoric to better suit November’s national election, with an emphasis on inclusiveness and unity. In Trump’s case, however, this feigned switch towards moderation and bonhomie was short lived. By the week’s end, he was again insulting his rivals and almost unbelievably, given what is at stake, bragging about the size of his penis. It is true that forthcoming primaries in Florida, Ohio and elsewhere could upset projections of a Trump-Clinton showdown. It is still theoretically possible that Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz could somehow deny Trump the Republican nomination, even though they lag far behind in party polls. It would take a miracle for Bernie Sanders, the fireside socialist from what Time columnist Joe Klein calls New England’s “latte landsâ€\x9d, to overhaul Clinton, but miracles do sometimes happen. And such is the hostility to Trump within the Republican hierarchy, an old-fashioned brokered (meaning manipulated) convention in Cleveland in July, fixed to deny him his party’s crown, cannot be ruled out. But these are all implausible scenarios. Barring accidents or other unforeseen events, American voters seem stuck with a choice few foresaw a year ago. Whereas Clinton was always hot favourite to succeed Barack Obama and lead her party in the autumn, Trump, a rank outsider who has never held political office, has come from nowhere to seize the spotlight, headlines and votes. Yet is this really as unusual as some commentators believe? US elections have a long history of producing unconventional, sometimes unpleasant anti-establishment candidates whose allure eclipses the professional political class. Strip away, if you can, Trump’s boorishness and gross insensitivity to complex issues such as the west’s relationship with Islam and his iconoclastic, insurgent campaign does not look or sound very different from those waged by maverick rightwingers such as Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot in the 1990s. Nor, historically speaking, is his lack of experience a bar to the highest office. Non-politicians Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses Grant both won the presidency thanks to their reputations as successful generals. Herbert Hoover, like Trump a wealthy businessman, was elected in 1928 for his supposed financial acumen. Hapless Hoover also promised to “make America great againâ€\x9d. Instead, the Wall Street Crash a few months later triggered the Great Depression. Given Trump’s ignorant views on immigration and his appeal among grassroots voters, defined as white, Protestant, working-class people lacking a college degree, a more exact precedent is found in the activities of the Know Nothing party, also known as the American party, in the early 1850s. The Know Nothings exploited public fears about unchecked immigration, promising to “purifyâ€\x9d society by halting the influx of Irish and German Catholics whom they claimed were secretly controlled by the pope. Know-nothing Trump’s verbal sparring with Pope Francis over Mexican border walls provides an intriguing echo of that time. Yet past experience does nothing to diminish the present-day anger and disillusionment of many American voters with the modern political establishment and the way things are now. This discontent is very real and very urgent. Understanding it, articulating it and, most importantly, acting to both satisfy and channel it in positive ways represents the biggest challenge for Trump and Clinton. But from where does this anger come? Is it simply that Washington’s so-called elite are out of touch, that Congress is log-jammed and impotent and Obama is a discredited lame duck? Or is there a bigger, deeper cause of this malaise that any president would struggle to remedy? It would seem so. The unpalatable truth confronting Americans, if they care to face up to it (and many do not), is that their country, for so long regarded by them as unquestionably the foremost and best among nations, is under unprecedented pressure. Militarily, the US remains the world’s most powerful state. Yet it cannot or will not stop a resurgent Russia thumbing its nose at the west in Ukraine, Syria and the Baltic. In the South China Sea, another upstart rival, China, builds multiple island military bases with nonchalant impunity. In the Middle East, the sons of those same insurgents who resisted the 2003 Iraq invasion and swore allegiance to al-Qaida now fly the black banners of Islamic State, tearing up international human rights law, threatening civilian lives in every European and Arab capital and making a mockery of the post-Cold War pax Americana. At home, global forces beyond the control of any White House incumbent undermine the job security, pay and pensions of American workers once inured to international competition. The US national debt, estimated at a whopping $19.1tn, is in fact much higher. The government has pledged an astounding $41.9tn in social security and other retiree benefits over the next 75 years, money it simply does not have and will not receive on current revenue projections. That amounts to a total debt of $61tn, equivalent to more than three times US gross domestic product, much of it underwritten abroad. American society meanwhile continues to transform rapidly in myriad ways. Gone are the old, Germanic-inspired certainties of kitchen, church and country. No longer can violence against black people and other minorities, powerfully symbolised by police shootings, be quietly ignored. As Obama’s watershed election in 2008 foretold, in the making is a more integrated, more multiracial, multi-confessional, sexually liberated and politically diverse America than ever existed before. The wonderful irony is that the idea of the melting pot, for so long more myth than daily fact of life, seems finally to be coming into being. The bigger question for 2016’s voters, therefore, is not about Trump or Clinton, Republican or Democrat. It is about how to manage a changing, less homogenous, less wealthy and less dominant America in a highly competitive, often chaotic and dangerous 21st-century world. The American nation is living beyond its means at home and increasingly failing to project its will and interests abroad. This is a serious moment, perhaps even a turning point, as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, suggests. The appalling Trump, in particular, must understand this. Bragging, bluster and bullying do not cut it. At this critical hour, America needs leadership.',
 'Premier League, Football League and European football: clockwatch – as it happened That’s it from me; here are some match reports to help you make sense of this afternoon’s action. Don’t forget to join Rob Smyth for Arsenal v Norwich. That should be fun. Cheerio! Premier League Newcastle are out of the bottom three with 33 points Sunderland are a point behind with a game in hand West Ham are up to fifth, five points off Arsenal in fourth Championship Sheffield Wednesday join Derby and Hull in the play-offs League One Wigan are promoted from League One after beating Blackpool Burton need a point to guarantee promotion to the second tier Doncaster are all but down after 3-1 defeat at Crewe Blackpool and Fleetwood will fight to avoid last relegation place League Two Accrington, Oxford and Bristol Rovers still in the promotion race Plymouth, Portsmouth and Wimbledon are all in the play-offs Drama at Moor Lane, where Salford City scored twice in the last ten minutes to beat Workington 3-2, seal promotion to the Conference North, and finally restore a smile to Gary Neville’s face. Championship Brentford 3-0 Fulham Bristol City 4-0 Huddersfield Ipswich 3-2 MK Dons Leeds Utd 1-2 Charlton Nottingham Forest 1-1 Wolves Reading 1-2 Preston Rotherham 0-1 Blackburn Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 Cardiff League One Barnsley 2-2 Colchester Burton 2-1 Gillingham Chesterfield 3-0 Bury Coventry 3-1 Sheffield Utd Crewe 2-1 Doncaster (latest) Millwall 3-0 Oldham Rochdale 2-2 Swindon Scunthorpe 1-0 Port Vale Shrewsbury 3-4 Peterborough Southend 0-1 Bradford City League Two Barnet 3-4 Yeovil (!) Cambridge 2-2 Plymouth Carlisle 0-2 Oxford Dagenham & Redbridge 3-0 Crawley Exeter 1-1 Morecambe Hartlepool 0-2 Portsmouth Leyton Orient 1-0 Mansfield Newport 0-1 Notts County Northampton 2-0 Luton Stevenage 0-0 Wimbledon Wycombe 0-1 Accrington York 1-4 Bristol Rovers Everton 2-1 Bournemouth Newcastle 1-0 Crystal Palace Stoke 1-1 Sunderland Watford 3-2 Aston Villa West Brom 0-3 West Ham Sheffield Wednesday are in the play-offs after beating Cardiff 3-0 at Hillsborough, while Luke Varney has grabbed a late winner for Ipswich. Burton are on the verge of promotion after beating Gillingham 2-1, while Tom Lapslie has scored a last-gasp equaliser for Colchester at Oakwell. The U’s are already down, and had a forward in nets for the last ten minutes, so that’s impressive. At Crewe, Doncaster have around 20 minutes to realistically save themselves from the drop. Everton win, but there are plenty of banners up around Goodison Park calling for Roberto MartÃ\xadnez to go. Leighton Baines got the winner in the second half. All over at the Hawthorns, where West Ham keep their top four push alive thanks to two goals from Mark Noble, and one for Cheikhou Kouyaté. An Andros Townsend free kick, and a Karl Darlow penalty save from Yohan Cabaye, earn Newcastle a vital victory. Bryan Graham has more. Quite the game at the New Meadow, where Shrewsbury rallied from 3-0 down to level, only to slip 4-3 behind at the death. Now they’ve had Ian Black sent off. In League Two, it’s finished Cambridge 2-2 Plymouth; the visitors will be in the play-offs, Cambridge will not. Villa snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as Troy Deeney scores two stoppage-time goals to earn a useful win for Quique Sanchez Flores. Jermain Defoe wins and scores an injury-time penalty to earn a precious point for Sunderland. A Gareth Bale header settles a scrappy game, and Real are back on top in La Liga, for a couple of hours. Come on now, this isn’t fair. Troy Deeney strikes again to earn Watford victory, and somehow make Villa’s season worse. Scenes at the Pirelli Stadium, where Tom Naylor has put Burton 2-1 up in the 92nd minute! I’m so sorry, Villa fans. Troy Deeney nods a Berghuis cross into the net to equalise in stoppage time. Defoe takes an age to place the ball, then smashes it home to grab a point for Sunderland! Oh boy. Geoff Cameron brings down Defoe, who gets up to take the penalty... Real Madrid have a free kick to defend in added time, but Keylor Navas gets both hands to a near-post header. That should do it... At Stoke, Seb Larsson fires a free kick over, and Sunderland’s frustrations boil over, with a couple of minor skirmishes breaking out. They’re running out of time, as are Doncaster, who have gone behind at bottom club Crewe. If they lose, they’re as good as down. It gets worse for Plymouth, with James Spencer putting the hosts ahead, two minutes after their equaliser. That goal could keep Cambridge in the hunt for a play-off place themselves. Big goals crash in at Oakwell – where Barnsley lead 2-1 – and the Abbey Stadium, where Cambridge have equalised against Plymouth. That could condemn Plymouth to the play-offs. In the Championship, Stephen Quinn has equalised for Reading at home to Preston, in a game they’re racing to get over and done with. Ten minutes to go in the Premier League. Can Sunderland level? Will Newcastle hang on? Are Everton about to win at home? We’re about to find out. League Two news: it’s York 1-3 Bristol Rovers, and Accrington finally have the lead at Wycombe. All of the top six are winning, while there’s a cracker at Barnet, where Yeovil have just made it 3-3. Your thoughts “Gareth Bale redeems himself with a header à  la Andy Carroll. Must be the topknotâ€\x9d says Charles Antaki. “Toooooooon!â€\x9d bellows Sam Huscroft. The captain gets his second of the day, turning home Andy Carroll’s chipped pass. You know what to do, Roy... A big goal in La Liga, as Gareth Bale gets it right this time to head a Lucas Vasquez cross into the top corner! Alex Revell gets his second, and it’s inevitably Ipswich 2-2 MK Dons in a game between two sides who can’t buy a win. And Sheffield Wednesday are bound for the playoffs, as Gary Hooper robs David Marshall of the ball and crosses, with Cardiff’s Lee Peltier applying the unfortunate finishing touch. Oxford lead Carlisle 2-0, but they won’t be going up today – Bristol Rovers lead 2-0 at York, and Plymouth lead at Cambridge. In League One, Shrewsbury needed a win to secure survival. They’ve failed miserably, losing 3-1 at home to Peterborough. It had all been going too well for Aston Villa, and after Anya is put clear by Ben Watson, Cissokho brings him down with his trailing leg, and is sent packing by Anthony Taylor. Jackie Milburn, Alan Shearer... Karl Darlow. The understudy keeper denies Cabaye, and Newcastle stay in the lead. Moussa Sissoko handles from a Palace corner, and former Newcastle hero Yohan Cabaye is going to take it... Bristol City lead 3-0 over Huddersfield, Jonathan Kodjia with his second goal. Elsewhere in the Championship, Ipswich lead MK Dons 2-1 through Brett Pitman, and Forest have equalised against Wolves. No title for Bayern today, as Gladbach hold them to a 1-1 draw. They’re five points clear of Dortmund with two games remaining. Eintracht Frankfurt are out of the bottom two, with Werder Bremen dropping into danger. Bayern 1-1 Gladbach Darmstadt 1-2 Eintracht Frankfurt Dortmund 5-1 Wolfsburg Hannover 1-3 Schalke Hoffenheim 2-1 Ingolstadt Mainz 0-0 Hamburg “Sunderland’s own Thomas Müller has not scored yet but I am sure he is working hardâ€\x9d honks Ian Copestake. Fabio Borini has now gone off, unappreciated once again. Big goal at Hillsborough, where Gary Hooper has put Sheffield Wednesday ahead, tucking away the rebound after Pudil’s shot was saved. The hosts set for the play-offs alongside Hull, Derby and whoever finishes third. Leighton Baines puts Everton back ahead, placing an Aaron Lennon pull-back into the top corner with aplomb. Joe Mason puts Wolves a goal up at Nottingham Forest, while in League One, Barnsley equalise at home to Colchester. Thank me later, Newcastle fans. Andros Townsend puts the hosts ahead from a free kick! Bryan Graham has more. “Gareth Bale has just missed not one sitter, but two in short order against Real Sociedad. Adopts the hands-behind-head plus anguished-distant-gaze appropriate to such occasionsâ€\x9d reports Charles Antaki. He also looked for an offside flag to help him out – absolutely textbook. Can Newcastle take advantage of Sunderland going behind? They’re struggling at the moment. Get the latest with Bryan Graham. It’s a (relatively) good afternoon so far for teams already down: Bolton have won, Villa are winning, as are Charlton, Colchester lead at Barnsley, Crewe have equalised against Doncaster, and Dagenham & Redbridge lead Crawley 2-0. Here’s J.A. Hopkin with a fair point: Let’s talk about how the other three Champions’ League semi-finalists are playing today, but the FA and Sky Sports would not allow Man City to move tomorrow evening’s match away at Southampton to a Saturday kick-off. How’s that for supporting our home clubs in Europe? Manuel Pellegrini certainly isn’t happy: West Brom offering no threat to West Ham, with Andy Carroll coming closest to scoring in the second half. Hard lines for Spurs fans... Two big goals in the Bundesliga relegation race – Eintracht Frankfurt lead at Darmstadt, and Hoffenheim lead 2-1 at home to Ingolstadt. Elsewhere, Dortmund are sending a message to Mats Hummels – they’re now 5-0 up over Wolfsburg. Gillingham grab an equaliser at Burton through Cody McDonald. If it stays like that, Wigan will be champions, and Burton will be nervous. In the Championship, Ademola Lookman has doubled Charlton’s lead at Leeds. Grim news for Sunderland fans, Marco Arnautovic bullying Lamine Kone off the ball and firing Stoke into the lead. Aston Villa freewheeling at Vicarage Road, retaking the lead through Jordan Ayew, who fires a low shot beyond the grasp of Heurelho Gomes. Well then – Gladbach have equalised through Andre Hahn, and Bayern’s party is on hold. We’ve also got news from Crewe v Doncaster – don’t go thinking we’ve gone all continental on you. It’s 1-0 to Doncaster, who look set to keep their survival bid on track. Real Madrid fail to make a first-half breakthrough in a dull 45 minutes at the Anoeta. Championship A couple of late goals, with Jonathan Kodjia putting Bristol City ahead, and Alex Revell equalising for MK Dons. Brentford 3-0 Fulham Bristol City 1-0 Huddersfield Ipswich 1-1 MK Dons Leeds Utd 0-1 Charlton Nottingham Forest 0-0 Wolves Reading 0-0 Preston Rotherham 0-1 Blackburn Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Cardiff League One Barnsley 0-1 Colchester Burton 1-0 Gillingham Chesterfield 2-0 Bury Coventry 2-0 Sheffield Utd Crewe 0-0 Doncaster (3.30 k/o) Millwall 2-0 Oldham Rochdale 1-2 Swindon Scunthorpe 0-0 Port Vale Shrewsbury 0-1 Peterborough Southend 0-1 Bradford City League Two Barnet 1-0 Yeovil Cambridge 0-0 Plymouth Carlisle 0-1 Oxford Dagenham & Redbridge 0-0 Crawley Exeter 0-0 Morecambe Hartlepool 0-0 Portsmouth Leyton Orient 0-0 Mansfield Newport 0-1 Notts County Northampton 2-0 Luton Stevenage 0-0 Wimbledon Wycombe 0-0 Accrington York 0-1 Bristol Rovers Everton 1-1 Bournemouth Newcastle 0-0 Crystal Palace Stoke 0-0 Sunderland Watford 1-1 Aston Villa West Brom 0-2 West Ham Kouyaté turns provider, teeing up Mark Noble who toe-pokes the ball into the bottom corner to put West Ham very much on top. Almen Abdi spoils Villa’s party, equalising on the stroke of half-time with a fine free kick. Granit Xhaka curls a shot just wide of Manuel Neuer’s far post, with Bayern still just a goal up. Dortmund keep up the pressure, Marco Reus making it 3-0 over Wolfsburg. Hope for Frankfurt, as Makoto Hasebe equalises at Darmstadt. Burton take the lead over Gillingham, Lucas Akins with the goal. Victory would put them six points and at least five goals ahead of Walsall, with two games remaining for the Saddlers. Millwall in fourth are 2-0 up over Oldham, but that’s no use unless Burton lose. Relegated Charlton lead Leeds 1-0 at Elland Road, in a match that I’ll wager is lacking a party atmosphere. At Goodison Park, Ross Barkley is trying to make something happen, but fires a shot into Stanley Park from a good position. “My local team, Eintracht Frankfurt, seem to be doomedâ€\x9d says Ian Copestake, who likes to spread his allegiances around. “Football God Alexander Meier needs to channel his inner Jay Jay Okochaâ€\x9d. Frankfurt are still a goal down at Darmstadt, and the marvellous Meier is set for a spell of being undervalued at a Premier League contender. Here’s our report from Bloomfield Road, where Wigan returned to the Championship in style, and Blackpool slid closer to League Two; they were in the Premier League five years ago. “There appears to be some mistake,â€\x9d says Chris Drew. “You’ve got Aston Villa as scoring a goal. And even more unbelievable, they’re in the lead.â€\x9d Dimitri Payet collects the ball out on the right, and delivers a superb cross for Chiekhou Kouyaté to nod the Hammers in front. Real Sociedad enjoy a spell of pressure, with Sergio Ramos of all people conceding a clumsy free kick – but two forwards get in each other’s way. One early goal in the Championship that passed me by: Blackburn lead Rotherham 1-0 through Shane Duffy. In League Two, Bristol Rovers lead at York, and Barnet are a goal up over Yeovil. In Scotland, Aberdeen aren’t giving up the title today, and they’re working on the 39-goal swing, leading 2-0 over Motherwell. Surprise! Ciaran Clark gets his head to a corner and nods Villa into the lead! They haven’t won away from home since August. Ben Watson hits the bar with an outrageous volley from distance, while at the Hawthorns, Jonathan Leko is lighting things up in an otherwise quiet game. David McGoldrick has put Ipswich a goal up against relegated MK Dons, while Sheffield Wednesday are knocking on the door against Cardiff. In San Sebastian, Gareth Bale flashes another header wide, the Welshman leading the line with Benzema and Ronaldo out today. “Are Leicester City going to party like its 1999 (see below), Manchester United’s treble winning year, when Manchester United, like Leicester City, only lost three matches during the Premier League season?â€\x9d asks Raymond Reardon (presumably not that one). Let’s not talk about Leicester. You want to, I want to, but... ah, what the hey, let’s talk about Leicester. Peter Crouch flicks on Charlie Adam’s cross, but Marco Arnautovic can’t get their ahead of Mannone, before Kone throws himself in front of a Shaqiri shot. Nothing to trouble the scoreboard here, or at Newcastle, Watford and West Brom. At the Anoeta, Gareth Bale has planted a header just wide as Real Madrid search for an opener. Here’s the Bundesliga half times; Bayern are 45 minutes from the title. Bayern 1-0 Gladbach Darmstadt 1-0 Eintracht Frankfurt Dortmund 2-0 Wolfsburg Hannover 1-2 Schalke Hoffenheim 1-1 Ingolstadt Mainz 0-0 Hamburger SV Watford all over Aston Villa in the early stages, with the off-colour Odion Ighalo missing a couple of chances. In League One, Bradford lead at Southend, while in Scotland, Kilmarnock lead at Hamilton, pushing Dundee United closer to the drop. It’s a big day for Salford City – they’re up against Workington in the Northern Premier League playoff final, seeking elevation to the Conference North. It’s 1-1 after 15 minutes at Moor Lane. Fulham and Sheffield United fans, time to go out and enjoy the sunshine. Fulham are 2-0 down at Brentford, the Blades behind by the same score at Coventry. It takes a while to be officially given, but Marc Pugh turns Callum Wilson in off Matthew Pennington to level immediately. Boos from the crowd over a potential push in the build-up. Tom Cleverley gives the hosts a welcome lead, firing into the bottom of the corner from the edge of the area. Early goals in Leagues One & Two: Oxford lead at Carlisle with promotion in sight, while Northampton lead Luton through Zander Diamond. The champions will get their hands on the trophy at full-time, as my colleague Dan Lucas keeps reminding me. More Hillsborough tributes at St. James’ Park: “Rafa has made Newcastle my second team. The fans have just cranked out a thrilling rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Wonderful to see this in footballâ€\x9d says Ian Copestake. I feel a little discombobulated after that emotional Everton tribute, but let’s press on with the football. All games are under way. At Goodison Park, a number of Hillsborough victims’ relatives are on the pitch, while the PA plays “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brotherâ€\x9d. During a minute’s applause, a banner is unfurled, it reads “Justice at Last 96 – Brothers in Armsâ€\x9d. “Due to unforeseen circumstances, that is, a win for Kilmarnock at Hamilton today, followed by a defeat for Dundee United at Dens on Monday, today’s Scottish football update has been cancelled. Sorryâ€\x9d sobs Simon McMahon. “But for anybody still interested it’s still quite exciting in the race for the Championship play offs between Falkirk and Hibs, and the bottom of League One between Cowdenbeath, Brechin and Stenhousemuir.â€\x9d Simon is too depressed to mention Celtic, who have beaten Hearts 3-1 at Tynecastle. They will be confirmed as champions if Aberdeen fail to beat Motherwell, but the Dons need four wins, three Celtic defeats and a 39-goal swing. You can forgive Celtic for celebrating early. Roberts is on the bench at the Hawthorns today, and Pêl-droed is probably my favourite word for football in another language. Thomas Müller has put Bayern 1-0 up early on in Munich. Dortmund, as usual, are chasing gamely – they’re already 2-0 up in Wolfsburg, Shinji Kagawa and Adrian Ramos with the goals. Football League fixtures Championship Brentford v Fulham Bristol City v Huddersfield Ipswich v MK Dons Leeds Utd v Charlton Nottingham Forest v Wolves Reading v Preston Rotherham v Blackburn Sheffield Wednesday v Cardiff It finished Bolton 1-0 Hull in the early game; the visitors not exactly picking up speed as the play-offs approach. League One Barnsley v Colchester Burton v Gillingham Chesterfield v Bury Coventry v Sheffield Utd Crewe v Doncaster Millwall v Oldham Rochdale v Swindon Scunthorpe v Port Vale Shrewsbury v Peterborough Southend v Bradford City League Two Barnet v Yeovil Cambridge v Plymouth Carlisle v Oxford Dagenham & Redbridge v Crawley Exeter v Morecambe Hartlepool v Portsmouth Leyton Orient v Mansfield Newport v Notts County Northampton v Luton Stevenage v Wimbledon Wycombe v Accrington York v Bristol Rovers Wigan are promoted from League One after thrashing Blackpool 4-0 at Bloomfield Road. It’s straight back to Championship business for them. The Latics will be crowned champions if Burton fail to win today; victory for the Brewers over Gillingham would, more pressingly, put them on the edge of a first-ever season in the second tier. That can’t be confirmed until Monday, when Walsall play Fleetwood. That also spares Blackpool for today, while Doncaster need a win at rock-bottom Crewe. Chesterfield and Shrewsbury can seal survival with victories over Bury and Peterborough respectively. With Middlesbrough drawing at Birmingham last night, and both Burnley and Brighton playing on Monday, there’s only issue to address in today’s Championship games. Sheffield Wednesday host Cardiff, knowing that a draw will seal a play-off place. In League Two, Accrington and Oxford could both go up today with victories, providing that Bristol Rovers and Plymouth stumble. Oxford are looking to return to the third tier after 15 years away; Stanley last played at that level in 1960. Defeat for Plymouth at Cambridge could keep the play-off race alive, with the U’s battling Wimbledon for the final place. There’s more on all the possible ups and downs here. In La Liga, Real Madrid can return to the summit for a couple of hours with a win at Real Sociedad, who haven’t won in their three games since beating Barcelona. It’s a clash between two of Spain’s all-time big six: Real Madrid lead the way with 32 La Liga titles, their Basque opponents are sixth, with a whopping two. In Germany, Bayern are ready to make history; victory over Moenchengladbach would seal a first ever Bundesliga four-peat. Gladbach are in the race for fourth, and defeat will give Mainz and Schalke the chance to catch up, with current incumbents Hertha Berlin playing in-form Leverkusen later. At the bottom, Eintracht Frankfurt can boost their survival chances with a win at Darmstadt. In Ligue 1, Nice look set to miss out on ending a 56-year wait to return to the European elite; they’re 1-0 down at Nantes, chasing Lyon and Monaco for a top-three spot. At the Hawthorns, talented teenager Jonathan Leko makes his first Premier League start a week after his sixteenth birthday. He’s the first top-flight player born in 1999, which is a good enough reason for me: Bobby rolls those dice, with January signing Oumar Niasse starting ahead of Romelu Lukaku up front, and youngster Matthew Pennington in central defence. For Bournemouth, Callum Wilson starts for the first time since September. Everton v Bournemouth Everton: Howard, Besic, Stones, Pennington, Baines, McCarthy, Gibson, Lennon, Barkley, Cleverley, Niasse. Subs: Robles, Hibbert, Oviedo, Lukaku, Mirallas, Osman, Hassan. Bournemouth: Boruc, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Arter, Surman, Pugh, Ritchie, Wilson, King. Subs: Gosling, Stanislas, Afobe, Federici, Grabban, Wiggins, O’Kane. Referee: Neil Swarbrick Stoke City v Sunderland Stoke: Haugaard, Bardsley, Cameron, Shawcross, Pieters, Whelan, Imbula, Shaqiri, Adam, Arnautovic, Crouch. Subs: Muniesa, Joselu, Diouf, Walters, Wollscheid, Krkic, Bachmann. Sunderland: Mannone, Yedlin, Kone, Kaboul, Van Aanholt, Kirchhoff, Borini, Cattermole, M’Vila, Khazri, Defoe. Subs: Jones, Larsson, Rodwell, N’Doye, Pickford, O’Shea, Watmore. Referee: Craig Pawson Newcastle v Crystal Palace Newcastle: Darlow, Anita, Mbemba, Lascelles, Dummett, Tiote, Colback, Townsend, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Cissé. Subs: De Jong, Shelvey, Perez, Taylor, Woodman, Mbabu, Mitrovic. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souaré, Jedinak, Cabaye, McArthur, Bolasie, Puncheon, Wickham. Subs: Mariappa, McCarthy, Gayle, Adebayor, Sako, Ledley, Kelly. Referee: Mike Dean West Brom v West Ham West Brom: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Evans, Yacob, Fletcher, Leko, Gardner, McClean, Rondón. Subs: Chester, Myhill, Lambert, Berahino, Sessegnon, Sandro, Roberts. West Ham: Adrián, Antonio, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Noble, Kouyaté, Lanzini, Sakho, Carroll, Payet. Subs: Randolph, Tomkins, Collins, Moses, Byram, Emenike, Oxford. Referee: Lee Mason Watford v Aston Villa Watford: Gomes, Paredes, Cathcart, Britos, Anya, Abdi, Mario Suárez, Watson, Jurado, Deeney, Ighalo. Subs: Nyom, Prodl, Amrabat, Aké, Guedioura, Pantilimon, Berghuis. Aston Villa: Bunn, Hutton, Clark, Lescott, Cissokho, Westwood, Gana, Toner, Bacuna, Gestede, Ayew. Subs: Guzan, Richards, Sinclair, Veretout, Sánchez, Gil, Grealish. Referee: Anthony Taylor They told me that the classics never go out of style but they do, they do. It’s been a tough old season for the top flight’s established elite, and it could still end with Newcastle and Sunderland joining Aston Villa in dropping out. That would leave a top division without those three giants for the first time ever. Ever? Ever. Newcastle host Alan Pardew’s Crystal Palace (join Bryan Graham for that one), while Sunderland travel to summertime Stoke; the sort of fixtures one might hand pick in their situation, but on the flip side, games where defeat will leave either club with that sinking feeling. Another top-flight heavyweight could be about to end a record run; Everton haven’t sacked a manager since 2002, but unless Roberto MartÃ\xadnez can summon a fifth home win of the season against Bournemouth, it could be curtains. The reverse fixture, a 3-3 draw Everton refused to win, may go down as the MartÃ\xadnez Years’ defining moment. Another manager on the brink is Quique Sà nchez Flores, reportedly set to be sacked by the ungrateful swines at Watford, with a first top-ten finish in 30 years still on the table. If they can’t beat Aston Villa at home today, his departure could be inevitable, and almost forgivable. There are no such worries for fellow newcomer Slaven Bilic, who still harbours dreams of leading West Ham to a first ever Champions League place. West Brom’s Tony Pulis will be looking forward to wrapping those dreams in a club shop scarf, and smashing them with a hammer. There’s history to be made in Europe, the Football League and beyond too. Plenty to enjoy without even mentioning Leicester. Ah. Sorry. Team news to follow. Premier League 3pm kick-offs Everton v Bournemouth Newcastle v Crystal Palace Stoke v Sunderland Watford v Aston Villa West Brom v West Ham',
 'Cambridge University names Canadian academic as next vice-chancellor A Canadian expert in international law has been chosen as the next vice-chancellor of Cambridge university following a global search for a leader to navigate the Brexit-related challenges facing higher education. Prof Stephen Toope, who is director of the University of Toronto’s Munk school of global affairs, will replace Sir Leszek Borysiewicz in October next year, following formal approval by the university’s governing body. He takes over one of the biggest jobs in higher education at a time when UK universities are facing unprecedented uncertainty in the wake of the referendum vote to leave the EU, as well as wide-ranging changes to funding and regulation. Toope will be required to build on Cambridge’s international reputation amid fierce competition in the global higher education market, particularly from established universities in the US and emerging institutions in Asia. Earlier this month, the QS world university rankings were published in which Cambridge fell out of the top three for the first time in 12 years, as other UK institutions slightly deteriorated in performance. Last week, arch rival Oxford was named the best university in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) world university rankings – the first time an institution from the UK has topped the THE rankings. Cambridge came fourth. The new vice-chancellor’s brief is demanding. As well as advancing the university’s profile on the international stage, he will have to modernise an ageing estate, some of which has been reportedly described as “historic sites barely fit for purposeâ€\x9d. Borysiewicz recently outlined the challenge facing Cambridge post-Brexit when he told MPs that the university had the largest number of awards from the EU of any institution in Europe, let alone the UK. “The total financial sum is in the order of £100m, so the impact is quite significant in financial terms.â€\x9d While the government has provided some reassurance in the short term, Borysiewicz expressed concern about future EU students coming to the UK and the disquiet among the 19% of staff at Cambridge who are EU nationals and still do not know what the future holds. Toope, a scholar specialising in human rights, international dispute resolution, environmental law and the use of force, was previously vice-chancellor of the University of British Columbia. He graduated from Harvard in 1979 and completed his PhD at Trinity College Cambridge. He was also on the UN working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances from 2002 to 2007. He said: “I am thrilled to be returning to this great university. I look forward to working with staff and students in the pursuit of academic excellence and tremendous international engagement – the very mark of Cambridge.â€\x9d Borysiewicz said: “We are delighted to be welcoming a distinguished leader with such an outstanding record as a scholar and educator to lead Cambridge.â€\x9d',
 'Stop worrying about fake news. What comes next will be much worse In my exploration of “fake newsâ€\x9d, I’ve found some troubling things. And it’s not just the rightwing news network that’s worrying. I’ve recently gone back and taken a preliminary look at the leftwing media ecosystem, trying to map the hyperlinks between these sites – so I’m not trying to establish causation or assign blame as to what kinds of content these sites circulate. There are plenty of other people willing to do that. What I’m really looking for is a way forward. I’m primarily interested in the larger network that has enabled fake news to become such a salient topic. What I’ve found most troubling about fake news so far isn’t the factual errors, the misinformation, or the propaganda involved. It’s not the politics either . And no, it’s not Trump. What’s scary about fake news is how it is becoming a catch-all phrase for anything people happen to disagree with. In this regard, fake news is sort of the stepbrother of “post-factâ€\x9d and “post-truthâ€\x9d – though not directly related, they’re all part of the same dysfunctional family. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have been accused of being responsible for the result of the US election, the Brexit referendum outcome or events such as Pizzagate – which led Hillary Clinton this week to describe fake news as “a danger that must be addressedâ€\x9d. The worst part of this debate has been obscured by politics-as-usual, techno-dystopian Fahrenheit 451 tropes – and to some degree, more misinformation. Reality bytes Did the sequence of events leading up to the 4 December #Pizzagate incident in Washington, DC mark the point when fake news became real? I think not. Fake news has been real since we’ve had the capability to communicate language and tell stories. It’s an unfortunate reality that news reporting is often at odds with the interest trifecta of politics, profits, and public opinion. What’s changed is the internet, which has altered the scale of the fake news problem, taking it to another level. While fake news might have been less visible in the past, it has always been with us. Where we might find Twitter bots today, we’ll find AI-powered virtual assistants and ubiquitous natural language interfaces (ie, Alexa, Siri, and Google Home) tomorrow. Fake news will be our virtual friend In some ways, we’ve already arrived. Is it fake news when Google Maps fails to provide us with the fastest route to a destination? Do we cry “fake newsâ€\x9d when a deceptive review on Amazon influences our decision to buy an inferior product? What about when we go back after a negative experience and discover biased reviews on Yelp? Fake news is more about what we can confirm as real than what we can identify as fake. News is the fabric that weaves together our realities, and Google, Facebook, Twitter – through always-on phone screens, activity trackers, and 24/7 GPS and indoor Bluetooth trails – represents our interface with this brave new world. As global technology companies move forward with solutions to protect us – and their advertising revenue – from the scourge that is fake news, they must ensure that the smaller, less visible, alternative news outlets are not caught in their operational cleansing. Independent media that seek to distribute their own news content are already challenged by premium content delivery systems such as Facebook’s Instant, 360 (Video), and Google’s AMP. The industry’s filtering response to fake news could signal the end of legitimate news outlets that make an effort to draw attention to issues they feel are underrepresented or intentionally suppressed by the mainstream media. The new(s) pornographers Fake news is a lot like pornography – especially in terms of how gatekeepers classify certain content (and known sources of content) they deem unsuitable for their audiences. Take, for instance, the Pulitzer prizewinning Vietnam war photo removed from Facebook. If a combination of human and machine detection has difficulty differentiating between child pornography and Vietnam war images, wait until we start pre-filtering (ie, preferentially censoring) news based on issue-based framing and community self-reporting. Fake news has certainly been attracting attention, including that of national policymakers. Marsha Blackburn, an American congresswoman, has gone so far as to imply that internet service providers should be held responsible for taking down fake news, saying: “If anyone is putting fake news out there, the ISPs have the obligation to in some way get that off the web.â€\x9d “In some wayâ€\x9d are the key terms here, but to be fair, Blackburn also suggested that it’s time for platforms such as Facebook to look into having human editors and we know how that’s been going recently. Yet hiring an editorial team to moderate content is in direct opposition to the hands-off algorithmic meta-business models of most online companies. Why? Because they primarily sell people’s attention. Facebook has emphasised that it is not – and never plans to become – a media company. Is there a practical solution to fake news? I can’t say. But I can see where we might be headed: the suppression of alternative voices and the censorship of content that addresses certain issues. In the 2016 infowars, if we aren’t vigilant, the result of fake news is likely to be yet another layer of filtering. And this time around, the filters won’t be to segment audiences for advertising purposes or to target voting electorates; it won’t be to display the news articles, “likesâ€\x9d and intra-thread @replies that algorithms think we want to see first. The filters in the future won’t be programmed to ban pornographic content, or prevent user harassment and abuse. The next era of the infowars is likely to result in the most pervasive filter yet: it’s likely to normalise the weeding out of viewpoints that are in conflict with established interests. This isn’t a just problem limited to the centre, the left, or the right. Rather, this is a new reality. So, as everyone barricades themselves further into algorithmic information silos, encrypted messaging services, and invite-only social network sites, it’s at least worth a thought. In the coming decade, Al-powered smart filters developed by technology companies will weigh the legitimacy of information before audiences ever get a chance to determine it for themselves.',
 'Denial then panic: how the EU misjudged the British mood European leaders and officials have had a rocky ride leading up to the EU referendum in the UK. First, there was complacency and denial, then a sense of panic, and now a muddled attempt to prepare next steps, whatever the result of the vote. Six months ago, when David Cameron was trying to wrap up his renegotiation with the EU, the mood in European capitals was one of barely hidden annoyance – the “British questionâ€\x9d needed to be dealt with swiftly so that the EU could get back to addressing more serious and pressing challenges than the requests coming from London. Yet later, as opinion polls in Britain narrowed, the reaction shifted to a mixture of panic and bewilderment that Brexit might actually happen, bringing far-reaching consequences for the whole EU bloc. Now, days before the vote, minds have started to focus on what should be done to strengthen the European project, whichever way the referendum goes. But the answer to the question of “the day afterâ€\x9d remains blurry – not least because of the shaky state of the Franco-German engine, which has always been key to the EU’s solidity. For months, EU leaders kept mostly silent. They saw the prospect of a UK referendum as a tedious, unnecessary sideshow distracting attention from the more urgent and deeper matters the continent was confronted with – the Greek euro crisis, dealing with Russia, terrorism, migration and asylum questions. European officials wanted the British question out of the way as fast as possible. The widely shared assumption was that Britons would be pragmatic enough to see pulling their country out of the EU was an utterly irrational and self-damaging move. Cameron had discreetly asked fellow EU leaders to refrain from wading into the referendum debate, for fear their input would be counterproductive. His hopes rested on the message Barack Obama would deliver while in London. But as time passed, it became obvious that hadn’t done the trick. When concern grew, prominent European voices started openly sending warnings. At an event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Verdun, the leaders of France and Germany criticised opponents of the EU. “They denounce Europe as the source of evil, without realising that Europe was created out of the ravages of evil,â€\x9d said François Hollande. “It is important for the survival of the European Union that we not retreat within ourselves but remain open to the other,â€\x9d said Angela Merkel. Hitting an economic nerve, Germany’s finance minister made plain that if Britain quit the EU, it would deprive itself of access to the single market. Following the Swiss or Norwegian model “won’t workâ€\x9d, said German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble: “In is in, out is outâ€\x9d. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the EU commission, said that if it quit the bloc, “the United Kingdom won’t be handled with kid glovesâ€\x9d. EU leaders have in fact been struggling to find the right balance between two conflicting priorities: the need to demonstrate that Brexit could not be painless, to discourage other member states from contemplating a special status or from withdrawing from the bloc; and the need to limit the damage in case of a British departure by stating that cooperation would be preserved regardless. Perhaps nowhere in the EU is the geopolitical fallout of a possible Brexit being watched with more anxiety than in the Baltic states. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia, a country of 1.5 million where concern over Russian aggression has ridden high, said last month that over the past two decades he’d never been less optimistic about Europe’s prospects. He listed “the rise of populism and serious talk of the UK leaving the EUâ€\x9d among the most worrying developments. In eastern Europe, “countries that had finished a 15-year odyssey to rejoin Europeâ€\x9d suddenly felt that “the world around us began to unravelâ€\x9d, Ilves said. Britain’s withdrawal would mark a weakening of Europe’s liberal democratic order, many participants agreed. Some pointed to how Russian propagandists were trying to capitalise on European divisions, anticipating Brexit as a watershed. “The sands of Europe are shifting under our feet,â€\x9d said one speaker. Britain is the only country that ever committed to carrying out an in/out referendum, but surveys show there are many in favour of holding similar consultations in other countries (53% in France; 49% of Swedes). Last week, leaders of Europe’s largest far-right and populist parties gathered near Vienna to urge Britons to leave the 28-nation bloc. The meeting, called the Patriotic Spring, was designed to strengthen cooperation among anti-immigration, Europhobic movements that have been on the rise across Europe and see Brexit as a decisive, galvanising factor. The leader of France’s National Front, Marine Le Pen, told the crowd that “the peoples of Europeâ€\x9d should “take back their libertiesâ€\x9d just like “the United Kingdom is regaining its libertyâ€\x9d. Hosted by Austria’s Freedom party, which came close to winning presidential elections in May, the event was attended by representatives from nine countries, including from Germany’s Alternative for Germany party and Italy’s Northern League party. For many on the continent, Britain’s specific identity – being “ofâ€\x9d Europe rather than fully “inâ€\x9d it – was never much in doubt, but there has been deep annoyance about how Cameron has put the very destiny of the EU at stake by falling into a political trap of his own making, ever since he called for a referendum in 2013. The irony, many European diplomats and experts say, is that if it were to leave the EU now, Britain would be shunning a club that has arguably never been as “Britishâ€\x9d in its mindset. Events and crises have forced the EU to focus on trying to deliver concrete, pragmatic solutions to immediate problems rather than entertain abstract notions such as “ever closer unionâ€\x9d that the British dislike. Once emphatic talk of deepening political integration, for example, through initiatives meant to strengthen eurozone governance or to work on a common European defence and security policy, has become cautious. That’s because France and Germany do not necessarily see eye to eye on how to proceed. Their leaders are faced with important elections next year and the rise of Eurosceptic movements in both countries is having a paralysing effect. Pro-EU statements will surely follow the British vote, whichever way it goes, but rapid and effective decision-making seems highly uncertain, say diplomats. One widely shared sentiment is that Brexit would represent a deep danger to Europe’s democratic ideals because of possible domino effects and because of the overall popular loss of confidence in the EU it would signal. Karel Schwarzenberg, a former Czech foreign minister who was a close friend of Václav Havel, once an important voice of Europe’s moral conscience, takes the historical perspective: “We in Europe have had the great opportunity over the last half-century to create a sense of common identity and interest – why throw that away?â€\x9d',
 "Donald Trump links Mexico border wall plan to Israel's 'successful' separation barrier Donald Trump attempted to draw parallels between Israel’s separation barrier and his much-touted border wall pledge on Sunday after both presidential nominees met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In Trump’s hour-long meeting with Netanyahu at his Trump Tower penthouse, the two reportedly discussed “at length Israel’s successful experience with a security fence that helped secure its bordersâ€\x9d, according to the Trump campaign. Israel’s separation barrier runs for 440 miles (700km) partly along the 1949 armistice lines set after Israel’s war for independence and partly through territory occupied by Israel after the 1967 war. It is a fence most of its length. In contrast, Trump has pledged to build a wall of concrete and rebar as high as 55 feet (17 metres) along the nearly 2,000 mile border between the US and Mexico. The meeting was the first of two that Netanyahu held with presidential candidates on Sunday, the day before the first presidential debate. Contrary to custom both meetings were closed to the media, the Trump campaign has prevented reporters from any access to his meeting with Netanyahu and aides to the Israeli prime minister reportedly went on to insist Clinton’s campaign abide by the same rules Trump insisted upon. According to a readout provided by the Republican’s campaign, the nominee signaled support for the controversial moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the real estate developer “acknowledged that Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years, and that the United States, under a Trump administration, will finally accept the long-standing Congressional mandate to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israelâ€\x9d. Despite the fact Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism upon her marriage to property developer and top Trump campaign aide Jared Kushner in 2009, he has made some missteps so far in the campaign on Middle East policy and appealing to Jewish voters, who make up a key demographic in American elections. In 2015, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Trump referred to stereotypes relating to Jews and money and told the audience: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your moneyâ€\x9d, suggesting they wanted to control politicians. In 2016, speaking before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel advocacy group, Trump gave a notably stilted performance in what was his first speech using a teleprompter. Clinton’s meeting, which lasted just under an hour on Sunday night, was held at the W Hotel in Union Square. In the meeting, which was described by the Clinton campaign as an “in-depth conversationâ€\x9d, Clinton “stressed that a strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States because we share overarching strategic interests and the common values of democracy, equality, tolerance, and pluralismâ€\x9d. The Democratic nominee also reaffirmed her support for a two-state solution “that guarantees Israel’s future as a secure and democratic Jewish state with recognized borders and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignityâ€\x9d. She stressed “her opposition to any attempt by outside parties to impose a solution, including by the UN security councilâ€\x9d. After decades in public service, the former secretary of state has a far more extensive record on Israel and Middle East. She defended her pro-Israel bona fides in a March speech to AIPAC, saying: “I feel so strongly that America can’t ever be neutral when it comes to Israel’s security or survival.â€\x9d In July 2015, she wrote a public letter condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In the US, the BDS movement is a fringe issue pursued by left wing groups. It seeks to equate Israel with apartheid South Africa and has drawn significant concern in the American Jewish community. In the meeting, Clinton “stressed her commitment to countering attempts to delegitimize Israel, including through the BDS movementâ€\x9d. However, unlike Trump, Clinton did support the controversial Iran nuclear deal that the US reached in 2015 as a part of an effort to prevent the Iranian regime obtaining nuclear weapons. Supporters of the deal have insisted that it provides the mechanisms to stop Iran building such armaments. Critics say it provides the regime, which is still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, with an undeserved windfall in sanctions relief and does not contain enough nuclear safeguards. The US has long maintained a close alliance with Israel and the maintenance of that relationship has long been a crucial issue for many American voters. Despite a difficult personal relationship between the Obama White House and the Netanyahu government, including conflict over the Iran deal, the US pledged a record increase in military aid to Israel earlier in September. • This article was amended on 4 November 2016 to clarify references to Israel’s separation barrier and to the BDS movement.",
 'Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone musical La La Land to open Venice film festival Whiplash director Damien Chazelle’s musical romance La La Land is set to open this year’s Venice film festival. The film reunites Crazy, Stupid, Love stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, and is pitched as a tribute to Hollywood’s golden age of musicals but will have a contemporary setting. It will premiere in competition on 31 August. This year’s jury will be headed up by Sam Mendes. Gosling will play a jazz pianist who falls for Stone’s aspiring actor but the two face problems when they become more successful. JK Simmons, who won an Oscar for his role in Whiplash, and the singer John Legend also star. “La La Land is a film that does not merely reinvent the musical genre, it gives it a brand new start,â€\x9d said Alberto Barbera, Venice artistic director, in a statement. “If Whiplash was the revelation of a new filmmaker, La La Land is his definitive, albeit precocious, consecration among the great directors of Hollywood’s new firmament.â€\x9d Last year’s festival was opened by the survival drama Everest, which received middling reviews and box office, but previous years have seen Oscar winners Birdman and Gravity kick things off. The 31-year-old Chazelle made his name with the acclaimed drama Whiplash, which won three Oscars and was nominated for two more, including best picture. He also co-wrote the hit sci-fi thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane. Gosling was most recently seen in action comedy The Nice Guys and will next be seen in Terrence Malick’s Weightless as well as Blade Runner 2. Stone was last seen in Cameron Crowe’s comedy Aloha and has recently completed Battle of the Sexes, where she plays Billie Jean King.',
 'Edward Albee obituary Edward Albee, who has died aged 88, has been described as both the first modern American playwright and the last great American playwright after Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. In reality he was probably neither, although he was undoubtedly a substantial talent, who burst on to a stagnant American theatrical scene with The Zoo Story in 1959 and followed it up three years later with that major masterpiece of marital disharmony, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Although Albee was to continue writing all his life, and had minor success with plays such as the Pinteresque A Delicate Balance (1966) and All Over (1971), it was not until 1991 that he had a late creative blooming and another theatrical hit with Three Tall Women. Like much of Albee’s best work, Three Tall Women was strongly autobiographical, drawing on his privileged but loveless childhood and memories of his mother, Frances, a domineering, Junoesque beauty who preferred horses to people, and almost anyone to her adopted son. He was born in Washington, to Louise Harvey, and immediately given up for adoption. Aged 18 days, he was handed into the care of Reed and Frances Albee, of Larchmont, New York. Reed was the wealthy, womanising son of the vaudeville theatre-owner and manager Edward Franklin Albee, and Frances (nee Cotter), better known as Frankie, was his third wife. It was rumoured that she had married Reed for his money. A childhood friend of Albee’s was subsequently to remark: “It’s lucky he was adopted. He would not get much talent from those two.â€\x9d A dreamy child with a penchant for drawing and music, the young Edward may not have wanted for material wealth, but grew up an observant outsider in his own home, ignored by his monosyllabic father and reviled by his mother. “My mother and I disliked and mistrusted each other,â€\x9d said Albee in an interview many years later, recalling that she would frequently tell him: “Just you wait until you are 18, and I’ll have you out of here so fast that it’ll make your head spin.â€\x9d In fact Albee was 20 before he left home, after an argument. Apart from a chance encounter, he never saw his father again, and he had no further contact with his mother for 20 years, although she was regularly to appear in different guises in his plays: as Mommy in The American Dream (1961), Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Agnes in A Delicate Balance and, most famously, as Three Tall Women, written shortly after her death in a creative act that Albee likened to an “exorcismâ€\x9d. Mother and son may never have reached rapprochement, let alone anything approaching love, but Frankie was as much a muse for Albee as she was a monster. Albee spent the next 10 years living in and around Greenwich Village, bolstered by the $25 a week interest payments from a trust fund he had inherited from his grandmother, and occasional work as a telegram boy for Western Union. The ordinary people he met while tramping the city, their desperation and loneliness, became the inspiration for The Zoo Story. But he was also moving in artistic circles. By 1952 he was living with, and in the shadow of, the talented young composer William Flanagan. After the success of The Zoo Story, the myth grew up that it was Albee’s very first play, apart from a three-act sex farce written when he was 12 and destroyed by his mother. In reality, between 1949 and 1959, he served an intense apprenticeship, writing at least nine plays as well as short stories and poems. The Zoo Story, about two men sitting on a bench in Central Park, was started a month before his 30th birthday as, Albee was later to claim, a birthday present to himself. He was immediately aware that, for the first time, he had written something “worthwhileâ€\x9d. New York theatre producers took longer to persuade, and The Zoo Story received its world premiere in a German translation at the Schiller theatre in Berlin on 28 September 1959. It was part of a double bill that included Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. It was not until January 1960 that the play had its US premiere, at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village. As was to be the case with almost all of Albee’s subsequent work, the reviews were mixed, but the positive ones were enthusiastic enough to turn him from an unknown into a hot young playwright who was being mentioned in the same breath as Beckett and Ionesco. America had its first avant-garde playwright in the European mode. The playwright John Guare was to subsequently write of “the debt that every American playwright writing after 1960 owes to Edward Albeeâ€\x9d. The British playwright Tom Stoppard, whose early work was strongly absurdist, has said that it was seeing The Zoo Story that made him determined to become a playwright. But the Beckettian undertones of The Zoo Story, the Ionesco-influenced The American Dream, and A Delicate Balance, with its Pinter-like dialogue and sense of menace, left many wondering whether Albee was anything more than a clever imitator hitching a ride on the coattails of the latest theatrical fashion. The tendency to imitate was apparent even in his later work. Reviewing The Play About the Baby, which premiered at the Almeida in 1998, Michael Billington in the suggested that Albee was self-referring and cannibalising his own work. “The play is more a treasure trove for Albee scholars and biographers than something of universal concern.â€\x9d In his 20s, Albee had taken up again and then dropped his childhood hobby of drawing and painting. He was later to remark: “I realised I felt nothing beyond a certain curiosity, and I was making imitations that looked, to my eye, every bit as good as the originals.â€\x9d This question of authenticity was always to raise itself in critical assessments of Albee’s plays. Although his defenders hailed him as a distinctive theatrical voice and great experimenter who refused to be pigeonholed, his detractors claimed that he remained derivative in form and content. Yet if there was any play that countered that latter view, it was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It also provided Albee with his only major commercial success, and gave the lie to the notion that he was incapable of writing a full-length play. The title came from a piece of graffiti that Albee had spotted in a Greenwich Village bar some years previously. Set on the campus of a small American college, it has middle-aged Martha, the daughter of the dean, who is married to George, the assistant professor of history, arriving back home after a party. In tow are the new young biology teacher, Nick, and his wife, Honey. What follows is a bilious and drunken few hours in which Martha and George indulge in game playing and fantasy, wounding both their guests and each other. Martha reveals a son that the pair have invented, a revelation that George tops by “killingâ€\x9d the imagined boy off. This imaginary or absent son was to become a recurring figure in Albee’s work. His friend Mel Gussow, the critic, said that, although Albee was to write many more plays, “Virginia Woolf was the cornerstone of his career: one play feeds all. In it, we can see strands reaching back to The Zoo Story (the act of confession, death as the final relief) and The American Dream (the household as microcosm) and forward to A Delicate Balance (the meaning of friendship and loyalty) and Three Tall Women (the price of parenting, the tricks of memory).â€\x9d Although it was a commercial success and in 1966 made into a film directed by Mike Nichols and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as George and Martha, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had by no means wholly ecstatic reviews. A lack of critical appreciation of his work was something that Albee learned to accept. “I have been both over-praised and under-praised. I assume by the time I finish writing – and I plan to go on writing until I’m 90 or gaga – it will equal itself out.â€\x9d He almost managed it: Me, Myself and I, another play drawing on mother and son relationships, was produced in 2008, when he was 80. But at one point it seemed unlikely that Albee would be writing plays in his later years. After Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, his career went into serious decline and for the next 20 years his ability to write was affected by his love affair with alcohol, which had begun while he was still a child and would be asked to mix cocktails for his parents. Tiny Alice, premiered on Broadway in 1964 with John Gielgud and Irene Worth, was greeted with such incomprehension that Albee found himself forced to hold a press conference to explain its meaning. Even the author could not satisfactorily explain the bizarre story of a lay brother who is sent by a superior to the house of a wealthy woman and is enmeshed in a scenario of sexual hysteria, religious ecstasy and martyrdom. A Delicate Balance, described by Kenneth Tynan as “an exquisite fandango of despairâ€\x9d, saw Albee return to the familiar territory of his adoptive parents’ life style. A beautiful play about “what happens when we turn our backs upon ourselvesâ€\x9d, it was a success and won Albee the Pulitzer prize he had been unjustly denied for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Although Albee continued to write plays and have them produced, most notably the death-watch drama All Over and his second Pulitzer-winner, Seascape (1975), a play in which two lizards intrude upon a marriage, his reputation was in free fall. Seascape ran for just two months. The disaster of The Man Who Had No Arms, about a man who sprouts a limb and achieves celebrity, only to see it wither as his arm atrophies, which closed on Broadway after just 16 performances in 1983, suggested that it was all over for Albee too. He did not need to write plays. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had made him a wealthy man, and he was renowned as a discerning collector of 20th-century art. For the next 10 years, the focus of his life shifted from writing plays to teaching and encouraging younger playwrights. He was a committed and generous teacher. After his father’s death in 1961, Albee had resumed some contact with his mother, but the relationship remained difficult, not least because of Frankie’s refusal to acknowledge her son’s homosexuality or his long-term partner, the painter and sculptor Jonathan Thomas, who did much to help Albee overcome his dependency on alcohol, and who predeceased him. Her death in 1989 spawned Three Tall Women, a poignant and entirely fictionalised arm’s-length look at Frankie as a 92-year-old, by now bed-ridden and incontinent, who is also glimpsed aged 52 and 26. In 1994 it was awarded a Pulitzer prize. There was another unexpected and late career gift in The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, seen in New York in 2002 and at the Almeida in London and in the West End in 2004, about a successful architect in an apparently happy marriage who falls in love with a goat and has passionate sex with it. The London production boasted a brilliant central performance from Jonathan Pryce and an early stage appearance from a young Eddie Redmayne as his gay teenage son, in a savagely funny and dark examination of the limits of tolerance and the monsters that lurk beneath the exterior of modern middle-class everyday life. It was every bit as powerful and harrowing as Albee’s masterpiece. If his upbringing ensured that intimacy remained a problem for Albee all his life, with even some of his closest friends referring to him as “mysteriousâ€\x9d or “unknowableâ€\x9d, in his best work he was always present and always painfully revealing of his lost childhood and the barren, unhappy lives of his parents and their friends, and the best and worst that lurks in all of us. His strength as a playwright was that he continued to experiment with form and content all his life. A lazier, less passionate playwright might have contented himself with rewriting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in different ways, or just quit when the critical reception got rough. Albee may never have been able to summon the emotional openness to match Williams’s honesty, grotesque comedy and lyricism, nor the political commitment to match Miller’s state-of-the-nation acuteness, but he was no also-ran. Rather he was one of the triumvirate who changed and shaped postwar American playwriting. The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? will never want for production; they dissect our desire to hide behind illusion with a devastating and unflinching accuracy. • Edward Albee, playwright, born 12 March 1928; died 16 September 2016',
 'NBN Co executive likely to be called as witness after US utility disaster The executive appointed by Malcolm Turnbull to run NBN Co appears likely to be called as a witness in legal actions now under way in the US, flowing from one of the worst utility disasters in the country’s history. Legal actions have begun in San Francisco involving Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), a company Bill Morrow joined in 2006 as chief operating officer, before becoming chief executive a year later. Morrow left PG&E in September 2008. Morrow was appointed to run Australia’s largest infrastructure project, the NBN roll out, in December 2013, by the then communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull. NBN Co confirmed on Wednesday that Morrow expected to be called as a witness in the PG&E proceedings in the US, which are expected to last between six and eight weeks. According to US media reports, PG&E faces 13 criminal counts in the trial, including 12 charges the gas utility violated safety regulations and one charge of obstruction. The company has pleaded not guilty. PG&E is facing various legal actions relating to pipeline explosions in 2008 and 2010. The San Bruno explosion killed eight people and destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes. The two explosions occurred after Morrow left PG&E and NBN Co said on Wednesday he is not named in the current case being heard in San Francisco. His only involvement is as a witness. Various detailed investigations in the US have been critical of the company’s priorities, practices and decision-making over a period spanning more than a decade, including the two years when Morrow was in key executive positions at the utility. A California Public Utilities Commission report alleged that $100m was diverted by PG&E from safety and pipeline maintenance over 15 years. It suggested maintenance spending was under significant pressure in 2008 and in the two years immediately after Morrow’s departure. “Gas safety funding was heavily constrained in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 budget process,â€\x9d says an audit undertaken by Overland Consulting for the CPUC. “Integrity management and maintenance project budgets were viewed as discretionary funding that could be reduced to meet the overall budget targets set by executive management.â€\x9d On Wednesday an NBN spokeswoman issued a short statement about the US legal proceedings. “Mr Morrow is awaiting direction from the court and will appear as a witness in the US court case, if required,â€\x9d she said. “Bill has not been named as a party to the proceedings, he is attending only as a witness. As the matter is currently before the court, it’s not appropriate for us to comment further.â€\x9d The developments in the US once again thrust the NBN into the heat of the Australian election campaign. On Wednesday Fairfax Media revealed the NBN’s chairman, Ziggy Switkowski, breached caretaker conventions by attacking whistleblowing in a published opinion piece. The revelation follows contentious police raids undertaken earlier in the campaign after a succession of leaks from the organisation placing questions marks over the pace and costs associated with the NBN roll out. Martin Parkinson, the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, has confirmed that NBN management gave an advance draft of Switkowski’s opinion piece to the Department of Communications and the Arts, which in turn sought and received advice from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that the publication of the article would not be consistent with the established practices associated with the caretaker conventions. Parkinson says the view was “strongly conveyedâ€\x9d to the NBN management that the conventions applied to its chairman and its chief executive, and he knows that view was passed to Switkowski. But Switkowski wilfully ignored that advice by publishing the piece. “In my judgment some of the comments in the opinion piece are not consistent with established practices around the caretaker conventions, which are directed at protecting the apolitical nature of government bodies and preventing controversies about the role of those bodies distracting attention from the substantive issues in the election campaign,â€\x9d Parkinson wrote in a letter to Labor’s finance spokesman, Tony Burke. “I have conveyed this view directly to Dr Switkowski.â€\x9d Labor had complained to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that Switkowski’s opinion piece was a “clear breachâ€\x9d of the caretaker conventions. They also complained that Switkowski had used his role as NBN chairman “to run a contestable script to the specific advantage of the prime minister and the Liberal partyâ€\x9d. Campaigning in Perth on Wednesday, the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, was critical of Switkowski. “Australia’s internet speeds have seen a slip from 30th to 60th and we now have the NBN Co doing everything they can to cover up the facts,â€\x9d the Labor leader said. “I think, for an otherwise respected businessman, Dr Switkowski, I think this is a shameful breach. Yet again NBN Co are doubling down on the cover-up, the denial.â€\x9d On Wednesday afternoon, an NBN spokeswoman defended Switkowski’s decision to publish his opinion piece, saying it had to be done to protect the company’s reputation. “Any accusation that the company’s staff, management, its board and (by implication) its shareholder departments have conspired to keep large cost increases secret from the Australian people is not only plainly and demonstrably false, but is a serious accusation in light of the Corporations act,â€\x9d the spokeswoman said. “This is obviously not acceptable and the opinion piece addressed the allegations in a manner commensurate with the mode in which they were made; that is, publicly in the national media.â€\x9d',
 'Commercial property prices could fall 20% after EU vote - analysts Fund managers are being warned by the City regulator not to embark on fire sales of office blocks and shopping centres to meet the demands of customers trying to cash in investments from property funds. Since the EU referendum on 23 June, more than half a dozen commercial property fundshave taken steps to adapt to the changing economic backdrop. Some have prevented customers withdrawing their cash by suspending trading; others have announced fund devaluations, including Aberdeen Asset Management, which devalued by by 17%. The Financial Conduct Authority reissued guidance to remind the investment industry of their duty to treat all customers fairly – including those who want to remain in a fund. “It is the duty of the fund manager to ensure that assets are valued fairly and accurately and to ensure that any subscriptions or redemptions of units take place at a fair price. Failure to do so may lead to some investors gaining at the expense of other investors in the same fund,â€\x9d the FCA said. “If a fund has to dispose of underlying assets in order to meet an unusually high volume of redemption requests, the manager must ensure these disposals are carried out in a way that does not disadvantage investors who remain in the fund or are newly investing in it,â€\x9d the regulator added. Its new chief executive, Andrew Bailey, said earlier this week that the structure of these funds – which offer instant redemption on assets that are difficult to sell – might need to be reviewed. The commercial property sector has been a focus since the Brexit vote and there are predictions that some properties could fall by 20% in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Analysis by brokers at UBS found that some Brexit clauses were being triggered in commercial property transactions, causing some deals to fall through. UBS also expects the outlook to remain uncertain until negotiations over passporting rights – which give firms in the City of London the ability to transact across the EU– are finalised. The UBS analysts said they expected London office values to fall by 20% – an increase on their previous 15% estimate. Falls in the price of other commercial properties would not be so large. But, they said: “At this early stage, there is limited evidence to point towards, to assess the potential magnitude of the impact on the commercial real estate market.â€\x9d The analysts said: “We have heard of some so-called Brexit clauses being triggered, causing deals to fall through. The long-term demand picture in London is uncertain as banks investigate the potential impact of a withdrawal of passporting rights, while the near-term outlook is also difficult. So the direction is certainly down, but the magnitude is uncertain.â€\x9d The scale of the fall is not expected to reach the 44% decline that took place from 2007-09 when the financial crisis was at its peak. Since then, the market has changed, with banks making up less of the lending to the sector: the Bank of England’s data shows bank exposure has fallen to £85bn from £150bn in 2011. Mike Prew, an equity analyst at Jefferies, has said up to £5bn of buildings could be sold to find the cash to repay investors in the funds, which some experts have warned could be closed until the end of the year. But Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the reduced prices might not result in actual sales of properties. “The mark down in asset prices is really an educated guess, and it may not be borne out by real-world transactions, for better or worse, though with such sharp adjustments there appears to be a lot of bad news in the price.â€\x9d UBS said that between 2008 and 2015, overseas buyers constituted two-thirds of office property transactions in the UK, so for them, the market is effectively already 10-13% cheaper because of the fall in sterling. This may encourage them to keep coming into the market although the caveat is that their rental return is also 10-13% lower. The UBS analysts said: “Of course, sterling weakness may be a short-term impediment to investment if investors expect the currency to weaken further.â€\x9d They calculate that the shares of stock market-listed property companies are pricing in a 25-30% decline in property value.',
 "UK's big four banks face £19bn in compensation, fines and legal costs The UK’s four biggest banks face paying out £19.5bn in fines, compensation and legal expenses this year and next, taking the total since 2011 to more than £75bn, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. Over the five years to 2015, Barclays, HSBC and the bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland have together incurred costs of £55.8bn to cover so-called conduct and litigation issues, after being penalised for rigging Libor and foreign exchange markets, and having to compensate customers for misselling payment protection insurance. “This staggering amount represents around 9% of these banks’ revenues during this period and about 90% of all conduct and litigation charges for the UK banking system,â€\x9d S&P said. The total cost for the UK banking industry was £62.5bn. While the ratings agency is now predicting charges of £19.5bn by the end of 2017, it also describes this year as the “last year for mega chargesâ€\x9d. This is, in part, because of an expectation that the cost of the PPI scandal, which has reached £34bn, will ease off. “We maintain our view that 2016 will likely be the last year for mega conduct and litigation charges. That said, we also believe that conduct and litigation matters have become a ‘way of life’ for UK banks,â€\x9d S&P said. “We do not believe that future retail conduct redress, including relatively new issues such as packaged bank accounts, will come close to the scale of PPI,â€\x9d it added. S&P published its report as the big four banks prepare to publish their first-quarter results, which will be scoured for signs of any further PPI provisions.",
 "Surgery in the womb: miracle maker for NHS's tiniest patients Prof Kypros Nicolaides studies the overhead monitor. “The head of the baby is down, and it is much easier to do when the head is up. So, there are two things we can do.â€\x9d He pauses and an expectant silence falls. “We can all concentrate and chant. Do you want to chant? Like Hare Krishna?â€\x9d Tension in the room immediately dissipates, replaced with slightly bewildered, muted laughter. “Or,â€\x9d he continues, “I will press the baby to bring the head up.â€\x9d He firmly kneads the pregnant belly, slowly encouraging the foetus until: “Bingo. OK.â€\x9d This is room one in the Harris Birthright research centre at King’s College hospital, London, where patients are among the tiniest and most vulnerable of all treated by the NHS. Traumatised parents find themselves here after the hammer blow that their unborn child, or children, may not survive pregnancy or birth. In the dedicated hands of Nicolaides, 62, known simply as “Profâ€\x9d and an internationally renowned foetal medicine consultant, they are offered hope. No absolute guarantees, but good odds, his skill and a little of his trademark banter. Crucially, though, they benefit from his many years of pioneering research and experience, which reassures them they are giving their babies every chance in the world. Nicolaides has been called a miracle maker, and a genius at the forefront of in utero surgery within the NHS for about 40 years. In dimly lit room one, with its huge bright screens and a control panel straight from the USS Enterprise, science, technology and experience coalesce as he prepares to perform the operation. He is working to counter the potentially fatal abnormality congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), with a procedure currently undergoing randomised trials. CDH is rare. About one in 4,000 unborn babies will develop a hole in their diaphragm, the thin sheet of muscle separating the chest from the abdomen, which can allow the stomach, liver or bowels to move up through the gap into the chest cavity, squashing the lungs and, in the worst cases, leaving them too underdeveloped to allow breathing after birth. A third of those cases could benefit from the FETO (fetoscopic tracheal occlusion) surgery Nicolaides has played a leading role in developing. The daughter of Luissa Galloso, 31, from Windsor, is one such case, and in the next 30 minutes Nicolaides will achieve something unimaginable a decade ago. He will insert a miniature latex balloon through the wall of the uterus down through the mouth of Galloso’s baby daughter and position it delicately in the windpipe then inflate it. There the balloon will stay, wedged tight like a little cork. Normally inserted at about 26-28 weeks, it will be removed at around 35 weeks. It will trap fluid in the baby’s lungs that would normally escape through the mouth, so forcing the lungs to expand and develop. Nicolaides estimates that in the most severe cases of CDH, it can increase survival rates from 15-20% to about 50%. An interactive guide to the procedure “See, that is the spine, the heart is on that side … and next to it, this black thing, that is the stomach. It should not be there, it should be further down. That’s the issue,â€\x9d he tells Galloso, who is on her back, looking at her baby on the overhead monitor as her fiance, Stuart, and her mother, Jill, sit alongside, their eyes glued to the grainy ultrasound images. First he must put the baby to sleep. It is crucial she remains completely still. A long needle is inserted into the womb and he guides it towards the baby’s shoulder then administers the anaesthetic. Once the baby is asleep, local anaesthetic is applied to Galloso’s side and a thin tube is inserted. Through this Nicolaides feeds the fetoscope, a miniature telescope measuring just 2mm in diameter, and a 3D image of the sleeping baby suddenly bursts out from the screen. Precision is everything. Nicolaides expertly guides the fetoscope towards the baby’s mouth and an incredible visual journey begins. “That is the nostril. That is the upper lip there. That is the mouth, see the gums,â€\x9d he says as the fetoscope continues over the baby’s tongue, past the uvula and tiny vocal cords and epiglottis. “Now we are going down the windpipe,â€\x9d he says. “And there. That is where we will put the balloon.â€\x9d A long, narrow flexible catheter is introduced, at the end of which is the tiny, deflated balloon, which is smoothly guided to its placement site. All eyes are fixed on the monitor as water is dripped into the balloon until it expands to about 2cm long and 5mm wide. Once it is securely in place, the fetoscope makes its reverse journey up through the mouth, and out. The whole procedure is minimally invasive to the mother, who experiences only a small skin incision of about 3mm. “The biggest problem with this procedure,â€\x9d muses Nicolaides, as eyes nervously flick towards him, “is my wet trousersâ€\x9d he adds, pointing to leaked fluid from the procedure that has dripped on to him. “Now, when I go back outside, what do you think people will think, at my age?â€\x9d And once more, the tension dissipates. “That’s it. All over.â€\x9d If successful, such surgery can mean babies with severe CDH can be safely delivered, though they may have to undergo surgery after birth to correct the hernia and reposition internal organs. Research is everything, according to Nicolaides. “Unless you have research, you cannot progress.â€\x9d Based at King’s College hospital three days every week, Nicolaides also has a private practice, the Fetal Medicine Centre, with profits ploughed into his Fetal Medicine Foundation charity, which supports research and training to identify abnormalities as early as possible and develop minimally invasive procedures to correct them. Among such procedures is fetoscopic laser treatment, used to coagulate blood vessels shared by identical twins who have the rare and potentially fatal twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which occurs in 50 out of 100,000 pregnancies. In TTTS, the blood goes from one twin to the other, but one baby receives more blood than it gives up. Crook and victim, he calls them, but both are at risk. Since his first experiments with the procedure, in 1992, he estimates he has performed it more than 2,000 times. He uses a fetoscope with a fibre-tipped laser inside the uterus, again inserted through a tube, to identify the shared blood vessels and cut them so the babies are on their own. Claire Burgon’s twin boys are 17 weeks, but the discrepancy between their size is 39%. Speed is of the essence. She and her husband, David, who are from Gillingham, Kent, were referred from their local hospital only the previous day, and are now in room one. “My doctor said you were the best in the world,â€\x9d she tells Nicolaides. “I pay him, I pay him,â€\x9d he responds. He examines the ultrasound screen. “So, this is the crook that is stealing blood, and that is the victim on the other side,â€\x9d he points out. One has hardly any fluid around it, the other too much. “So we have to put a telescope inside the uterus between the two and find the blood vessels that join the two circulations and just try to separate them.â€\x9d He traces the blood vessels with the endoscope. “See them branch out there. And see that white line. That is the sac of the big baby. That white line is the collapsed membrane. See how the blood vessels are crossing over from this side and going over. So, that is where we will be cutting. “You will hear some buzzing noises, but you won’t feel anything,â€\x9d he reassures Burgon. Like all of Nicolaides’s patients, Burgon, 30, and her husband have been on a rollercoaster journey to this point, and this procedure is not without risk. “I’ve had the wobbles. But it is the best thing to do,â€\x9d Burgon says after the operation. “If we didn’t, the risk of losing both was a lot higher. So, I have just got to run with it now.â€\x9d Her husband adds: “It is a case of just sit there and hope, really. Look and hope.â€\x9d Nicolaides, born in Paphos, the son of a Cypriot doctor, was a medical student at King’s. In his last year of studies, medical students had to choose an “electiveâ€\x9d for three months. “Most used this to go on a big holiday to the Bahamas, or the Seychelles, or Hawaii to ‘observe’ medicine there. I was scared of flying,â€\x9d he said. So he stayed at King’s, just as a pioneer of obstetric and gynaecological ultrasound, Prof Stuart Campbell, arrived. Nicolaides was “overwhelmedâ€\x9d by the concept of seeing a foetus before birth, and within a few years was one of the world’s leaders in foetal medicine. Today, his office walls are adorned with photographs of smiling babies, including many twins and triplets. His successes. “They all send me pictures. I have thousands,â€\x9d he says. But with success comes the weight of expectation. “It puts a lot of pressure on us in terms of the knowledge that many babies would still die. Sometimes when they do die you feel, obviously, extremely bad. You become very personally attached to the patients. “Other times, you try to work out whether you have done something wrong or if there is something you have to change to improve the technique. And, yes, other times you become the target of their anger, because if you are seen as being the miracle maker, when things don’t work out you are not viewed as a normal doctor that has tried. You can become the opposite of the miracle maker. You can become the devil.â€\x9d Forty years on, he has no regrets about his chosen path. “It has been a very exciting journey to be at the forefront of a lot, a lot of developments, the creation of this new field … A lot of anxieties when we were developing new techniques. I think it is mainly rewarding. There are moments of distress, there are moments when you are excited. There are moments of depression when things don’t go right. But overall, it has been a fantastic trip. “There is no better reward in life than a woman coming along to show you her baby,â€\x9d he says, “and sending photographs to say: ‘Thank you, this baby would not have been born.’ How can you judge that? Against what? That is the ultimate reward.â€\x9d",
 'The lies Trump told this week: from murder rates to climate change Military and law enforcement personnel “I’m proud of the fact that I’ve always treated the working people of this country with dignity and respect, especially our military and law enforcement personnel.â€\x9d – 11 October, interview with Fox News Trump has not always treated members of the military and law enforcement with respect. Last year he insulted John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam; this summer he derided the Muslim parents of a soldier who died in the Iraq war; he has called top generals “embarrassing to our countryâ€\x9d and said they have been “reduced to rubbleâ€\x9d; and he has repeatedly impugned the ethics of federal investigators and even public safety officers such as fire marshals. Crime “You look at the crime and you wonder why. And by the way, do you know, it was just announced that murder is the highest it’s been in our country in 45 years?â€\x9d – 11 October, Panama City, Florida “We have the highest murder rate in this country in 45 years. More people are being murdered now than being murdered in 45 years.â€\x9d – 12 October, Lakeland, Florida Trump has distorted an FBI statistic to make a false claim: in September the agency reported that murders and non-negligent manslaughter rose in the US by 10.8% in 2015, the largest single-year increase since 1971. That is not the same as saying there are more murders in the US than at any point since 1971: 15,696 murders were reported in 2015, down from 1991 and 1993 highs of 24,703 and 24,526. There were more murders in 1971 (17,780) than in 2015. The murder rate declined 42% from 1993 to 2014, even though the population increased by a quarter. During this week’s debate Trump almost cited the statistic accurately, saying: “We have an increase in murder within our cities, the biggest in 45 years.â€\x9d But the FBI figure is a national one, not restricted to cities. Climate change “Climate change. Now I want, and just so you know, do you know that I’ve won numerous environmental awards? I’m a believer in the environment. It’s gotta be within reason. I’m a believer.â€\x9d – 12 October, Ocala, Florida Trump has claimed off and on to be an environmentalist since at least 2008, when he was battling with officials in Scotland to build a golf course and resort on land that had been home to a variety of wildlife. He has maintained for years that the US should drill for oil wherever possible – an opinion that falls well out of line with even the moderate environmentalism of Hillary Clinton, who has taken oil and gas exploration on a case-by-case basis. He has claimed to have received environmental awards since 2011, though the only award that could be found seems to be a 2007 prize given to the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey by the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation. That award was received by the grounds director, Greg Nicoli, for preserving 45 acres of bird habitat on the property. A few years later, Trump cut down a small forest in Virginia for the sake of another golf course, and in May of 2011 New Jersey’s department of environmental protection fined him for repeated violations. He has also called for dismantling basic Environmental Protection Agency programs and rules. Trump has repeatedly said he does not believe in climate change, which is more pertinent to the environment than a New Jersey golf course. In 2014 he called it a “hoaxâ€\x9d, and in 2012 he claimed it was invented by China to trick Americans into caring about environmental regulations. The Earth is warming at an “unprecedented rateâ€\x9d, Nasa reported in August, sea ice is disappearing, and more than 97% of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming dangerously. Researchers are already drawing links between such climate change and disasters such as Louisiana’s deadly flooding in September. Endorsements “And by the way, ICE just gave us their endorsement, first time ever, and the border patrol, all the agents, 16,500 agents just gave us their support.â€\x9d – 12 October, Lakeland, Florida Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a government agency. It does not endorse political candidates. A union representing about 7,600 ICE officials endorsed Trump in September. A group representing 16,500 of 21,000 border patrol agents similarly endorsed Trump. This does not represent all the agents.',
 'Fox Searchlight pays $17.5m for slavery drama The Birth of a Nation After a highly competitive bidding war, the heavily buzzed slavery drama The Birth of a Nation has been picked up by Fox Searchlight. According to Variety, the film, which opened to Oscar buzz and enthused reviews at this year’s Sundance film festival, has been bought for a reported $17.5m, the biggest purchase the festival has ever seen. Actor Nate Parker, best known for roles in Non-Stop and Beyond the Lights, took on the story as a passion project. As well as writing and directing, he plays the lead role of Nat Turner, who led a slave uprising in 1831 that led to 60 white deaths and stricter laws on how slaves could be controlled. Parker invested his own money in the production, which also stars Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union and Jackie Earle Haley. The bidding war was reportedly between Fox Searchlight, Sony, The Weinstein Company and Netflix. Fox Searchlight picked up the worldwide rights with hopes of pushing it for next year’s Oscar race. It would make for an interesting inclusion, given the debate over the 2016 Oscars and the film’s largely African-American cast. “It’s cultivation,â€\x9d said Parker at the festival. “I think diversity is more than a colour palette. It’s a celebration of heritage and culture and that’s the one thing that we don’t do so often. Before that we have to heal. There are wounds that exist because of the legacy of slavery in this country.â€\x9d Other big purchases of the festival include Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester-by-the-Sea, starring Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck, and Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, both picked up by Amazon.',
 'How Donald Trump emboldens bigots across the world If there were a United Nations of the global far right, Donald Trump would be its undisputed leader. His message does not just resonate in the forlorn rust-belt towns of rural America: it travels far beyond the country’s shores. It is bigotry without borders. Consider the incredible prayer session organized for him in New Delhi by a nationalist Hindu group last week. Amid prayer bells, incense and chanting, good wishes fluttered from the Indian capital all the way to the US. A poster made for the occasion declared Trump to be the “hope for humanityâ€\x9d. Despite his unwavering “America Firstâ€\x9d nationalism, Trump’s message has struck a chord with the Hindu right because they share a common enemy. Long at odds with religious minorities in the country, it is no surprise that some Hindu nationalists approve of Trump’s plan to ban Muslim immigration to the United States. “He’s the only man who can put an end to Islamic terrorismâ€\x9d, said Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta. “He is the savior of mankind.â€\x9d They are not the only ones to hold Trump in high esteem. The far-right Greek Golden Dawn party support him. The founder of France’s Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said he would vote for him. The Dutch leader of the Party of Freedom and anti-Islam campaigner, Geert Wilders, now tweets things like “Make The Netherlands Great Again!â€\x9d. Meanwhile the head of Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party, Matteo Salvini, says he considers Trump “heroicâ€\x9d and added “we are on the same wavelength when it comes to many thingsâ€\x9d. Before Trump arrived on the scene, Vladimir Putin was the uncrowned leader of the illilberal factions of the western world. A motley crew of European fringe parties leaps to legitimize him at every turn. When Putin annexed Crimea, representatives from 12 European parties flocked there to act as observers during the referendum – giving it the veneer of legitimacy. Now, it appears Putin has competition from across the Atlantic. The populists’ admiration for Trump should not be a surprise: he has been doing their bidding on issues that matter to them most. Trump backs Brexit – he said the UK would be “better off withoutâ€\x9d the EU – and criticized Angela Merkel for making “a tragic mistake with the migrantsâ€\x9d. That mistake, of course, was to let them into Europe in the first place. But it’s not just the far right that is watching him closely. Even mainstream conservative politicians are looking to the Trump phenomenon for cues – if not always successfully. In the race to be London’s mayor, Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative party parliamentarian, ran what his Muslim opponent, Sadiq Khan, and liberal commentators called a campaign “straight out of Donald Trump’s playbookâ€\x9d. The strategy backfired miserably, but it is telling that Trump’s tactics found an echo in Goldsmith’s campaign in the first place. Trump emboldens those who sow seeds of division and hate. He has brought the vile, the vulgar and the downright venomous into polite company. One white nationalist in the United States recently noted that his members used to feel demoralized – presumably because their views made them pariahs. Not any more. They walk with newfound confidence now. There is a multiplier effect at work in Trump’s victories. As the far right make common cause with each other – fighting each others’ battles, echoing each others slogans – no advance in one corner of the globe is without its consequences in another. Remember Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist and white supremacist who killed 77 people in 2011? In his hate-filled, rambling manifesto he wrote about an unlikely ally in the fight against Islam: the Hindu far-right. “It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical.â€\x9d Breivik was on to something: many of the goals of the far right are identical. The group praying for Trump in New Delhi understands that well. That is why, in the fight against Trump in the United States, liberals and progressives should join forces with those battling their own bigots overseas. It will take a global effort to overcome a threat that has implications for us all – no matter where we live.',
 'Your bra could kill you – and other breast cancer myths busted A diagnosis of breast cancer can be frightening, and many of the known risk factors – genetics, ageing, being a woman – are beyond our control. That is why myths are attractive. They sell us the idea that there is something simple we can do to protect ourselves from cancer. We look at three of the most common myths. Your bra could be killing you The idea that wearing an underwired bra can cause breast cancer has been around since 1995, when Sydney Singer and Soma Grismaijer published their book Dressed to Kill, which claimed there was a link. The idea was revived last year when a practitioner of alternative medicine wrote an essay on Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, Goop. What these people have in common is that none of them is a cancer researcher or medical doctor. Singer and Grismaijer’s “studyâ€\x9d was not reviewed by medical experts and published in a respected journal, as is the norm for bona fide scientific discoveries. According to a version of their story now doing the rounds on Twitter, they interviewed more than 4,000 American women and discovered that women who don’t wear bras have a “1 in 168 chanceâ€\x9d of developing breast cancer, as opposed to a “3 in 4 chance for those who wear a bra 24 hours a dayâ€\x9d. Their explanation is that underwired bras block circulation of lymphatic fluid, causing breasts to swell with “toxinsâ€\x9d (a word more associated with pseudoscience, in my experience, than genuine medical knowledge). It is unlikely, though, that that lymph fluid would be trapped by an underwire, because it doesn’t flow in that direction, and a properly fitting bra prevents breast ligaments from overstretching. Scientists have also criticised Dressed to Kill for not taking into account known risk factors for breast cancer, most notably obesity, which increases the likelihood a woman will wear a bra for longer periods. A comprehensive 2014 study by the globally respected Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre in Seattle found that no aspect of bra-wearing was associated with breast cancer risk, and Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, the American Cancer Society, and the US National Institutes of Health are just a few of the organisations that have stressed the lack of evidence that wearing bras increases cancer risk. American obstetrician and gynae-cologist Dr Jennifer Gunter has described this myth as “cruelâ€\x9d, saying that it scares women and could cause women with a breast cancer diagnosis to blame themselves for wearing a bra. If you find your bra is painful, you should not panic that you have cancer, but you should head to the high street and get measured for a new bra. Sweat-free armpits or healthy breasts? You have to choose The idea that antiperspirants cause breast cancer is usually justified either by the idea that preventing underarm stickiness blocks “toxinsâ€\x9d from being sweated out, or that the aluminium salts used to block the sweat glands are absorbed through the skin and trigger cancer. The source appears to be an email hoax which spread so quickly that cancer charity helplines were overwhelmed by anxious callers worried they had been doomed by their personal hygiene routines. The vast majority of harmful substances in our bodies are flushed out by the liver and kidneys (which is why we drink lots of water when we are hungover), not sweated out through our armpits. Almost all the studies purporting to show that antiperspirants cause cancer are from a single laboratory, with Dr Philippa Darbre often the only named author. One of the studies that, at first glance, shows aluminium is present in breast tissue is, on a second look, inconclusive because the authors didn’t compare normal (non-cancerous) tissue. Unless there is significantly more of something in a tumour compared with normal tissue, it isn’t wise to speculate that it has a role in cancer. A 2002 study published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute studied 1,606 women and discovered there was no link between the use of antiperspirants and cancer. Another study, in 2006, compared women with and without breast cancer and found that 82% of women who were cancer-free had used antiperspirant whereas only 52% of the women with breast cancer had, which certainly doesn’t support the theory that antiperspirants increase cancer risk. Mammograms emit cancer-causing radiation, or squeeze tumours so the cancer spreads Finding breast cancer early reduces your risk of dying from it by up to 25% – which makes the myth that mammograms cause cancer, or make it spread, a particularly dangerous one. The consensus in the medical community is that the benefits of mammograms far outweigh any risk. An annual, 20-minute mammogram involves a tiny dose of radiation, less than a chest X-ray and nowhere near enough to increase the risk of developing a cancer. The process of metastasis, in which cells break off a tumour, spread, and settle in a different place in the body to create a secondary tumour, is biologically complex and can’t be caused by squeezing a tumour. Mammograms are frightening because of the potential that they will find a cancer – but the mantra that early detection saves lives is true and one of the reasons that what used to be a death sentence is now survived by eight out of every 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer. If you are worried about cancer, you can find reliable information from NHS Choices, or the websites and helpline of registered cancer charities such as Cancer Research UK, the Irish Cancer Society or Macmillan Cancer Support. As always, speak to your GP if you have any concerns about your health. • Naomi Elster is a writer and scientist researching for a PhD in cancer medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, supported by the Irish Cancer Society',
 'How your vote could count – in every country in the world Imagine if you could vote in other countries’ elections. Or, to be precise, to vote on other countries’ elections: of course we don’t have the power directly to elect anyone or remove them from office – but power comes in many forms these days, and the influence of an international electorate could be surprisingly strong. That’s why I’m offering people the chance to do just that. Every month or so, I will be picking an election somewhere in the world, or occasionally a referendum: we’re choosing mainly presidential elections for the time being because they’re simple to explain. Then we feature that election on our website, Global Vote, with a snapshot of each candidate giving very succinct information about who they are and what they appear to stand for. Each candidate is also invited to answer two standard questions: 1. If you are elected, what will you do for the rest of us, around the world? 2. What is your vision for your country’s role in the world? In the absence of answers to these two questions, we will do our best to summarise the candidate’s views on these topics, as faithfully and neutrally as we can, from their published statements and interviews. We encourage our voters strongly to find out as much as they can about each candidate, and we provide links to start this process. Then our participants vote on their chosen candidate, and we release the results, usually the day before the electorate goes to the polls. For each election, there’s a magic tipping-point where global voters actually outnumber the electorate: every time we reach this point, the world has – in my opinion – officially changed a little, and we are one step closer to acknowledging our essential interdependence. Why am I doing this? Because we live in an infinitely connected world, and the choices made by the leaders of all countries, large and small, near and far, rich and poor, affect all of us sooner or later. Their energy policies affect our shared climate; their defence policies affect our collective peace; their trade policies affect our prosperity and employment prospects; their stance on migration either helps or hinders the collective effort to manage the crises of human movement that continually sweep across the world. And because we are all affected by those policies, we must all make our views known about what sort of leaders we prefer our neighbors to choose. Our voters are encouraged never to make their selection on the grounds that one or another candidate will do a better or worse job of running that particular country – that’s the concern of the electorate alone – but on the grounds that he or she will remember the rest of humanity and the planet when running their country. Today, I believe, all leaders have a dual mandate. They are primarily responsible, as they always have been, for their own people and their own slice of territory: but in our hyper-connected world, they are also responsible, to some degree, for every living thing in the world, and for every square mile of the planet’s surface and the atmosphere above it. And those two mandates are by no means mutually exclusive: incorporating the international dimension can make better domestic policy, not just unhappy compromises. It’s very tempting, in an age of constant crisis and terrifying global challenges, to retreat into selfishness, tribalism, fear and hostility towards the rest of our own species. And of course, in times like these, we are never short of politicians who win support by echoing that fear and hostility: but since our problems are global and our challenges are shared, they’re moving in the wrong direction. We need leaders with minds that telescope, not minds that microscope: a lot more collaboration and cooperation between countries, and a little less competition, is the only way forward. This global vote aims to ensure that this critical attribute is never forgotten when we choose our leaders. Rightwing or leftwing, conservative or progressive, the politics are secondary to the main question: are you with humanity or against it?',
 'Give children a stake in society to improve their mental health Pressure on mental health services for young people is increasing (“Care for children with mental health problems is woeful, say GPsâ€\x9d, News, last week). But it is no good calling for more money for services without attending to the causes. Widespread social insecurity is bad for health – mental and physical. The canary in the mine is the phenomenal explosion of despair among teenage girls, who are turning up to hospital emergency departments, self-harming and suicidal. As community child and adolescent mental health clinics turn patients away, more of them are admitted in crisis to general hospital wards, with patchy mental health expertise to call on. Norman Lamb MP was a coalition government mental health minister when these trends began, so it is rather weak of him now to complain that “rationing of care in such a vital area of care is scandalousâ€\x9d. While most political pressure will be on community funding, what is urgently required is specially skilled mental health and social service professionals in hospital paediatric departments. Though tax havens, state terrorism, migration, global warming and inequality may be far from their minds, these young people are warning us of the danger we all face: the vicious cycle in which people across the social spectrum become less interested in the public good that they are expected to pay for in taxes, because they can see nothing good in it for them. The poison in the social atmosphere that is hitting teenagers is their unprecedented lack of prospects in education, employment and housing. Dr Sebastian Kraemer NHS consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, 1980-2015 London SW2 A quick swipe can stop touts Secondary sale of tickets for big events has been set up to facilitate the tout industry (“How ticket touts are bleeding fans dryâ€\x9d, Special Report, last week). It makes no difference to performers, as they get the same cut from the original ticket price whether or not touts are involved. If performers care about fans they should insist that ticketing for any gigs mirror the simple and transparent system for buying cinema tickets online. Payment is taken from the credit card, then the ticket is collected when your credit card is swiped at the venue. There is no possibility of ticket transfer unless you trust a friend to use your credit card. Buyer beware. Alison Hackett Dublin Win-win of crosscultural bonds As psychotherapist Reenee Singh observes, there is “an added layer of potential conflict from the minute intercultural couples meetâ€\x9d (“Now loving couples can rely on help to cross a troubled cultural divideâ€\x9d, In Focus, last week). My Mexican wife and I have survived 40 such years. The upside is that, like travel, cross-cultural marriage broadens the mind, and the children, ideally bilingual, learn to function across cultures as cosmopolitan world citizens. Joseph Palley Richmond, Surrey High value of online petitions Catherine’s Bennett’s criticism of online petitions as clickbait is unjust (“People power can be toxic: sign here if you agreeâ€\x9d, Comment, last week). Organisations such as 38 Degrees have achieved some remarkable results by informing, encouraging and mobilising vast numbers of people who would otherwise succumb to apathy in the face of toxic corporate and rightwing self-interest. It is a sad fact of modern-day life that only a small minority of people take an active and regular part in campaigns that promote a fair and compassionate society. Online petitions make ordinary people feel as if they have a voice, so it’s at least one step better than indolence. I don’t like the tone or purpose of the petition to sack Laura Kuenssberg, but unfortunately there are always going to be some, like “Joeâ€\x9d, who use (misuse?) petitions in this way and the websites cannot easily prevent them without losing their valuable impartiality. I would have gladly signed a petition to sack the odious Jeremy Clarkson and felt justified in doing so. Would that campaign have been “unfair and uglyâ€\x9d? Michael Pollard Wareham, Dorset BA’s i360 boon to Brighton The letter “Council spending on towersâ€\x9d (8 May), contains misleading information. First, the public funding referred to comes from the Public Works Loan Board, which funds projects that generate a commercial return. It is not local taxpayers’ money, nor was it a case of the council choosing to fund British Airways i360 instead of paying for local services. The statement that this arrangement will cost residents £1.4m a year is false; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Brighton and Hove city council will earn about £1m a year from brokering the loan, which will be reinvested back into the city at a time of public cuts. In addition, 1% of British Airways i360’s ticket sales will be paid to the council in perpetuity, even after the loan has been repaid. We also estimate that the attraction will bring £25m per year in economic benefit to the city; it will support local businesses and generate hundreds of new jobs that pay the living wage. David Marks Chairman, Brighton i360 Age does not dictate politics I will be 72 by the date of the EU referendum and am getting tired of reading articles that seem to portray everyone of my age as a reactionary isolationist (“‘Our grandparents should not be deciding our future’â€\x9d, News, last week). I am not. I firmly believe that the days when Britain achieved dominance by exploiting half the world and fighting the other half have long gone and our only hope for the future is through cooperation with out nearest neighbours. And I couldn’t support a cause backed by Duncan Smith, Gove, Farage and Johnson. If you want to make your voices heard, get off your apathetic arses and do something about it. Mike Garley Leeds',
 'Dancing to the Coen brothers’ tune: Channing Tatum on his role in Hail, Caesar! Seemingly force-fed into sailors’ whites, Channing Tatum’s first appearance in a Coen brothers film has already triggered dropped jaws across the world. Tip-tapping his way across the screen, Tatum makes good use of his dance skills as the star of an On-the-Town-ish film-within-a-film, one of several that punctuate Hail, Caesar!, which is set mostly within the confines of a single Hollywood studio in the early 1950s. The homoerotic subtext is never far from the surface of Tatum’s scenes, and Hail, Caesar! gets lots of yuks out of it. “People now can’t believe it,â€\x9d says Tatum. “The 50s were very square and conservative, but audiences loved these guys. The dancing is so elegant and dainty, but guys on the street would love it without irony. It’s such a fascinating juxtaposition that 50s men could like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. All that “I’m gonna dance with you, palâ€\x9d type stuff.â€\x9d Casting Tatum was bit of a masterstroke on the Coens’ part, in keeping with their tradition of big-name cameos. But Tatum is something of a conundrum: he may look like a jock, but his willingness to hoof it up on film – from Step Up to Magic Mike – has been instrumental to his success. “There’s not a lot of actors that dance, I guess,â€\x9d he says, “though I have never actually danced like this. When we started, the Coens weren’t sure if they wanted it to be tap dancing, but they did know they wanted it to be Gene Kelly-esque and athletic. Originally, it was going to be on a battleship, with me running up the sides, me on a big huge gun. But then it started to change to a tap dancing and singing thing. That I was really panicked about, but it worked out OK.â€\x9d Tatum is a highly rated actor these days, thanks to an astute association with a string of auteurish American directors alongside his more obviously commercial romcoms and action movies. He has made three films with Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Haywire, Side Effects), Foxcatcher for Bennett Miller, Jupiter Ascending with the Wachowskis and, most recently, The Hateful Eight with Quentin Tarantino. “I’ve been really blessed to work with so many different types of director. It’s fascinating. The way the Coens work is really precise, and they really try to bring you into the process. We get pages every morning, and on the back is the entire storyboard for the scene. But, within that, you can try anything, they don’t lead you that way. With Quentin, he’ll give you a note that is so specific: I want you to pick this up on the first syllable, I want you to walk all the way across the room, set it down, then say the last syllable. It’s just different styles. Everyone has their way.â€\x9d • Hail, Caesar! is released in the UK on 4 March.',
 "Cannes 2016: festival chief defends return of 'usual suspects' Cannes film festival head Thierry Frémaux has dismissed suggestions that one of the industry’s most famous events routinely presents work from the “usual suspectâ€\x9d directors to the detriment of new talent. Interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter, Frémaux said the presence of Cannes favourites such as Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodovar, Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold, Nicolas Winding Refn and Olivier Assayas in competition for this year’s Palme D’Or was in no way indicative of a closed-shop attitude. “Every film we pick up is because of the film and what the film means in terms of schedule, programming and selection,â€\x9d he said. “What about the names people ignore? What about the Brazilian film-maker [Kleber Mendonça Filho], the German director [Maren Ade]. No one asks me about the new names.â€\x9d Frémaux said it was unfair to criticise organisers for inviting back Sean Penn, whose film The Last Face made the competition slate a decade and a half after his 2001 film The Pledge debuted on the Croisette. “It’s only the second time, and the last time was 15 years ago,â€\x9d he said. “So there are not that many ‘usual suspects’, and we of course make efforts to put new names in the selection.â€\x9d The artistic director said Jarmusch had two entries in the festival’s official 2016 selection: bus-driver drama Paterson and Iggy Pop documentary Gimme Danger, to show his diversity as a film-maker. “Like a writer, he can do both a novel and sometimes reportage in the press,â€\x9d said Frémaux of Jarmusch. “It’s the same expression and is part of the territory of creation. It’s good to have documentaries, because sometimes things can only be expressed by reality. I think we have to open windows. We have to show what a film-maker can be.â€\x9d Cannes has been criticised in the past for a perceived bias against female directors. In 2012, there were none at all in the main competition for the Palme d’Or. The festival chief said one-fifth of this year’s films were directed by women, which he said was “three times the proportion of what it is in the industryâ€\x9d. “To have more women in Cannes, we have to have more women in cinema. Cannes is not the problem, do not blame Cannes. Cannes is the consequence,â€\x9d he said.",
 'Call for new powers to protect company pensions after takeovers The Pension Regulator should be given new powers to block company deals so that employees and pensioners are better protected in the wake of events such as the collapse of BHS, the former chair of the Pension Protection Fund has said. Lady Judge, who stepped down last month, said the regulator was not equipped to deal with situations such as that at BHS, sold by Sir Philip Green to Dominic Chappell for £1 last year and now left with an estimated £571m pensions black hole. “The regulator should have the right to approve or disapprove any corporate transaction that might disadvantage pensioners,â€\x9d the Financial Times quoted Judge as saying. “If it had had the power, we would not be in this situation.â€\x9d However, the pensions minister, Ros Altmann, suggested such an approach would be too strong. “I would be nervous about saying a transaction could not take place. But we must be clearer [to companies] about the consequences of failure to get clearance for a deal. “If we need to give the regulator more powers we will, but it is not clear yet. Any changes would need to be done with careful consideration and not kneejerk reaction.â€\x9d Lady Altmann said the regulator needed to be given the chance to carry out its report on the BHS pension scheme. But Judge said pensioners needed more protection. “We need to take care of [pensioners] as a country and not let unscrupulous big corporates put them in a position where they won’t be able to have a reasonable future,â€\x9d she said. In a separate interview, Altmann said Britain’s vote to leave the European Union would place greater strain on companies with defined benefit pension schemes, driving deficits higher if the economy weakens and interest rates stay lower for longer. She said that under such circumstances, businesses should not be forced into putting too much money into schemes. “I do think it’s important that when we’re making plans for the future the government recognises that employers are having, in some cases, a really difficult time supporting the pension promises they have made. “Part of the reason for that is the trend in interest rates. What we don’t want to do is offset some of the stimulus by forcing companies to put too much money into their pensions in the near term if they can’t afford it, so there’s that delicate balancing act.â€\x9d Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has signalled that Threadneedle Street is ready to pump more money into the economy following the shock Brexit vote. Immediately after the result was announced Carney said the Bank was prepared to provide UK banks with an additional £250bn of liquidity. The governor has also hinted that interest rates could be cut from their record low of 0.5%. Another option available to the Bank would be more quantitative easing, where new money is created to buy assets such as government bonds. QE was first launched in March 2009, as the Bank attempted to limit the impact of the financial crisis.',
 "Starship Troopers reboot on the way as Hollywood's 90s nostalgia train rolls on Starship Troopers is being rebooted with hopes that it will launch a new franchise. The 1997 original, directed by Paul Verhoeven, was an adaptation of Robert A Heinlein’s novel which, according to the Hollywood Reporter, will act as the more direct source of the new version. The script will come from Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who have also written the upcoming Baywatch movie. It’ll be produced by Neal H Moritz, whose credits include Sweet Home Alabama and Battle Los Angeles. Verhoeven’s film, which starred Casper van Dien and Denise Richards, received critical acclaim for its surprising satire but was a disappointment at the box office, making just $121m worldwide from a $105m budget. It spawned three sequels, without the director’s involvement which didn’t receive a theatrical release. Verhoeven’s other sci-fi hits Robocop and Total Recall have also been remade, receiving disastrous reviews. “Somehow they seem to think that the lightness of say Total Recall and Robocop is a hindrance,â€\x9d Verhoeven said about the remakes in an interview. “So they take these somewhat absurd stories and make them much too serious … Both those movies needed the distance of satire or comedy to situate it for audiences. Playing it straight without any humor is a problem and not an improvement.â€\x9d",
 'Spotlight review – Catholic church called to account over child abuse Spotlight is a movie of clarity and force: the true story of the Boston Globe’s “Spotlightâ€\x9d team and its 2002 campaign to investigate a church cover-up of child abuse by Catholic priests. Its value was obvious at the Venice film festival last year, but it has grown in my mind since: what seemed like a plodding pace is actually a shrewd approximation of the steady drumbeat that effective reporting creates. This is what the police work of investigative journalism looks like: the documents, the phone calls, the pre-web clippings, the expense of shoe leather in going out to interview people who don’t want to be interviewed. Spotlight doesn’t have the sensational thrills of Alan J Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976), or for that matter David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007). And there are a few journo cliches. But it has the sinew of a really good procedural, underpinned by genuine moral outrage. Michael Keaton plays veteran reporter Walter “Robbyâ€\x9d Robinson, working alongside hot-tempered Mike Rezendes, played by Mark Ruffalo, and Sacha Pfeiffer, played by Rachel McAdams, who has an extraordinary scene when she persuades an abuser-priest to come to the door and talk. Boston was a clubbable world in which a smile on the golf course, or a pat on the back and a meaningful look at the church social was enough to enforce silence. It takes a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) – non-Boston, non-Catholic – to shake things up and insist on doing the child abuse story properly, and paradoxically reveal the paper’s own former shortcomings. The film has real insights to offer: the cast powerfully convey the journalists’ horror at realising the abuse stretches back decades or even centuries and also how abuse is as much about power as sex and that homosexuality is beside the point: the abusers have evolved the choice of boy victims because boys are reticent, more likely to swallow their shame and not speak out. A powerful story.',
 'Kung Fu Panda 3 chops Allegiant down to size at UK box office The winner: Kung Fu Panda 3 While the February half-term holiday this year saw Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation all sit out the contest – ceding the field to Fox’s Chipmunks franchise – it’s a different story this Easter. Good Friday sees the arrival of Disney Animation’s Zootropolis, and it’s already begun popping up in previews, with more to follow. It’s been preceded by DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 3, which cruised to an easy win at the box office with £3.18m from 583 cinemas, plus £1.59m in previews, for a total of £4.77m. The weekend number is very similar to previous entries in the franchise, although more aggressive previews on the earlier films pushed those totals higher. Kung Fu Panda debuted in July 2008, with £3.11m plus £2.96m for a £6.07m total. Kung Fu Panda 2 began in June 2011, with £3.07m plus £3.12m in previews for a £6.19m total. Kung Fu Panda 3 has the whole Easter school holiday ahead of it – two solid weeks when families will be available for cinema visits, although it will face fierce competition from Zootropolis. The runner-up: Allegiant Landing a place below Kung Fu Panda 3, and with about half the box office, is Allegiant, the latest in The Divergent Series. This third entry in the franchise has begun with £1.58m, plus £262,000 in Thursday previews, for a four-day total of £1.84m. Stakeholders may have concerns that the franchise is now moving in the wrong direction, since the original Divergent kicked off in April 2014 with £1.77m, and Insurgent just under a year later with £2.55m plus previews of £385,000, for a £2.94m total. Ignoring previews, Allegiant has opened 38% below its predecessor. If previews are included in the calculations, it’s a very similar story: Allegiant is 37% behind Insurgent. The budget of Allegiant has not been confirmed, but the first film is believed to have cost $85m, and the second $110m. These films have a significant physical cost, and are a lot more expensive than rival franchise Maze Runner, for example. Both Maze Runner films outgrossed both in the Divergent series so far, going by worldwide box office. The wisdom of splitting the final novel in Veronica Roth’s YA trilogy into two films – Allegiant and next year’s Ascendant – may be called into question. If audience interest continues to flag, this hardly looks like the easy commercial win that resulted from the extending of the Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games film franchises. The real runner-up: London Has Fallen Although Allegiant occupies second position in the official comScore chart, it does so only by virtue of the film’s Thursday previews. Going by Friday-to-Sunday takings only, the runner-up honours belong to London Has Fallen, which grossed £1.80m, taking its 11-day tally to £6.44m. The Gerard Butler actioner fell just 34% from the previous frame – the gentlest decline of any film in the top 10. That’s remarkable for several reasons. First, London Has Fallen is a sequel, so you would expect business to be front-loaded, with fans rushing out in the first week. Second, it’s a mainstream action picture, which is a genre that tends to skew to the kind of audiences (including young males) that are traditionally quick to see films, swiftly moving on to fresh releases. Third, reviews have been largely hostile, often an indication that word-of-mouth will be weak once the film begins to engage beyond the core fanbase. The film’s IMDb user rating remains a decent 6.4/10, and the MetaCritic score is 28/100 – evidently the audience and the paid professionals continue to disagree on the film’s merits. London Has Fallen has already overtaken the lifetime total here of predecessor Olympus Has Fallen (£6.22m). The film may be benefiting from a local boost in the UK, but the numbers suggest that further cities may soon be welcoming a dishevelled Butler trotting around familiar landmarks with US president Aaron Eckhart, while dispatching evil terrorists. The scary movie face-off: The Witch v The Ones Below Finding the perfect release date is never easy, but observers did wonder whether it was wise for distributor Icon to position its London-set chiller The Ones Below on the same weekend as Universal’s supernatural horror The Witch. The films are very different, but they both classify as “elevated genreâ€\x9d, having premiered respectively at the Toronto and Sundance film festivals. Wouldn’t the audiences overlap? In the end, the potential clash was solved by the very modest programming of The Ones Below – David Farr’s film was released into just 11 cinemas, all in London. Whether that was a strategic choice made by the distributor, or one forced on it by the indifference of cinema programmers, is hard to say. The Ones Below enjoys a 71% Fresh critical rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but a weak 38% approval rating among the site’s users. UK opening gross is a poor £7,000. The Witch debuts with £448,000 from 179 cinemas, including modest previews of £11,000. Site average is a decent £2,501. Given the low production cost, this looks like a canny acquisition for Universal, which has multiple foreign rights. The indie challenger: Anomalisa While Hail, Caesar! continues to be the top attraction for fans of independent cinema, Charlie Kaufman’s stop-frame animation Anomalisa is now positioned as a plucky alternative. Curzon Artificial Eye pushed the film out into 80 cinemas, delivering a debut of £223,000, including previews of £30,000. Assessing that result is a distinct challenge, since there are no real directly comparable titles you can point to. The Kaufman-directed Synecdoche, New York began in May 2009 with £123,000 from 30 venues, including previews of £10,000 – but that was live action, with a rich ensemble cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams. Reviews were significantly more ecstatic this time around, but a stop-frame animation about a male midlife crisis, with David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the voice cast, was never exactly a commercial slam-dunk. The future Thanks to the arrival of Kung Fu Panda 3, takings are a nice 26% up on the previous frame, and a very healthy 94% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when the top new releases were Run All Night and Suite Francaise. (This outcome is essentially a blip, caused by an earlier Easter, and hence the earlier release this year of a big animated film.) Among official releases, cinema bookers will have big hopes pinned on the JJ Abrams-produced 10 Cloverfield Lane, a “spiritual successorâ€\x9d to gene hit Cloverfield. Alternatives include fellow genre offering The Boy; religious-themed historical actioner Risen; and Ben Wheatley’s starry JG Ballard adaptation High-Rise. Zootropolis will be playing extensive previews on Saturday and Sunday. Top 10 films March 11-13 1. Kung Fu Panda 3, £4,771,131 from 583 sites (new) 2. The Divergent Series: Allegiant, £1,838,019 from 526 sites (new) 3. London Has Fallen, £1,800,526 from 518 sites. Total: £6,444,871 4. Deadpool, £966,484 from 472 sites. Total: £35,773,741 5. Hail, Caesar!, £863,355 from 506 sites. Total: £3,244,566 6. Grimsby, £474,768 from 361 sites. Total: £4,451,956 7. The Witch, £447,626 from 179 sites (new) 8. How to Be Single, £333,681 from 374 sites. Total: £5,432,714 9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, £295,420 from 493 sites. Total: £15,711,070 10. Anomalisa, £223,387 from 80 sites (new) Other openers Fifty Shades of Black, £82,614 from 117 sites Ardaas, £72,084 from 10 sites Love Punjab, £33,661 from 5 sites Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum, £16,715 from 17 sites Traders, £7,435 from 28 sites (Ireland only) The Ones Below, £6,971 from 11 sites Feast of Varanasi, £5,443 from 25 sites The Here After, £3,316 from 10 sites Puthiya Niyamam, £2,596 from 17 sites In Rahon Se, £1,583 from five sites Next to Her, £1,095 from five sites Against the Sun, £36 from one site Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.',
 'What does depression feel like? Trust me – you really don’t want to know This is Depression Awareness Week, so it must be hoped that during this seven-day period more people will become more aware of a condition that a minority experience, and which most others grasp only remotely – confusing it with more familiar feelings, such as unhappiness or misery. This perception is to some extent shared by the medical community, which can’t quite make its mind up whether depression is a physical “illnessâ€\x9d, rooted in neurochemistry, or a negative habit of thought that can be addressed by talking or behavioural therapies. I’m not concerned about which of these two models is the more accurate. I’m still not sure myself. My primary task here is to try to explain something that remains so little understood as an experience – despite the endless books and articles on the subject. Because if the outsider cannot really conceptualise serious depression, the 97.5% who do not suffer from it will be unable to really sympathise, address it or take it seriously. From the outside it may look like malingering, bad temper and ugly behaviour – and who can empathise with such unattractive traits? Depression is actually much more complex, nuanced and dark than unhappiness – more like an implosion of self. In a serious state of depression, you become a sort of half-living ghost. To give an idea of how distressing this is, I can only say that the trauma of losing my mother when I was 31 – to suicide, sadly – was considerably less than what I had endured during the years prior to her death, when I was suffering from depression myself (I had recovered by the time of her death). So how is this misleadingly named curse different from recognisable grief? For a start, it can produce symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s – forgetfulness, confusion and disorientation. Making even the smallest decisions can be agonising. It can affect not just the mind but also the body – I start to stumble when I walk, or become unable to walk in a straight line. I am more clumsy and accident-prone. In depression you become, in your head, two-dimensional – like a drawing rather than a living, breathing creature. You cannot conjure your actual personality, which you can remember only vaguely, in a theoretical sense. You live in, or close to, a state of perpetual fear, although you are not sure what it is you are afraid of. The writer William Styron called it a “brainstormâ€\x9d, which is much more accurate than “unhappinessâ€\x9d. There is a heavy, leaden feeling in your chest, rather as when someone you love dearly has died; but no one has – except, perhaps, you. You feel acutely alone. It is commonly described as being like viewing the world through a sheet of plate glass; it would be more accurate to say a sheet of thick, semi-opaque ice. Thus your personality – the normal, accustomed “youâ€\x9d – has changed. But crucially, although near-apocalyptic from the inside, this transformation is barely perceptible to the observer – except for, perhaps, a certain withdrawnness, or increased anger and irritability. Viewed from the outside – the wall of skin and the windows of eyes – everything remains familiar. Inside, there is a dark storm. Sometimes you may have the overwhelming desire to stand in the street and scream at the top of your voice, for no particular reason (the writer Andrew Solomon described it as “like wanting to vomit but not having a mouthâ€\x9d). Other negative emotions – self-pity, guilt, apathy, pessimism, narcissism – make it a deeply unattractive illness to be around, one that requires unusual levels of understanding and tolerance from family and friends. For all its horrors, it is not naturally evocative of sympathy. Apart from being mistaken for someone who might be a miserable, loveless killjoy, one also has to face the fact that one might be a bit, well, crazy – one of the people who can’t be trusted to be reliable parents, partners, or even employees. So to the list of predictable torments, shame can be added. There is a paradox here. You want the illness acknowledged but you also want to deny it, because it has a bad reputation. When I am well, which is most of the time, I am (I think) jocular, empathetic, curious, well-adjusted, open and friendly. Many very personable entertainers and “creativesâ€\x9d likewise suffer depression, although in fact the only group of artists who actually suffer it disproportionately are – you guessed it – writers. There are positive things about depression, I suppose. It has helped give me a career (without suffering depression I would never have examined my life closely enough to become a writer). And above all, depression, in nearly all cases, sooner or later lifts, and you become “normalâ€\x9d again. Not that anyone but you will necessarily notice. But on the whole it’s a horror, and it’s real, and it deserves sympathy and help. However, in the world we live in, that remains easier to say than do. We don’t understand depression partly because it’s hard to imagine – but also, perhaps, because we don’t want to understand it. I have a suspicion that society, in its heart of hearts, despises depressives because it knows they have a point: the recognition that life is finite and sad and frightening – as well as those more sanctioned outlooks, joyful and exciting and complex and satisfying. There is a secret feeling most people enjoy that everything, at a fundamental level, is basically OK. Depressives suffer the withdrawal of that feeling, and it is frightening not only to experience but to witness. Admittedly, severely depressed people can connect only tenuously with reality, but repeated studies have shown that mild to moderate depressives have a more realistic take on life than most “normalâ€\x9d people, a phenomenon known as “depressive realismâ€\x9d. As Neel Burton, author of The Meaning of Madness, put it, this is “the healthy suspicion that modern life has no meaning and that modern society is absurd and alienatingâ€\x9d. In a goal-driven, work-oriented culture, this is deeply threatening. This viewpoint can have a paralysing grip on depressives, sometimes to a psychotic extent – but perhaps it haunts everyone. And therefore the bulk of the unafflicted population may never really understand depression. Not only because they (understandably) lack the imagination, and (unforgivably) fail to trust in the experience of the sufferer – but because, when push comes to shove, they don’t want to understand. It’s just too … well, depressing. • In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here',
 "How Silicon Valley's parents keep their children safe online Even in Silicon Valley, parents struggle to navigate the online risks and opportunities for their children. The internet might be the first place to turn for homework and entertainment, but how much should parents intervene to protect their children from adult content, cyberbullying and being contacted by dangerous strangers? Thirteen-year-old Nicole Lovell was murdered by two students who authorities say met her on the messaging app Kik. One in 25 young people aged 10-17 have received aggressive sexual solicitations online, researchers found. And 34% of students aged 11-15 say they have experienced cyberbullying. So how should parents handle this digital minefield? We asked the Silicon Valley experts. ‘Trying to control access is massively complex’ Jon Gillespie-Brown is a British entrepreneur and author who has been in Silicon Valley for nine years. He lives in Portola Valley, California, with his wife and two sons aged 13 and 15 My kids have access to pretty well everything. Both my wife and I work in technology – she in gaming, I in software – and we’ve got every gadget going. The kids have got smartphones, laptops, iPads and game boxes, and every one of them is connected to the internet. Trying to control all that access across a mishmash of platforms and devices is massively complex. I am a programmer. I know how to program every single one of these things but the tools we’ve used to try and restrict access to certain types of sites – such as porn sites – are ineffective and block content needed for them to do their homework. Now our method for control is training. Both our kids have been curious and looked at pornography. We try to teach them about the internet just like you’ve got to teach them about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Our older son uses Ask.fm, Snapchat and Instagram a lot, and there was lots of inappropriate texting and commenting in his early use of social media. However, he’s also really into sports and wants to go to college, so he’s starting to control his use as he knows that the schools [universities] are going through social media and using it as a means to exclude people. So he’s gone through every account and deleted all the bad language and inappropriate content. Because there were some cyberbullying cases at school – and lawsuits when parents found out – a lot of the chat has moved to Snapchat, which is like the magically disappearing piece of paper I used to pass round when I was a kid. The Bay Area is a very aggressive environment for children and their parents, and there have been a lot of teen suicides. Parents are all working very long hours in stressful jobs and don’t have as much time to be with their kids.We have drilled into them what is appropriate and what is legal, and that if they get caught sending stuff online it’s a legal document and will be used against them in a way that whispering something mean can’t be. ‘We told our son to use Snapchat, not Twitter’ David DeMember founded digital agency Toi, where he builds apps and websites with his wife, Betty. They live with their three boys, aged five, 14 and 17, in Millbrae, California We try to treat our children as adults. I don’t believe in spying on your kids unless you have to. It’s crazy that parents think they should have their passwords and use tracking tools. Before these things existed were you bugging your kids? It’s absurd that this is the norm these days. The main concerns when it comes to the web are: overusage, pornography, the fact that you don’t know who you are talking to online and cybersecurity. I am mostly concerned about usage and security. There was a weekend when our middle son played nine hours of video games – World of Warcraft and Gears of War– so we are now monitoring his usage. We also ask them not to take their phones into their bedrooms at night because it affects their quality of sleep. If you binge on anything too much – TV, computer, phone, candy, fatty food, salt, whatever – it’s bad for your body and mind. If you are constantly playing games eight or nine hours every day it will erode your interests in other things. With porn, we know they are going to watch it – it’s natural to be curious. So we talk to them about how certain kinds are better than others. If we tell them not to watch it, it may push them into the darker corners. You can’t shelter your kids from the world. The internet is accessible everywhere and they know how to use private browsing. There was a time when our eldest son and his friends started to use Twitter and would post anything – some of it borderline. A fellow player on the football team posted about spilling bong water in the car and lots of kids were using the N-word. So we talked about that. We reminded him that everything you post online is there forever and if he wants to have those conversations he should use Snapchat (which might sound crazy). We’re fairly liberal people, both politically and in our parenting style, so you would think our kids would be crazy. But I believe that by creating a more inclusive conversation we’ve demystified some of this stuff. ‘We know her passwords’ Tiffany Shlain is a film-maker and founder of the Webby Awards and the Moxie Institute Film Studio. She lives with her husband, UC Berkeley robotics professor and artist Ken Goldberg, and their two children, aged 13 and 10, in Marin County, California Our 13-year-old daughter has a phone that just texts and calls – not a smartphone. Many of her friends have smartphones and are on them the whole time. She has a laptop and uses Twitter for social media, which of course we follow and we find the whole experience quite interesting. She also loves to write and watch short videos on YouTube. We know her passwords and she isn’t allowed to take her laptop into her room – it is only used in spaces we all are, so it can’t be this private world she dives into. If I’m ever worried about a particular website I will check with Commonsense Media to see what age rating they give it. We are in our seventh year of doing something we call “Technology Shabbatsâ€\x9d, where we all turn off screens Friday night to Saturday night. That has been amazing for our family and all of us in so many ways. This is the one day we all appreciate being present with each other in a way that I think is waning in our world – with no screens to pull us away from what we’re doing. We read, play board games, do art projects, bike rides, and just hang out. And then each week she (and everyone in the family) re-appreciates technology all over again by the end of the day on Saturday. ‘Neither of my kids are on Facebook’ Sanjay Dholakia is the chief marketing officer of Marketo, which makes marketing automation software. He lives in Bend, Oregon, with his wife and two kids, a 13-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son My daughter has a school-issued iPad which is relatively heavily locked down by the school district. She also has a smartphone. We encourage her not to use WhatsApp and Snapchat at this point as we don’t think it’s age appropriate, although she does text her friends regularly. We want to teach her to self-select the groups that she’s part of. My six-year-old has a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone that no longer has cell connectivity which he uses to email his family. They both play games such as Minecraft and my daughter uses an app called Lark to write art-inspired poetry. Neither of my kids are on Facebook, or any places where they could be exposed to a lot of people – they are too young. It’s just not appropriate. However we’re just entering a zone where some of my daughter’s friends are getting Facebook accounts and we probably won’t let her have one for a little bit longer, until she gets to high school. I’m on the board of directors at a high school and cyberbullying is a big problem for older children, particularly on these big social networks. You can’t watch over your children or be with them 100% of the time, so we need to teach them how to make good decisions and know when things might be dangerous. My kids are growing up digitally native and the learning curve is so steep that our main job is to teach them good decision-making. I don’t want my children to see the online worlds as a scary place they need protection from – there are positives and negatives. ‘The prevalence of in-app payments is really troubling’ Bret Taylor is the former chief technology officer of Facebook, credited with inventing the “likeâ€\x9d button. He left in 2012 to set up his own company Quip, which makes a hybrid communication, collaboration and productivity service. He lives with his wife and kids, aged six and four, in Lafayette, California My wife and I both come from the technology industry and we want to make sure our kids don’t have too much screen time. We have experimented with giving our kids access to Netflix, but we noticed they were finding things that were a bit more mature than we were comfortable with. So we got rid of all of the internet-connected apps such as YouTube and Netflix, and now only download shows we’ve pre-approved. One issue we’ve consistently encountered is the prevalence of in-app payments, where we’ve found the kids have bought things without really knowing what they were doing – I find it really troubling. These are games designed for kids aged six or seven. They are not paying for it, nor do they have the capacity to work out if it’s worthwhile. The ironic thing is that most people in the tech industry restrict their kids’ technology usage, while our friends outside of the tech industry are much more liberal and all their kids use smartphones. No matter how good the technology is, it’s a parenting problem as much as a tech problem. Your kid will run into content that’s too mature and it creates the need for difficult conversations. The internet is messy and filled with a lot of different stuff so you need to have those conversations early – at eight, nine or 10, rather than when they are 12, 13, 14. ‘They can only use their tablets in a child-friendly mode’ Aaron Bromberg is the senior manager of product management for Amazon Devices. He lives in Palo Alto, California, and has two kids, aged seven and five We don’t let our kids use the internet without our supervision, but there hasn’t been a strong pull from either of them. They both have the Kindle Fire Kids Edition tablet which they use in FreeTime mode (this restricts access to the web browser and disables in-app purchases, social features and location-based services). They use the TV and Fire Stick to get online to watch streaming video. We’ll also use YouTube or show them things on the internet together as a family with our supervision. We often just spend a bit of time after dinner watching clips – most recently we watched a load of break-dancing videos. Looking ahead for when they are older, Amazon has just released a kid-friendly web browser within the FreeTime service. This lets them have access to a limited set of sites that Amazon has reviewed. The main thing we try to impress upon them is that when they share things with their friends or family, they know who they are communicating with. When they share things online they don’t know who they are communicating with. Everyone is listening to the online conversation. We review friends lists and some communications Brendon Lynch is chief privacy officer at Microsoft. He lives with his wife and two children, aged nine and 13, and in the Bay Area We’ve had first-hand experience with cyberbullying, unfortunately, but luckily we were able to get it quickly addressed. The learning for us was understanding just how important it is for kids to look out for each other and to involve an adult if they are at all concerned. I feel that stranger danger is reasonably well managed with a combination of restrictions, monitoring and education. Our kids have all Microsoft devices, of course. The 13-year-old has a phone and they both use either a tablet or laptop and are both Xbox fans, although the nine-year-old cannot accept Xbox friends or download apps without a parent approving it – and they can’t play multiplayer online games. The 13-year-old has fewer restrictions but can only participate in multiplayer online games with audio off (to protect from inappropriate language) and can’t access content with age-inappropriate ratings. We use family safety tools to report on websites visited. We also review friend lists and some communications, in a transparent way. My main advice is to be actively engaged and interested in their lives, which includes life online. ‘We don’t let our kids use social media’ Richard Freed is a child and adolescent psychologist who lives in Walnut Creek with his wife and two daughters, aged eight and 12. He is author of the book Wired Child, looking at the negative impact of technology on children Our kids use computers at school and our older daughter has a phone without a data plan, but we restrict their use at home. We’ve really worked hard to have our kids not on social media and that is driven by my research and clinical practice. It’s remarkably clear to me that kids’ use of social media pulls them away from the two most important things in life: family and school. We have this belief in our country that kids hit their teens or preteens and they should be engaging with peers and technology. That’s a modern fabrication. Kids have always needed family first, and kids who spend more than two hours on a social network a day have high levels of psychological distress. My main concern with social media and gaming is that they are increasingly developed by psychologists and user researchers who focus on making sure that the product is not put down. It’s nearly impossible to use just a little bit. Moderation sounds good, but I don’t think it applies. For me it’s the same as giving kids a little bit of alcohol. I’ve seen that blow up in the faces of families that have truly lost their kids. I also see an increasing number of kids in my practice getting hooked on pornography – boys and girls, starting at about 11. The filters just don’t work; they are not effective. I recognize that our family has much stronger limits than most. My kids have, as a result, gravitated towards other kids who don’t spend a bunch of time with screens. They are friends with people who are more involved in school, family and sports.",
 'Shaking, crying, panic – the trauma of a benefits assessment with PTSD Looking through the letter marked “Atos healthcareâ€\x9d, Lucia – who has severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety – can only remember fragments of the assessment for personal independence payments (PIP) she had two months ago. A normal day is often hard enough for the 34-year-old. Lucia’s husband Daniel, a former hospital administrator, had to leave work three years ago to become her full-time carer. She’s been relying on disability living allowance (DLA) – the benefit the government is replacing with PIP – for six years to pay for weekly therapy sessions. On the days running up to her Atos medical, Lucia tells me she “wasn’t functioningâ€\x9d because of the stress: she couldn’t get dressed, wash, or leave the house. But within a few minutes of the assessment itself, she began to panic: she could hear voices coming from the room next door. Due to a shortage in facilities, the assessor told her and Daniel that the assessment room had been divided in two and without soundproofing – so as Lucia had her medical, she could hear another disabled person being assessed. That would be uncomfortable for anyone, but for Lucia it was impossible: a symptom of her PTSD is that she hears internal “voicesâ€\x9d and conversations. As Lucia began to shake and cry, Daniel was told no other rooms were available. The assessor offered to reschedule the appointment but as having to go through an assessment again would further trigger Lucia’s condition, she had no choice but to continue. “I was trapped,â€\x9d she says. For the rest of the assessment, Lucia had to answer the assessor’s questions with earphones in, playing music from an MP3 player to distract herself from the voices with calming “white noiseâ€\x9d. “I couldn’t concentrate. I went blank,â€\x9d she says. “Daniel had to help me with responses. I don’t even remember it.â€\x9d The next day, Daniel wrote to Atos on behalf of Lucia about their concern that this situation would affect the result. A week later, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) informed Lucia she’d been rejected for PIP. She’d scored zero points in the assessment. “To have your decision based on such a flawed assessment is ridiculous,â€\x9d Lucia says. “They should have cancelled before I got there. They knew [my condition]. They knew what would happen.â€\x9d But she tells me the report by Atos barely mentions any of it. “[The report has] one sentence: ‘The claimant had difficulties with this assessment.’ That’s it. The only reference to the room,â€\x9d she says. “I had a complete breakdown in the medical and they didn’t even put that in.â€\x9d Now without her benefit, she has no way to pay the £45 needed each week for her therapy. “I had my last session on 11 April when my last DLA went out. I don’t have PIP, so I can’t have it,â€\x9d she says. She pauses. “I’ve had a relapse … My symptoms are getting worse. I only ever felt able to go out with my husband and now it feels impossible. It’s taking so much effort just to function.â€\x9d Among all the rhetoric on so-called “benefit reformâ€\x9d, what the Conservatives don’t mention is that DLA – and now PIP – is what’s in technical terms “a gateway benefitâ€\x9d. That means that when disabled people such as Lucia are rejected for transferring to PIP, they don’t just lose DLA – they can also lose several other benefits that they’ve been relying on for years. As Lucia puts it to me: “It’s a bit like dominos.â€\x9d The same day her DLA was stopped, Daniel’s carers’ allowance was too. Because that went, so did Lucia’s income support. The couple’s housing benefit was also suspended (it’s since been reinstated after the council assessed them as needing support). In the space of a day, Lucia says, “everything that we had before has stoppedâ€\x9d. That’s almost £300 a week. “We’re not living. We’re just surviving.â€\x9d Currently, this survival is coming from money they saved from the previous month’s DLA “in case the worstâ€\x9d happened with PIP. Lucia knows this will soon run out and the couple is now cutting back on food. “We’re lucky because there’s a place down the road that sells food past its best-before date so it’s still legal to sell it,â€\x9d she says. Lucia plans to appeal against her rejection for PIP but before she can, she must first go through what the DWP call mandatory reconsideration – a compulsory process where the decision is “reconsideredâ€\x9d. She receives no money in the meantime. “They backdate it if you win but what good’s that now?â€\x9d she says. “It should only take a month. Now [they say] it’s nine weeks because of a lack of staff. They say they’ve got more work than they were expecting.â€\x9d It took until last Wednesday for Lucia and Daniel to get a reply from Atos – weeks after she’d already been rejected. The firm apologised and said the room division was a temporary measure (that won’t be repeated) caused by a lack of available computers. When I contacted Atos, a spokesperson told me that they’d reviewed the assessment report produced “which was appropriately detailed and justifiedâ€\x9d. But taking into account the concerns raised, they will now ask for Lucia’s case to “be sent back to us so that we can look to schedule a reassessment as a home consultationâ€\x9d. They apologised again. “They were under pressure to have that appointment then. That’s what it felt like,â€\x9d Lucia says. “Everyone’s under pressure. The government set the targets and Atos follow.â€\x9d',
 'Scientists edge closer to creating effective Zika virus vaccine Scientists have edged closer to an effective Zika virus vaccine after demonstrating that three different formulations can protect monkeys from the disease. The results suggest that the virus can be repelled by even low levels of immunity and have boosted confidence that a viable vaccine for humans is on the horizon. Tests on 16 animals found that all three experimental vaccines offered complete protection against Zika infection one month later, though how long the protection could last for remains an urgent question for longer-term trials. “We don’t want to overstate it, but we hope for protection that is long-lasting,â€\x9d said Dan Barouch, who co-led the studies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “Ideally we’d have protection induced by a single shot vaccine or a two shot vaccine and for that to last for years.â€\x9d When vaccinated, the animals churned out antibodies that were more than sufficient to overwhelm the virus. The Zika virus has swept through Latin America and left behind a trail of birth defects, such as microcephaly, which causes children to be born with small heads. This week, Florida reported the first US cases of local transmission of Zika virus. All previous cases were in people who had travelled to affected regions. Of the three vaccines tested by Barouch and others, the most conventional and ready for development is a whole, killed Zika virus, which is being pursued by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland. The other two vaccines are more novel. In one, a single and harmless Zika virus gene is stitched into a loop of DNA. When injected into the body, cells take up the DNA loop and from it produce Zika proteins that trigger an immune response against them. The third and final vaccine adds the Zika virus gene to a harmless adenovirus. This behaves like a Trojan horse and smuggles the DNA into cells, which then produce antibodies to wipe out the whole virus. No DNA or adenovirus vaccines have been approved for use in humans before, but clinical trials are underway. The vaccine based on the whole, killed virus will go into human trials this autumn. Barouch said the findings increase optimism that a safe and effective human vaccine against Zika virus might be successful. “Our data encourage the development of these vaccines in clinical trials as quickly as possible,â€\x9d he said. Details are reported in the journal Science. Gavin Screaton, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said the results were “positive early stepsâ€\x9d, but whether the vaccines will work in humans and offer long term protection against Zika must still be determined. “A human response will need to last years to be useful,â€\x9d he said. Despite the encouraging progress, the path to a viable vaccine in humans may not be straightforward. Recent work by Screaton’s group found that previous exposure to dengue virus could potentially make Zika infections more serious. If the opposite holds too, as some researchers suspect, a vaccine that floods the body with antibodies against Zika virus could make common dengue infections life-threatening. The problem arises because Zika and dengue, which both belong to a group called flaviviruses, are so similar at the genetic level. This can confuse the immune system. Should a person catch dengue and later catch Zika virus, their body may attempt to fight off Zika with “oldâ€\x9d antibodies raised against dengue. Rather than overwhelming the Zika virus, the antibodies might simply draw them into cells and cause the infection to take hold more quickly. Known as cross-reactivity, this raises a second potential hurdle: a person who has fought off dengue or similar flavivirus infections may have antibodies that destroy the Zika vaccine before it has had time to work. Another issue scientists face comes from the natural immunity people will acquire to Zika as the infection spreads through the population. When people are already immune to a virus, it can be very hard to tell whether a vaccine on trial is helping to protect them. “Whilst these vaccine studies are promising there are some really important questions that need to be addressed,â€\x9d said Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham.',
 'Marouane Fellaini and Robert Huth banned for three matches over clash Marouane Fellaini and Robert Huth have accepted three-match bans after deciding not to contest their charges of violent conduct. The pair were charged by the Football Association after an off-the-ball incident during the 1-1 draw at Old Trafford on Sunday, when the German defender pulled the Manchester United midfielder’s hair and Fellaini responded with an elbow to the face. The incident was not seen by match officials but was caught on video. Fellaini is still available for the FA Cup final against Crystal Palace because United, who are fifth in the table, have three league games left. Fellaini will miss the visits to Norwich and West Ham before the home game against Bournemouth on the last day of the season as United chase Champions League qualification. Huth’s team Leicester, who were crowned champions on Monday, play Everton and Chelsea. The United manager Louis van Gaal had earlier defended the Belgian midfielder by saying: “It’s not in the books that someone has to grab by the hair and then pull it behind – only in sex masochism. When I grab you by the hair, what are you doing? Shall I do it? It’s also a penalty. When I grab your hair, you react also. I know for sure.â€\x9d',
 'Will politicians use this time to swap poison for serious debate? On the recommendation of a Labour veteran, who had already spotted that she was a star in the making, I’d got to know Jo Cox a little since she arrived in parliament. Everything that everyone has said about her is true. She was a dedicated local MP, extremely proud to represent the part of Yorkshire where she grew up. She fizzed with a zest to make a difference. She was very engaging, not least because she put so much effort into engaging with others. So it is right that her killing should be the prompt for deep soul-searching about how casually we, as a country, have been seduced by the corrosive cliches about all our politicians being worthless or worse. As in every walk of life, so with MPs. There are excellent ones and there are rotten ones. They are human beings, in her case, a highly impressive example of humanity. The very fact that she was killed outside a constituency surgery held in a public library gives the lie to another lazily destructive trope about politicians: that they are all members of an “out of touchâ€\x9d elite engaged in a wicked and treacherous conspiracy against the people. Here was an MP trying to serve her people. Here was an MP killed doing her job. I’d add a couple more things about her. While she was serious about her causes, she also appreciated that modern politics is often a surreal comedy and sometimes the only way to cope with its absurdities is to embrace them. The day before her killing, Nigel Farage took his mini armada of Outer boats down the Thames for one of the funnier stunts of the referendum campaign. Jo waved off her husband, Brendan, as he went down the river with their two children to join the rival flotilla mustered by the In crowd. A boat from the Farage gang showed what lovely people they are by hosing the Cox family with grey Thames water. She also understood that politics is complex. She didn’t pretend that every question has glibly simple answers and that she was already in possession of them all. She worked with politicians from other parties. She was passionate for her causes, but also collaborative and consensual, not an especially fashionable style at the moment. She’d worked for aid agencies for more than a decade, often in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. She represented one of the less privileged parts of Britain. She knew that life throws up choices that are rarely straightforward and anyone telling you there are instant solutions to difficult challenges is either a liar or a fool. Which unavoidably draws us to contrast her approach to public service with the poisons brought forth during the debate over Europe. Let me be clear. I am not making a causal link between her death and the toxic manner in which the campaign has been conducted, though you may be struck by the hypersensitive reaction from Leave propagandists when anyone suggests that there might be a link. I am saying that her example demonstrates that British democracy can be a whole lot better than the ugliness with which we have been assailed during this campaign. You will have probably gathered by now that I think this is the most significant choice for our country in at least a generation and that it would be bad for Britain, Europe and the world if we amputated ourselves from our continent. I have also acknowledged that there are cons as well as pros to membership. A referendum campaign that served this country well would have seen a rational debate grounded in the facts to help the British people make an informed decision about which of the options on the ballot paper was the best for their country’s future. That we have not had from a campaign dominated by the stoking and exploitation of fear. There is fault on both sides. The Remain campaign has not always been a source of pristine information, nor has it been strong on a positive vision. The Inners defined their task as making Brexit sound as scary as possible. Some of their forecasts of the impact of departure have been reasonable; some have escalated into hyperbole. But the Outers, with their ruthless endeavour to crush any rational debate, have been so much worse. The way they have conducted their campaign has increasingly suggested that they have consciously attempted to destroy intelligent argument by unleashing nihilism. The governor of the Bank of England cautions that Brexit will be a hazard to trade, investment and jobs. He is perfectly entitled to do that, just as the Outers are perfectly entitled to challenge his analysis. But that’s not what they do. They try to shout him into silence by disputing his right to express an opinion and denounce him as a mouthpiece for a sinister plot against the people. The boss of the NHS says he thinks Brexit would not be good for the health service. Do the Outers argue with his assessment? No, they venomously dismiss him as another establishment lackey. He, along with all the professional bodies in the NHS, is just an operative of the conspiracy against the people that is apparently so vast that it also encompasses the Greens, the Lib Dems, the Nationalists, Jeremy Corbyn and the major trade unions. The impeccably independent Institute for Fiscal Studies is another voice of caution about the consequences of Brexit. Do the Outers engage with the analysis? No, they denounce the IFS as yet another stooge of Brussels, a claim so ludicrous that even some Outers are too embarrassed to repeat it. The president of the United States joins the chorus of friendly foreign countries saying that they believe the smart choice for Britain is to stick with the EU. Is the most powerful man on the planet engaged with on a rational level? No, he is sneeringly dismissed by Boris Johnson on the grounds that he is “part-Kenyanâ€\x9d. We can see why the Outers chose this course. They saw a path to victory by feeding on and amplifying the anti-politics mood that seethes in an angry segment of the electorate. When you have so little expert opinion on your side of the argument, I suppose your only recourse is to trash the very notion that anyone can possess expertise about anything. “The people of this country have had enough of experts,â€\x9d scoffed Michael Gove when the lord chancellor struck his implausible pose as the tribune of the oppressed against the elite. Does he really think that expertise has no value? Of course not. Should he ever need a medical operation, I fancy Mr Gove will seek the services of a surgeon, not hand the scalpel to Nigel Farage and ask his new best mate to do his worst. The Outers have had another calculation as they spray everyone with their dirty water. Once you have created an anarchic world where no one has any authority to speak about anything, there is no one who can be trusted to offer any facts. In a fact-free, post-truth, Trumpian world – they have borrowed liberally from his playbook – you can make up anything you like in the pursuit of votes. I’ve covered a lot of campaigns and regularly been witness to the bending of the truth and sometimes the breaking of it. In my experience, though, the telling of bare-faced lies has been rarer in our politics if only for fear among its protagonists of what will happen to their credibility when they are found out. This campaign has introduced a novelty to British politics: the persistence with a lie even when it is verifiably a lie. The Out campaign know that the number on the side of their battle bus is a lie. But on the side of their bus that lie is still painted. The Outers know that it is a lie to say that Turkey is about to join the EU as it is also mendacious to suggest that 77 million Turks are on their way to the UK. Yet they persist with those whoppers too. Then there is the overarching duplicity of their campaign – the mendacity that will haunt them and Britain if they win – when they pretend that all the fears and resentments that they have exploited will magically evaporate if we choose Brexit. The more thoughtful people among the Outers might ask themselves whether they are really happy that the overall effect has been to depress respect for politicians on both sides. The suspension of campaigning is a last opportunity to rethink and reset. The life of Jo Cox is an example to us that we don’t have to conduct our politics in such a malignant way. She crackled with passion for her causes. She also pursued them through persuasion and reasoned argument that had respect for both the facts and the right of others to hold a contrary opinion. That has usually been the British way of democracy. You might even say it has been the genius of British democracy. I agree with those who say that her death should force some reflection on the way we conduct politics. If that is to mean something, when campaigning resumes, the debate ought to be concluded in a serious way that reflects the gravity of the question confronting the United Kingdom. The economy, security, immigration and influence are all on the ballot paper on Thursday. There’s something even larger there too. We will be saying what sort of country we are and want to be.',
 "Trump supports Dakota pipeline – but claims it's not due to his investment in it Donald Trump has said he supports a controversial oil pipeline that runs next to a Native American reservation in North Dakota – a project that the president-elect is personally invested in. A briefing from Trump’s transition team said that the real estate magnate supports the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and that his backing “has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americansâ€\x9d. Financial disclosure forms released earlier this year show that Trump has a stake in Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based firm behind the pipeline, and Phillips 66, which will hold a share of the project once completed. Trump’s investment in Energy Transfer Partners dropped from between $500,000 and $1m in 2015 to between $1,500 and $50,000 this year. His stake in Phillips 66, however, rose from between $50,000 and $100,000 last year to between $250,000 and $500,000 this year, according to the forms. The financial relationship has run both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, gave $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee after the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination. However, Trump’s transition team dismissed any conflict of interest. “Those making such a claim are only attempting to distract from the fact that president-elect Trump has put forth serious policy proposals he plans to set in motion on day one,â€\x9d said a briefing note that was sent to campaign supporters. Mary Sweeters, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, said Trump’s support showed that “crony capitalism will run his administrationâ€\x9d. “This is the definition of corruption,â€\x9d she said. “The president of the United States should not be trading favors with oil and gas corporations. Millions of people will lose access to a clean water supply, including the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and the rest of America will face the impacts of catastrophic climate change from burning fossil fuels.â€\x9d A protest camp has grown in North Dakota since April, amid fears that the $3.8bn Dakota Access pipeline will threaten the water and cultural artifacts of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The 1,170-mile pipeline will take oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields to a refinery in Illinois and will cross the Missouri river – the main source of water for the tribe. The long-running protest has unified Native American tribes against the project, with repeated clashes between protesters and police. This week, North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple ordered the immediate evacuation of the protest camp, amid accusations of police violence from the mass arrests and water cannon deployment that have echoes of the civil rights protests of the 1960s. Barack Obama has suggested that the pipeline be rerouted to allay the fears of tribes but Energy Transfer Partners has vowed to push ahead and has accused the federal government of imposing costly delays upon the project. Trump has promised an “America firstâ€\x9d energy policy that will attempt to boost domestic oil, coal and gas production. The president-elect has already stated he wants to “lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects to move forwardâ€\x9d, including the Keystone pipeline, another controversial fossil fuel project. North Dakota senator John Hoeven, a Republican, said that he met with Trump and successfully urged him to support the Dakota Access pipeline. “Mr Trump expressed his support for the Dakota Access pipeline, which has met or exceeded all environmental standards set forth by four states and the Army Corps of Engineers,â€\x9d Hoeven said. “Also, it is important to know that the new administration will work to help us grow and diversify our energy economy and build the energy infrastructure necessary to move it from where it is produced to where it is needed. The result will be more jobs, a more vibrant economy and affordable energy for the American people.â€\x9d",
 'Black magic surgeon: Doctor Strange brings the occult back to the big screen This week’s release of Marvel’s latest, Doctor Strange, brings magic, sorcery, extra-dimensional travel and, most importantly, well-tailored robes into the comic book film universe. Those who are au fait with the paranormal tend not to be the heroes in stories like these. One need only think back to this summer’s Ghostbusters reboot to recall a film in which science, reason and expensive technological breakthroughs triumph over mystical hoo-ha. But the whole point of Doctor Strange is that the titular protagonist enlightens himself through black magic. The character rose to prominence just as the American counterculture was beginning to dabble in forms of spirituality outside of the Judeo-Christian establishment. The adventures of Stephen Strange tapped into eastern mysticism, psychedelic trips into alternate realities, and the absolute certainty that there is more to existence than what you can see with your eyes. (In fact, Doctor Strange possesses a third eye – the Eye of Agamotto, an amulet he wears around his neck that gives him special abilities such as time travel.) The mystical might not be in fashion today (save for your Williamsburg or Silver Lake denizens carving out a weekend to take ayahuasca), but in the 1960s it was at the forefront of the national conversation in the US. The world of the supernatural and the darkly spiritual loomed large on the pop culture landscape around the time of Doctor Strange’s creation. Acts such as the Doors, David Bowie and Jefferson Airplane were singing about all manner of mind-expanding experiences. Movies such as Rosemary’s Baby, the Exorcist, the Omen, the Wicker Man and the Devils portrayed black magic, paganism and the like in direct opposition to the benign tenets of Christianity. In these movies, the devil is real and he uses his power to seduce the physical realm with impunity. One could point to the fallout from the hippie movement’s fascination with psychotropics and the aftermath of the Charles Manson killings as the impetus for the interest in such things, but Rosemary’s Baby (directed by Roman Polanski, whose pregnant wife Sharon Tate was a Manson victim) came out before Manson, Altamont and the end of the so-called Summer of Love. Unlike those films, which were targeted at adults, Doctor Strange was (and is) for children. Selling a story about black magic to kids was no easy feat, especially one that existed in an approximation of the real world rather than a made-up realm where the “natural rulesâ€\x9d, as they’re referred to in the Strange film, don’t apply. In 1974, Steve Englehart, Neal Adams and Frank Brunner created the character Sise-neg (Genesis spelled backwards) in the pages of the Marvel Premiere series starring Doctor Strange. Sise-neg was a sorcerer rival of Strange who used time travel to destroy the universe, then recreate it in his image. In the end, he merely recreates the universe as it was, broaching the question of whether or not this being was actually God itself. The religious implications were so controversial that Marvel editor Stan Lee considered retracting the entire story until Englehart and Brunner published a fake letter from a fictional minister praising the work. It’s Doctor Strange’s connection to our conception of reality that opens him up to such criticism. Setting a fantasy story in a far-off land, alternative universe or parallel reality affords the writer a freedom from allegations of apostasy or heretical thinking. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Golden Compass and countless other stories that might seem blasphemous to the true believer get off the hook because they don’t exist in our conception of reality. Often, these works dabble within a world that resembles the distant past, which further removes it from those thorny questions of divinity. Star Wars pulled off that sleight of hand while still getting to play around with sci-fi iconography by explaining in the first frame of the movie that it was a story from “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far awayâ€\x9d. George Lucas could invent an entire religion that governs the fate of the universe while never once having to connect that to people’s actual belief systems. Star Trek (and also Asimov’s seminal Foundation trilogy), on the other hand, is a covertly atheist story about humanity overcoming conflict through science and reason. By the 80s, the Indiana Jones series posited that pretty much every religious or occult myth was real – the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, Hinduism, etc. Does it matter that Jesus, Kali Ma and aliens from another dimension all exist? I guess not. Perhaps they’re all pals in some far-off land. In the 90s, The Blair Witch Project, The Craft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the hugely popular X-Files series all carried the banner of the occult in culture. The X-Files made a lot out of the debate over faith v science and religion v the paranormal, often cracking the audience over the head with a giant wooden cross of thudding symbolism. In 2016, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror generates scares by showing that our greatest inventions will be our undoing, or more accurately, that our hubris and desire to overcome our physical limitations are ultimately destructive – a notion film-makers such as David Cronenberg were playing with parallel to the last occult boom in pop culture in the body horror works of Videodrome and Scanners. The occult retains a modicum of its power to terrify in the age of the iPhone, though. Even though the Blair Witch sequel/reboot failed to relaunch that franchise, 2015’s The Witch was very much in the tradition of the classic occult horror films while also succeeding at the specialty box office. The Doctor Strange film digs up these old-timey notions of spirituality and inverts them. Here, the occult can set you free. It can be used to save humanity. More importantly, it exists in a world very much like our own. Sure, Doctor Strange hangs out in the Sanctum Sanctorum and his battles with Dormammu or Baron Mordo usually take place in some other realm, but that Sanctum sits on Bleecker Street in a fictional version of the real Manhattan. He’s just a regular guy who learned to manipulate the spiritual realm through years of study, not a wizard designated as such by genetics. Notions like fate and familial superiority, which are prevalent in Star Wars and Harry Potter, are forsaken in favor of the more traditionally puritanical American ideal of hard work. His sidekick, Wong, might tell him he’s born to study the mystical arts, but that’s not because his dad was a sorcerer. There may not be the hi-tech gadgets of something like Ghostbusters, but Doctor Strange shares with those futuristic paranormal fantasies the idea that no matter what the discipline, knowledge is power.',
 'I wish I could do more to protect your loved ones in mental health crisis I’m the worker you don’t want turning up on your doorstep: it means you, or someone you love, is severely mentally unwell, possibly suicidal or experiencing severe psychosis. I work in an NHS mental health crisis team; we visit people at home to try to help them through their darkest times, as an alternative to sending them to a psychiatric hospital. We use talking therapies, deliver medication and monitor whether people take it, and address issues such as debt, drug use, homelessness, abuse and isolation. Sometimes we’re simply there with someone. It’s a difficult job, but I love it. I have been yelled at, ignored, pleaded with, chased out of homes and thanked – sometimes all by the same person. There are lows, like finding Mariam collapsed on her living room floor after an overdose, unable to cope with her isolation, bullying family and attacks from her abusive ex-husband. But it’s worth it for the highs of seeing her two-year old daughter, Asma, regain a functioning parent after support has been put in place. We probably all know someone affected by mental health problems: one in four of us experience them at some point in our lives. Working with Matthew, for example, taught me that no one is immune, even if they are relatively well-off and well-educated. A consultant oncologist, he began planning his suicide after financial pressures and the shock of retirement caused him a psychotic depression, making him paranoid about his family and anyone trying to help him. Threats to your housing and income – which are becoming increasingly commonplace – increase your susceptibility to mental health problems, as well as making it harder to access help. It is very difficult, for instance, for my team to make appointments with Alex, a young homeless woman with a criminal record and without a mobile phone, who suffers horrific hallucinations of abuse. We try regardless, but the cuts affecting homelessness provision, income support and rehabilitation programmes are making it harder. Mental health is severely underfunded compared with physical health. Responsible for 22.8% of the disease burden in the UK, mental illness receives just 11.1% of the NHS budget, according to a 2013 paper from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (pdf). With so few hospital bed spaces for mental health patients, very unwell people can be left waiting for days or weeks at home, in police cells or in hospital A&E departments, while we look for a safe place they can stay. I remember Andrew, a man with a history of attempted suicide who was staying in a shed at the bottom of a friend’s garden after losing his job, family and home. He took long walks every day to distract himself from suicidal thoughts, but sometimes his walks took him dangerously near a cliff edge. It was weeks before we could find a hospital bed for him, as other patients kept taking priority. As a professional, and as a human being, it is terrifying to be forced to take risks with someone’s life like that. We always put our written plans in place to show we’ve managed the risk as best as we can – also known as covering our backs – but ultimately if someone dies in such a situation we would certainly feel morally culpable, if not legally liable. Cuts are also impacting on our ability to provide long term support. Anna, a young woman with a history of childhood abuse and trauma, who lives precariously in and out of various hostels until they get sick of her challenging behaviour, often calls my team when she feels at risk of seriously harming herself. We do our best to talk her through it, but sometimes she is already at the point of jumping off a tall building when she phones, and we need to get the police involved to ensure her immediate safety. We can help a little in the short term, but really she needs intensive therapy and a secure living environment – preferably all in one place – to help her deal with her past and develop better ways to cope and move on with her life. Such placements are few, far between and expensive, and pointless debates about whether it’s the NHS or social services who should pay for it do not speed up the process of finding somewhere for her. Meanwhile, police, ambulance and crisis team resources are all being used inappropriately. In a recent costly and short-sighted reorganisation, my team was asked to do more work with the same budget. Unqualified staff took on tasks previously done by nurses, social workers and occupational therapists. They are working for less money, including night and weekend shifts for no extra pay: no junior doctors’ strike has protected them. We lack even basic resources like seats and desks: staff are forced to work on laptops in public areas. One of my experienced colleagues, Andrea, stays late for hours after every shift, comes in on her days off, and phones up at night to ask whoever is on duty to check on her patients. Not only her emotional wellbeing, but her judgement is being affected: it would be much better for her to share her workload with others more realistically. So much damage has been done to staff morale and turnover that many newer members of staff who started on poorer terms and conditions left very quickly, threatening consistency of care – particularly vital with mental health when trust is so crucial to recovery – and informal knowledge about people who use services is so important. When Martin, a regular caller, phones us he is often too distressed for even his name to be understood. Having someone on the other end of the phone who recognises his voice can make the difference between being helpful and being worse than useless. Like many of the people we try to help, my colleagues and I are engaged in a constant battle to stay positive. Despite the chaos of trying to function without enough resources, I know I still have a hugely rewarding job. I rarely get angry at patients shouting or threatening me, but I’m furious at seeing the skills, motivation and experience of my colleagues being thrown away for no good reason. If you are frustrated that not enough is being done to help your loved one, believe me, the people not doing enough are frustrated about it too. We wish our service was better, and we’re pushing our managers and policymakers not to make cuts that will cost us all more in the long run. Although you might be fine right now, it doesn’t take much for any of us to fall off the edge. If that happened to me, I know I would want to be with a dedicated, calm, and experienced person, with plenty of time to sit with me and try to help. So that is what I try to be. Read more from the author here All names have been changed If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 in the UK. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.',
 'Future of 4chan uncertain as controversial site faces financial woes The anonymous message-board site 4chan has come to represent the darkest corners of internet subculture, rife with the misogyny, web taste and the politically incorrect humor of the alt-right. Now it appears to be in financial trouble, according to the site’s new owner, Hiroyuki Nishimura, who said on Sunday that the site can no longer afford “infrastructure costs, network fee, servers cost and CDN [servers that help distribute high-bandwidth files such as video]â€\x9d. The post begins: “Thank you for thinking about 4chan. We had tried to keep 4chan as is. But I failed. I am sincerely sorry.â€\x9d Nishimura outlined three options for the future of the site: halving traffic costs by limiting upload sizes and closing some boards, adding many more ads including pop-up ads, or adding more paid-for features and “4chan passâ€\x9d users. An unlikely savior for the site may have already emerged in the form of Martin Shkreli, the controversial former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who rose to fame after his company bought the patent to an HIV drug and raised its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill, causing mass outrage. Shkreli announced on Twitter that he was “open to joining the board of directors of 4chanâ€\x9d. He then reached out to Nishimura directly, who responded: “I have replied your DM. Thank you for supporting 4chan @MartinSkreli.â€\x9d 4chan was founded in 2003 by an American schoolboy, Chris Poole, as an English-language version of popular Japanese image-sharing board 2chan, and split into a number of sub-category boards based on interest, many of the most popular ones pornographic. It was sold by Poole to Nishimura, the founder of 2chan, in 2015. Nishimura did not respond to requests by the to comment. The site’s influence in shaping the identity and culture of the internet as we know it today is vast. It is the internet’s sweaty engine-room. It has birthed global movements: the hacktivist group Anonymous originated here, and the group is named for the “Anonymousâ€\x9d tag attached to 4chan posts. More recently its anonymous message boards, especially the far-right leaning politics board /pol/, gave early succor to GamerGate and its spawn, the so-called alt-right movement, which have emerged in 2016 to ally themselves with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. It produced Pepe, the frog meme that was picked up by white supremacists and trolls and was later condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate symbol. Pepe is by no means the only meme 4chan has produced. Rickrolling (the practice of tricking someone into clicking on a link leading to a video of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, leading to nearly 250m views on YouTube and an unlikely revival of Astley’s career), LOLcats, and innumerable other memes and slang and inside jokes originated here. It is the internet’s id, a place where anonymity runs free in its purest form. The true nature of mankind can be glimpsed there, in all its horror and glory and depravity. Predictably, the response to Nishimura’s message on the site was mixed. Posters from some boards – many of which have loyal, almost tribal user-bases – called for other boards to be closed. One suggestion was to close /b/, the wildly popular random topic board, to which other users expressed immediate worry that /b/ users would spread to other boards. “Oh godâ€\x9d, one posted. “HOW MANY PORN BOARDS DO WE NEED? NOT THIS MANYâ€\x9d read another post. Some heatedly discussed the perils of pop-up advertising, while a few suggested merchandising as a way to solve the site’s revenue problems. Others just seemed worried. “Please don’t fuck this website up for us,â€\x9d one user plaintively posted. Another wrote: “Hiro please. Don’t ruin this for us. This is our only home.â€\x9d',
 'Why don’t I sleep well? You asked Google – here’s the answer We all have different sleep patterns, and almost anyone can improve theirs. So let’s begin with the three keys to better sleep which might work for an “averageâ€\x9d person. The first is a healthy life style. You’re more likely to sleep well if you eat healthily, exercise, and have time for a good social and/or family life. Good nutrition and food habits benefit all bodily functions, including sleep and health; exercise helps reduce stress; and good relationships do the same – while also improving mood, and enabling relaxation before sleep. The second key is the length of time you sleep, with about eight hours a night being a good amount for the average person. Don’t be surprised if you sleep less though. Most working people in modern society are sleep deprived by an hour or two each day. But six hours of sleep is too little. Sleep matters more than we realise, so making time to sleep for about eight hours is good advice for almost everyone. The third key is the time you try to go to sleep (if you think of shift work and the problems this causes people, it’s obvious that this is important). Most people have two different time patterns – one during the working week, the other for weekends and holidays. It’s no surprise that holiday timing is better for sleep. As a rule of thumb, waking at 8am and going to sleep at midnight is about right for the average person. You may need to adjust these timings if you’re different from the norm. Some of us are morning types (naturally getting up and going to sleep earlier) and others are evening types (naturally getting up and going to sleep later). These types are formally known as chronotypes. To find out if you are a morning type (“larkâ€\x9d) or evening type (“owlâ€\x9d) it’s worth looking up the MCTQ short questionnaire. This is probably the best way for a morning person to find out accurately if they are an extreme early, very early, early, slightly early or normal type – and find appropriate sleep timings (the same applies for evening types). These timings are given in the MCTQ results: the average person wakes at 8-9am and goes to sleep at midnight to 1am. In contrast, some extreme early types wake at 5am and go to sleep at 9pm. This shows the huge difference between chronotypes that occur naturally in a large population. These differences can affect many people. For example, some moderate late types would wake up at 11am and go to sleep at 3am, if allowed to adhere to their natural rhythms, and this group makes up more than 5% of the population. Of course, these MCTQ timings are not rigid rules, only a rough measure of times to guide you to understanding your own sleep better. They might also help you understand people in your family. This is particularly true for teenagers and young adults whose sleep patterns can alter to dramatically later times. Let’s consider some examples. Ella is in her 30s, and works in a busy office in London. “Until two years ago,â€\x9d she says, “I could sleep like a baby for 14 hours, but I think stress and the occasional glass of wine have had an impact on my sleep. What I find now is that it’s not hard to get to sleep, but I wake up three or four times during the night, and never feel hugely rested in the morning. I don’t remember the last time I had a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep. And in terms of the times I sleep best, Friday night is definitely always the best, and Sunday night is the worst.â€\x9d Ella is typical in many ways. People working in busy office jobs are very frequently stressed, and on Friday nights they sleep best, because there is less stress, while on Sunday night the prospect of a demanding week causes poor sleep. Alcohol tends to lead to disrupted sleep, not to relaxing into good sleep. External pressures from Ella’s work are causing a problem – and drinking before sleep makes it worse. Annie works in the same office as Ella, and says she’s suffered from insomnia since she was a teenager. “I wake up at 3am, and can’t get back to sleep. This used to stress me out, which obviously exacerbates the problem, so as I’ve got older I’ve stopped worrying about it so much. This doesn’t make the problem better, but it means I just accept that there are nights when I won’t get a good enough sleep. Sunday night is always my worst night’s sleep, and I try to be strict with myself – I stop myself going online for a few hours before I go to bed, and I don’t read anything work-related in that period either. I try to avoid email, especially, because there’s always pressure to get back to emails immediately, and once you’re in that zone, you’re wired.â€\x9d  Annie took the MCTQ test, and this showed she is an early type, who would, if left to her own devices, naturally wake up earlier than 85% of the population. This would have been particularly striking as a teenager, feeling tired and ready for sleep when everyone else was staying up later and later. She is very perceptive in her acceptance of her sleep patterns, especially her sleeplessness, and when it comes to Sunday nights, her strictness with herself is excellent – we should all do that. Understanding your sleep can put things in context. The next step is to consider whether there are changes you can make to your daily life that will help you sleep well. You can probably make a list based on the three keys: better lifestyle, making eight hours of sleep possible, and knowing your chronotype. What next? Work or education timings are the biggest barrier to good sleep in modern society. This is because the start times are generally too early. For example, if you are an average person, your wake time would be about 8am. If your current job starts at 8 or 9am, it isn’t possible to keep to this wake time and be on time. These early starts punish almost everyone: the employee (too little sleep leads to poorer performance and greater health risks), the employer (as staff are not at their best), and the shareholders (as productivity won’t be as high as it could be). Better work times are better for all. Even work shifts can be improved using staff chronotypes, as has been shown recently in Germany, where a brilliant sleep researcher called Till Roenneberg came up with the idea of using the chronotypes of workers in the steel industry to ensure that evening type workers did more night shifts, and early types did more early starts. The result? The workers sleep an hour longer each night and arrive at work feeling better. Greater flexibility regarding working hours makes sense, and is a growing trend. For example, a company in London called dRMM architects allows employees to manage their work hours – as long as they meet their targets. If you’re struggling with sleep, it might (depending on your situation) be worth asking your employer for a more flexible approach. And if you run a big business, consider flexible hours for employees, to boost productivity, health, mood and performance. If you work in education, it’s worth actively looking at later start times for secondary students. There is a clear scientific case for later start times and an exciting opportunity to join Oxford’s project Teensleep, which is recruiting 100 secondary schools to try out 10am starts and sleep education in a random controlled trial to improve sleep, health and performance. If you’re based in the US, try looking at Start School Later, a campaign to move school starting times to later than 8.30am. Seattle school district, for example, has just moved all its secondary school starts to a later time, recognising that early starts increase health risks and emotional harm, while lowering academic and sports performance. There are a number of other things you can do in your daily life to improve your sleep. Direct sunlight, especially in the morning, helps keep your sense of time tuned to the 24-hour day, so try to be outside then. In the last hour or two before your natural sleep time have a routine that helps you settle, such as a quiet, dark, comfortable bedroom. In the last hour, don’t use screen technologies or bright lights. As a general rule, don’t use drugs unless prescribed by your doctor. In the morning, don’t use stimulants like cigarettes to wake you up, or depressants like alcohol and sleeping pills at night. Coffee and tea in the morning are fine. Sleep is only a part of our daily pattern of work and rest; tiredness and alertness; and the various 24-hour rhythms of our body. We tend to think differently about wake and sleep events, though there is no reason to do so. If you sleep in the day – a nap – we tend to think of it as a treat and wise. If we wake at night – as most of us do – then we can feel as if something is wrong and worry. So if you do wake up and can’t sleep just then, get up and do something until you feel like going back to sleep. The benefits of sleep are now understood to include better memory, insight and health. Sleep helps clean our brains of toxins, and enables us to create long-term memories (while forgetting trivia). If you need more help, it’s always worth talking to your doctor and getting their advice. Sleep is your friend: treat it well.',
 'This week’s new film events Asia House Film Festival, London As you’d expect, there are new titles from big regional hitters such as China and Japan here, but also films from the Asian countries you rarely hear from or about. Like Kazakhstan – two sides of which can be seen in the films of Yermek Tursunov: Zhat (Stranger) is a scenic wilderness adventure in the vein of Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala; and Little Brother (Kenzhe), an urban hitman thriller. There are also new features from Myanmar (monk’s story Panchagavya), Tajikistan (rural women’s tale Chilla), Mongolia (rockumentary Live From UB) and even a short from Saudi Arabia. Offerings closer to the sort of thing you might expect include an eye-opening documentary on South Korea’s celebrity pro-gamers (State Of Play) and Japanese schoolgirl anime The Case Of Hana And Alice, while rising Chinese star Zhang Wei is one of many directors in attendance here, with his sweatshop social drama Factory Boss. Various venues, Mon to 28 Feb Borderlines Film Festival, Herefordshire, Shropshire & Powys Bringing relief to the arthouse-starved Welsh borders, this festival has a “let’s put the film on right hereâ€\x9d spirit, making use of village halls, community centres, theatres and whatever else is around. There are about 100 films in this year’s programme, mostly recent hits (Room, Joy, Youth), previews (High-Rise, Victoria, Son Of Saul) and world cinema with a rural bent (Iceland’s Rams and Ethiopia’s Lamb would make a dream ovine double bill). In Hereford there’s also a Tarkovsky retrospective and a focus on Romani cinema, the latter of which brings unseen work such as Hamlet-inspired Slovakian drama Gypsy. And in Hay-on-Wye on the final weekend there’s a festival of British cinema, with Terence Davies in person and new work such as the Hebrides-set Iona and comedy Black Mountain Poets, with Alice Lowe. Various venues, Fri to 13 Mar',
 'Ex-Co-op Bank chief barred from top accountants institute A former chief executive of the Co-operative Bank has agreed to a six-year ban from membership of a key accountancy body after admitting to misconduct during his tenure at the top of the troubled bank. Barry Tootell – who has already been banned from holding senior roles in the City – will not be able to describe himself as a chartered accountant after his exclusion from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). The Financial Reporting Council, which oversees investigations into misconduct and has made the recommendation to the ICAEW, will receive £20,000 from Tootell to help recoup costs. It is not clear how much the investigation cost. Other bans recommended by the FRC, which had considered a seven-year ban for Tootell, have ranged from three to 10 years. Tootell, who could not immediately be reached for comment, was finance director and then acting chief executive of Co-op Bank for 14 months. He took on the role full-time in September 2012 but was placed on gardening leave in May 2013 after the bank was downgraded to junk status. The bank, then fully owned by the Co-operative Group, later had to be bailed out by hedge funds when a £1.5bn hole appeared in its books in 2013 . Gareth Rees, FRC executive counsel, said: “The period of exclusion imposed in this case sends a clear message to accountants of the high standards of professional conduct expected of them when undertaking important roles within business. “The sanction reflects the significance of the misconduct by a CFO [chief financial officer] and CEO of a major UK bank, and the need to promote public and market confidence in the accountancy profession and the quality of corporate reporting in this sector. Mr Tootell engaged in the FRC’s settlement process by accepting his misconduct, which has led to a considerable saving of time and cost.â€\x9d Tootell was banned by the Bank of England – along with Keith Alderson, who ran the Co-op’s corporate and business banking division – in January by its Prudential Regulation Authority. They were not found to have deliberately or recklessly breached the rules and the regulator did not make findings of dishonesty or lack of integrity. The FRC said the Bank of England’s conclusions were “conclusive evidence of misconductâ€\x9d. The Bank found Tootell contributed to a culture that focused on the short-term financial position (pdf) and did not adequately oversee the corporate loan book that the Co-op took on when it merged with Britannia in 2009. The period of censure covered January 2009 and May 2013. At the height of the Co-op bank’s crisis, the then chancellor George Osborne announced an independent investigation into what went wrong. The review has not yet started as the Financial Conduct Authority’s investigation into individuals remains ongoing. The FRC said its investigation into the bank’s auditors, KPMG, was also ongoing. Co-op bank, which reported a £177m loss for the first six months of the year, said the FRC’s ruling was related to the way it had operated in the past. “We have said before, the investigations by the regulators into what went wrong at the bank are very important. They indicate the extent of the previous problems at the bank and emphasise that the turnaround is a lengthy and difficult process,â€\x9d the bank said. “The findings relate to previous management and the current management team has, over the last three years, progressed the turnaround, having raised additional capital, achieved considerable de-risking, delivered mobile and digital banking capability and strengthened the bank’s appeal to customers.â€\x9d',
 'Bank of England bans two former Co-op Bank chiefs from top City jobs Two former bankers at the Co-operative Bank have been banned by the Bank of England from holding senior positions in the City after being found to have posed an unacceptable threat to the company’s financial position. The Bank is fining Barry Tootell, a former Co-op Bank chief executive, £173,802, and Keith Alderson, who ran the corporate and business banking division, £88,890. This is the first time Threadneedle Street has used its new powers to take action against individuals and Tootell is the first boss of any bank to be formally censured since the 2008 crisis. Andrew Bailey, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, said: “Banks that are not well governed have the potential to pose a threat to UK financial stability. The actions of Mr Tootell and Mr Alderson posed an unacceptable threat to the safety and soundness of the Co-op Bank, which is why we have decided a prohibition is appropriate in these cases.â€\x9d The Co-op Bank had to be bailed out by hedge funds when a £1.5bn hole appeared in its books in 2013 . It also left the bank open to scrutiny of the way it was run; its former chairman Paul Flowers, a Methodist minister, was later ordered to pay £525 after admitting possession of drugs including cocaine and crystal meth. Tootell was acting chief executive for 14 months before getting the role full-time in September 2012 but was placed on gardening leave in May 2013 following the bank’s downgrade to junk status. He was paid £623,000 by the time he formally left at the end of 2013. The Bank of England’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority, found Tootell contributed to a culture at the bank that focused on the short-term financial position. The PRA said he did not adequately oversee the corporate loan book the Co-op took on when it merged with Britannia in 2009. The period of censure covers January 2009 and May 2013. It cites moves by him to change bad debt charges, which in one instance which had the effect of maintaining the bonus pool although the Bank does not say this was his motivation. Alderson, whose role has been subject to little public scrutiny until now, was found not to have properly assessed the risks from the Britannia loans nor escalated any concerns about the scale of impairments or bad debts. The regulator said his income was £423,000 and his period of censure covers August 2009 and May 2013. The PRA said: “The Co-op Bank’s culture resulted in an environment in which some staff felt under pressure to meet impairment forecasts that had previously been set .â€\x9d The regulator accepted that Alderson did not intentionally place pressure on staff to modify the bad debt provisions and that the origins of the problem lay in the Britannia business. The Bank of England did not find Tootell or Alderson deliberately or recklessly breached the rules and did not make findings of dishonesty or lack of integrity in issuing the bans and fines. The Financial Conduct Authority is still investigating and a formal review promised in November 2013 by George Osborne into what went wrong at the bank cannot begin until the FCA has completed its work. “We don’t comment on individual cases. While we have previously indicated that work will not start on the review until it is clear it will have no prejudicial effect on any future cases, we are not at that stage yet,â€\x9d the FCA said. In August, the two City regulators let the bank off a fine even though they found it had misled investors and pursued growth at the expense of its financial stability. Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, said: “The Prudential Regulatory Authority has censured two executives for putting short-term profits ahead of the long term sustainability of the bank, but there was clearly also a failure on the part of the whole board.â€\x9d The Co-op Bank has already taken steps under previous rules to withdraw £5m of bonuses from a number of employees and there is no prospect of clawing back any more bonuses. “The findings relate to previous management and the current management team continues to progress the turnaround, having raised additional capital, achieved considerable de-risking and improved brand metrics,â€\x9d the Co-op Bank said.',
 'EU referendum voter registration site crashes before deadline Members of the public attempting to register to vote in the EU referendum complained that the government website had crashed hours before the deadline. The development could mean that tens of thousands of potential voters may be disenfranchised and unable to cast a vote in what is expected to be closely fought contest. Voters have been encouraged to register before 11.59pm on Tuesday 7 June to be able to take part in the EU referendum. However, the Cabinet Office website would not allow voters to input their details at 10.40pm on Tuesday. A tweet from the Cabinet Office acknowledged that the site had crashed. “We’re aware of the technical issue on [the site]. We’re working to resolve it. This is due to unprecedented demand. Update soon,â€\x9d it said. The online registration system was supposed to make it easier than ever for people living in England, Wales and Scotland to register. But on Twitter, users complained that the website crashed after the prime minister, David Cameron, and Ukip leader Nigel Farage took part in an EU referendum programme. Allison Pearson, the Telegraph columnist, wrote on Twitter that her husband had attempted to register at 10.45pm but had been unable to do so. “Himself trying to register to vote. ‘Sorry, we are having technical problems’ 504 Gateway 504. Time-out impedes democracy.â€\x9d Twelve minutes before the deadline, the Cabinet Office tweeted an apology. “Some people are getting through, sorry if you have experienced issues,â€\x9d it said. The was alerted to the problem by a Liberal Democrat official who could not register. The Lib Dem Leader, Tim Farron, called for the deadline for registration to be extended. “This is a shambles the government has presided over and people must be given an extra day to exercise their democratic right,â€\x9d he said. “It is also a major blow to the in campaign and our prospects of staying in Europe. “With individual voter registration, and a big campaign to encourage young people to register, many of whom have been trying to do so last-minute, this could have major consequences for the result. “Evidence shows younger people are overwhelmingly pro-European, and if they are disenfranchised it could cost us our place in Europe. It could also turn them off democracy for life. Voters must be given an extra day while this mess is sorted out urgently.â€\x9d Yvette Cooper, the former Labour minister, also called for the government to extend the deadline. “People cannot be denied the right to vote because computer says no,â€\x9d she tweeted. Gloria De Piero, the shadow cabinet office minister, wrote that the Cabinet Office site showed that there were 26,629 people attempting to register six minutes before the midnight deadline. “Government MUST extend the deadline for 24 hours,â€\x9d she wrote on Twitter. Ian Katz, the editor of Newsnight, wrote: “Seems traffic to voter registration site peaked at 22.15 when 50,000 were trying to register – and site subsequently crashed.â€\x9d Jeremy Cornbyn, too, added his voice to the calls for an extension to the deadline.',
 'Brexit vote brings fresh surge of support for Scottish independence Liam McKeown has put the yes stickers back up in his windows. “I felt so angry I was in tears,â€\x9d explained the social care worker, as he commiserated about the EU referendum result over a pint with fellow remain supporters in Glasgow. “But then I heard Nicola Sturgeon’s speech and I thought, bring it on.â€\x9d McKeown was drinking on Friday evening at the Yes Bar, a kitschy Italian cafe-bar in the city centre that was named the Vespbar until the 2014 Scottish independence campaign, when it became a hub for activists and promptly changed its moniker. The owner of the bar, the SNP candidate and Women for Independence activist Suzanne McLaughlin, described the mood among her regulars on Friday. “They were queuing outside when we opened. People just wanted to come together and talk about what’s happened.â€\x9d The mood reminded her of 19 September 2014, she said, but with one crucial difference: “These are different people saying they’ll vote for independence when they couldn’t have before, and we have to welcome them with open arms.â€\x9d Only a day later, the vote to leave the EU is changing the terms on which people are viewing independence. McLaughlin predicts: “I’ve always supported independence for internationalist reasons, but that fear of isolation was the reason many people voted no last time. That’s completely different now that we’re leaving the EU. “A couple of weeks ago I’d have told you that we needed to wait another five to 10 years to build support [for a second independence referendum], but now I think we do it while people still feel this way.â€\x9d Since the decision to leave the EU was confirmed in early on Friday morning, pro-independence political parties and campaign groups have reported a surge in support, both from traditional allies, galvanised by recent events, and new recruits. An SNP source said the party had been inundated with emails from people who had previously voted no, but wanted to pledge their support for a second referendum with the aim of keeping an independent Scotland part of the EU. The novelist and former columnist Jenny Colgan was an outspoken defender of the union in 2014. On Friday morning, she tweeted that she was crying with relief after listening to Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to defend the aspirations of Scots who had voted to remain. She said: “My reasons for voting no last time, because I didn’t believe in separation and isolation, are what make me a yes voter now. I thought that it would be a hold-your-nose choice but actually I’m feeling quite excited that we have a way out of this horrible mess.â€\x9d There is certainly an understanding within the SNP of the need to make a new offer on independence now it not only improves on the gaps in the 2014 argument, most obviously currency and oil, but is tailored to a Scotland remaining within the EU while England and Wales leave. A second general election in the autumn could afford the SNP the possibility of putting an even stronger commitment to a second independence referendum in another manifesto. There is also an acknowledgement, however, that the timing may be beyond the Scottish government’s control, particularly if they are required to dovetail the referendum process with Brexit negotiations. Tommy Sheppard, one of the SNP’s most prominent Westminster MPs, had been expected to take a leading role in the party’s summer independence drive, a project Sturgeon announced before May’s Scottish parliament elections and aimed at building a consistent yes majority for the long-term. In a thoughtful and provocative article that some considered an early application for the post of SNP deputy leader following the resignation of Stewart Hosie last month, Sheppard identified a group he described as “the I-curiousâ€\x9d, people who were not ideologically opposed to independence, but had yet to be convinced on key questions such as currency and other economic concerns. He believes the Brexit vote will have swelled their ranks: “It’s not the fact of Brexit but the political effect. We clearly do think that it will change the voting intentions of a significant number of those 2 million who voted no in 2014,â€\x9d he said. “It’s an insult to those people not to have the chance to reconsider now that the prospectus has changed. I think that most no voters made a considered judgment based on a number of factors, not least of which was remaining part of the EU.â€\x9d He could well have been describing the Harry Potter writer, JK Rowling, who made substantial donations to the pro-union Better Together campaign in 2014, and wrote compellingly of her hope that Scotland would remain part of the UK. She shocked followers on Friday when she corrected a correspondent on Twitter: “[Describing me as a] ‘staunch opponent’ implies I was pro-union no matter what, which was never the case. Many no voters will think again now.â€\x9d',
 'Why I can’t bank on Lloyds any more My bank is in an unprepossessing part of town. It squats, square and concrete, on a busy stretch of the long trunk road that links London to Birkenhead. It is flanked by a pound shop (outside which stands a large bucket of 99p mops) and a McDonald’s (outside which blow abandoned, still-warm, polystyrene burger tubs). If the litter bothers you, at least you can solve the problem immediately for only 99p. But I like it. When I was a child, this area was an exciting destination. To get there, you had to walk for 10 minutes up our residential road, then stand for an unpredictable amount of time at the bus stop opposite the “naughty knickers shopâ€\x9d (for reasons I may never understand, there were just two shops at the top of our road: a cheap Ann Summers knock-off underwear shop and a chemist. Very convenient for anyone who needed a pair of split-crotch scarlet pants, a packet of throat lozenges and nothing else at all). When the bus came, “one and a half ticketsâ€\x9d were bought (or “one and two halvesâ€\x9d, if my brother was of the party) and the journey took… well, that changed as traffic changed. When I was five years old, it was probably seven or eight minutes. By the time I was a teenager, it could be 40. At the end of this adventurous journey lay all the excitements of stationery, toys, records, perhaps a packet of Mintolas and a copy of Jackie. I don’t think I understood that it wasn’t an attractive shopping district. It was just exciting: colourful, busy, grown up. Nowadays, I only go there for the bank. The record shop, the toy shop and the bakery have long since closed; McDonald’s is no longer a destination restaurant for me (though might become so again, once my daughter has a full set of teeth) and the pound shop sells nothing you can’t get at a proper hardware store for the same kind of money anyway. But I love that bank. I opened my first account at Lloyds when I was still at school, the year Great-Auntie Serena supplemented her traditional Christmas gift of cherry chocolates with a fat £10 cheque. I chose Lloyds because I liked the horse and I’ve never left. These days, everyone hates banking as a concept – except those who continue to milk it for corpulent bonuses, I suppose – but it is still possible, and too little discussed, to love a particular branch. Apart from the staff I know and like, I love the satisfying feeling of conducting business there: filling in forms with the special pen on a chain, sliding cheques under the partition window, collecting holiday money. It’s so grown up and yet, at the same time, so redolent of Mary Poppins. I don’t care whether or not the boss of Lloyds had an extramarital affair. I don’t care if he or anyone else breached expenses rules by spending £300 at the Mandarin Oriental spa in Singapore. I hate spas, all weird smells and impertinent prodding. This one apparently does a £150 “aromatherapy massageâ€\x9d, which strikes me as punishment enough for any alleged transgressions. But I do care that my branch of Lloyds is closing down, along with 199 other branches nationwide with the loss of thousands of jobs. The letter I’ve just received advises me that “other ways to bankâ€\x9d include the internet and the telephone. Thanks for pointing that out, guys! Frankly, it was irresponsible of you to give me a credit card if you think I’m such a f***ing moron. I don’t think the branches are closing because the boss spent too much on massages. I don’t think they’re closing because of Brexit. I think they’re closing because of a failure of imagination at the top. Sure, the bean counters can save £££££s by locking doors, selling up and firing staff. Sure, most transactions can be done online. Sure, fewer of us are queuing up in person for day-to-day admin. But the existence of a local branch has a vital role, even if we never go in there: it’s key to the illusion that money is a thing. Money is not, of course, a thing; it’s an idea. But the illusion of thing-ness (which so nearly disintegrated when we caught that catastrophic glimpse behind the curtain in 2008) is vital to its desirability. Once we cease to desire it, the acquiescent balance of society is in grave danger. The pleasing physicality of banknotes, coins and cheque books is half gone already. The gold reserve’s been sold. If the bricks-and-mortar banks, counters and partition windows, paper forms and special pens go with them, there’ll be nothing left to “moneyâ€\x9d but numbers on a screen. Only a mug would bother to keep paying fees for a bank account when the idea of a physical storage facility and physical guardians is so completely gone. And then… who cares? Who wants it? There is no “itâ€\x9d anyway! The tenuous reasons to work long hours in a boring job, or to accept even theoretically a status quo where some people have private jets while others are homeless, disintegrate entirely. I am just not enough of an anarchist to hope this happens. Even if I were poor, I still wouldn’t; I’d be frightened of looting, violence and social breakdown. If I were talking to whatever fat cat or bigwig waved through the closure of 200 more Lloyds branches, and the redundancy of thousands more workers, I would say: Don’t be so sure you understand how this all works. Today, you make a saving; long term, you might lose everything. If you want to keep your padded arse in that padded chair, you’d better leave those branches alone. Just sit quietly and keep on clapping like you believe in Tinkerbell.',
 'Brexit brings call for change: has UK ignited battle for new EU? The German government has been canvassing support for a senior political leader to gather views in European capitals on a new future for the continent in the wake of the Brexit vote, with the aim of completing the task before the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome next March. EU heads of state, reeling from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, want to be seen to be responding to the Eurosceptic mood, and some want a new “vision for Europeâ€\x9d document that distils the conflicting thinking. EU heads of government are due to gather in Bratislava for an informal summit on 16 September to discuss the fallout from Brexit, but mainly focused on how the EU will operate in the future, including what more it can do to reduce youth unemployment, straighten out the eurozone and strengthen security. In practice, the meeting may also see a first EU response to the election of a new Tory party leader, and the pace at which Brexit talks will take place. Those talks are to be led by a Belgian diplomat, Didier Seeuws, a former staffer for the former European council president Herman van Rompuy. A cacophony of political voices have been setting out their plans for Europe, and some have called for a European convention to discuss ideas. Germany was strongly opposed and successfully saw off calls for a fresh convention last week. Berlin has, however, been looking at a more informal process in which a leading politician seeks to distil the mood in the capitals of Europe. There is a strong desire not to leave the process in the hands of either the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and less so the council president, Donald Tusk. In a sign that Germany wants to be at the helm of the discussions, Sigmar Gabriel, the economics minister and leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), has floated a series of ideas to change Europe, including fewer commissioners and a slimmed down agriculture budget. He said the EU could not afford to give the UK concessions or else “this will be an invitation to all the nationalist egotists in Europeâ€\x9d. He also joined the German Greens in saying young UK citizens in France, Germany and Italy should be offered dual citizenship, as a way of keeping in touch with young Britons that back Europe. He was certain the UK had not left the EU for ever, saying: “I am sure this is an episode and not an epoch.â€\x9d But the efforts to refound Europe, or at least respond to its unpopularity, are made more complicated by a string of national democratic elections in Italy, Holland, France and Germany that could see a major change in tone in one or other of their capitals. The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has said he will resign if his constitutional reforms to transform the country’s senate into a “senate of the regionsâ€\x9d are rejected in a referendum that will be held by the end of October. The pro-British Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, is trailing the anti-EU populist Geert Wilders in polls ahead of an election next March. The French presidential election, due next spring, may see the return of the mercurial Nicolas Sarkozy. He is producing a string of new ideas on the future of Europe, including reworking the governance of the eurozone so that it is dominated by France and Germany. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, currently facing a lot of the blame for Brexit, due to her rigidity on a range of issues, faces elections in the autumn.',
 "Who would be a librarian now? You know what, I'll have a go “Who would want to become a librarian now?â€\x9d asked an anonymous public servant on National Libraries Day, seeing before them a graveyard of dead libraries and old reference desks filled by volunteers. A valid question, and one to which I’ll reply: “You know what? I’ll have a go.â€\x9d I’m training to be a professional librarian, having just finished a lecture on “semantic web ontologiesâ€\x9d and “linked dataâ€\x9d, and sat dumbstruck in front of a “Dewey Decimal assemblerâ€\x9d without a clue as to what I’m looking at. The course is challenging – it’s a three-year master’s degree that bites eye-watering chunks out of my wages. Why am I doing it to myself? The fact is, I can’t not. It’s a sort of calling – like becoming a priest, only with warmer business premises. I can’t stand by and let public libraries sink. I won’t. Forget all about reading as a pleasure, forget that children should have unlimited access to books, throw away arguments about libraries being lifelines for those less fortunate – they’re falling on deaf ears. You just have to look at the comments beneath pro-library articles to gather a general response: Kindles, the internet replacing information needs, and so on. And the one we wheel out about libraries being the centre of the community – there’ll be someone swatting that old classic aside with a “and yet the majority of the population doesn’t use themâ€\x9d. For me, it boils down to one important point: the internet is a shallow (but extremely wide) surface-level summary of secondary, often opinionated information that sits on a bedrock of substantive knowledge that either isn’t on the internet, or lives behind a paywall, or is too expensive to purchase. Public libraries broker equal access to all that stuff. Get rid of them, and your information becomes drip-fed through Google filters (if you have a computer to access it). As a librarian, it will be my job to make sure those bridges are not burned, and that they’re well maintained and clearly marked, with delightfully efficient help points dotted along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet: its ability to navigate through information is a miracle of our time. But it is just as chaotic and alienating as the real world. It’s not a safe place – you’re just sitting and staring at a screen. A public library – any library, really – is more than that. Besides, libraries are good for children and those less fortunate than others. I know: I was that washed-up unfortunate once. When I was 18, I lost my home very suddenly – I was forced to pack on a Wednesday before the locks were changed on a Thursday. My family split apart, and I experienced disorientating homelessness and financial oblivion. In this chaos my library came in pretty handy, with free internet, free books, staff expertise, signposting services. Some years later I came back to the library, while I was working for an agency, doing horrible, unskilled jobs in warehouses. I needed to keep my spirits afloat, so there I was again, browsing the books. When I think back, and see how often I’ve leaned on one library or another, I wonder where I’d be without them. Now I work in one and it’s keeping the roof over my head. Libraries have been a safe zone for me, a kind of emotional and intellectual ground zero for the past 15 years. Every day I help people and wonder what on earth they would do without us. Libraries are an essential service. I know this because most of the people I help never thank me or my colleagues, or even acknowledge us. Why? Because they don’t need to. The funny thing with essential services is that they’re taken for granted. A successful day in the library is one where people complain, like they would with any other local authority service. The Wi-Fi isn’t good enough; there aren’t enough academic texts; it’s too cold; it’s too loud; I don’t know my email password; why don’t you have this book? I love it. Complain and moan all you like – it’s your library service. It’s for you: take it, have it, use it. I’m your public librarian and this is your public library, and these are the hallmarks of public service. About the only drawback I’m finding is the (sometimes) well-meaning dismissiveness, particularly from my friends and family. A working-class male taking a degree to be a what? Sometimes, they just laugh. I could try to explain, but it’s difficult when I hardly understand the profession myself. For them, working in a library is like working in a charity shop: a good cause, but not quite a real job. My hairdresser was surprised it was even paid work. I’m not sure how libraries got bound up in these stereotypes: Casanova was a librarian after all (a common cry of the defensive information professional). But that’s OK, it pays better than Pizza Hut, and there’s nothing else I’d rather be. I walked into a library as a young child and fell into a world bigger than anything I could have imagined. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.",
 'It’s Twitter’s 10th birthday. So do you love it or hate it? Abi Wilkinson: ‘Twitter has allowed us to break into what seemed a closed shop’ In 2009 I was lonely. I’d moved to a brand new city to start university and my boyfriend had decided to come with me. I found my study fascinating, but outside of three weekly hour-long seminars I had little access to people to discuss it with. When my boyfriend came home from work the last thing he wanted to do was dissect the finer points of political theory. He was also suspicious of my desire to make new friends and I eventually gave up on trying to socialise. Desperate to occupy my time, I created a Twitter account. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. Quickly, I became part of a community who chatted about all the same things I wanted to talk about. I could debate with Adam Smith Institute employees about Lockean property rights or argue with social conservatives about the broken windows theory. I had a new network of friends to natter about everyday things with. While my mates from home were busy drinking and flirting, I knew I could always go online and find someone to gossip and joke with. When I was feeling down, there would be someone there to lend a sympathetic ear. My relationship fell apart and I eventually threw myself into university life, but I didn’t break the Twitter habit. I had friends on the other side of the world who knew more about my daily thoughts, feelings and concerns than anyone I’d ever been in a room with. When I finished university, it was Twitter that helped me find my first graduate job working for Trinity Mirror. I’d written a blog about a bad experience at the jobcentre so everyone knew I was looking for work. A friend directed my attention towards a tweet advertising a paid internship and pestered me to apply. Somehow, miraculously, I was offered a two-week trial. If you’d asked me back in 2009 if I could imagine myself working in the media, I’d probably have laughed in your face. Many of the same people I remember tweeting with back then have jobs at newspapers and magazines. Twitter has allowed us to break into what seemed a closed shop. Obscure blogs can generate as much conversation as broadsheet leaders. It’s possible to catch the eye of commissioning editors even if you have no formal credentials. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine what my life would be like if Twitter had never existed. Maybe I’d have flunked out of university. Perhaps I’d still be stuck in an unhappy relationship. Certainly, I doubt my career would have gone the way it has. On the 10th birthday of the social network, I suppose it’s really about time I said thanks. Steven Baxter: ‘I’m stuck in a toxic relationship with a little bird icon’ Twitter is a sickness. I’m stuck in a toxic relationship with a little bird icon on my telephone. I need help – and so do you. I loved that little tweety bird once. I craved the gold sticker of a retweet or the pat on the head of a favourite. I tried everything – puns, hashtag games, memes, pretending to know about American politics – just for the thrill of being read by a stranger. But it all got too much. There are many bad things about Twitter – from the open sewer of racism and abuse to the horrendous blue-ticked cliques squawking at each other, from snarky subtweets to heartbreaking unfollows from people you like – but if I could pick one downside as the worst, it would be the Plague of Angry Eggs. At first, when you have a relatively popular tweet (say more than 25 RTs), it’s exciting. You’ve made it. “I once got retweeted by a minor celebrity!â€\x9d you tell your friends – if you have any left now that you’re staring at the people in your telephone every 10 seconds. Then reality kicks in. Tweeting can be like dangling your meat-smeared genitals through the bars at the zoo and whistling cheerily at the ravenous wolverines. The Angry Eggs take issue with what you’ve said, a particular word, your choice of profile picture or a grammatical error, and your joy is over. Hatred and finger-wagging pollutes your @-mentions. You tweeted something six years ago that contradicts your tweet! Aha! I managed a Twitter flounce, once, loudly announcing I was leaving the party and attempting to cause a scene. No one particularly noticed. “Realâ€\x9d life carried on and was rather refreshing without constantly having to tell the people in my telephone every thought in my head. But I needed my fix. I sneaked back. I blocked all the irritants I could think of – your Hopkinses, your Blunts. I deleted all tweets every two weeks, but that wasn’t enough. I tried to keep my thoughts to myself as much as possible and stop craving retweets and likes. But I couldn’t help myself. The Plague of Angry Eggs was still there as well, and in greater numbers. My nemesis. Just waiting in the shadows for me to say something in order to disagree with it without reading it properly, or wilfully misunderstand the point of a joke. And yet, I just can’t seem to quit.',
 'Germany fears UK may quit spy programme because of Brexit Germany fears Britain may pull out of a key intelligence-sharing programme in May next year, a move that it says would create a “moment of weaknessâ€\x9d in the fight against terrorism and jeopardise security across the EU. As the continent remains on alert for terrorist attacks, Berlin is understood to view intelligence as Britain’s primary contribution to European collaboration, and fears it could use future cooperation as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations. According to documents seen by the , Germany is already lobbying the British government to renew its role in Europe’s law enforcement agency, Europol, before its current collaboration runs out on 1 May 2017. In a response to a parliamentary question submitted by Germany’s Left party, Angela Merkel’s government confirmed that it believed the European commission should encourage the UK to remain in Europol. Doing so was in Britain’s interest, the document produced by the German interior ministry said, because “collaborating and sharing information via Europol can help the UK prevent and fight terrorism and serious crimeâ€\x9d. After a series of attempted terrorist attacks over the summer and a politically charged debate about the risks of Merkel’s stance during the refugee crisis, German politicians in particular are concerned that Britain could use its large intelligence capacities as a bargaining chip. “Recent attacks and arrests of suspected terrorists have shown that a close collaboration between international security agencies is indispensable,â€\x9d said Stephan Mayer, the interior policy spokesperson of Merkel’s CDU/CSU party group. “Even after a possible Brexit, the fight against terrorism will remain an enormous challenge for European states; and this naturally applies to Europol’s work too. “All those responsible have to guarantee that this cooperation continues successfully and without friction in spite of a Brexit. The international fight against Islamic extremism and terrorism cannot afford a moment of weakness.â€\x9d European governments and Brussels officials have been emphasising in public that there can be no pre-negotiations with Britain, however informal, until May officially informs the EU of its intention to leave by triggering article 50. Before October’s European council meeting in Brussels, German government officials vehemently denied that security cooperation would form part of the discussions at the summit. But the EU’s united front has been undermined by some inconvenient timetabling. On 1 May 2017, a month after the deadline May has given herself for triggering article 50, the European Union will adopt a regulation that expands the role of the European parliament and national EU legislatures in supervising Europol’s operations. On Friday, May told EU officials that she would stick to her deadline in spite of the high court’s decision that her government must get parliamentary approval to trigger article 50. Some MPs have suggested the need to draft new legislation may further squeeze the planned timetable. The UK is not part of the border-free Schengen zone and has an opt-in into Europol, which will automatically expire as soon as the new rules come into effect. By dropping out of Europol, the UK would automatically be shut out of a number of other agencies and intelligence cooperation programmes, such as the Schengen-wide information system SIS II. A Home Office spokesman pointed to recent comments made by Brandon Lewis, the policing minister, who said no decision had yet been taken on Europol. “The decision on whether we opt into the further Europol regulations will be announced to parliament shortly. We will take that decision very soon; we are giving good consideration to where we are on that and will make an announcement to parliament in due course,â€\x9d he said. Last week Lewis confirmed in a letter that the UK would press ahead with an opt-in to the Prüm convention, an EU-wide system for sharing DNA samples, fingerprints and vehicle registration. A report (pdf) by the German parliament’s academic service recently raised alarm over the hole that Brexit could leave in Europe’s security network, and pointed out that the UK would no longer have direct access to Europol’s databases. Europol, which is based in The Hague, started operations in 1999 and is funded through the EU budget. It has a British director, Rob Wainwright, and according to a spokesperson, 40% of its cases have a “British dimensionâ€\x9d. German government officials told the that there was still hope in Berlin that as a former home secretary, May would appreciate the value of cooperating on counter-terrorism measures. In a private speech at Goldman Sachs before the EU referendum, recently leaked to the , May expressly argued that British security was best served by remaining in Europe. The German Left party MP Andrej Hunko, who submitted the query to the government, said that although the UK had been one of the main drivers behind Europol’s engagement in covert intelligence networking, Britain opting out of the agency could potentially give rise to even more informal and less democratically accountable forms of information-sharing. “After Brexit, the strengthening of informal structures such as the police working group on terrorism and the Club de Berne could become a major cause for concernâ€\x9d, Hunko said. “These institutions don’t form part of the European Union and are thus harder to control by either delegates in the European parliament or our national parliaments, with national governments remaining as secretive about such networks as they can.â€\x9d From the position of the German Left party, Hunko said, “the question of whether British police should remain part of Europol is therefore a choice between the devil and the deep blue seaâ€\x9d.',
 'No global economic crisis yet, but the ingredients are there Another day, another financial spasm. In London, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt the story was the same: shares dumped and the oil price crashing to its lowest level since 2003 on fears that China is heading into a recession that will drag the rest of the world economy down with it. Despite the fresh sell-off in financial markets on Wednesday, this is far from a done deal. For the doomsday scenario to materialise, China would need to have a hard landing, rather than simply a bumpy one, the rest of the world would have to be ripe for its own crisis, and there would need to be a transmission mechanism for delivering a problem centred on east Asia to the rest of the global economy. For the time being, the theory that the events of the past three weeks herald another 2008-style crisis is just that: a hypothesis. But make no mistake, if the conditions for a recession are right, it would move around the world like a pandemic. That, after all, is the essence of globalisation. Economies are far more integrated than they were half a century ago, when capital controls, trade barriers and extensive public ownership shielded national economies. Today, changes in political philosophy and technology mean there are far fewer impediments to the free movement of goods – and virtually none at all to the free movement of money. So, when one country runs into problems there is always the risk of contagion. That was true of Thailand in 1997, when the collapse of its currency, the baht, quickly had a domino effect across south-east Asia. It was true also of what appeared to be a local difficulty in a much bigger economy. Ben Bernanke, then chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was dismissive in 2006 of the notion that problems with sub-prime mortgages posed a threat to the American, let alone the global, economy. How wrong he was. Britain’s direct exposure to China is relatively modest. It is not in the top five overseas markets for UK companies, and only 4% of UK goods and services go there. If China’s economy hits the wall, some jobs would be at risk but it would not be nearly as serious as a recession in the United States or the eurozone. The US has more at stake, but even so exports to China account for only 1% of GDP. Britain’s banks are, however, a different story. UK banks – HSBC and Standard Chartered in particular – have lent lots of money to China to the extent that they have more at risk than any other country, should the loans turn sour. China has a mountain of bad debts. So how would the crisis manifest itself? One way, according to Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at analysts IHS, would be if China stopped trying to support its currency, the yuan. The result, he says, would be a devaluation of 15-20% that would make China’s exports cheaper but those of every other country more expensive. This would be the opening salvo in a full-blown currency war. Other countries would retaliate and the US would impose trade sanctions on Chinese goods. Deflationary pressure would intensify as Asian countries dumped their excess production on the rest of the world. The UK steel industry has already had a taste of this. China is producing more steel than it needs for its own economic growth and is selling it at cut-price rates. British producers have found it impossible to compete. That, though, would only be the start of the mayhem. Many countries in the emerging world have borrowed heavily in dollars. China itself has $1tn of dollar-denominated debt. If the yuan and other emerging market currencies are devalued, then the value of these dollar debts will rise, putting severe strain on all the affected economies and unbearable strain on the most vulnerable. Zhu Min, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, sketched out in Davos on Wednesday what would happen next. Quite simply, every investor would stampede for the exit at the same time. Liquidity in the global economy would dry up, he said, noting: “That scares everybody.â€\x9d It certainly does. Around the concrete bunker hosting the World Economic Forum, the masters of the universe were quietly checking the latest from the financial markets on their smartphones and tablets. A few eyebrows were raised when the Dow’s fall reached 500 points. Chief executives of multinational corporations should not, of course, need to be reminded of global interconnectedness. If they did, Nobel prize-winning scientists were on hand in Davos for a tutorial on chaos theory. One of its ideas is that seemingly tiny events can have big impacts, so that a beating of a butterfly’s wing could lead to a hurricane on the other side of the world. China is a very big butterfly.',
 'Pornhub launches explicit audio for the visually impaired For the around 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired, pornography can seem like an acoustic blur of heavy breathing, squelches, slaps and Maria Sharapova-esque grunts. To help them find some sexual inspiration, the video-sharing site Pornhub has launched a “described videoâ€\x9d category, in which professional voice actors explain what’s going on in the scene. The section has launched with a collection of 50 of the site’s most popular videos, and there’s something for everyone: straight, gay, female friendly, bi and transexual. Pornhub launched in 2007, and claims 60 million daily views to its professional and amateur adult content. The new narrated videos include descriptions of the settings, models, what they are wearing and the positions they are getting into, combined with the original audio of the video. Many of the explicitly titled clips have already attracted more than 20,000 views. The accessibility initiative is being championed by the adult entertainment company’s philanthropic division (yes, really), Pornhub Cares, which has previously launched a clothing line to fight against domestic violence and a breast cancer awareness campaign called “Save the Boobsâ€\x9d, where it donated 1 cent for every 30 videos viewed within its “big titâ€\x9d and “small titâ€\x9d categories. “It’s our goal to service all of our users’ needs, which begins with making content accessible to every individual,â€\x9d said Pornhub vice-president Corey Price. “We selected some of the videos that were better suited for narration and could be best described in detail. We wanted to describe all that we could to provide the user with the best possible experience while not taking away from the video’s original audio.â€\x9d Price added that Pornhub wants to encourage its users to create and upload more audio descriptive clips with the differently abled in mind. “People who are blind have every right to access porn as they do classical Shakespeare or any other kind of video,â€\x9d says Joel Snyder, director of the audio description project at the American Council of the Blind. Snyder welcomes Pornhub’s efforts to make its content more accessible, but suggests the move isn’t entirely altruistic. “There are more than 21 million people in this country who are either blind or have trouble seeing even with eye correction. The community is large and has buying power, so this smacks of something that just economically makes good sense.â€\x9d Pornhub isn’t the first organization to make porn accessible for the visually impaired. Back in 2006, a website called Pornfortheblind.org recruited volunteers to record graphic descriptions of popular adult videos, which were uploaded as MP3 files. The site became a cult hit, attracting as many as 150,000 visitors per month. Offline, an artist called Lisa Murphy has created a book of tactile photographs of nudes, embossed on white plastic pages along with a braille description.',
 "Cult heroes: Betty Wright – soul's golden agony aunt Betty Wright was a little late for the 60s heyday of Motown, Stax and Atlantic, but she wasted no time catching up. Her first album was released in 1968, when she was only 14; she had her first pop hit when she was 17; she earned her first gold record when she was barely 18 – all despite coming from a religious family that refused to allow anything other than gospel to be played at home. Looking back on her childhood in an interview in 2012, she said she managed to persuade her mother to bless her nascent pop career by also being an A student who “did all the right things in schoolâ€\x9d, as if being musically precocious wasn’t enough of an achievement. In those early records, there’s an amusing disjunction between Wright the youthful singer and the put-upon female characters she portrays. In Babysitter – one of the first songs she wrote herself – a woebegone mother warns women not to trust any “16-year-old schoolgirlâ€\x9d around their husbands, and it sounds perfectly reasonable until you remember that Wright herself was still in her teens. She is the queen of the cautionary tale and practically an agony aunt when it comes to dispensing relationship advice, but she should be approached with caution unless you want a scolding administered along with tissues and gin. Secretary is clear on whose fault it is if a man has a work affair: the secretary “takes the time to listen / To what he has to say / While all you do is nag him / A thousand times a day.â€\x9d In the entry on Wright in the Rough Guide to Soul and R&B, Peter Shapiro expresses reservations about Wright’s first hit, Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do: for him it’s “a strange record given Wright’s assertive catalogue, and it sounded as though she was fighting with the chauvinistic lyricsâ€\x9d. And yet the line she takes – that girls can’t sleep around, or attempt to revenge a boyfriend’s misdemeanours, “and still be a ladyâ€\x9d – is of a piece with so many of the songs in her catalogue. In the late 80s she released the “Pain trilogyâ€\x9d, a sequence of songs reflecting on the ups and downs of a long relationship, which have a similar core of conservatism. In No Pain (No Gain), for instance, she explains “something you young girls might not understandâ€\x9d – that love requires work, commitment and forgiveness, and “a little bit of pleasure’s worth a whole lot of painâ€\x9d. Even when she bosses men around, she does so with solicitude for them and an eye on women’s responsibility: in Love Don’t Grow on a Love Tree, from her brilliant 1974 album Danger High Voltage (such a perfect title), she tells a two-timing man that he can’t have “every woman you seeâ€\x9d – but can’t help herself hoping “you get just what you needâ€\x9d. And on her 2011 comeback album The Movie, in a duet with Snoop Dogg called Real Woman, she instructed all the young men in her life: “Get yourself a real womanâ€\x9d – no gold-diggers, basically; women willing to do the work/commitment/forgiveness thing – “so you can be a real manâ€\x9d. There are a lot of young men – and women – in Wright’s life because, as she told the online magazine Soul and Jazz and Funk, she’s the “mamma-sister-auntie-cousin type of womanâ€\x9d. Instead of a “diva typeâ€\x9d driven by the desire for fame and awards, her energies are focused on supporting other singers and musicians. Joss Stone – another absurdly precocious teen star – is one of her most high-profile mentees, and Wright was nominated for a Grammy for her co-production work on Stone’s 2004 album Mind, Body and Soul. But there are plenty of others, and even a “songwriting campâ€\x9d Wright set up called the Most, abbreviated from Mountain of Songs Today (equals Mountain of Songs Tomorrow). “I want to inspire people to write,â€\x9d she told her local newspaper, the Miami New Times, in 2012: write, that is, as opposed to sample, a practice that receives seriously short shrift in the opening track from The Movie, Old Songs. “What you gonna listen to,â€\x9d she demands, “if you ain’t making nothing new?â€\x9d A diligent businesswoman, Wright has taken people to court for not paying royalties when they sampled her records, and in 1985, noticing that men in the music industry tended to be paid more readily than she did, set up her own record label to ensure she would never have to fight for what she had earned. Three years later, she used it to release her album Mother Wit, winning a gold record in the process. Mother Wit opens with two of the Pain songs, but maybe a better signature tune is Ms Time: “I wait on no man,â€\x9d Wright shrieks with relish, “you wish that I stand still for you.â€\x9d Across her career what you hear is a mixture of take-no-crap assertiveness and hard-won acceptance, belligerent attitude and genuine kindness. In an interview from 2012 with Blues & Soul magazine, she talked of how important it is that music “helps you get from Monday to Tuesdayâ€\x9d and gives its listeners hope. She focuses on romance, she said, to communicate the message that “no matter how bad the economy gets, as long as I have you here we can live in a tree! You know we can go out and bathe in the lake if we have to, but if you are with me and I am with you, we can do this. I think those are songs that people need to hear now,â€\x9d and she’s right, we do.",
 'Vote that could make Andrea Leadsom a Tory outlier – like Corbyn It is beginning to dawn that in the wake of the Brexit vote there will be no such thing as a return to business as usual in British politics. But that’s not just because a prime minister has resigned, important though that is. Much more, it is because the full shock waves of the Brexit win have barely started to be felt. We won’t see the same kind of drama this week that we saw two weeks ago when David Cameron quit after the referendum vote, or last week when Michael Gove turned against Boris Johnson in the fight to be Cameron’s successor. But the dynamics of the Conservative leadership race are not settled yet. Theresa May enters the week of the first ballot in a commanding position to win first place in the contest among MPs. But the home Â\xadsecretary’s camp made clear over the weekend that she does not want a so-called coronation, as happened when Michael Howard succeeded Iain Duncan Smith unopposed in 2003. She is right to prefer a contest because a coronation would look like a stitch-up. May backed remain in the referendum, albeit without any evident enthusiasm. She has gone into this contest, as she intended she would, as a Eurosceptic remainer, hoping that this will allow her to gather up votes from both wings of the party and succeed as a unity candidate. So far it looks like a winning strategy. But a coronation would leave the Brexiters feeling betrayed, so May has to favour a full contest. Such a contest is fraught with uncertainties. Fundamentally that is because the Conservative party’s membership, said to be about 150,000, will make the final decision between the two candidates left standing after the MPs’ ballot. But it is also because a two-horse race gives the second-placed candidate a huge chance to gather up the support of all those who have doubts about the frontrunner. The party has form on this, and it is form that will give May the shivers. In 2001, the largely anti-European membership handed the prize to Duncan Smith rather than the frontrunner and ardent pro-European Kenneth Clarke. Even though May is not nearly as outspoken a pro-European as Clarke, she is vulnerable to the view among Brexiters that the crown should go to one of their own. The crown this time, of course, is not the leadership of the opposition, as it was in 2001 when IDS was elected. It is the prime ministership itself. That could mean that the party members – who are not the same people as they were in 2001 anyway – are more cautious than they were 15 years ago, because they know the decision has national consequences. But it could equally mean that they decide it is vital to seize their chance and put a Brexiter into No 10. As things stand, that candidate looks like Andrea Leadsom, the business minister, who has never sat at the cabinet table. Leadsom is not in fact an out-and-out anti-European. As she said in 2013, in words that have suddenly become famous: “I don’t think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty at a time when the tectonic plates of global success are moving.â€\x9d I can personally confirm from listening to her at about the same time that Leadsom was not in favour of leaving. But if she can shake that embarrassment off her back she has a real chance of galvanising the Tory membership and overtaking May on the line. If that happened, not only would Leadsom become the first British prime minister in history elected by a party membership (as May would too, of course), but British politics would also be in uncharted waters for parliamentary democracy as a whole. Both the main parties, Labour and the Tories, would be led by people who would have been imposed on the party’s MPs against their will, or at least against their better judgment. And that would be only the start. The leadership election will decide who speaks for Britain. But it won’t decide what Britain should say about its relationship with Europe. No one yet has a clue about that. Business as usual remains a very distant dream.',
 'How a Hollywood film reveals the reality of drone warfare G avin Hood’s film Eye in the Sky is a thrillingly intelligent exploration of the political and ethical questions surrounding drone warfare. It has been carefully researched and is on the cutting edge of what is currently possible. (Full disclosure: I offered the screenwriter early advice.) But there’s a longer history and a wider geography that casts those issues in a different light. As soon as the Wright brothers demonstrated the possibility of human flight, others were busy imagining flying machines with nobody on board. In 1910 the engineer Raymond Phillips captivated crowds in the London Hippodrome with a remotely controlled airship that floated out over the stalls and, when he pressed a switch, released hundreds of paper birds on to the heads of the audience below. When he built the real thing, he promised, the birds would be replaced with bombs. Sitting safely in London he could attack Paris or Berlin.  There has always been something hideously theatrical about bombing – recall the shock and awe visited on the inhabitants of Baghdad in 2003. The spectacle now includes the marionette movements of drones, Predators and Reapers whose electronic strings are pulled from thousands of miles away. Remoteness, however, is an elastic measure. Human beings have been killing others at ever greater distances since the invention of the dart, the spear and the slingshot. The invention of firearms wrought another transformation in the range of military violence. And yet today, in a world shrunk by the very technologies that have made the deployment of armed drones possible, the use of these remote platforms seems to turn distance back into a moral absolute. But if it is wrong to kill someone from 7,500 miles away (the distance from Creech air force base in Nevada to Afghanistan), over what distance is it permissible to kill somebody? For some, the difference is that drone crews are safe in the continental United States – their lives are not on the line – and this has become a constant refrain in the drone debates. In fact, the US Air Force has been concerned about the safety of its aircrews ever since its high losses during the second world war. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it experimented with remotely controlled B-17 and B-47 aircraft to drop nuclear bombs without exposing aircrews to danger from the blast, and today it lauds its Predators and Reapers for their ability to “project power without vulnerabilityâ€\x9d. It’s a complicated boast, because these remote platforms are slow, sluggish and easy to shoot down. They can only be used in uncontested air space against people who can’t fight back. There are almost 200 people involved in every combat air patrol and most of them are indeed out of harm’s way. But in Afghanistan the launch and recovery and the maintenance crews – Predators and Reapers have a short range, so that they have to be launched by crews close to their targets – are exposed to real danger. Bombing in the major wars of the 20th century was always dangerous to those who carried it out, but those who dropped bombs over Hamburg or Cologne in the second world war or Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s were, in a crucial sense, also remote from their targets. “The good thing about being in an aeroplane at war is that you never touch the enemyâ€\x9d, recalled one veteran of Bomber Command. “You never see the whites of their eyes.â€\x9d Distance no longer confers blindness on those who operate today’s drones. They have a much closer, more detailed view of the people they kill. The US Air Force describes their job as putting “warheads on foreheadsâ€\x9d, and they are required to remain on station to carry out a battle damage assessment that is often an inventory of body parts.  Most drone crews will tell you that they do not feel thousands of miles away from the action: just 18 inches, the distance from eye to screen. Their primary function is to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Although drones have been armed since 2001, until 2012 they were directly responsible for only 5 to 10% of air strikes in Afghanistan. But they were involved in orchestrating more. Flying a Predator or a Reaper “is more like being a managerâ€\x9d, one pilot has explained. “You’re managing multiple assets and you’re involved with the other platforms using the information coming off of your aircraft.â€\x9d In principle it’s not so different from using aircraft to range targets for artillery on the Western Front, but the process has been radicalised by the drone’s real-time full-motion video feeds that enable highly mobile “targets of opportunityâ€\x9d to be identified and tracked. In the absence of ground intelligence, this becomes crucial: until drones were relocated in sufficient numbers from Afghanistan and elsewhere to enable purported IS-targets in Syria to be identified, most US aircraft were returning to base without releasing their weapons. Armed drones are used to carry out targeted killings, both inside and outside areas of “active hostilitiesâ€\x9d, and to provide close air support to ground troops. Targeted killing has spurred an intense critical debate, and rightly so – this is the focus of Eye in the Sky too – but close air support has not been subject to the same scrutiny. In both cases, video feeds are central, but it is a mistake to think that this reduces war to a video game – a jibe that in any case fails to appreciate that today’s video games are often profoundly immersive. In fact, that may be part of the problem. Several studies have shown that civilian casualties are most likely when air strikes are carried out to support troops in contact with an enemy, and even more likely when they are carried out from remote platforms. I suspect that drone crews may compensate for their physical rather than emotional distance by “leaning forwardâ€\x9d to do everything they can to protect the troops on the ground. This in turn predisposes them to interpret every action in the vicinity of a ground force as hostile – and civilians as combatants – not least because these are silent movies: the only sound, apart from the clacking of computer keys as they talk in secure chatrooms with those watching the video feeds, comes from radio communications with their own forces. In contrast to those shown in Eye in the Sky, those feeds are often blurry, fuzzy, indistinct, broken, compressed – and, above all, ambiguous. How can you be sure that is an insurgent burying an IED and not a farmer digging a ditch? The situation is more fraught because the image stream is watched by so many other eyes on the ground, who all have their own ideas about what is being shown and what to do about it. Combining sensor and shooter in the same (remote) platform may have “compressed the kill-chainâ€\x9d, as the air force puts it, and this is vital in an era of “just in timeâ€\x9d, liquid war where everything happens so fast. Yet in another sense the kill-chain has been spectacularly extended: senior officers, ground force commanders, military lawyers and video analysts all have access to the feeds. There’s a wonderful passage in Brian Castner’s book All the Ways we Kill and Die that captures the dilemma perfectly. “A human in the loop?â€\x9d Castner’s drone pilot complains. “Try two or three or 100 humans in the loop. Gene was the eye of the needle, and the whole war and a thousand rich generals must pass through him ... If they wanted to fly the fucking plane, they could come out and do it themselves.â€\x9d This is the networked warfare, scattered over multiple locations around the world, shown in Eye in the Sky. But the network often goes down and gets overloaded – it’s not a smooth and seamlessly functioning machine – and it is shot through with ambiguity, uncertainty and indecision. And often those eyes in the sky multiply, rather than disperse, the fogs of war. Derek Gregory is the Peter Wall Distinguished Professor at the University of British Columbia. His books include Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror and Political Violence',
 'Georginio Wijnaldum leads Newcastle in astonishing rout of Tottenham Oh what might have been. On an afternoon when Tynesiders devoted virtually the entire 90 minutes to imploring Rafa BenÃ\xadtez to stay on as Newcastle United’s manager next season his previously underachieving team belatedly remembered they could actually play a bit. In the process Aleksandar Mitrovic created one goal, scored another and was sent off for a truly appalling challenge as Tottenham Hotspur’s chances of finishing above Arsenal for the first time since 1995 were shredded. Mauricio Pochettino’s players needed only a point to finish second but ended up third and looking anything but a team capable of competing in next season’s Champions League. Any Championship managers watching this will most definitely not be looking forward to next season’s meetings with Newcastle, which rather begs the question: how on earth did it come this? While BenÃ\xadtez’s players shrugged off the inhibitions imposed by fear of relegation, Tottenham’s shockingly abject performance emphasised their failure to recover from the blow of losing out to Leicester in the title race. At other times, on other days, St James’ Park might have staged protests against their watching owner, Mike Ashley; instead Newcastle were politely applauded on to the field before kick-off. If part of that was probably about old habits dying hard, a bigger reason was the “Keep Rafaâ€\x9d agenda. It meant that, rather indulging in “sack the boardâ€\x9d chants, home fans held up placards proclaiming: “Rafa the Gaffa. Please stay. The Toon need you.â€\x9d Such messages were backed up an incessant two-word soundtrack set to the tune of La Bamba. “Rafa BenÃ\xadtez, Rafa BenÃ\xadtez,â€\x9d fans chorused, with the volume being raised appreciably once Gini Wijnaldum gave them lead. Spurs had begun in unusually jaded fashion with Toby Alderweireld fluffing an attempted clearance and the ball falling to Moussa Sissoko who played in Mitrovic. The Serbia striker’s deft lay-off found Wijnaldum who shot low into the bottom corner from 12 yards. It was the Dutchman’s 10th goal of a season he had started so brightly before sinking into a prolonged midwinter slump. Fortunately for Wijnaldum, the crowd were clearly in a forgiving mood and the Gallowgate End briefly celebrated with a few blasts of “Stand up if you love the Toon,â€\x9d before reverting to their previous refrain. Their spirit was barely dampened by the sight of a small aeroplane circling the skies above them trailing a large banner bearing the message: “Auf Weidersehen Prem: Tyne to go.â€\x9d It offered proof that some people really do have more money than sense – there are surely much better ways to spend the best part of £1,000. As if determined to defy that mocking eye in the sky Newcastle swiftly scored a second. Sissoko delivered a fabulous cross from the right and, having beaten both Alderweireld and Kyle Walker to the ball, Mitrovic evaded Hugo Lloris’s reach with an imperious header. Loud as the resultant applause was it seemed bitter-sweet, underscored by a certain sadness. Spurs, meanwhile, had created a solitary first-half chance which featured Karl Darlow doing well to block Christian Eriksen’s fierce shot. As the half wore on, the prospect of second spot and putting Arsenal in their place receded ever faster for Tottenham. Admittedly they reduced the deficit but the consequences stemming from the moment Harry Kane and Eric Dier combined to free Érik Lamela down the left were destined to serve as the most academic of footnotes. Initially it looked as if Lamela would cross but instead, from a seemingly impossible angle, he unleashed a shot which beat Darlow at his near post, the ball deflecting off the keeper and into the roof of the net. If Darlow appeared less than delighted about that concession, Mitrovic should have been disgusted with himself for an appallingly reckless high, over the top, challenge which caught Walker on the shin and could easily have resulted a broken leg for England’s right back. Mitrovic even tried to contest the inevitable red card before being ushered off by Sissoko. This being a perverse sort of afternoon 10-man Newcastle’s reaction was merely to extend their lead. When Sissoko’s long legs took him into the penalty area he collapsed dramatically after Eriksen’s perceived interception and Wijnaldum sent Lloris the wrong way from the spot. Buoyed by that rather generously awarded penalty, Andros Townsend hit a post, Daryl Janmaat crossed and Rolando Aarons half-volleyed a brilliant goal. Turning creator, Aarons’s pass then picked out the overlapping Janmaat whose low shot defied Lloris. St James’ Park reverberated to a by now familiar theme. “We want you to stay,â€\x9d they roared. “Rafa BenÃ\xadtez, we want you to stay.â€\x9d Man of the match Gini Wijnaldum (Newcastle United)',
 'Struggling to understand killers After last week’s wave of tragic attacks in Germany, Boris Johnson was criticised for publicly speculating that Islamist extremism was behind the shooting in Munich. While our new foreign secretary’s comments may have been inappropriate - and wrong - his brain, like most people’s, was subject to an overwhelming impulse to find a possible motivation for an action as soon as it occurs. Our desire to understand the motivations of a killer involves a particular part of the brain called the ‘temporo-parietal junction’. Also known as the ‘mindreading’ area of the brain, it automatically ascribes possible incentives, beliefs and desires to others. This reflex developed to help us socialise, but is so powerful that we also apply it to inanimate objects such as computers, shouting, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ as they crash yet again. Even a pair of triangles can appear to exhibit personal motivations, as proved by a psychological test called the Heider-Simmel animation. However, while Boris’s brain is partly to blame for his speculations, unfortunately it couldn’t help him keep them to himself. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London',
 '_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9: the mysterious tale terrifying Reddit If you take enough LSD, can you build a portal to the divine? It sounds like a typical internet conspiracy theory, the kind of thing weirdos post in online communities isolated from the rest of the world. But it’s also a conceptual prompt for a new work of digital fiction – a cool, and deeply creepy story that is gaining a cult fanbase. Two weeks ago, a user who came to be known as “_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9â€\x9d posted a disjointed snippet of text in a comment on Reddit, a site where communities post articles, images, personal stories and more for threaded group discussions. The post, added almost as if by accident to a thread about the cover of George Orwell’s 1984, made claims about the CIA’s acid-fuelled “mind control experimentâ€\x9d programme, Project MKUltra, a common staple of paranoid theory. MKUltra was indeed a real programme, but other items the user mentioned – “restraint bed portalsâ€\x9d and “flesh interfacesâ€\x9d – are not. The user continued to post about topics including Vietnam, Elizabeth Bathory, the Treblinka concentration camp, humpback whales, the Manson Family and LSD, but especially about the inexplicable “flesh interfacesâ€\x9d, being built somehow by shadowy programmes. A Reddit user might chance upon a single one of these posts in one of their ordinary discussion threads, but clicking on the username of _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 would let you view all their posts in aggregate, and there, a compelling science-fiction horror story was beginning to emerge, gradually more beautifully and boldly written from multiple narrative perspectives, but with a common mystery. Reddit makes a fascinating platform for community-oriented fiction, and a perfect one for this slow-building and creepy invention, which fans have started calling “The Interface Seriesâ€\x9d. Each snippet of the abstract tale lives in a different discussion thread, so reading feels like combing a conversation history rather than following a linear tale. You can read the story in chronological order, but you can also follow the mystery to its origin: the standard display format for a user’s comments on Reddit is in reverse chronological order. By sorting the posts according to how “hotâ€\x9d or “controversialâ€\x9d they are, you can let the engagement of other readers guide your experience. Eerie fragments The seemingly random thread names start to form a pattern: the reader gets the distinct pleasure of wondering why the author chose to post each component in each place. Eerie fragments of fiction hide among commonplace online discussion. Sometimes readers reply and engage, and sometimes are none the wiser. The enthusiastic cult fandom quickly built a Wiki to study and catalogue the mysterious tale, create a timeline of known events, and to note in a sort of literary formalist way what tropes the author is employing. The story also has its own dedicated discussion thread where volunteers have even developed audiobook editions. The internet has always loved a good mystery, and Wikis, message boards and image boards have a history of playing host to fascinating and often scary folktales that leverage the format and utility of these digital spaces in creative ways. In recent history, as the internet gradually grew from a niche hideaway for young weirdos to an omnipresent and pragmatic component of daily life, these subversive posts, videos and stories emerged organically and often anonymously as if to will online space to remain surprising, unsettling and subversive. The first subject to come back encased was an 8-year-old girl we had named Jingles. We started naming the kids dogs’ names to try to depersonalize them, to assuage the guilt. This was done by the recommendation of CIA psychiatrists, but it didn’t work very well. “Creepypastaâ€\x9d is one name for scary text found in commonplace online communities, and users often borrow, reproduce and add to these texts to create a sort of fictive group collage (“pastaâ€\x9d is derived from the command “pasteâ€\x9d). The popular culture character of “Slender Manâ€\x9d originated in the internet meme community and became a household name – and, allegedly, led two 12 year-old girls to commit a stabbing. “The Holdersâ€\x9d is a crowdsourced series related to the end of the world; its format dictates that benign instructions lead to horrific, reality-warping objects and situations. “The SCP Foundationâ€\x9d offers containment procedures for fictional but terrifying phenomena – anyone can contribute to Wiki stories like these, and a group “upvotingâ€\x9d process makes it easy to find the entries that the community thinks are best and most scary. Could the story make contact? Although _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 is apparently only a single author, and the destination and purpose of its tale is unknown (we can only hope it’s not a viral marketing stunt), the writer’s use of Reddit as a storytelling platform means a new kind of format unique to internet fiction, and new opportunities for readers to participate and engage around the work. There is something extra-effective in fiction about the unexpected, the unsettling, the unknown lurking in plain sight within the tools we use for practical dialogue, and this principle has unique implications for horror buffs. When the writer is technically a platform-user just like yourself, there’s always the lurking possibility they might suddenly notice you, that the story itself could make contact. It was a pit made of flesh. Maybe five feet across and going down about twenty feet before curving out of sight. When I say, “made of flesh,â€\x9d I mean, it looked like the inside of somebody’s throat. Wet, reddish flesh-looking stuff. We had heard of them building tunnels, but this was... If you’re not a Reddit user and you’re not sure where to start with the intimidating _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 story, try The Interface Series Wiki, where users have sorted the narrative into an easy-to-read chronological order and have begun building a glossary of terms. Or you can dive directly into the user’s comments and read through them in your own order. Right now there are more than 30 posts, and the nonlinear narrative appears to be shifting from mysterious flesh interfaces and their utterly terrifying “incident zonesâ€\x9d to futuristic “hygiene bedsâ€\x9d for users who are constantly connected to a “feedâ€\x9d. Take care if this is bedtime reading!',
 'To deliver Brexit, Ukip must rise again So, the politicians have crowned a new prime minister. Theresa May, a remain supporter responsible for the greatest increase in immigration in Britain’s history, may well be popular with a largely Europhile Conservative parliamentary party still struggling to accept its resounding rejection by Conservative voters on 23 June – but she would probably have struggled against the Brexiteer Andrea Leadsom if it had been allowed to go to a membership vote. She is, in a way, a kind of reverse Corbyn: the Labour leader has a huge mandate from the party membership but no mandate among the party elites, while May has a huge mandate from the party elites and no mandate from the party membership. To listen to the media luvvies who have invested a lot of time (and a lot of lunches) in May, her triumph was all about experience. She has been widely lauded as one of Britain’s longest-serving home secretaries – yet very little has been said about the collapse in police morale or the running down of our border force and coastguard in that time. Indeed, the largely positive assessment of May’s tenure as home secretary, based on time served rather than track record, speaks volumes about how far the standards we set for those in public life have fallen. But the deed has been done. And without a single vote cast outside the magic circle of Westminster, we have a new premier. This shabby state of affairs, in my view, presents a major opportunity to bring together Nigel Farage’s people’s army – those conservatives who actually believe in Britain, and the patriotic working-class voters who rejected the Blairite left on referendum day, united either within Ukip or a new political movement. Fortunately, thanks to the pressure brought to bear on the incoming administration by Leave.EU, the new prime minister has had to give key posts to excellent leave ministers, including David Davis and Liam Fox – talented politicians who, unlike Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings and the rest of the self-regarding Vote Leave cabal, were willing to work with us and with Ukip to achieve a goal bigger than themselves. Even so, news of May’s coronation saw Ukip’s membership rocket by over 1,000 in a single day. All over social media, we can see hundreds of Conservatives trading in their blue membership cards for purple ones. Why? Because Britain backed Brexit, and no matter how strenuously the remain campaigners who are responsible for delivering it insist they will respect the vote, leave supporters simply don’t believe them. And this discontent goes beyond Conservative members who are rightly miffed at being stitched up with a remain MP as leader after they voted for Brexit: just look at the shambolic state of the Labour party. First, its working-class voters backed Brexit in a big way. Where do they look for representation now, never mind leadership? Corbyn may have been a reluctant remainer, but – foolishly – he allowed the Blairites to twist his arm for the sake of party unity (for all the good it did him). If he had stuck by his Eurosceptic principles and left the Labour party officially non-aligned, he would have been well placed to take the credit for the Brexit vote and been strengthened against his enemies in the parliamentary party. Instead, he’s ended up in the worst position possible, having backed remain but failed to deliver Labour voters. With some in his party now bleating that the referendum result was “advisory and non-bindingâ€\x9d and calling for parliament to overturn it, it is more clear than ever to working people that the Labour party is now run by and for a metropolitan elite, and does not speak for them. As for the Liberal Democrats, they’re now campaigning on a platform of taking Britain back into the EU before we’ve even left it, desperate to regain some relevance by appealing to the spoiled millennials throwing protests outside parliament. So now, more than ever, the country needs Ukip to step up, or for a new movement to step forward. We won’t achieve anything by tempering ourselves to create another bland, centrist party. We need to lower the barriers to entry for politics, and reach out to new audiences online, as Beppe Grillo’s revolutionary Five Star Movement has done in Italy. Leave.EU has paved the way with its pioneering social media effort, which has over 1 million followers and supporters. The articles and clips we shared alongside our own original content and videos reached a weekly audience of 10 to 15 million, many of whom would never dream of tuning into the Daily Politics or poring over the newspapers. While ignored by the traditional media, which we were bypassing, internal polling suggests that this new way of doing politics made all the difference to the final result on 23 June. We now need to push it further, lowering prices for party membership, putting more control over the party in the hands of the grassroots, and reaching into areas of the country that the mainstream parties have long forgotten or taken for granted. We need to show the public how we, and they, were right to hold their nerve and stick their necks out for Brexit, even with all the combined powers of the political class, media establishment and corporate interests howling against us. More than that, we need to empower people to help shape the new Britain that Brexit has made possible, pushing for a Swiss-style model of direct democracy, which allows citizens to propose their own laws and veto the schemes of the politicians. Britain has its brightest days in front of it, but only if we realise that winning this referendum was not the final hurdle. We have a long way to go before a real Brexit happens, and will have to travel even further before we can realise all the opportunities it allows. Ukip, or a new movement that combines the best in that party with other forces that came together for the referendum, represents our best hope of completing that journey.',
 'Opening up scientific publishing for the Flickr generation For an aspiring scientist, being published in a creditable journal is a major step towards gaining respect in the field. But for Mark Hahnel, founder and CEO of Figshare, this old system was drastically in need of an update. “The internet was built for sharing academic data but the way scientific papers are published had hardly changed since the early days of the printing press,â€\x9d he says. In 2011, Hahnel was studying for a PhD in stem cell biology at Imperial College London, but grew frustrated when it came to getting his work published. In particular, there was no way to publish non-written formats. “All my data was graphs, datasets and video, but when I went to publish this I realised that a lot of publications weren’t set up to handle anything but papers,â€\x9d he says. “I was spending all weekend creating videos and frustrated that I couldn’t publish them.â€\x9d Hahnel saw an opportunity to both help aspiring scientists and improve the quality of debate in science. Using Wordpress and “some basic Pythonâ€\x9d [computer code] he set up Figshare – initially to publish his own work. But he soon found there were others in the scientific community who saw it as advantageous. “Academia is very cut-throat. People need to get published and receive citations in order to get jobs and funding,â€\x9d he says. “But also I think a lot of younger students get it, as they’ve grown up with the internet and think things should be open and collaborative.â€\x9d His activities caught the attention of the technology investor and incubator Digital Science, which backed Hahnel to further develop his platform. “I handed in my PhD on the Friday and moved into new offices on Monday,â€\x9d says Hahnel Hahnel admits that in the early days he “didn’t have a clueâ€\x9d about business and had to learn a lot. “I’d never done business studies, but we were able to learn about business and how to market the company. Digital Science helped me with the startup process; everything from establishing a sustainability model to marketing and understanding what an EBITDA is,â€\x9d he says. “We brought in some developers and relaunched Figshare in January 2012. We’ve created a place where anyone can publish and view the content for free.â€\x9d Hahnel says he was inspired by sites such as Github and Flickr and wanted to create something comparable for research science. However, there have been some technical hurdles to overcome. For instance, academic papers require footnotes that link to other sources, but this can be difficult to do online as URLs are often reorganised and this can lead to broken links. The developers at Figshare created Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) that find the new address of a page if it is moved. Ultimately, the business aimed to create an infrastructure that was designed to last and to be user-friendly. “The process of building scalable infrastructure as a priority over cool new features is something that we set up early, and it is really helping us now,â€\x9d Hahnel adds. But the most important aspect of Figshare is that it has created a model that disrupts the current method, where universities pay publishers to see the work that they have created. According to STM, the trade association for academic and professional publishers, its members’ revenues are worth roughly $10bn (£7bn) annually and the industry employs more than 100,000 people worldwide. And although well known journals such as Nature, Science and Cell are much sought after, there are more than 28,000 English-language science publications to choose from. “I’ve published three papers but I don’t have access to them because I’m not a university,â€\x9d Hahnel says. “The top ten publishers were paid over £430m by universities between 2010-14 so that they could access their own content.â€\x9d Figshare has two revenue streams: it provides universities with the means to publish online – universities are given mini Figshares which let students self-publish – and it provides cloud solutions for publishers to host and publish data. Figshare has now published 2.5m objects (papers, datasets and videos) and provides several institutions with its services including the University of Sheffield, The Royal Society, Wiley and University of Auckland. But not everyone in academia is impressed. Hahnel says younger scientists and tenured professors are positive about Figshare, but those less secure in their work are more wary. “The people who were taught to publish or perish and don’t want people to see their data because they will find their mistakes are worried by it,â€\x9d he says. “That’s the insanity of academia, that people in a self-correcting science might be concerned that someone will find an error.â€\x9d But having an open platform means that the strength of the content is dependent on those publishing it. Currently, files are checked by a team of 30 people to ensure they are of academic standard but the business is developing ways to enable its users to curate content. “We would like to start curating all of this information in a crowdsourced manner. Instead of using traditional peer review – which may be difficult for a 10-second video – we’ll be looking at automating levels of curation and measuring global attention around objects.â€\x9d Hahnel adds that journals don’t have to follow the peer review model, citing the physics, maths and computer science archive, arXiv.org, as one example. He also says that science can only be checked and corrected if the datasets are open. Hahnel is now focusing on spreading the word and meeting with universities – including American institutions – to make it the place to go to publish research. But the big aim is to create a portal that can truly advance science. In the online age, where inaccurate news can spread fast, a definitive, rational and instantly accessible voice is needed, Hahnel suggests. “We hope to help build a future where everyone can ask questions and back up their answers with data, whether it is inaccurate reports linking autism to vaccines in mainstream news, or much larger questions such as the origins of the universe and how to treat diseases,â€\x9d he says. “By making all of this information openly available to all in a manner that humans and machines can interpret, we can advance human knowledge a lot further, faster.â€\x9d Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.',
 'Anderson Paak: ‘If Dre had called five years ago, I don’t think I’d have been ready’ I’d be lying if I told you that my interview with Anderson Paak gets off to a flying start. The reality is anything but. The 30-year-old rapper and singer-songwriter from Los Angeles is ushered into my cramped hotel room in Salford looking like death warmed up. He’s battling a nasty flu virus that threatens to derail his European tour. While I do my best to be solicitous, his eyelids droop and he barely speaks. Fearing disaster, I quickly phone for black coffee and, fortunately, it does the trick. He may not be a household name just yet, but Paak is well on the way to becoming one. For a start, he is making some of the most exciting new music around. His sound is a warm and hazy blend of styles – funk, jazz, New York house, reggae, trap, blaxploitation-era soul, a hint of psych-rock – anchored in R&B and hip-hop. He is equally at home singing and rapping. And he has a highly distinctive voice that somehow manages to be both smooth as maple syrup and raspy as a whisky-soaked barfly. Comparisons have been made with Frank Ocean, André 3000 and Innervisions-era Stevie Wonder. Significantly, Paak has also been recently anointed as Dr Dre’s latest protege. The hip-hop mogul and Beats headphones founder has a habit of picking winners, from Snoop Dogg to Eminem, and Paak signed a deal with Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment in January. This followed on from his star turn last August on Dre’s comeback album, Compton. Paak co-wrote and sang on six of the songs, more than any other guest – including Snoop and Eminem, as well as other heavy hitters, such as Ice Cube and Kendrick Lamar. This was a remarkable achievement because at the time Paak was virtually unknown. He had independently released an album, Venice, in late 2014, which won widespread critical acclaim but made little mainstream impact (although it was championed by Gilles Peterson on Radio 6). Paak also had a project called NxWorries, a collaboration with the hip-hop producer Knxwledge – their single Suede went viral in early 2015, and came to the attention of Dre, who apparently played it for weeks before getting one of his A&R team to call Paak and invite him to audition. That must have been quite a moment. Paak flashes a toothy grin and perks up immediately. “When I finally met him, for some reason I didn’t have any super-fanboy jitter thing, where I couldn’t be myself,â€\x9d he says. “I was so confident by that point I just said: ‘Let me get on the mic and try something.’ And I remember closing my eyes and going off the top, and then opening them and it was like, ‘Whooaaaahhh!!’â€\x9d He mimes Dre throwing his hands up in the air in appreciation. It probably helped that Paak had already had a lot of practice by the time he met Dre. “If he’d called five years ago, I don’t think I’d have been ready,â€\x9d he admits. Paak is his real name, by the way. But as an artist he prefixes it with a full stop – .Paak. It’s a weird affectation, but he tells me it symbolises attention to detail. It’s a reminder to himself to stay on top of his game because he hasn’t always done so. “I thought things would just fall into my lap,â€\x9d he says. “So I’d put my career in the hands of just about anybody. And before I knew it I was in my late 20s, and things just weren’t sticking. Plus, in LA image is more than half the battle, and I was just a music nerd who never gave a fuck about image.â€\x9d Indeed. For most of his 20s he recorded under the name Breezy Lovejoy. “I didn’t always take myself that seriously,â€\x9d he admits. “Image-wise, I was somewhat of a jokester.â€\x9d The first thing he put online as Lovejoy was a Coldplay tribute. “I didn’t really know what I was doing,â€\x9d he says. Eventually it was fatherhood – his son, Soul, is now five years old – that gave him the wake-up call he needed. Since then, he has ditched the cringy Lovejoy alias, stepped up his songwriting game, and independently released two dazzling albums – Venice and, more recently, Malibu in January. Like generations of African American musicians before him, Paak laid the foundations for his career during childhood in church. It was where he learned to play drums, tutored by kindly older musicians who recognised that he had talent; the singing and rapping came later. “If you grow up playing in church, it removes a lot of the boundaries that other musicians might have, growing up with sheet music or whatever,â€\x9d he says. “It’s like [adopts booming preacher’s voice] you’re dealing with the Holy Spirit! God’s working through your hands!â€\x9d The church was in Oxnard, a small city 100km from Los Angeles. Brandon Paak Anderson and his three sisters (two older, one younger) were born and raised there, in a mostly white suburb. Church was a focal point for Oxnard’s fragmented black community; his short-lived first marriage at 21 was to a girl he met there. Paak’s mother is mixed race: half-black, half-Korean – he has her eyes. She was orphaned during the Korean war, and adopted by a US soldier who took her back to America and raised her with his family in Compton. His father, meanwhile, was an identical twin from Philadelphia, an air force man who was discharged for drugs – and who ended up severely addicted to both drugs and alcohol, with traumatic consequences. “He went to prison for assault and battery of my mum,â€\x9d Paak says, with calm detachment. “I witnessed him beating my mum. He beat her within an inch of her life. We called the cops and he went to prison for 14 years [he was also found guilty of firearms offences]. I never saw him after that. I talked to him a little bit, but the next time I seen him he was being buried.â€\x9d Paak was seven years old when he saw the beating. How do you process something like that? “I don’t know. It’s had an effect, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it did. I know I have some issues… maybe if I see a therapist they can tell you!â€\x9d His mum is clearly a resilient woman who had a flair for business. She took over a small strawberry stall in Oxnard from a friend, and built it into a large organic strawberry company, supplying grocery stores and restaurant chains. She remarried, and “life got very good – we went from living in a one-bedroom apartment to a five-bedroom mansion by the time I was in high school. I had everything I wanted growing up, though all I wanted was music stuff – drums, a PC, turntables. They supported me with all of that.â€\x9d But their luck changed again: unusually heavy rainstorms linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon ruined the strawberry crops for two consecutive seasons, “and everything went to shit. Mom had to file for bankruptcy. But during this time, she also developed a healthy gambling habit. We were in Vegas every weekend. My mom and step-pops were really good, and when you’re really good at gambling, you don’t pay for anything. Everything was on the house. We’d get all our meals free, all the room service. I’d bring my friends from school. It was just crazy rooms, dude – TVs coming up out of the floor and shit…â€\x9d And then that all went wrong, too. His mum and stepdad were arrested and charged for not declaring their winnings, and for “illegally moving securitiesâ€\x9d. Paak was 17 and knew nothing; he is sketchy about the details even now. “They were making a bunch of money at the tables and not notifying the government – Mom was actually using it to pay back what she owed from the bankruptcy. But when people found out that she had paid others back but not them, they reported her.â€\x9d His mum served seven and a half years of a 14-year sentence. Around the same time, it emerged that his stepdad had been having an affair, and was having a child with another woman. “I never really liked him anyway,â€\x9d Paak shrugs. “When my mom went under, everything collapsed. Like, before that we were just spoilt brats. My mom paid for everything. My two older sisters were married with families of their own, but they were still being taken care of. One of them had to move back into the house to take care of me and my little sister – but then the house got foreclosed, so we had to get out.â€\x9d He has only recently felt able to write about all this – and the years of hard living and family fallouts that followed. There is little sign of it on his light-hearted first album, Venice. But its game-changing follow-up, Malibu, is a much deeper proposition, full of long-buried and painful childhood memories, transformed into bittersweet melodies and woozy, punch-drunk raps. “Is you gonna smile when your date gets issued? You know them feds taking pictures/Your mom’s in prison, your father needs a new kidney/Your family’s splitting, rivalries between siblings/If cash ain’t king it’s damn sure the incentive/And good riddance,â€\x9d he raps on The Season/Carry Me, one of the album’s many highlights. “I guess it just took time,â€\x9d he says. “I don’t think I knew before how to properly express what I had gone through in song form. I’m glad I didn’t try to force it before I was ready. Also, it’s part of my personality to be light; I’m more about lightness than anything.â€\x9d He clearly has a lot to tell. And I’m not sure we’ve heard the half of it yet. Not because he is holding back; in fact, quite the opposite. He is such an enthusiastic raconteur that each question elicits lengthy answers, rich in plot twists and biographical minutiae, and in the end we run out of time. His final tale is about the period he spent working on a weed farm. He begins with: “So my [second] wife came in from Korea and she got pregnant…â€\x9d and progresses into how, in his desperation to make money, he landed the weed farm job through a fellow musician. Marijuana for medical prescriptions has been legal in California since 1996. “I remember looking out over the hills, and there were football fields of the shit, as far as you could see,â€\x9d he says, before giving me a thorough briefing on how to chop, trim and bag “all these huge plants – bigger than you! It was the hardest work of my life, but it was 150 bucks an hour. We were there for ever…â€\x9d He’s still telling me about the weed farm when there is a knock at the door – I don’t have time to ask how much of the grass, if any, he smoked himself (his music certainly has a spaced-out quality). Nor to ask about the period of homelessness he and his pregnant wife endured after he was suddenly let go from the weed farm job – and which only ended after he was taken in by Shafiq Husayn, of the alternative hip-hop group Sa-Ra, who put him up until he had finished his Venice album. Our time is up. He has to leave for his gig at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge. I saw him deliver a high-octane show in London a night earlier. His performance was spectacular, deftly switching between singing and rapping, accompanied by his hipsterish backing band, the Free Nationals. Sadly, tonight’s show turns out to be his last of the tour – the flu forces him to cancel the rest. But the tour has nevertheless been a success. The venues have been modest, but each sold out. And bigger shows will follow in the wake of the recent deal with Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment, guaranteeing the future backing of one of the most powerful men in music. But for now there’s something gratifying about watching an artist whose success has been gradual and hard-won. His tale is a salutary reminder that even in the internet era, it can still be a long way to the top. Is he dreaming of even bigger things now? “You gotta dream!â€\x9d he grins. “But I’m still very much aware of what’s going on right now. I’ve done a bunch of shitty club work playing drums for other people, and now I’m on tour – with a whole van! Full of our shit! Our merch, our equipment… our show!â€\x9d And with that, R&B’s newest and least pretentious star heads off to inject some lightness into the Salford gloom. He’s living the dream already. Malibu is out now on Steel Wool/OBE/Art Club. Anderson .Paak plays the Wireless festival, Finsbury Park, London N4 on 10 July and the Reading/Leeds festival on 27-28 August; ticketmaster.co.uk',
 'Married couples more politically split this election, thanks to Donald Trump Donald Trump shared some marital advice at a recent campaign stop in Virginia: “If your wife got angry with you,â€\x9d he said, “say: ‘I’m just sorry, Charlotte, I’m going out to vote for Trump.’â€\x9d As his poll numbers are cratering among every demographic except white men, support for the Republican nominee is dividing couples at a level far beyond the last presidential election. A new poll exclusive to the reveals that in households across the US, Trump is fueling a deep split among married couples. In the online poll of 1,249 adults who have been in a relationship since at least 2012, polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs asked whether spouses’ political leanings had diverged in the last four years. The results provide evidence that the most pronounced divisions were found in households where both spouses consider themselves politically independent. “We can say, with some caveats, that many Trump voters are really not confident that their spouses are going to support Trump,â€\x9d said Chris Jackson, an Ipsos pollster. While only one in 10 people supporting Hillary Clinton thought their spouses would vote another way, one in five supporting Trump expect their spouses to vote for someone else. Among men and women who supported Trump or Clinton, men voting for Trump were the least confident that their spouses would do the same. The results may come as no surprise after 13 months of campaigning in which Trump has made a number of sexist remarks. In the most memorable example, at the first Republican debate in 2015, Fox News host Megyn Kelly challenged Trump to explain “several disparaging comments about women’s looksâ€\x9d. “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs’, ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals’,â€\x9d she said. “You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?â€\x9d These remarks from his past, including the suggestion that he would date his own daughter if they were not related, have shadowed his candidacy for over a year. Clinton’s team has tried to capitalize, highlighting reports that Trump once said of women, “You have to treat ’em like shit.â€\x9d “Between married men and married women, there is a record gender gap right now,â€\x9d said Celinda Lake, head of the Democratic polling firm Lake Research Partners. Married women, a group won by the Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, are currently supporting Clinton by about 12 points, Lake said. “We have a situation where Donald Trump’s personal style is just so offensive to women, and it is much more salient to women than it is to men.â€\x9d Some husbands seem less than thrilled by this dynamic. In voter interviews, Lake has noticed an unusual number of married women reporting that their husbands have pressed them to vote for Trump. “We’ve had it come up in our focus groups extensively,â€\x9d Lake said. “That always happens toward the end, but it’s coming up in this election much sooner than usual.â€\x9d In Columbus, Ohio, three door-to-door canvassers for Working America, a group affiliated with the labor federation AFL-CIO, reported similar versions of the same story: after leaving a house where the husband planned to vote for Trump, the wife chased the canvasser down the street to say that under no circumstances would she do the same. “We’re certainly picked up tensions between husbands and wives before, but this kind of manifestation was really stunning to our field staff,â€\x9d said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, which is campaigning on behalf of Clinton and other Democrats. “This level of passion around the candidates, and then the big divisions between men and women is at a different level than we’ve seen in the past.â€\x9d Even in a typical election year, more women tend to vote Democrat than men, and households split between the major parties are not uncommon. Same-sex couples make up too small a share of respondents to be represented in most national polls. But there is evidence that the split is particularly acute in 2016. In the Ipsos poll, only about half of those who said their household was split this year believed they and their spouse voted differently in 2012. That is the position in which George Kraft, 68, finds himself. Kraft, of Bullhead City, Arizona, said he and his wife both voted for Romney in 2012. This fall, he plans to vote for Trump. His wife, however, wants nothing to do with the party’s inflammatory standard-bearer. “She thinks he’s too outspoken, too abrasive toward other people,â€\x9d Kraft said. The same controversies don’t bother him. “Maybe that’s what we need.â€\x9d Although the most drastic splits have surfaced between independent couples, Trump is also faring poorly among Republican women, married or not. In some recent polls among women who identify as Republicans, he has run nearly 20 points behind Romney, John McCain (the 2008 nominee) and George W Bush (2004). Romney and Bush won 93% of Republican women’s votes and McCain in 2008 won 89%. One respondent from Utah, Cheryl Steele, 36, voted without reservations for Romney but said she did not like the way Trump attracted accusations of racism and bigotry. “I don’t even want my child to listen to his speeches,â€\x9d she said, “and yet he’s supposed to be my president?â€\x9d Trump’s unpopularity with women, Nussbaum said, is reflected in a dynamic her canvassers have seen over and over in the field. “Men who love Trump love women who love Hillary. Or at least, they don’t hate Hillary,â€\x9d she said. Susan, 62, who lives near the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, did not wish to give her last name. She plans to vote for Clinton, repulsed by reports that Trump stiffed many of the contractors who helped build his casinos. “I have no use for a man like that,â€\x9d she said. But her choice is causing strife between her and her husband, who she called a “victim of talk radioâ€\x9d. She believes he will be voting for Trump. “I don’t recall us ever arguing about an election before this one,â€\x9d she said. “I’ll come out with ‘Trump said this’ and we’ll have a fight.â€\x9d To avoid any more quarrels, Susan has begun skirting talk of the election altogether. “We’re too old for that,â€\x9d she said. Lake believes many couples try to excise politics from their relationships, and not just in the heated final months of the 2016 race. Several years ago, her firm conducted a survey in which 72% of men but only 49% of women said with confidence that their partners would vote the same way they did. “We called it the, ‘Sure, honey’ factor,â€\x9d Lake said. “Guys just assume who their wives are voting for. And I think some women go, ‘Sure, honey.’â€\x9d',
 'SFO ends foreign exchange fraud inquiry with no charges brought A long-running investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into rigging of the £3.5tn-a-day foreign exchange markets has ended without any charges being issued against banks or individuals. The SFO said that after reviewing more than a half a million documents it had concluded there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. “While there were reasonable grounds to suspect the commission of offences involving serious or complex fraud, a detailed review of the available evidence led us to the conclusion that the alleged conduct, even if proven and taken at its highest, would not meet the evidential test required to mount a prosecution for an offence contrary to English law,â€\x9d the SFO said. “It has further been concluded that this evidential position could not be remedied by continuing the investigation.â€\x9d The prosecutor did not disclose how much the investigation had cost or whether banks or individuals had been the subject of its investigation, which was sparked when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) provided it with information in July 2014. This year the SFO asked the government for an extra £21m to help it keep pursuing complex cases, such as those centred on foreign exchange, after it had received £10m last June. Alison McHaffie, a regulatory partner with CMS law firm, said the decision to drop the case showed “the difficult job the SFO has in demonstrating criminal activity by individuals for this type of type of market misconduct and without a change in the law on corporate criminal responsibility. “This means it is always easier to impose regulatory fines against the firms themselves rather than criminal prosecutions.â€\x9d At the time it launched the forex investigation in 2014, more than 20 individuals had either been suspended or fired from financial institutions during the global investigation into currency rigging. The Bank of England also became embroiled in the scandal, and has previously released minutes of meetings held over six years until 2013 between bank officials and a group of foreign exchange traders. Since then, the FCA and regulators in the US have levied record fines of more than £6bn on banks for rigging foreign exchange markets and published pages of electronic messages showing that the individuals involved called themselves the “A-teamâ€\x9d, “the playersâ€\x9d and “the three musketeersâ€\x9d. The regulators published conversations between traders, some of whom used the name “1 team, 1 dreamâ€\x9d, and reported that one had said: “How can I make free money with no fcking [sic] heads up.â€\x9d When a string of fines was announced in March 2015, Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general, had accused bank traders of behaving with “breathtaking flagrancyâ€\x9d. She extracted guilty pleas from Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup and JP Morgan. The SFO said it was continuing to liaise with the US Department of Justice over its investigation and it was grateful for help from the FCA, the Competition and Markets Authority and the City of London police, as well as the DoJ and Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The foreign exchange rigging scandal erupted at a time when the reputation of the banking industry was being hammered by revelations that traders had been manipulating Libor, a benchmark interest rate used to price £3.5tn of financial products and loans. That benchmark has since been overhauled as a result of the criticism that erupted as further multimillion-pound fines were levied against banks. Barclays was the first bank to be fined for Libor fixing when it was hit with a £290m fine in June 2012, which triggered the resignation of the chief executive, Bob Diamond – who was not accused of wrongdoing – and wave of other penalties on a wide range of banks, including RBS and the Swiss bank UBS. The investigation into Libor rigging by the SFO has secured the conviction of Tom Hayes – who is serving 11 years – while six individuals have been cleared by jury. The Libor rigging scandal also spurred George Osborne into changing how the fines levied by the City regulator were used. They had previously gone back to the FCA and its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, but he changed the rules to ensure that the cash – minus costs – went to the Treasury.',
 'Social care catastrophe won’t be solved by integration with healthcare services Your editorial (Social care and the NHS: can’t pay, won’t pay, 1 February) fails to grasp the enormity of the crisis for social care in England and the inadequacy of George Osborne’s 2% precept. My report on social care in Cambridgeshire, Social Care: The Silent Catastrophe, published last week, shows that an additional £500m a year from the precept by 2020 will not compensate for the further £6.1bn a year being taken away from English local authorities by the government at the same time. The autumn statement fails to face up to the consequences of the government’s decision in 2011 to withdraw its entire general grant to local authorities by the end of this parliament. This is why the social care crisis has now become a catastrophe which goes much wider than support to older people. Support to vulnerable children and young people in care in Cambridgeshire has been cut for the last three years and will be cut yet again in this year’s budget. In Cambridgeshire social care faces additional cuts of £73m a year by 2020, despite the substantial growth in numbers of adults and children urgently needing help. The county council has made clear that its savings proposals contain “an unprecedented level of riskâ€\x9d. In addition, the large cost of implementing the new national minimum wage, which mainly affects social care, has not been funded at all by the government. If the 2% council tax is levied it will just about cover this as-yet-unfunded cost and will not reduce the cuts. Integration of social care and health for older people is not the answer. More resources are required now. David Plank Trumpington, Cambridgeshire • Your editorial is misleading in presenting as alternatives to the current chaos the combination of health and social care budgets and/or the integration of services for elderly people. Rather than alternatives, they instead act as diversions. The UK spends far less on both social care and healthcare than comparable countries, and little will be gained from pooling. The real issue is that without a secure long-term plan for social care (and the NHS) there will be insufficient investment by individuals, families, the private sector, the NHS and local authorities. Successive governments have avoided the issue, but the problem it creates is as follows. Without sufficient long-term funding and investment in social care, the increasing demographic pressures will require additional investment in hospitals in the short term. By clutching too long to the straw that investments in alternatives to hospitals will avoid this, and then failing to deliver these, successive governments have merely added to the total costs and misery. The latest miasma surrounding the potential for “transformationâ€\x9d of the NHS courtesy of the management consultancy industry and lots of earmarked money is a sure indication that the issue continues to be avoided. Only Sweden has fewer hospital beds than the UK, but it spends 10% of GDP extra on health and social care! There are no easy alternatives to reaching agreement on the long-term plan. Roger Steer Healthcare Audit Consultants  • Your editorial is right about the crisis but unduly pessimistic about the solution. Joining up health and social care budgets is not “too hardâ€\x9d. It does require political will and it will require some extra tax funding to make it happen. But it is the only way to create a fair, simple and sustainable care and health system that can meet the needs of our ageing population by supporting older people at or near their homes. To accept anything less will make today’s care crisis seem relatively minor by 2020. Stephen Burke Director, United for All Ages and Good Care Guide • Your editorial is right to identify the relationship between the NHS and adult social care, and highlight both their shared challenges, and that the coming year represents an opportunity to make decisions to help address them. The suggested macro solutions that you mention are welcome and necessary: combining budgets and integrating services. However, the article could have made explicit another linked and more tangible option that is crucial to the deliverability of the above. By expanding and scaling up the type of activities and approaches that are already delivering effective outcomes, we can keep more people out of hospital and reduce pressures on budgets. Options such as the Shared Lives model of care are already supporting around 13,000 people nationally to live good lives and avoid prolonged hospital or institutional care. Many other approaches across the country are focusing on local, citizen-led commissioning and are delivering spectacular results at a small scale. The five-year forward view, and the increasing engagement of CCGs locally in new ways of doing things, shows that this potential is recognised by the NHS and social care leaders. 2016 is the right time to embed this welcome approach even wider. Alex Fox Chief executive, Shared Lives Plus • The funding of social care is inadequate, causing distress to elderly and disabled people, and increased costs from bedblocking for insolvent NHS hospitals. Local government funding has been cut by 25% since 2010, with more cuts to come. However, the distribution of these cuts is grossly unequal. The principle of equalising local authority spending was abandoned in 2012-13. Consequently, deprived areas now get disproportionately bigger cuts in their allocations. The planned parsimony of government is deliberately cutting the funding of deprived areas such as Liverpool and Newcastle more than better-off areas. Who voted for increased inequality in one of the most unequal rich countries? Alan Maynard Emeritus professor of health economics, University of York • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 "Sadiq Khan's big city way could be Labour's way forward nationally Speaking to Sky News, Sadiq Khan has urged Theresa May to delay pressing the Brexit button - triggering Article 50, which starts the formal process of withdrawal from the EU - until next autumn, arguing that this would improve the UK’s chances of getting a decent deal. By way of Square Mile free sheet City AM, Khan’s deputy mayor for business, Rajesh Agrawal, has said that City Hall officials are talking to counterparts in Paris and other cities beyond Europe about building their own business relationships for the Brexit age. This is a developing theme. Within days of the referendum result in June, Khan joined with the City of London in calling for UK-regulated banks to retain their existing “passporting rightsâ€\x9d, the system that allows them to operate in the EU nations. Anything less would be “a disasterâ€\x9d, he said. More recently, he has reactivated the London Finance Commission, asking it to come up with further proposals for making London more autonomous, in the interests of the UK as a whole. He’s telling anyone who’ll listen that London Is Open. Khan is banging the devolution drum at every opportunity, seeking further scope for City Hall and the capital’s 33 local authorities to take command of the capital’s destiny. How far he will get depends heavily on how receptive the new prime minister and her colleagues are to his case, but it’s significant that the media as well as ministers are listening. That significance extends to the Labour Party. With its national leadership failing to provide effective opposition either in the House of Commons or the country at large, the views of Khan are seen as mattering still more. He is, after all, the Labour politician with the most power to put policies into effect and seems likely to remain so for some time. He should, though, have some company before long. Next May, counterpart “metro mayorsâ€\x9d are due to be elected to lead Greater Manchester and the Liverpool and West Midlands city regions. Labour’s candidates for those jobs, now selected, are strong favourites to win. Their powers will vary and differ from Khan’s, as will the types of territories they serve. They will, though, look to London as a model. They too will negotiate with the Conservative government about ways to make their economies stronger. They too will surely also look beyond Westminster to the wider, post-Brexit world in their searches for growth and prosperity. They and Khan could be the faces of Labour in power in Britain for many years to come.",
 "Donald Trump is technology's befuddled (but dangerous) grandfather Technology? Bah humbug: “I think we ought to get on with our lives,â€\x9d said Donald Trump on Wednesday, summing up his take on the complex problem of apparently Russian phishing attacks on multiple Democratic party groups during the 2016 election. As the White House’s current resident prepared to impose sanctions on Russia for hacking, Trump said: “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.â€\x9d It’s not the first time the president-elect has been stumped by the digital world, like a technophobe who unwrapped a computer-operated nuclear arsenal on Christmas morning. And the trouble isn’t that nobody knows exactly what’s going on in the “age of computerâ€\x9d – it’s that technology poses some of the most complex problems in human history to the incoming administration. And its leader is a man who refers to “the cyberâ€\x9d and seems more concerned about the weight of the hacker, or possibly the bed – his syntax is mysterious – than about who broke into the Democratic National Committee. US authorities spent 2016 attempting to chart new territory even beyond the DNC, DCCC and Clinton campaign hacks: how can Americans protect their infrastructure from attacks on the foundations of the internet, such as the Mirai botnet siege in October that took down some of the biggest, and most sophisticated, tech companies in the world? How can the nation’s patchwork of electoral authorities repair voting systems prone to massive, potentially catastrophic error? How should the government treat open-source encryption? Trump remains silent on the details of digital policy as the leader-to-be of a government in desperate need of consistent guiding principles. Instead, Trump appears to regard technology as a contact point for the same obsessions that drove his campaign. He is blase about warrantless surveillance – he has said it “would be fineâ€\x9d to restore the NSA’s bulk data collection programs, a position his pick for CIA director, Mike Pompeo, also endorses, as does Trump’s attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions. He is far more actively concerned about appearing stronger than his predecessor, Barack Obama, and as always about Chinese activity in cyberspace: Especially when they start “cyber hacking usâ€\x9d: He also occasionally made time during the campaign to mock opponent Hillary Clinton for getting sick and getting hacked: Trump has been general, albeit chilling, on the topic of what exactly his administration will do: as an extension of Trump’s ideology, information gathering will serve to do the unthinkable – his own word. “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before,â€\x9d he told Yahoo News. “And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.â€\x9d The apparent lack of interest in the minutiae of his own positions has left his administration’s tech strategy in the hands of Peter Thiel, the thin-skinned billionaire founder of PayPal who quietly bankrolled former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan’s annihilating lawsuit against news outlet Gawker, apparently in retaliation for an article about Thiel’s sexual orientation. Earlier this month, Thiel indulged Trump’s own grudge against Twitter during the president-elect’s “tech summitâ€\x9d at Trump Tower, shutting out the organization that provides Trump with his loudest megaphone reportedly because Twitter refused to add an emoji to the Trump campaign’s #CrookedHillary sponsored hashtag during the election. Another of Thiel’s companies, data-mining firm Palantir, already plays a powerful role: the company’s services are likely to be used in any effort to deport undocumented immigrants, according to multiple reports. But for the president-elect himself, technology appears to be yet another venue for increasingly dangerous hobbies including threats to cut programs that benefit US allies, brinksmanship with China and unraveling Obamacare. Trump calls net neutrality “a top-down power grabâ€\x9d that “will target conservative mediaâ€\x9d; he has often repeated his support for a registry of American Muslims, and generally demonstrates not merely a lack of proficiency in technology but a contempt for expertise. But like every rich guy who wants to stay that way, he keeps a couple of eggheads around, and between him and them, when it comes to tech policy they will make America … something. Possibly not great.",
 'Deadpool; Bone Tomahawk; Heart of a Dog; Nasty Baby; Alan Clarke at the BBC – review Superhero films, in all their Lycra-wrapped machismo, are easy enough for sceptics to mock; once the film-makers join in, however, a strained sense of regimented fun creeps into proceedings. So it is with Deadpool (Fox, 15), an eager but terminally smug exercise in self-aware Marvel prankery that leaves no fourth wall undemolished. Starring Ryan Reynolds as an ex-military victim of medical experimentation left with superhuman healing powers and super-irksome wisecracks, Tim Miller’s film follows the Kick-Ass course of self-covering provocation: sadism or sexism with a wink, it reasons, isn’t sadism or sexism. (Deadpool’s girlfriend may be a colourless stock figure, but she does get to sodomise him. Feminists, you are hereby appeased.) It feigns offensiveness, though only those appalled by hormonal schoolboys need take umbrage. Credit where it’s due to Reynolds, who sells the whole thing with smarm and charm that aren’t mutually exclusive, but this is a glib, greasy idea of fun. For violently funny subversion of Boy’s Own fare, look instead to Bone Tomahawk (The Works, 18), S Craig Zahler’s splendid, morbid revival of the cowboys and Indians western. The palefaces’ enemy this time is a fantastical tribe of mutant cannibals (“Men like you wouldn’t distinguish them from Indians,â€\x9d one Native American character pointedly observes) who kidnap some local townsfolk, setting sheriff Kurt Russell and his motley crew off in hard-squinting pursuit. Zahler has an adoring eye and ear for the idiom of Hollywood’s old west, with a salty, satirical streak that frankly outclasses Quentin Tarantino’s recent strain of pastiche. The film then thrillingly jackknifes into fresh, bloody B-movie terrain, yet even at its most viscerally grisly points, Zahler’s limber, literate way with language never deserts him: listen out especially for the sublime Richard Jenkins’s monologue about circus fleas. As beguiling as it is utterly classification-resistant, Laurie Anderson’s roving personal essay Heart of a Dog (Dogwoof, E) got a tad lost in cinemas last month, but should be cherished on small screens. Beginning as a grief-stricken Valentine to the film-maker’s late terrier, it unrolls with graceful imprecision into a meditation on narrative, music, philosophy, even the paranoia of post-9/11 America. Its cobweb connections make far more sense seen than described. Simpler in its sweetness is Our Little Sister (Curzon, PG), an unashamedly small tale of sibling bonds lost and found that accrues power with its accumulation of fine domestic (and fragrantly culinary) details. It’s less preoccupied with emotional escalation than some of director Hirokazu Koreeda’s more acclaimed works, and more moving for it. Far more acrid human observation is to be found in Chilean-American auteur Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby (Network, 15), in which a gay couple’s attempt to conceive a child with a female friend (Kristen Wiig) goes off course via a neck-snapping plot twist that I found at once exhilarating and unconvincing. Reissue of the week, by a long yard, is Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC (1969-1989) (BFI, 18), a mammoth compilation of the gut-spilling social realist’s collected TV dramas, alongside his feature films Scum and The Firm, here presented in a new director’s cut. The total comes to 13 discs, 33 hours and more than a hundred quid; an investment for the committed, not the curious. I’m still working my way through, but it’s a stunning assembly: the cleaned-up transfers haven’t lightened the dirt under these films’ nails one bit. Finally, you have just over two weeks left to head to Mubi.com and stream the year’s most dizzying swirl of cinema so far: Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights trilogy, a bounding, incandescent triptych of films themselves composed of profuse interlocking parts, addressing history, mythology and contemporary European economics through its own eccentric version of Scheherazade’s storybook. There are chaffinches and ghost dogs here; Gomes juggles personal and political grievances here, finding room for love, law and Lionel Richie. At over six hours, it sounds imposing, but proves a leisurely, enveloping wallow.',
 'Trump seeking quickest way to quit Paris climate agreement, says report Donald Trump is looking at quick ways of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement in defiance of widening international backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters has reported. Since the US president-elect was chosen, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement at 200-nation climate talks running until 18 November in Marrakesh, Morocco. But, according to Reuters, a source in the Trump transition team said the victorious Republican, who has called global warming a hoax, was considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord. “It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election,â€\x9d said the source, who works on Trump’s transition team for international energy and climate policy, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Paris agreement went into force on 4 November, four days before last Tuesday’s election. Alternatives were to send a letter withdrawing from a 1992 convention that is the parent treaty of the Paris agreement, voiding US involvement in both in a year’s time, or to issue a presidential order simply deleting the US signature from the Paris accord, the source told Reuters. Many nations have expressed hopes the United States will stay. Morocco, the host for the talks, said the agreement that seeks to phase out greenhouse gases in the second half of the century was strong enough to survive a pullout. “If one party decides to withdraw that it doesn’t call the agreement into question,â€\x9d foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar told a news conference. Despite the threat of a US withdrawal, US secretary of state John Kerry said on Sunday that he would continue his efforts to implement the Paris agreement until Barack Obama leaves office on 20 January. Speaking in New Zealand following a trip to Antarctica, Kerry appeared to take a swipe at Trump when he listed some of the ways in which global warming could already be seen. He said that there were more fires, floods and damaging storms around the world, and sea levels were rising. “The evidence is mounting in ways that people in public life should not dare to avoid accepting as a mandate for action,â€\x9d Kerry said. “Now the world’s scientific community has concluded that climate change is happening beyond any doubt. And the evidence is there for everybody to see,â€\x9d Kerry said. The Paris agreement was reached by almost 200 nations in December and, as of Saturday, has been formally ratified by 109 representing 76% of greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States with 18%. The accord seeks to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels to limit rising temperatures that have been linked to increasing economic damage from desertification, extinctions of animals and plants, heat waves, floods and rising sea levels. United Nations climate chief Patricia Espinosa declined to comment on the Trump source’s remarks to Reuters. “The Paris agreement carries an enormous amount of weight and credibility,â€\x9d she told a news conference. She said the UN hoped for a strong and constructive relationship with Trump. The Trump source blamed US president Barack Obama for joining up by an executive order, without getting approval from the Senate. “There wouldn’t be this diplomatic fallout on the broader international agenda if Obama hadn’t rushed the adoption,â€\x9d he said.',
 'The future of shopping: drones, digital mannequins and leaving without paying Amazon may be set to bring its hi-tech till-free stores to the UK after registering the Amazon Go brand name in the UK last week. At the test store near Amazon’s HQ in Seattle, an app tracks customers as they walk about, recording the items they pick up and take away. The store is currently only available to company staff, but will open to shoppers from next year. The cost of purchases will be automatically billed to their account. The company has registered the Amazon Go trademark in the UK for an extensive list of potential uses, from technology, telecommunications and retail services to food and drink services and even pet food. The retailer claims the Amazon Go store is “the world’s most advanced shopping technologyâ€\x9d but other businesses are also trialling shop-assistant-free concepts. The Näraffär convenience store based in an isolated village in Sweden, for example, relies on a mobile app which lets residents access the store, scan their shopping and then pay via a monthly invoice. They’re part of a wave of new gadgetry which could dramatically change the way we shop: Robot assistants Some may argue that many stores have these already, but retailers are moving on, with a view to replacing staff with sophisticated software. The American DIY chain Lowe’s is testing LoweBot, a customer service robot that speaks several languages, helps shoppers find items and provides information on products. First trialled as OSHbot two years ago, it is currently being tested in 11 Lowe’s stores. US electricals retailer Best Buy has Chloe, a robot that is a glorified grabber arm for CDs and DVDs, while Aldebaran Robotics, part of the Japanese telecoms firm Softbank, has created Pepper, a humanoid robot which has been deployed in some Nescafé stores in Japan. Some US shopping centres are even adopting robotic security guards – a cross between a CCTV camera and a Dalek that can detect people who may be loitering in the wrong place and read car number plates in car parks. But it’s not all been straightforward: a robot guarding a shopping centre in California recently ran over a toddler after its navigational scanning systems failed to detect the small boy. A virtual you For many shoppers, buying clothes online is a very hit-and-miss affair. Sizes vary between outlets and getting the right fit means many clothing items are returned – which is bad for both the shopper and the shopkeeper. That could change thanks to new software that creates an accurate 3D model of the shopper, meaning it is possible to “try onâ€\x9d clothes. Cambridge based startup Metail, which has raised $20m to date and is backed by Hong Kong clothing giant Tal, is setting the pace. The company’s technology can be plugged into retailers’ websites so customers can create what it calls “Me Modelsâ€\x9d as well as 3D images of the products on sale. Shoppers can then find out if a pair of tight jeans will give them a muffin top. Retailers will also be able to use customer data to suggest outfits, creating a “Netflix styleâ€\x9d shopping experience. Digital butlers Doing the shopping may soon require nothing other than a shiny little box. Nearly all the major tech firms, including Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook, are developing digital home assistants that respond to voice commands. As an online retailer, it’s not surprising that Amazon has ensured its Echo device is easy to shop with – thanks to the Alexa app, which lets you shout out a shopping list, to add to a virtual trolley, as you walk around the house. Eventually these assistants should learn what you want and when you want it without commands. But these devices may be very shortlived – because home appliances like fridges, coffee machines and printers have already been developed that are linked to the internet so they can automatically replenish themselves without any interaction with their owner. Drone deliveries As retail sales increasingly transfer from the high street to the internet, one of the biggest problems for retailers is making deliveries. In busy cities where traffic congestion is a problem, one solution already being tested is using drones. In the summer, Amazon started working with the UK government to test the viability of delivering small parcels – which make up 90% of Amazon’s sales – by drone. In the US, Mercedes-Benz is collaborating with drone startup Matternet on the “Vision Vanâ€\x9d, where a vehicle’s roof doubles as a launch pad for drones capable of sorties of up to 12 miles. Google has also shown off a fixed-wing drone capable of carrying packages. However, beyond the special testing privileges granted to Amazon, current UK legislation bans drones from being flown within 50 metres of a building or a person, or within 150 metres of a built-up area. Aircraft pilots have also expressed concern about the dangers posed by drones after a number of near-misses in London and Manchester.',
 'Sacha Baron Cohen has trashed Grimsby – but these places had it far worse After painting Kazakhstan as an atavistic hole of Jew-haters, inbreeders and clock-radio coveters in Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is poised in his new film to besmirch the reputation of Lincolnshire’s most self-flagellatingly named estuarial port town, Grimsby. Chav Central seems to be the keynote. No one in current cinema trashes a place quite like Baron Cohen – but there have been plenty of outstanding demolition jobs, like the 10 below. Merely kitchen-sink or “authenticâ€\x9d treatments didn’t cut it for the list – contenders had to demonstrate actual malicious, distorting and/or resident-slandering intent. The Australian outback (Wake in Fright) The Aussie wastes are always foreboding on film. But they become a perpetually hungover, exit-less purgatory in this 1971 Ozploitation classic in which a schoolteacher en route to Sydney gets waylaid in the mining town of Bundanyabba (AKA “the Yabbaâ€\x9d). The sickening amount of West End lager consumed amid the endless gambling sessions and kangaroo pogroms ranks as the most counterproductive example of product placement ever. Georgia, USA (Deliverance) Come to Georgia! Tackle the thorny hillbilly accent! Pit yourself against ominous banjo-playing idiot savants! Step into the wilderness and find yourself the sexual plaything of devious, dentally challenged mountain men! Bizarrely, John Boorman’s anti-tourist board ad actually increased interest in the southern state, sparking a whitewater rafting boom on the Chattooga river for those coming to hear the surrounding hills echoing with the sounds of evil redneck chuckling. Chinatown, everywhere (Chinatown) No one is denying that Chinatowns worldwide have the odd problem with organised crime and food-standards violations. They didn’t ask, though, to be made into some kind of international byword for total spiritual perdition. Orientalists everywhere thrilled to the climax of 1947’s The Lady from Shanghai when Orson Welles’ protagonist is spun around in front of Asian eyes (inscrutable, of course). But, setting PI Jake Gittes on a similar trajectory, Roman Polanski’s 70s Los Angeles masterpiece takes the misfortune cookie. Message: “Your grandad’s also your dad.â€\x9d The Scottish Highlands (Breaking the Waves) Like Colorado in Dogville, Lars von Trier gives the impression of never having set foot in the real north of Scotland, lest it complicate a picture-postcard conceptual backdrop for his favourite hobby: subjecting his lead character to a set of directorial ordeals. The stony-faced Calvinist elders and feral schoolchildren who prowled the land and dead-eyed rapey sailors lurking offshore were supposedly from the 1970s. Were it not for Emily Watson’s PVC skirt, the red phonebox, and Bowie and Elton on the soundtrack, you’d have mistaken it for the 1770s. Swansea (Twin Town) Renton and crew operated in Edinburgh’s margins, but the leering, droog-eyed brothers at the heart of the “Welsh Trainspottingâ€\x9d are practically mascots of a “pretty shitty cityâ€\x9d. Kevin Allen’s Swansea is a beacon of cheerful hypocrisy; a place where rugby balls come stuffed full of coke, and the timeless pillars of Welsh life conceal a hotbed of joyriding, piss-drizzled karaoke and routine caninocide. Mogadishu, Somalia (Black Hawk Down) The Somalian capital city was admittedly no Viennese ballroom in the early 90s, when the UN peacekeeping mission went belly-up. But so one-sided was Ridley Scott’s account of one bad-tempered afternoon there, the entire urban infrastructure seems to exist solely to spew out a 28 Days Later-like stream of AK-toting fanatics who’ve been waiting all their lives to tear off a piece of a helicopter rotor. Another little-known Mogadishu fact unearthed by Scott: unusually for a city in the midst of the famously homogenous Horn of Africa gene pool, it is entirely populated by people from other parts of Africa. Paris (Irréversible) Hub of the Enlightenment, city of romance, home of button-cute Amélie Poulain – all rendered null and void as Gaspar Noé reduces the Paris street map to one sulphurous red underpass and forces us to watch nine minutes of rape and battery. Everyone would have settled for some unconvincing, Daft Punk-soundtracked mime instead. After that, it’s an impossibly long road back to heaven in his metaphysical journey through one night out in the capital. Romania (The Romanian new wave) This artistic vanguard swept the cobwebs of Transylvanian gothic cool away and, in a series of bleak but devastating noughties films, made the eastern European country known for something else: being a traumatised, towerblock-palisaded post-commie fiefdom in which if you weren’t literally dying (The Death of Mr Lazarescu), you could while away your allotted span on earth hunting down a backstreet abortion (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), denying your sexuality in a convent (Beyond the Hills), or suffering slow bureaucratic strangulation (Police, Adjective). Slovakia (Hostel) American xenophobia is a well-trodden story route, but Eli Roth really ran with it in the 2005 film that inaugurated the movie genre known as torture porn. Of course the whole of the European hospitality industry is some kind of sinister conspiratorial network designed to entrap gullible fratboy backpackers. Where else but darkest newly capitalistic eastern Europe, trafficking in every base human impulse, would host a sinister white-collar murder ring? Naturally one of the participants bears a striking resemblance to a famously unhinged Japanese director: pass me the cheesewire, eh, Miike? Bruges (In Bruges) “If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.â€\x9d Thanks to writer/director Martin McDonagh’s un-PC exuberance, Colin Farrell tramples all over chocolate-box Belgium; a heritage honeypot so boring that it appeals only to the unhinged inner child in Ralph Fiennes’ warbly-voiced psychopath mobster. “How can fucking swans not fucking be someone’s fucking thing?â€\x9d How indeed. • Grimsby is released on 24 February.',
 'Arsène Wenger pleased Arsenal now have the experience to win ugly Plan B. For so many years, that concept was lobbed at Arsène Wenger come times of trouble in accusing tones. Plan B was the thing that Arsenal did not have and, on the occasions when their passing game did not click, when their creativity was squeezed, when their fluency dried up, Plan B taunted them by its very absence. In the last couple of matches Arsenal have needed something from the Plan B school. These were games three and four of the mini-series over Christmas and new year where tiredness, the lack of options to rotate because of injuries and a hint of knocked momentum inflicted by that 4-0 thumping at Southampton, meant Arsenal were not at their best. In both games the breakthrough came from a defender, whose determination to make a difference from a set piece paved the way for three precious points. After Gabriel powered in a header against Bournemouth Laurent Koscielny bounded into position to give Arsenal the edge over Newcastle. Wenger is not the type naturally to love a game that depends on dredging up reserves of effort. But his satisfaction was obvious at the end of a hard-fought victory because of everything it told him about the spirit of his team. “You fight, not to concede a goal, not panic and wait for your chance. We were more questioned on that aspect than the way we play football so it is good sometimes to win like that. Watching Newcastle I was impressed by them,â€\x9d noted Wenger. “I think a team has always a charisma. If you look at the team as a unit, it is like a person. From the vibes coming out you can sense if there is something in there or not.â€\x9d He feels there is more in there now than with the younger teams he had in recent years. “In my job if you don’t believe in your team you are in a bad shape,â€\x9d he says. “I think they are more experienced now. When we moved into the stadium here, on the day we could play everybody off the park but, when you had to dig deep, come out with your knowledge and your experience, it was a bit more difficult.â€\x9d With the exception of Héctor BellerÃ\xadn (aged 20) and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (22) the average age of the rest of Arsenal’s starting XI against Newcastle was 29. They needed plenty of collective knowhow to withstand some exciting moments from Newcastle, who broke with verve at times, before finding their decisive goal. There was promising movement and a cluster of chances were created when the attacking trio of Moussa Sissoko, Georginio Wijnaldum and Ayoze Pérez roaming behind Aleksandar Mitrovic got into their stride. Newcastle have to cling to the positive signs but at some stage soon they need to add a ruthless edge. Steve McClaren put on a brave face afterwards but it was not easy to take another harsh example of how performances do not always get rewarded in the hard currency of Premier League points. “We just have got to keep performing like that and keep believing, even though we keep getting knock-backs, especially in the last three games,â€\x9d he said. “I cannot fault the players or their attitudes. The last three games we have lost 1-0 and had good chances to score first but we’ve not. That is why we have lost them. If we had had Olivier Giroud, I think we would have comfortably won the game. “That’s the difference in football and everybody is always searching for that. Papiss Cissé, who is a goalscorer, is out for the next two or three months. We have got other goalscorers – we have just got to step to the plate and start scoring. Doing our job.â€\x9d Newcastle are actively searching for striking reinforcements in the winter transfer window. “We have been working behind the scenes. We will do tirelessly,â€\x9d added McClaren. Rather like Wenger – albeit in rather different circumstances – McClaren is counting on the spirit he likes the look of to carry his team in the right direction. Man of the match Petr Cech (Arsenal)',
 'Consumer watchdog warns against 2018 deadline for PPI claims The City regulator’s plan to set a 2018 deadline for payment protection insurance claims is “ill-judgedâ€\x9d and would set a dangerous precedent, according to consumer body Which? Last year the Financial Conduct Authority set out plans to impose a two-year time limit on PPI claims, drawing a line under the financial industry’s costliest mis-selling scandal. By the end of 2015 the total amount set aside by the big five banks for PPI compensation had reached £32bn, with more than £3bn paid out to customers last year alone, prompting Which? to claim that the scandal “is far from overâ€\x9d. The FCA said it would run an advertising campaign to encourage customers to bring forward any remaining claims. But Which? said a two-year time limit would “result in banks having little incentive to pay out compensation swiftly and directly to consumers in any future mis-selling scandalsâ€\x9d. The consumer body added: “It is clear that banks should do more to make their processes for handling PPI complaints simpler and fairer.â€\x9d The consumer body said that before the FCA goes ahead with any proposals for a time limit, it should bring in a simpler process for making a claim, with banks required to accept complaints electronically. It should also tighten up the regulation of claims management companies, making directors personally accountable if firms break the rules relating to nuisance calls. The FCA also called for the publication of more information about how firms have handled claims to date, the amount of redress outstanding, and how the FCA will judge the time limit to be a success.',
 'Mark Noble counts his spot luck as West Ham see off bullish Burnley The demeanour was no less hangdog, but Slaven Bilic’s words were upbeat at last as he was able to celebrate a rare home Premier League victory. Mark Noble’s first-half goal, tucking away the rebound of his own saved penalty, earned West Ham three points in an unremarkable but unrelenting encounter with Burnley in which the home side dominated the first half only for the visitors to spring back in the second. “It’s a very important and a very hard-fought three points,â€\x9d Bilic said after the match. “It was a very long game. I think we deserved it. There were two different halves. In the first it was all us, we hit the post twice and we had many shots. Not many clear-cut chances but we controlled the game. We had two penalty appeals, one was given, and I think we should have been two up.â€\x9d His summary was spot on. West Ham recorded 72% possession in the first half but, even with Andy Carroll restored to the starting lineup, failed to open up a resolute Burnley backline. That was not necessarily a disaster for a team with West Ham’s skill set, however, so well stocked are they with long-range shooters, and both Pedro Obiang and Noble duly hit the woodwork from distance before half-time. The goal came in injury time in the first half and from a Dimitri Payet corner, after the Frenchman, who lasted the full 90 mintues, found Carroll with his cross. The forward’s header went straight towards Tom Heaton, but the Burnley keeper seemed to be impeded by Michail Antonio and could not get to the ball. Instead it bounced back into the path of Winston Reid and, unwilling to give him a shooting opportunity, Ben Mee pulled the New Zealander to the ground. The referee, Robert Madley, awarded the penalty and Noble turned it in at the second attempt after his first was well saved by Heaton. For Sean Dyche it was a goal that should never have been given. “It was a clear foul on Tom Heaton,â€\x9d said the Burnley manager of Antonio’s block. “It’s very frustrating. Every other keeper goes on his back, flails around on the floor and it’s given. Because ours do it the proper way … now we’re called naive. You know, it used to be applauded when you played the game properly.â€\x9d After a digression into the history of challenges on goalkeepers – “It’s not 1972 any more, not that I’m old enough to remember thatâ€\x9d – Dyche went on to praise his side for their second-half improvement and declared himself disappointed not to be leaving with a point. “We had three big, big chances in the second half,â€\x9d Dyche said. “Sam Vokes should have scored from a header, Andre Gray was an inch away from connecting in the six-yard box and Michael Keane had a chance from a set play. The clarity came back in the second half. We work hard, try to win every game and there’s been some good signs [in our away form].â€\x9d Next up for Burnley are Spurs at White Hart Lane on Sunday. West Ham, meanwhile, welcome Hull City to the London Stadium and, after Wednesday night, the chance to secure back-to-back wins. But after speaking last week of his side’s need for a “clean sheet mentalityâ€\x9d, Bilic believes his team must also shake off the mental “crampâ€\x9d that afflicted them in the second half here. “I praised the players: the spirit, the mentality the clean sheet, all of that,â€\x9d he said. “But I saw the cramp, the fear of winning. That cramp can only go away with climbing up the table but we managed it today and hopefully this should put us in a position that on Saturday we go in with less of that cramp and more confidence.â€\x9d',
 "Could Margot Robbie's all-female superhero movie be DC's trump card? Angry Comics Guy is no newcomer to geek culture. You may have met him in an online forum, berating female cosplayers for dressing “sluttilyâ€\x9d while defending the right of comic book artists to paint female superheroes with overly sexualised body shapes. He might be hanging around the comments section of an article on the latest X-Men movie, pointing out the differences between the film adaptation and its original print incarnation. But the version of Angry Comics Guy who’s been most prominent in recent weeks has been the DC Comics fan who simply refuses to accept the many failings of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The critics are being paid to promote movies from rival studio Marvel, he cries. Zack Snyder has been unfairly dismissed because his peculiar brand of violent, visceral (yet strangely humourless) film-making does not fit the media’s view of how comic book movies should look in the post-Avengers era. Marvel’s own take on the superhero smackdown movie, Captain America: Civil War, has been unfairly painted as a masterpiece when it’s really just over-hyped trash. The good news is that Angry Comics Guy (DC fan version) may soon have good reason to stop getting so upset. Because for every Warner Bros-produced movie that looks a bit like Batman v Superman, there seems to be one that looks a whole lot more like David Ayer’s hugely anticipated Suicide Squad. And if you believe a new story from the Hollywood Reporter, it’s only going to get better. According to the site, Margot Robbie is keen to follow up her debut as Harley Quinn in the comic book ensemble with her own outing as the Joker’s colourful paramour, backed by a plethora of female heroes and villains from the DC universe such as Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Poison Ivy, Katana and Bumblebee. Why is this such a big win for DC fans? For a start, it’s a sign that Warner might be waking up to the real strength of the DC back catalogue, to titles born in the 90s rather than the 40s and 50s, to the female-focused stories of the hugely popular DC SuperHero Girls line rather than endlessly regurgitated Batman and Superman tales. This, after all, is an area where DC has shown itself to be ahead of the curve in print, via groundbreaking series such as the 2011 reintroduction of Batgirl as a post-paraplegic Barbara Gordon. The news also comes on the same day that Iron Man 3 director Shane Black accused unnamed Marvel bosses of refusing him permission to use a female villain in the Robert Downey Jr blockbuster for fear of losing out on toy sales. It’s a strange story, because the character who ended up as the bad guy – Aldrich Killian, played by Guy Pearce – is pretty much unavailable as a toy. Perhaps Marvel at one point hoped to sell Mandarin playthings, since Killian ends up being exposed as Iron Man’s traditional nemesis in the movie, but the decision still seems bizarre on all counts. On the other hand, this is the same company that swapped out Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow for Captain America when selling toys based on a key motorbike scene in last year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. Black makes it clear in his comments that the Marvel executive responsible for defeminizing Iron Man 3 (Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen is also said to have lost lines) was not Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. But the revelations will still heap pressure on the Disney-owned unit to prove it doesn’t have a problem with women. So far, the only female-led superhero movie on Marvel’s forthcoming slate is 2019’s Captain Marvel. Still, no director has been named, and the studio hasn’t yet announced who will play the hero otherwise known as Carol Danvers. Only last week, Feige hinted that a Johansson-led Black Widow movie is top of the studio’s wishlist. Yet Marvel has greenlit eight movies led by male superheroes for debut between now and 2020, so why the holdup on confirming concrete plans for one of its more popular costumed titans? Meanwhile, it looks like Warner’s DC-based universe might be ready to steal a march. The studio recently wrapped on Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, with Israeli actor Gal Gadot reprising her popular turn from Dawn of Justice, and now looks set to make Robbie’s sweetly poisonous Quinn the mainstay of future films before we’ve even seen more than a few clips from Suicide Squad. Let’s hope Warner has seen Ayer’s movie and knows it has a hit on its hands – though that was also the ultimately failed theory about Batman v Superman. The veteran geek blogger Drew McWeeny recently published a powerful cri de coeur calling on Marvel and DC Comics fans to stop their petty squabbling and learn to enjoy the sheer breadth of comic book stories currently making their way to the big screen. From this perspective, elevating Quinn to centre stage in the DC ’verse is surely just as exciting a development as Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool smashing R-rated records for 20th Century Fox, or Tom Holland’s Spider-Man stealing scenes like a boss in Civil War. The future is looking both bright and diverse, and DC suddenly looks ready to lead the way by stepping into uncharted territory where its rivals fear to tread. Surely even Angry Comics Guy ought to be happy about that.",
 "New test 'detects genes for every known inherited heart condition' A blood test has been created that can detect all known inherited heart condition genes, boosting the prospects of diagnosing potentially fatal defects, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) said. By identifying 174 genes related to 17 inherited heart defects, which affect more than half a million people in the UK and are often the cause of unexplained sudden deaths, the assessment should help people obtain appropriate treatment. The research, published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research on Friday, has already led to the test being introduced at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS foundation trust – where about 40 patients a month are being assessed for an inherited heart condition (IHC). The hope is that it will eventually be adopted by NHS labs across the country. Dr James Ware, one of the lead researchers on the study at Imperial College London and the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, said: “It’s really hard to overstate the importance of genetic testing when you’re managing a family with IHCs. “I often will find a young father or mother having recently lost their partner to an IHC and worried that their children will be next. Ware, who also a consultant cardiologist at Royal Brompton hospital, added: “There’s almost no way I can prove their children don’t have the condition because even if they don’t now they could develop it later. But if you can do a genetic test it becomes very easy to say ‘you’re at risk’ or ‘you’re absolutely clear’.â€\x9d The research, funded by the BHF and the Health Innovation Challenge Fund grant – a partnership between the Department of Health and the Wellcome Trust – was the result of an international collaboration between UK and Singaporean researchers. The test is cheaper and more effective than existing assessments, which look at a smaller number of genes and only identify specific conditions. Ware said it also has the benefit of being “off the shelfâ€\x9d so that other experts can develop it. This means that as other genes are identified as being linked to IHCs, they too can be incorporated into the test. IHCs affect the heart and circulatory system, are passed down through families and can affect people of any age. Last year, Sir David Frost’s son Miles died, aged 31, having not been told he was at risk from the congenital heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), believed to be inherited from his father. Last month his family launched a fund in Miles’s memory, aiming to to raise £1.5m to ensure that genetic testing for immediate family members of those affected by HCM is available nationwide. Diagnosing the exact condition and gene causing an IHC are key to effective treatment. If effective, genetic testing on family members can identify those who carry the faulty gene and steps can be taken to reduce the risk of sudden death, such as surgery, medication – for example beta blockers – or lifestyle changes. Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, said: “In this rapidly evolving field of research the aim is to achieve ever greater diagnostic accuracy at ever-reducing cost. “This research represents an important step along this path. It means that a single test may be able to identify the causative gene mutation in someone with an inherited heart condition thereby allowing their relatives to be easily tested for the same gene.â€\x9d",
 'Tech must offer hope to all, not a privileged few In July President Barack Obama addressed the national convention of the Democratic Party and ended perhaps the last great speech of his tenure by returning to the theme of “the audacity of hopeâ€\x9d. Stark dividing lines have been drawn in the US election contest between hope and fear, between a yearning for simpler times and a belief that the best is yet to come. It is not hard to draw a parallel with some of Britain’s own political challenges; the tension between those excited by a more global and connected future and those who fear being left behind in this brave new world. Much has been written about how to make globalisation work for all, and a solution remains elusive. A challenge we can meaningfully wrestle with as an industry is how we make an increasingly connected society work for the many, making technology a source of hope, not a source of anxiety and exclusion. The internet has arguably been one of the most powerful forces for democratisation the world has ever known, giving a voice and opening a market to many who were previously disenfranchised. Platforms from TXTBKS, which provides old sim cards into condensed text books for underprivileged schoolchildren to crisis-mapping software Ushahidi show the potential of the simplest technologies to make major differences. Yet within our own society we have been slow to make innovation relevant and accessible to those most apprehensive about or underserved by new technologies, to tackle real, everyday problems such as access to credit, access to a GP within an overloaded NHS, or access to meaningful roles within a fast-changing labour market. The fintech industry for example can often seem preoccupied with wooing millennials with slick data visualisations and effortless mobile transactions. Yet 1.5 million adults in the UK do not have access to a bank account – while 1.8 million a year access payday loans in the absence of more affordable credit. With high street branches closing at ever faster rates, the digital banking revolution can exclude those most in need of assistance. Yet the technology exists to make access to banking services and credit possible without access to a traditional bank account. Services such as Kenya’s MPesa enable any user with access to a mobile phone to deposit and transfer funds, no bank account required. Meanwhile almost half of finance executives surveyed believe blockchain technology will mean “the end of banking as we know itâ€\x9d, creating entirely new models for the transfer of funds. How then can we apply these technologies to providing accessible and affordable credit to those in immediate need, or to ensuring urgent benefit payments are as swiftly available as possible? In the realm of healthcare, private enterprises in the US are applying the Uber model to medicine via apps such as Heal and Pager which identify the nearest doctor, their ratings and reputation and their price for a real-time consultation. Could we apply the same principle to clusters of local surgeries within the NHS, enabling patients to identify the nearest available appointment to them, dynamically updated to take account of changes and cancellations? Once hailed as an empowering force for change, the gig economy has come under fire in recent months over working conditions and the status of workers. Perhaps a more equitable and interesting approach is to ask how traditional infrastructure and traditional roles can be re-purposed – meeting the needs of the on-demand economy in a different way. Pass my Parcel, a venture from distribution firm Smiths News, works with independent local stores to facilitate same day delivery on behalf of Amazon. Retailers receive a small fee for each parcel collected, and increased footfall in store while Amazon receive an increased footprint for same-day delivery services. New technology leveraging traditional infrastructure. In a similar vein, The School in the Cloud takes advantage of dormant skills in retirees to facilitate remote learning among some of the world’s most underprivileged children, tapping into a resource that might otherwise be unused and undervalued. Yet there is no reason a similar principle cannot be applied more broadly. Imagine the impact on an over-burdened education system of thousands of retired teachers, craftspeople, scientists or writers signing up to provide even an hour or two of virtual tuition a week. In a nutshell, imagine a world where we stop designing products and services with young, urban and affluent populations at the forefront of our minds. They won’t mind – they’ve got Pokemon to catch. The opportunity is to design services that are simple, scalable and solve real problems; so how do we make it a reality? The team behind Gov.uk have done an extraordinary job in making it simpler to access government information and services. Is the next phase of that journey to move beyond making existing services accessible and towards developing new service propositions? Or can the private sector lead the way, re-engineering the on-demand economy to be not just egalitarian but genuinely fair for both workers and consumers? Either way, there is a genuine opportunity for the tech community to prove that it is not a “liberal eliteâ€\x9d designing for fellow liberal elites but a community committed to making technology a force for hope, not just a force for change. As the founding father of the web once put itas he live-tweeted during the London 2012 Olympics, “This is for everyoneâ€\x9d. Patricia McDonald is chief strategy officer at Isobar To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for byâ€\x9d – find out more here.',
 "Health chiefs warn of 'reckless’ cuts in student nurse funding Britain’s major health organisations have called on the government to put a stop to “recklessâ€\x9d plans to reform student nurse funding in the current climate of uncertainty and NHS staff shortages. Led by the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Patients Association, a coalition of more than 20 charities, medical and professional bodies and trade unions today releases an open letter to David Cameron saying that moves to drop funding for student nurses and midwives are an “untested gambleâ€\x9d. Currently open to a 12-week consultation, which closes on 30 June, the proposals include dropping bursaries to support nurses during their training and switching them to student loans – something health experts warn will risk reducing the supply of future nurses, midwives and other health workers when they are desperately needed. They are asking the prime minister to fully consider the impact on patient care in England. Training for nurses had been treated differently to other higher and further education courses precisely to help reverse the shortages. The organisations highlight the “worrying lack of clarity or consultation about the effect that funding changes could have on those who need to train for more advanced or specialist roles, such as health visitors or district nursesâ€\x9d. It comes as an RCN survey points to a dramatic fall in the number of school nurses, with almost a third working unpaid overtime every day to keep up with their workload. In figures released for its national conference this weekend, the RCN said its research showed the number of school nursing posts had fallen by 10% since 2010, leaving 2,700 school nurses now caring for more than nine million pupils, despite a rising incidence in issues, especially in mental health, among children. More than two-thirds (68%) of those surveyed said there were insufficient school nursing services in their area to provide the support that children and young people need, 70% said their workload was too heavy, and 28% work over their contracted hours on a daily basis. More than a third (39%) said they had insufficient resources to do their jobs effectively. An average of at least three children in every classroom now suffer from a mental health problem. Janet Davies, chief executive of the RCN, said: “There are huge variations in care across the country and far too many vulnerable children are not getting the support they need. School nurses have the skills and experience to provide a wide range of mental health support, from counselling to promoting healthy lifestyles. But there are too few, and they are too stretched. All children deserve access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time. Only by investing in school nursing and wider mental health services can this crisis be tackled and children be given the best chance of leading happy and healthy lives.â€\x9d About 0.7% of NHS funding is spent on young people’s mental health, and 23% of young people asking for help are being turned away from local mental health services. A government spokesman said: “We are putting a record £1.4bn into transforming the support available to young people in every area of the country. This funding will help recruit more staff and create improved training that school nurses can access. We are working with NHS England to strengthen the links between schools and mental health services through a £3m pilot, and are investing £1.5m on developing peer-support networks in schools.â€\x9d The Department of Health said: “Our plans mean up to 10,000 more training places by the end of this parliament, with student nurses getting around 25% more financial support while they study.â€\x9d But health professionals say in their letter that plans to switch to loans “could disproportionately affect more mature students, women, students with children and those who already have a degree, people who have always made up an important part of the NHS workforce. “Many will be unwilling or unable to take on even more debt. These plans are a short-sighted attempt to solve a long-term and complicated problem. They have not been properly risk-assessed and continuing with them as they stand would be nothing short of reckless.â€\x9d",
 "Why I've seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens seven times Until recently, the film I had seen most often at the cinema was James Cameron’s Avatar, of which I cranked out six viewings in the sweltering Melbourne summer of 2009 when I was without an air conditioner (and also because I love the film; more on that later). But that record was toppled on Wednesday when I watched JJ Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the seventh time (I expect I’ll tap out at eight). Poetically, the following day the ongoing space opera nabbed another, arguably more momentous win over Avatar, as the all-time champion of the US box office. For those keeping track of my viewing habits, so far the tally has consisted of one “Vmaxâ€\x9d session (at 12:01am on 17 December – first in the country), three “Xtreme Screenâ€\x9d sessions, two Imax viewings and even one in a plain old, ordinary movie theatre. Seeing a film multiple times at the cinema isn’t born of some sort of Starship Troopers-esque “I’m doing my partâ€\x9d approach to fandom, whereby I have to “helpâ€\x9d the film succeed. (Indeed, I’m fairly certain The Force Awakens will be OK even if I’d seen it a sum total of none times.) It’s more about taking the time to fully appreciate a film on every level. My list of most-seen films isn’t necessarily heavy on blockbusters, anyway. (To get semantical for a moment, in my books you “seeâ€\x9d a movie at the cinema and you “watchâ€\x9d a film at home.) Yes, there’s The Force Awakens (7+) and Avatar (6), but there’s also Inglourious Basterds (5), American Hustle (4), Pineapple Express (4, three of which were within 48 hours and not in any way fuelled by secret herbs and spices, ahem) and A Prophet (3), among others. My approach varies from film to film, but tends to unfold something like this: the first screening is for the immediate emotional reaction, then I return to take in the plot, unfettered by the stress of wondering what’s going to happen. (A 2011 study by UC San Diego researchers demonstrated that people enjoyed stories more when they had the endings “spoiledâ€\x9d, so my approach is backed up by hard science, clearly.) Contrary to popular thought, the emotional impact of a film isn’t lessened over multiple screenings; if anything, it starts to emerge in unexpected ways as you sit back and let the film wash over you (again and again). Once I’m on top of the plot, it’s time to relax and choose a different thing to explore each time: what’s happening in the background? What are the production design details I missed? If it’s a film I might want to recreate a costume from, what specifics can I pick up about seams, zips, pleats, weathering or fabric? Don’t believe me? Having now seen The Force Awakens more times than it’s had major premiere events, I can tell you that the meal Rey is eating at Maz Kanata’s tavern looks like a halved horned melon stuffed with a romanesco broccoli floret and a sprig of dill, and that Rey’s tabard is pleated, not draped, and tacked in place over the shoulders. Also, Kylo Ren’s sleeves have a zipper at the seam. You’re welcome! Indeed, I stopped wearing my Rey costume to see The Force Awakens after the fourth screening because I was beginning to get horrifically embarrassed about its lack of screen accuracy (in my defence, I did make it for the Melbourne premiere with only the trailers and posters as my guide). Screen accuracy is in the eye of the beholder, however, and it didn’t stop little girls from rushing up to me for photos in the candy bar or whispering “it’s Reyâ€\x9d as they passed me on the escalators. Primarily, however, my tendency to see films a bunch in cinemas is precisely that: because films are made to be seen in cinemas. That might seem a hopelessly old-fashioned statement in an era where we can watch Netflix on our phones, but really: are you totes pumped for The Force Awakens to hit Blu-ray so you can watch it in bed? Was Avatar really better on your iPad? Did Robert Richardson’s exquisite cinematography sing when you watched Inglourious Basterds on your laptop while having a bath? The answer to all of those, as I’ve done them all, is “Yeah, kindaâ€\x9d, but I do still believe in the sanctity of the cinema and the transformative and transporting nature of movie-going. My preferred cinema experience is 7pm or so on “tightarse Tuesdayâ€\x9d because the crowd isn’t stunned into depressed silence by having to spend $25 per ticket and can instead relax into the film. It reminds me of my time in the United States, where ticket prices are cheaper (at one screening in Lafayette, Los Angeles, the tickets were $5) and going to the movies is still an everyday activity for many. At this week’s Tuesday session of Joy, during a crucial scene, audience members craned their necks, perched literally on the edge of their seats and whispered “NO!â€\x9d and “Don’t do it!â€\x9d That was my second screening of Joy; I’ll be going back again to better appreciate Judy Becker’s production design, which makes every scene look as though it’s happening inside Joy’s shoebox full of dreams. I’ll let you know if the crowd gets into it again. As for The Force Awakens, well, it’s possible the tally might continue to climb. I might pop back to Imax, get a closer look at that pleating, or duck in for a lunchtime cheap Tuesday session and revel in that first close up of Oscar Isaac’s preposterously handsome face. Really, it all depends on my friends and family. After all, if someone asks you, “Hey, wanna go see Star Wars?â€\x9d there’s only really one correct answer, and it sure as hell isn’t “No thanksâ€\x9d.",
 "Amazon Fresh food deliveries 'to start this month in UK' Amazon is believed to be planning to start delivering fresh food in the UK this month, stepping up the pressure on traditional supermarkets. The online retailer is understood to have been testing fresh food deliveries from its depot in east London and to have asked suppliers to begin deliveries in the next few weeks. One supplier of chilled meals, Bol, told trade magazine the Grocer that its salad bowls would be launching on Amazon Fresh on 18 May. Amazon is expected to ramp up its food business after appointing Doug Gurr, the boss of its Chinese business and a former Asda executive, to run its UK operations. Gurr takes over this month from Chris North, who has quit the company. Gurr has extensive experience of running online food businesses. In his four and a half years at Asda, he was responsible for strategy, logistics and online operations. The arrival of Amazon Fresh, which has been operating in the US for about seven years, comes after the online business signed a deal with British supermarket Morrisons. The Bradford-based chain has agreed to wholesale ambient, fresh and frozen products to Amazon despite already operating its own website in partnership with Ocado. Last September Amazon began selling frozen items via its Prime Now one-hour delivery service, which is offered in big cities including London and Manchester. That followed the expansion of the Amazon Pantry service, which enables shoppers to fill a box of grocery items from a range of 4,000 household products, including big brands such as Kellogg’s, Ariel, Colgate and Kronenbourg. Fresh and frozen food is not sold via Pantry. Amazon’s latest move comes as Sainsbury’s finalises its tie-up with Argos, the multi-channel retailer – a move seen as a way to fight off future competition from the online retailer. Analysts are hoping the supermarket will reveal more about its plans for the the £1.4bn takeover alongside its annual results on Wednesday. Sainsbury’s has already stepped up its online activity since Mike Coupe took over as chief executive in July 2014. On Tuesday, the company said it planned to double the number of stores where shoppers could collect groceries ordered online from a “drive-throughâ€\x9d site in the car park. The supermarket launched its click-and-collect groceries service in March 2015 and plans to have 200 sites in a year’s time, up from 100 at present. Robbie Feather, Sainsbury’s director of online, said: “Click and collect is proving to be a popular hybrid between online shopping and visiting a store, especially among shoppers juggling work and looking after young children.â€\x9d Sainsbury’s is also hiring 150 more digital and technology experts to help improve its online store. The supermarket had already more than doubled its digital and technology staff in the past year, hiring 480 workers as it fends off rising competition from Amazon as well as the UK’s dominant online grocer Tesco.",
 'The Greasy Strangler review – tiresome shock tactics Where to start with this one? Like an early John Waters movie but without the sophistication, this aggressively inane horror comedy manages to cram in every disgusting, deviant activity you couldn’t begin to imagine. And yet, it’s still rather boring. All jarring discords, freakish genitals and a desperate need to shock, this is a singularly tiresome viewing experience. The plot, such as it is, focuses on the romantic rivalry between a father and son who both fall for the same woman on a disco walking tour of downtown LA. A film with literally no redeeming features.',
 'Jeremy Corbyn turns to grassroots after bruising day ends with Labour in turmoil It was an extraordinarily bruising day but Jeremy Corbyn was just about still standing as Labour leader as he addressed thousands of supporters in Parliament Square on Monday evening. He had just come from a brutal meeting of his parliamentary party, where MP after MP called on him to step down, some shouting and some close to tears. They had trailed into a meeting room in the Palace of Westminster for 6pm on Monday with sombre faces, while a pack of up to 100 journalists waited outside flanked by police and door staff. Corbyn began by calling for party unity and making clear that he would not be standing down. Several of his supporters spoke up to back his formation of a new shadow cabinet, after a wave of 40 resignations from his top team over the course of Sunday and Monday. But then came the onslaught from Labour MPs including many who had never publicly attacked him before. Robert Flello, a low-profile and previously uncritical backbencher, was the first to demand that he go. “For your sake, but most importantly for the people who need a Labour government, do the decent thing,â€\x9d he said. The calls kept coming, with Clive Efford saying: “Search inside yourself and ask if the electorate really think you are a prime minister because I don’t really think you are.â€\x9d Another intervention came from Helen Goodman, who said: “Much as I like you on a personal level, you can’t offer leadership.â€\x9d Chris Matheson was cheered for saying he had won a swing seat from the Tories, unlike Barry Gardiner, the newly appointed shadow energy minister, who was booed for trying to defend Corbyn. MPs also shouted at the leader that he should deal with concerns of Ian Murray, who resigned as shadow Scotland secretary on Sunday. Murray urged the leader to “call off the dogsâ€\x9d in reference to Momentum members protesting outside his constituency office. Corbyn said he had called out abusive behaviour but MPs shouted: “They’re outside,â€\x9d in reference to the gathered crowd. But the biggest cheer of the evening came for Alan Johnson’s intervention, as the leader of Labour’s remain campaign criticised Corbyn’s failure to throw his full weight behind the effort to stay in the EU. Johnson said he took responsibility and Corbyn should share in that. Unmoved by the weight of criticism, Corbyn summed up in front of his furious party, making it clear he intended to carry on with his new team. The meeting broke up for MPs to vote, but afterwards several were openly briefing against Corbyn in the corridor outside about the usually private meeting. Others stormed off saying they were too angry to talk. Bryant said it was a “battle for the soul of the Labour party. The writing on the wall is eight metres high and if he can’t see it he needs to go to Specsavers,â€\x9d he added. Another Labour MP, Ian Austin, said it was not just the usual suspects calling for Corbyn to go. “The overwhelming number of speakers were critical of Jeremy and saying he should stand down,â€\x9d he added. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a big moment for the Labour party.â€\x9d Waiting across the corridor with a briefing of their own were two Labour spokesmen, who acknowledged most of the speakers were hostile but took issue with the idea that the majority of MPs were against him. “He is not going to concede to a corridor coup or backroom deal that tries to pressure him out. It is all about whispering corridors, meeting together and people resigning from the appointed posts,â€\x9d he said. Tensions were running high as another aide made clear: “There is one way if people want to change the leadership of the Labour party, that is to get the names to stand a candidate and mount a challenge and have an election. Jeremy will be a candidate. This is irrelevant. All the resignations are a sideshow. If people have confidence they can win a leadership election, they can mount that challenge. If they are avoiding that, maybe they don’t have that confidence.â€\x9d The huddle of aides and journalists only broke up as Corbyn’s spokesman, Kevin Slocombe, was confronted by John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow and a serial rebel. “It is extraordinary you stand and slag us off to the media, while we’re supposed to have a private meeting. You were saying it in front of all these people, this won’t be the end of it,â€\x9d Woodcock said. “You are an unelected official, standing outside, briefing the media, giving a highly distorted account.â€\x9d It was a dramatic culmination of tensions after the past few days had seen the Labour leader sack his foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, for plotting a coup and 20 further resignations by shadow cabinet ministers who no longer had confidence in him. Corbyn was holding firm against the rebels on Sunday night, saying he would fight as a candidate in any leadership election to replace him. But things were about to get significantly worse. The steady stream of resignations over the course of Monday led one MP to compare Corbyn’s task to trying to fill a bath without a plug. Undeterred, the Labour party press office sent out an email early in the morning announcing the promotion of Emily Thornberry to shadow foreign secretary and Diane Abbott to shadow health secretary, plus a raft of other loyalists – many only elected a year ago – to key jobs. Corbyn had just left his home surrounded by journalists and police for a meeting with Tom Watson, the deputy leader, who was widely expected to apply pressure for him to go. This took place at 9am and differing accounts began to emerge. On the leader’s side, it was described as cordial and calm, with no hint that Corbyn should resign. Watson’s camp agreed that the deputy leader had stopped short of calling for his head but claimed he had informed Corbyn that the party did not have confidence in his leadership. All eyes were now on a few senior shadow cabinet ministers who had not yet shown their hands but were considered potential leadership challengers. Rumours abounded that Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy secretary, was being set up as the rival candidate. But she soon released a joint letter with Owen Smith, the shadow work and pensions secretary, saying that they were stepping down and calling for Watson to be caretaker leader. They were joined by Nia Griffith, Kate Green, John Healey – all considered on the soft left of the party and previously part of the “make it work brigadeâ€\x9d who were willing to give Corbyn’s leadership a chance. The group had met Corbyn together on Monday morning claiming that they wanted to make it work but felt compelled to resign after it became clear the leader was unable to form an inclusive shadow cabinet. According to one source at the meeting, the MPs were angered that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, “barged inâ€\x9d and started answering questions addressed to Corbyn himself. The damage kept coming as Chris Bryant, who had resigned as shadow leader of the House of Commons, revealed that Corbyn had refused to confirm that he voted to remain in the EU, saying it was not the issue at hand. This was dismissed as an attempt to destabilise the party by those close to Corbyn. Within the hour, Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary and her sister Maria, the shadow secretary for culture, media and sport, had also gone. Angela then gave a teary interview to the BBC’s World at One programme expressing her sorrow at having to resign in such circumstances. “With deep regret, and after nine months of trying to make it work, I have today resigned from the shadow cabinet,â€\x9d she said. Corbyn’s allies had by now conceded that another leadership election was likely in which he goes head to head with another candidate. But a row over whether he will need nominations from colleagues was brewing, as the rival sides both believe they have legal advice supporting their case. Despite the drama, there was still business to be carried out in the House of Commons but Clive Lewis, the newly appointed shadow defence secretary, was on his way back from Glastonbury festival and Thornberry had to step in to cover her old brief at defence questions. Meanwhile, Luciana Berger, the shadow mental health secretary and candidate to be Labour’s Liverpool mayoral candidate, was the last in a spate of shadow cabinet resignations at 2.18pm, but more junior ones followed from Jack Dromey to Keir Starmer. That left just Rosie Winterton, the chief whip, and Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow cabinet office minister, undeclared about their positions. In the face of continuing turmoil, the Labour leader headed to the House of Commons to tackle Cameron at the despatch box, as the outgoing prime minister explained the timetable for dealing with Brexit. Corbyn spoke to heckles of “resignâ€\x9d from his own side, and taunts from the green benches opposite. Dennis Skinner, the veteran Labour MP for Bolsover, shook the leader of the opposition’s hand as he entered the chamber and made a “Vâ€\x9d sign at other backbenchers. The Labour leader paid no heed to the shouts, except to claim that the “country will thank neither the benches in front nor those behind for indulging in internal factional manoeuvring at this timeâ€\x9d. This was the leadership’s consistent message to the MPs and then again to the huge rally of supporters in Parliament Square. To chants of “Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbynâ€\x9d, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, told the rally from a stage: “Let me make it absolutely clear, Jeremy Corbyn is not resigning.â€\x9d Corbyn himself appeared just minutes later, telling the crowd he is going nowhere. But on Tuesday he will face a motion of no confidence by secret ballot and any leadership challenger will soon have to come out of the shadows.',
 'The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change In last week’s Brexit vote results, there was a tremendous divide between age groups. 73% of voters under the age of 25 voted to remain in the EU, while about 58% over the age of 45 voted to leave. This generational gap is among the many parallels between Brexit and climate change. A 2014 poll found that 74% of Americans under the age of 30 support government policies to cut carbon pollution, as compared to just 58% of respondents over the age of 40, and 52% over the age of 65. Inter-generational theft The problem is of course that younger generations will have to live with the consequences of the decisions we make today for much longer than older generations. Older generations in developed countries prospered as a result of the burning of fossil fuels for seemingly cheap energy. However, we’ve already reached the point where even contrarian economists agree, any further global warming we experience will be detrimental for the global economy. For poorer countries, we passed that point decades ago. A new paper examining climate costs and fossil fuel industry profits for the years 2008–2012 found: For all companies and all years, the economic cost to society of their CO2 emissions was greater than their afterâ€\x90tax profit, with the single exception of Exxon Mobil in 2008 For much of the time during which developed nations experienced strong economic growth as a result of fossil fuel consumption, we were unaware of the associated climate costs. We can no longer use ignorance as an excuse. And yet the older generations, who experienced the greatest net benefit from carbon pollution, are now the least supportive of taking responsibility to pay for it. The longer we delay, the more devastating the consequences will be for the younger generations. Similarly, today’s youth who are early in their career paths will face the harshest consequences of the Brexit vote that was dominated by older voters. As Jack Lennard put it: This is a final middle-fingered salute to the young from the baby boomer generation. Not content with racking up insurmountable debt, not content with destroying any hopes of sustainable property prices or stable career paths, not content with enjoying the benefits of free education and generous pension schemes before burning down the ladder they climbed up, the baby boomers have given one last turd on the doorstep of the younger generation. And as political journalist Nicholas Barrett said in a comment that subsequently went viral: the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors. Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. A dangerous strain of anti-intellectualism As Barrett noted, during the Brexit campaign, facts seemed useless against the myths propagated by the Leave side. Indeed, Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing UK Independence Party and Leave campaign has already admitted the key claim that £350 million weekly saving in EU contributions could be spent on health services was utter nonsense – a “mistake,â€\x9d as he put it. A “mistakeâ€\x9d that was conveniently admitted just hours after Brexit votes had been cast and counted. When asked to name a single economist who backed Brexit, justice secretary and another top Leave campaigner Michael Gove said “people in this country have had enough of expertsâ€\x9d and later likened those experts to Nazis. Climate denial is based on a similar strain of anti-intellectualism and preponderance of baseless myths. When faced with the reality of a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, many will deny that reality, propagate a number of associated myths, or like Gove, find an excuse to disregard expert opinion and evidence (e.g. by arguing that scientific consensus ‘has been wrong before’). Ultimately it boils down to ideological biases. When the facts and expert conclusions contradict our beliefs, people will often find an excuse to dismiss the evidence and experts. It’s perhaps unsurprising that as DeSmogUK revealed, Gove and many other Leave campaign backers are also climate contrarians. Risk management failure - USA must do better Experts warned of the dangerous consequences that would result from Brexit, but the majority of older voters chose to ignore those risks. Prudent risk management was trumped by ideology, and today’s youth will have to bear the brunt of the consequences. Climate change similarly poses tremendous long-term risks, particularly to younger generations. The UK has thus far been a leader in mitigating those risks, but with the EU exit and potential installment of right-wing climate-denying political leaders, that leadership may be in jeopardy, and the EU’s climate pledges may be compromised. Americans have similarly failed to adequately manage political and climate risks. One of the two dominant US political parties obstructs all efforts to curb carbon pollution, and has also nominated Donald Trump for president: the embodiment of risky behavior. It now falls to the US to do better than the UK. Risk management and the well-being of future generations must trump ideology and fear in the November elections. We simply can’t afford two of the world’s superpowers being dictated by populism and xenophobia at the expense of our youth’s future.',
 'Why would you trust a teen to raise a kid, but not to have an abortion? Dealing with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is a difficult experience for anyone. But for teenagers, who have to juggle increasing, and increasingly complicated, financial and legal barriers to abortion access, “difficultâ€\x9d becomes nearly impossible. And it shouldn’t be. For instance, 21 states require parental consent before a teenager can have an abortion; 13 mandate that at least one parent be notified; and five states mandate both consent and notification. States that require parental notification and consent for a teenager to have a child? Zero. Surely if we believe young people are mature enough to parent or responsible enough to carry a baby to term, and thoughtful enough to make the decision to put a baby up for adoption without parental or judicial intervention (though there are five states that require parental involvement if a minor puts a child up for adoption), they should also have to right to decide whether or not to get a 10-minute medical procedure. But lawmakers insist on enacting more and more roadblocks in between a young woman and her ability to choose what the rest of her life will look like. In Texas, for example, new rules governing judicial bypasses for abortion – which allow young people to get permission for an abortion from a judge rather than a parent – went into effect on January 1. The US supreme court has previously ruled that the judicial bypass procedure must be anonymous and expeditious, but the new law in Texas requires teens to give the judge their names and addresses, and removes judicial deadlines from the process. That means that an anti-choice judge could forgo making a decision on whether to allow or prevent a teen’s abortion as long as necessary to ensure it’s too late for her to even get one. Tina Hester, the executive director of Jane’s Due Process, a Texas nonprofit that provides legal counsel to pregnant teens, said in a statement: “judicial bypass protects vulnerable pregnant teens who cannot find or safely turn to a parent, but the legislature and Governor Abbott decided to go after abused and neglected teens by amending this law.â€\x9d Indeed, multiple studies show that most minors seeking abortions do tell their parents, and those who don’t want to consult their parents often are in fear of physical harm. Sometimes the teenager is a rape victim; sometimes, it’s even their parent or guardian who got the teenager in question pregnant. When governor Abbott was set to sign the new rules into effect last summer, Hester described in the Houston Chronicle some of the young women her organization has helped: a 17-year old college student whose parents had died in a car accident; a minor who feared her religious father would kill her; young women who would be thrown out of their homes should their pregnancies be revealed at all. Having a process that is speedy, private and reasonable-to-navigate is vital for young people who find themselves pregnant and are already fearful and vulnerable. This is especially true because, as a whole, teenagers are more likely to find out about their pregnancies later on than adults do, and if they are to avoid later abortions – which are riskier and more expensive, and which state legislatures often make more difficult to access – they need to be able to obtain services quickly. It is unreasonable and illogical to expect that teens raise children or give birth and put them up for adoption but not be given the option to consider abortion. The desire for parents to be involved in important decisions in their children’s lives is understandable, but parental protectiveness cannot trump a person’s right to her own body and her own future. We should do away with judicial bypasses altogether and let teens decide for themselves whether or not to carry a pregnancy. After all, part of the reason that teens face unwanted pregnancies to begin with is because adults have not served them well: we don’t make birth control accessible and affordable enough for young people, and we teach them ridiculous and false ideas about sex. It is not a coincidence that states that mandate abstinence-only education are also the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates. Policies put in place by adults that know little of their lives do not help young people; allowing them to make informed choices does.',
 'Maxwell returns: my working style is ‘Would Sade or Marvin do this?’ “I wish I was more presentable,â€\x9d says Maxwell, packaged loosely in a denim jacket and jeans, in a top-floor room in a Manhattan hotel. “I’m post-Prince birthday cake.â€\x9d The previous night, he was celebrating Prince’s birthday (the first since the pop star’s death in April), marking the life of someone whose work had been crucial to his own musical development. “A lot of what he did was why I felt: ‘Oh, I could be … maybe not like him, but I don’t have to be this cookie cutter …’â€\x9d His voice trails off. I had seen Maxwell perform just a few days after Prince’s death, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival. He would pause between songs to talk about Prince’s influence on his work. “Everyone on this stage is here because of him,â€\x9d he told the crowd. In the middle of his cover of Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work – which he originally recorded in 2001 – he murmured the opening words from Let’s Go Crazy – “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called lifeâ€\x9d – with a religious concentration. “It was such a tough show to get through,â€\x9d he says now. Two weeks after our interview, Maxwell performs Nothing Compares 2 U at the BET awards; on the night, one of the verses mutates from the Prince original – “I went to the record store … Apple, Spotify, too, and they told me / ‘Boy you’d better try to make some music, which you can’t do / ’cause Prince is the truth!’â€\x9d Prince was a fan of Maxwell, too. He had, apparently, been asking Harry Belafonte why Maxwell was taking so long to follow up 2009’s BLACKsummers’night album. “I’ve known [Prince] for a long time and was shocked that he actually genuinely cared about what I was doing, and why I was taking so long,â€\x9d Maxwell says. Finally, that new album – blackSUMMERS’night – is out (there will, at some point, be a third album in the series, called blacksummers’NIGHT). But Maxwell does not work quickly. It is 20 years since his debut, Urban Hang Suite, which fitted into the burgeoning neo-soul movement of the time, alongside the crisp debuts of D’Angelo and Erykah Badu. Two more albums followed in relatively good time: Embrya in 1998, and Now in 2001. And then it was an eight-year wait – during which, he said, he took a break from the music industry to become a “full, 100% manâ€\x9d – until BLACKsummers’night, followed by another seven for the new album. “Why does it take so damn long? I would say … anxiety.â€\x9d Two events paralysed him artistically: turning 40 in 2013, and the success of his previous record. BLACKsummers’night entered the US chart at No 1, while its single Pretty Wings topped the Hot R&B chart for 14 weeks. “I didn’t know [BLACKsummers’night] would be so loved. I had no idea. And now I have to put out something else, and it had better be better. And that can freeze you.â€\x9d He requires the accumulation of experience in order to write, to have gone through something in order to translate it to record. He is also the only person motivating himself to work. “I don’t have a creative mafia that makes everything happen,â€\x9d he says. “That’s not my style, I’m not interested in that. I wish I was – it’d be nice, I could have a really nice Lamborghini or something. The question begs: ‘Would Sade do this? Would Marvin do this?’â€\x9d The reference to Sade is pertinent – he has two regular collaborators, Hod David and Stuart Matthewman, and the latter is one of Sade’s closest colleagues. He is allergic to the elevated atmosphere of celebrity. “Celebrities have competitors, and competition, and people they have to fight against or be better than,â€\x9d he says. “Artists, it doesn’t really work that way.â€\x9d On the cover of the new album, Maxwell obscures his face, as if to diminish his personality and focus attention on his music. “My friend asked me: ‘Why are you covering your face? It’s your album! You should be like: Look at me!’â€\x9d he says. What’s more evident on the cover, in fact, is the space around Maxwell. “You know what they say. What’s hidden is always the most interesting thing,â€\x9d he says. The new album feels less organic than its predecessor, which emphasised the nimble interactions of its musicians. BlackSUMMERS’night instead explores the tension between live performance and a more hermetic studio process. Maxwell talks about the song Gods, which builds on a four-bar melody, a glistening spine for the song: “I don’t know how these things come together,â€\x9d he says. “I really cannot take credit for the writing or any of it. I am writing it, but it’s literally just … happening.â€\x9d Like many of Maxwell’s songs, Gods concerns the physical as it flows into the metaphysical: “As you lied so convincingly / As you swore so religiously,â€\x9d he sings, his voice evolving from its weathered and cracked register into a gentle shimmer: “You played the game of gods.â€\x9d Two encounters dictated the song. “I was going through a really weird experience that involved this girl and this one particular individual that was upset about this girl who was interested in me,â€\x9d he says. “It’s so funny – one thing will begin a song, and then another meeting will completely finish the song. So it’s like an arc of how everybody plays into this particular idea of the song.â€\x9d And that is how Maxwell songs function: things arc into each other. “You want to say the right things. You want to say things you haven’t heard before, that people haven’t written before. How many times can you say: ‘I love you baby’?â€\x9d Maxwell has made an album about a love that may never be understood or reciprocated. “It may happen, it may not,â€\x9d he says. “Kind of a wait-and-see, Saturnial, pessimistic. I think it lives in both worlds because of how I think of things. There are no real guarantees. People are independent individuals.â€\x9d He says he’s a classic romantic, and finds the modern mutations of dating – Tinder, OkCupid, and so on – alienating and uninhabitable. “It’s very disconnected and detached,â€\x9d he says. “I’m not hating. I’m sure people have had amazing moments with their more controlled experience of the things they want to do. People are scared to be vulnerable and surrender themselves to someone else, and that’s really part of loving someone. I don’t know if what people are writing any more supports that.â€\x9d At the centre of Maxwell’s music is his vulnerability. “I’m always looking for the spark of experience that then goes into the performance,â€\x9d he says. “That’s what Kate Bush did to me. I didn’t really understand what the hell [This Woman’s Work] was about. I just knew that whatever she felt, whatever her feeling was that she had been through or gone through … I don’t care who you are when you hear that, it’s buckle-your-knees, fall-to-the-ground, it’s just beautiful. And it’s transcendental. It’s literally like stuff that you could expect to hear when walking into heaven after you die. That’s the thing that Prince had, too.â€\x9d Now blackSUMMERS’night is done, the main feeling he has is relief. “I’m so happy it’s done,â€\x9d he says. “I’m over this.â€\x9d He says he has finished writing the third part of the trilogy and is in the process of recording it. And where will he be when it’s done? “I get to figure out where I want to go, where I want to live, what I want to build,â€\x9d he says. “Family stuff. Finally, just get a life. I’ve been living life, but really getting a life finally, extending myself past my own self and the music that I’m so anxiety-ridden about having to do.â€\x9d • blackSUMMERS’night is out now on Sony/RCA.',
 'Goldman Sachs to pay $5bn for its role in the 2008 financial crisis Goldman Sachs will pay $5.06bn for its role in the 2008 financial crisis, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. The settlement, over the sale of mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007, was first announced in January. “This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail,â€\x9d acting associate attorney general Stuart Delery said in a statement. In January, Goldman said it expected the agreement to reduce its earnings for the fourth quarter by about $1.5bn after tax. According to the Wall Street bank, the settlement will consist of a $2.385bn civil monetary penalty, $875m in cash payments, and $1.8bn in consumer relief. Among other measures, the bank will offer a reduction in unpaid principal for affected homeowners and borrowers. “We are pleased to have reached an agreement in principle to resolve these matters,â€\x9d Lloyd C Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said in January. This is only the latest multibillion-dollar civil settlement reached with a major bank over the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which earlier this year agreed to pay $3.2bn, are two of the last big banks to pay up. Bank of America agreed to pay the largest of the settlements, $16.6bn, in 2014. A year earlier, JPMorgan Chase paid about $13bn. Such settlements have been worked out by the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, which is co-chaired by New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. New Yorkers will receive about $670m of the Goldman Sachs settlement, including $190m in cash and $480m in consumer relief such as mortgage assistance and principal forgiveness. “Since 2012, my No1 priority has been getting New Yorkers the resources they need to rebuild,â€\x9d Schneiderman said on Monday. “This settlement, like those before it, ensures that these critical programs … will continue to get funded well into the future, and will be paid for by the institutions responsible for the financial crisis.â€\x9d The deal, however, includes no criminal sanctions or penalties and is likely to stir additional criticism about the Justice Department’s inability to hold bank executives personally responsible for the financial crisis.',
 "Kelvin MacKenzie publishes Alastair Campbell's expletive-laden Brexit email An expletive-laden email from Alastair Campbell berating Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie for expressing “buyers remorseâ€\x9d over voting to leave the EU has been published by the Sun. MacKenzie, a former editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, wrote on Monday that the “surgeâ€\x9d of power he had felt from voting leave had given way to worries about the impact the vote would have on the UK’s future. “Four days later I don’t feel quite the same,â€\x9d he said. “I have buyer’s remorse. A sense of be careful what you wish for. To be truthful I am fearful of what lies ahead.â€\x9d However, in his column on Friday, MacKenzie included an email from Campbell in which Tony Blair’s former spin doctor attacked his earlier backing for the leave campaign and the “giant propaganda machineâ€\x9d he said MacKenzie had been part of. According to MacKenzie, Campbell’s email read: “Never mind buyers remorse, you should feel fucking ashamed to have been for so long part of a giant propaganda machine which has helped the country make a potentially self-destructive decision that future generations will have to live with when you and I are long gone.â€\x9d “Murdoch has been a complete poison in our national life and you have helped so much. And because you are well sorted it will not hit you nearly as hard as those you and yours have persuaded to make the decision they did. “But hey, it’s all a bit of fun eh? Fuck off.â€\x9d On Twitter, Campbell confirmed he had written the email as the Sun had reported it. In his column, MacKenzie hit back at Campbell, citing his involvement in the notorious document claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He wrote: “I think of the two of us, the one that knows most about ‘giant propaganda machines’ would be Campbell by some distance.â€\x9d",
 'Mark Carney ​may end speculation about future ​this week Mark Carney could announce a decision about his future as governor of the Bank of England as soon as Thursday, amid a barrage of criticism from Eurosceptic MPs about his approach to Brexit. It is understood that the governor is considering making an announcement on Thursday at a press conference for the Bank’s third-quarter inflation report, given the speculation about his future. However, sources said Carney was equally likely to delay the announcement until later in November and would take the decision based on his personal circumstances. George Osborne, the former chancellor, played a key role in recruiting Carney for the move from Canada to the UK in 2013. According to an article in the Financial Times (£) on Sunday, the governor has “told friendsâ€\x9d that he is ready to serve his full eight-year term. The governor said last week he would make a decision by the end of this year about whether to stay on for his full eight-year term or take advantage of terms allowing him to leave after five years, in 2018. “To be clear, it’s an entirely personal decision and no one should read anything into that decision in terms of government policy. It is a privilege for me to have this role,â€\x9d he told a parliamentary committee last week. “Like everyone, I have personal circumstances that I have to manage. This role demands total attention and I intend to give it as long as I can.â€\x9d Theresa May prompted questions about whether there has been a rift between Carney and the Downing Street after she criticised the impact of quantitative easing in her Conservative party conference speech, saying “people with assets had got richer, people without them had sufferedâ€\x9d. Both sides have played down any suggestion of divisions since then, and the pair have recently talked on the phone. Greg Clark, the business secretary, told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that Carney had done a “tremendous jobâ€\x9d for the UK economy. However, there has also been a campaign against the governor by leading Tory Eurosceptics who were annoyed by his pre-referendum predictions about the possible impact of Brexit on the UK economy, which they claim have not come to pass. Those calling for him to go early include Lord Lawson, the former chancellor; Bernard Jenkin, the chair of the public administration committee; Jacob Rees-Mogg, a member of the Treasury committee; and Daniel Hannan, a leading MEP. Before the vote, Carney suggested campaigners in favour of leaving the EU were “in denialâ€\x9d about some of the economic risks, although he has sounded more positive about the UK’s prospects since the referendum. The former foreign secretary, William Hague, warned earlier this month that central bankers could lose their independence if they ignored public anger over low interest rates, while Michael Gove, the leading pro-leave campaigner and former cabinet minister, compared Carney to the Chinese emperor Ming, whose “person was held to be inviolable and without imperfectionsâ€\x9d and whose critics were flayed alive. Two former members of the Bank of England monetary policy committee have rallied to Carney’s defence. Andrew Sentance, who served from 2006 to 2011, told the that the story had been “hyped up following Theresa May’s comments and articles by William Hague and Michael Goveâ€\x9d. “If the question is whether Mark Carney is going to stay beyond 2018, when he was appointed he wasn’t going to stay beyond 2018. If he makes a clear decision then it gives the government plenty of time to appoint a successor. “I think he has been targeted a bit unfairly by the pro-leave Brexit campaign. The consequences of Brexit are going to play out over a number of years and to say the economy hasn’t collapsed after Brexit means Mark Carney got it badly wrong is unfair. “He made it clear that he thought leaving the EU would be negative for the UK and the timescale over which that plays out depends on how that unfolds, but to jump to the conclusion within a few months when nothing has greatly changed – we are still in the EU – I think some of the criticisms of him from Brexiteers, as you might call them, have been unfair.â€\x9d David Blanchflower, who was on the committee from 2006 to 2009, said on Twitter that it was “ludicrous for Brexiters to force Carneyâ€\x9d, as it would only hurt the UK economy.',
 'Look into my eyes: Leave.EU campaign consulted TV hypnotist The leave campaign enlisted the TV hypnotist Paul McKenna to advise on some of its campaign broadcasts, it has emerged. The 53-year old author of bestselling self-help books including The Power to Influence, I Can Make You Happy and Hypnotic Gastric Band was asked by the Ukip-backed Leave.EU campaign to examine early edits of promotional videos. A source at the victorious campaign group told the that McKenna “understands the psychology of the mindâ€\x9d and helped Leave.EU “produce social media ads that resonated with peopleâ€\x9d. But he added: “We didn’t hypnotise anyone.â€\x9d McKenna’s role emerged at the end of a week in which several senior politicians backtracked on persuasive campaign messages from the EU referendum on immigration controls and how much money saved from payments to the EU could be redirected to the NHS. The hypnotist is said to be a friend of Arron Banks, the Bristol-based multimillionaire insurance businessman who bankrolled the Leave.EU campaign with a £5.6m donation. McKenna became involved as Leave.EU spent millions of pounds building up its online following partly by using short, dramatic campaign videos posted on its social media accounts. It claimed that it had 1 million followers and supporters on social media by polling day on 23 June. “That was the key to winning wavering voters,â€\x9d said Banks. “It was the massive connection through social media.â€\x9d McKenna declined to comment in detail on what help he gave Leave.EU, but his spokesman said: “He is friendly with Arron Banks and Banks showed him a few rough cuts of promotional videos they were considering using in their campaign. [Paul] was quite intrigued by the new style of political campaigning, which he thought was influenced heavily by American politics.â€\x9d McKenna has previously described modern hypnotism as “giving you greater communication capabilities with somebodyâ€\x9d. He has said: “More important than power for me is the feeling of euphoria I get if I help somebody make a change, particularly if it is one that has dramatically impaired their life.â€\x9d One of the videos McKenna is said to have assessed was a portentous 30-second broadcast on the Leave.EU Facebook page that attracted more than 1.6m views during the campaign. Over doom-laden music, it began by asking: “Are you concerned about the amount of crime being committed in the UK by foreign criminals?â€\x9d and “Are you worried about the overcrowding of the UK and the burden on the NHS?â€\x9d before switching to more upbeat music and asking: “Isn’t it time to take back control?â€\x9d McKenna has also said that being absorbed and engrossed in TV broadcasts is equally as hypnotic as a hypnotically induced trance. This week Banks revealed that a central plank of the leave campaign’s successful strategy emerged from advice taken from the US election strategists Goddard Gunster that “facts don’t workâ€\x9d. He said: “The remain campaign featured fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. It just doesn’t work. You have got to connect with people emotionally. It’s the Trump success.â€\x9d Several commentators have said the Republican candidate for the US presidency, Donald Trump, uses hypnotic techniques in his speeches. He uses repetition to make simple ideas stick. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader and Leave.EU supporter, did something similar during the EU referendum campaign, repeating again and again the mantra “take back controlâ€\x9d.',
 'Hold off applying for passport, Ireland tells Britons The Irish government has urged Britons to take some time to think before applying for an Irish passport as it warned that a surge in applications threatened to place major pressure on the system for processing them. A spike in interest in Irish passports has occurred in Northern Ireland, Britain and elsewhere in the past few days, according to Ireland’s foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, who said there was no urgency for UK citizens to apply. While the numbers of people turning up to the office in London that processes applications for Irish passports had reduced on Monday, British citizens motivated by last week’s referendum vote were still turning up on Tuesday. They ranged from one woman who said that she and her family had voted in favour of Britain leaving the EU, but now feared for the economic consequences, to others who had voted to stay. Among the latter was Dominic Allen, who told the that he had been visiting London on business but had decided to also collect a bunch of Irish passport applications for his family. “We have been meaning for a while to reconnect with our Irish roots so Brexit has sort of forced the issue,â€\x9d said Allen, originally from West Yorkshire but working in Norfolk. He also cited concerns the potential usefulness of the Irish passport in terms of travelling around Europe in future. Similar thoughts were on the mind of Oscar Brennan, 17, who came out of the office in South Kensington with an application form tucked under his arm. “I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to do this because I have always felt a strong connection to Ireland through my parents,â€\x9d he said. Again, the Brexit vote had prompted him into acting. “In terms of job prospects you just don’t know what the future is going to hold, so it’s better to be safe than sorry and be equipped to work in Europe.â€\x9d Meanwhile an Irish minister and one of the frontrunners to succeed Enda Kenny as taoiseach has urged Ireland to puts its own interest before the UK’s in the post-Brexit negotiations between EU states and the British. In a debate on Brexit’s implications for the republic, the minister for social protection, Leo Varadkar, said: “On some occasions, perhaps most, our interests are aligned with those of the United Kingdom but where they are not, it is not our duty to fight England’s battles for her. We must put the interests of Ireland first in the coming years and in the negotiation process. But Varadkar promised to protect pensioners on both sides of the Irish Sea, both British people living in the republic and Irish citizens residing in the UK. He said: “Their pension and employment rights and their social insurance protections and obligations remain unchanged today and will remain unchanged until such time as there is a new agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom and between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.â€\x9d',
 'This week’s new live music The Maccabees, On tour There’s a case for the Maccabees being the English Kings Of Leon; not in sound, but in how the current, arena-filling proposition is almost completely unrecognisable from the quirky indie rock band they started out as. Having found huge success with progressively epic and seriously intentioned music, the band’s 2015 album Marks To Prove It debuted at No 1 in the charts. Interestingly, though, this landmark was achieved with a record that recovers some of the Maccabees’ original eccentricities. Of course, the windswept Arcade Fire-like characteristics remain, but some of the antic structure of their earlier records makes a welcome return. Barrowland, Fri; touring to 23 Jan JR Daughter, On tour Less is more with Daughter. A trio based around the talents of singer-songwriter Elena Tonra, the group have previously exercised a minimalism in all things, from the stripped-down nature of their arrangements to the manner in which they conceal their strong emotional content beneath a mainly placid delivery. But having shown promise as a kind of folky version of the xx, to judge from the singles from forthcoming second album Not To Disappear the mask is slipping. What seems to be emerging is a rather more melodramatic and rockier beast, wherein the band work less by implication, more by wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Cambridge Corn Exchange, Fri; touring to 28 Jan JR Angel Haze, On tour An MC with no absence of attitude, Angel Haze has found it difficult to walk quite as hard as she has historically talked. All round, this combative confidence has brought her as much bad as it has good. Professionally, her Classick mixtape of three years ago found her confronting the horrible circumstances of her early life on top of some of hip-hop’s legendary beats. About the same time, she entered into a social media war with Azealia Banks, a rather distracting and unproductive move that served to invite unhelpful comparisons between the pair. As it turned out, Haze’s raw delivery and aggressive stance was an unsuccessful fit with the mainstream, but now she is back among the independents, where her underdog determination may find a more favourable environment in which to develop. Band On The Wall, Manchester, Tue; Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, Wed; O2 ABC 2, Glasgow, Thu; The Academy, Dublin, Fri; touring to 16 Jan JR Heather Leigh, London Heather Leigh plays pedal steel guitar: towering riffs that break into streaming squalls of sound, her voice wavering between a soft coo and a ghoulish wail. She was born in West Virginia, the daughter of a coal miner, and cut her teeth in the “new weird Americaâ€\x9d scene of the 1990s and early 00s as a member of Texan psychedelic noise and drone group Charalambides, among others. Now living in Glasgow, until last year she ran one of the world’s best underground record shops, that city’s Volcanic Tongue, with her partner, the writer and former Telstar Ponies man David Keenan. Leigh has toured as the bassist for Sterling Smith’s Jandek project, and recently joined one of Peter Brötzmann’s many improv assemblages. Only few women have made it into that particular hall of fame – improv’s version of getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard – and she’ll return to this venue to duet with the sax player in February. Cafe Oto, E8, Sat JA Roller Trio, Newcastle upon Tyne & Southampton When Roller Trio emerged from the volcano of Leeds’ new music scene to a Mercury nomination in 2012, they sounded as if they’d been inspired by that city’s pioneering thrash-improv outfit trioVD, but their volatile chemistry – a fusion of almost romantic tenor ruminations, spacey ambience and hard rock hooks – made them a clear alternative. In recent times, the group once dubbed “the new sound of UK jazzâ€\x9d by Gilles Peterson have grown a little more reflective, incorporating dark, ambient-electronic mists and hip-hop-influenced themes, but always with the implication of an impending explosion hovering in the wings. The Bridge Hotel, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sun; Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, Fri JF Pelléas Et Mélisande, London Although Simon Rattle doesn’t officially take over as the London Symphony Orchestra’s music director until autumn 2017, he is already conducting regularly and putting his own imprint on its programming. There have been hints about what we can expect from the upcoming Rattle era, and some of the performers with whom he will work. It’s already clear, for instance, that the great pianist Krystian Zimerman is likely to be a regular visitor, while another of Rattle’s collaborators, the director Peter Sellars, is involved in the semi-staging of Pelléas Et Mélisande that Rattle is conducting this weekend. Rattle and Sellars have worked on Debussy’s opera together before, for an impressive full performance in Amsterdam in the 1990s, but this will be a production designed for the concert hall, similar to that the pair have already undertaken with Bach’s Passions. Barbican Hall, EC2, Sat & Sun AC',
 'Jennifer Lawrence scolds reporter for using phone during Golden Globes press conference Jennifer Lawrence has been criticised for telling off a reporter who was using his phone during a post-Golden Globes press conference. The actor, who won the award for best actress in a musical or comedy for Joy, was being asked a question by an international journalist when she reprimanded him for reading from his phone. “You can’t live your whole life behind your phone, bro,â€\x9d Lawrence said. “You just can’t do that. You gotta live in the now.â€\x9d When the reporter, whose first language doesn’t appear to be English, continued to ask his question about how Lawrence sees herself for the Oscars, she snapped back: “We’re at the Golden Globes. If you put your phone down, you’d know that.â€\x9d Many have criticised the actor for being culturally insensitive for her words. Superhero Feed tweeted “Many reporters read questions off their phone. Especially reporters who’s first language wasn’t English.â€\x9d Fans were equally unimpressed: Earlier in the night, the actor presented an award with Amy Schumer, with whom she has written a new comedy. As the two arrived on stage, they criticised someone in the front row for their phone usage. “Please turn your phone off,â€\x9d Schumer said. Lawrence laughed and then said: “Can you please stop taking pictures?â€\x9d Lawrence was one of the night’s big winners for her role in David O Russell’s Miracle Mop biopic Joy. It marks the actor’s third Golden Globe. She is predicted to receive an Oscar nomination on Thursday for her performance. Other big acting winners from the night included Leonardo DiCaprio who won best actor in a drama for The Revenant, Matt Damon who won best actor in a musical or comedy for The Martian and Brie Larson who won best actress in a drama for Room.',
 'One Nation senator joins new world order of climate change denial A key figure picked to prepare the US federal environment agency for life under a Donald Trump administration has met in Washington DC with some of the world’s most notorious and longest-serving climate science deniers, including One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), was picked by the now president-elect to lead the Environmental Protection Agency “transition teamâ€\x9d back in September. Trump has pledged to strip many powers from the EPA to boost fossil fuel production. Ebell has spent two decades trying to undermine the science linking dangerous climate change to fossil fuel burning. E&E News reported that Ebell was at one meeting hosted by the CEI and held in the hearing room of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. The EPW committee is chaired by Senator James Inhofe who, like Trump, has described human-caused climate change as a hoax. The meeting was not open to the public or the press, E&E News reported, with Ebell refusing to give any details. Climate denial who’s who But details of the gatherings have been made public by some of the climate science denialists who attended. The attendee list reads like a who’s who of the climate science denial world. Australian senator Malcolm Roberts, of the far-right One Nation party, who is in the US, revealed he had given a speech at a CEI meeting with Ebell. Roberts wrote the meeting was a gathering of the Cooler Heads Coalition and then listed some of the participants. They included Marc Morano, Randy Randol, Steve Milloy, Chris Horner, Craig Rucker, Patrick Michaels, Ken Haapala and James Taylor. The views of most of the attendees are in direct contradiction to the overwhelming majority of scientific research published over decades, as well as the positions of the world’s major scientific academies. Also listed by Roberts as attending was Breitbart writer James Delingpole, who published a picture of himself, Roberts and Ebell on his Twitter account. Delingpole says climate change is “junk scienceâ€\x9d and has said that “hanging is too goodâ€\x9d for climate scientists. Denialists reunited Three of the attendees — Ebell, Randy Randol and Steve Milloy —were part of the Global Climate Science Communications Team in the late 1990s. The GCSC was a coalition of thinktanks and fossil fuel companies that hoped to shift people’s understanding of the science linking fossil fuel burning to human-caused climate change. At the time, Randol was a lobbyist for ExxonMobil and Milloy was the executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition — a tobacco industry-funded front group. One of the meeting’s attendees, lawyer Chris Horner, was named this week to Trump’s EPA “landing teamâ€\x9d alongside Ebell. Horner, who has been funded by coal companies, is known for launching multiple FOIA requests targeting the email inboxes of climate scientists and government officials. Many see his work as harassment. Also in attendance, according to Roberts, was Fred Singer – a former advisor to TASSC who set up his first group to attack climate science in 1990. Trump this week named current ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson as his nomination for the Secretary of State. On Twitter Tony Heller reported that Tim Ball, a retired geography professor and climate science denier from British Columbia, told the EPW meeting: “I’ve waited 40 years for this moment.â€\x9d In November 2016, Ball and Heller were in Australia for speaking engagements at the invitation of Roberts who claims there is no evidence linking climate change to human activity. Ball then travelled to the US for a two-day conference organised by G. Edward Griffin with the title: Global warming: An Inconvenient Lie. Griffin, who runs Freedom Force International, which organised the conference, is a conspiracy theorist who claims there is no such thing as the HIV virus, that climate change is a hoax and that a US military plane shot down one of the passenger flights that crashed during the September 11 attacks in the United States. The full line-up of attendees at the Cooler Heads Coalition listed by Roberts was Tony Heller, Tim Ball, Fred Singer, Ken Haapala, Craig Rucker, Randy Randall, Steve Milloy, Marc Morano, James Delingpole, Chris Horner, Myron Ebell, Tom de Weise, James Taylor, Pat Michaels, Austin Smithson, Brandon Middleton, Marlo Lewis and “Mandy from Senator James Inhofe’s staffâ€\x9d. This article was originally published on the Desmog blog',
 'A matter of some gravity: how to have an argument on the internet Poor Douglas Carswell. On Twitter last week he confused the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon and got crushed by the far stronger forces of social media. It all happened so quickly. To illustrate the point that Britain trades more with its near neighbours in Europe than larger but more distant economies such as the US or China, Paul Nightingale, professor of science policy at the University of Sussex, tweeted a gravitational analogy that drew a brisk response from Carswell: Nightingale respectfully pointed out the error but the hapless Ukip MP was immediately deluged in a yellow tide of piss-taking. An #AskCarswell hashtag soon popped up to poke further fun at the member for Clacton and the story was gleefully picked up by the press. The derision was deserved – at least to some extent. In the eyes of many Carswell already has a difficult relationship with facts, revealed by his loud insistence during the referendum campaign that the UK would be better off to the tune of £350m a week if it left the EU, a claim repeatedly debunked by the head of the UK Statistics Authority. He had also been patronising in responding to the Sussex professor, expressing surprise that the “head of Science research at a university refutes idea sun’s gravity causes tidesâ€\x9d. Yet it’s also true that Carswell was less wrong than many people realised. One tweeter pointed out that the sun’s gravitational influence on the tides is actually about 40% that of the moon’s, which was news to me — and I have a degree in physics. Judging from his timeline, Carswell has so far admitted no scientific error. Instead he tried to move the conversation back to trade and Brexit (though even here, the weight of evidence appears to be on Nightingale’s side). I suspect he was mildly embarrassed by the faux pas but felt little desire to acknowledge as much before the sneering chorus on Twitter. Why expose yourself to further mockery? But I’m speculating here – I’ve never met Carswell so don’t really know what makes him tick. Today, the incident is largely forgotten. Just another twitterstorm in a teacup. But the trouble is that this is how it goes day after day on social media. Thanks to the internet, communication far beyond our real life social circles has never been easier but it’s hard to escape the impression that the quality of our public discourse has never been poorer. Carswell’s gravitational spat may pale beside the pervasive currents of misogyny, racism, homophobia, antisemitism and islamophobia that wash daily across the online world, but the descent into mockery and vitriol is all too rapid, whatever the topic. When was the last time you saw an enlightening exchange between a Corbynista and a Blairite? What is it about life online that unleashes our inner demons? We seem to have made a leap in technology for which evolution, in its blind stumbling, has not prepared us. Most likely it is another distancing effect, this time due to computerisation. We might now be able to connect with half the world but we do so from behind a keyboard. The faces – and the humanity – of the people that we interact with are easily lost in the rapid fire of typed exchanges. It is little wonder that some newspapers are closing down their comment threads. Though this may partly be for economic reasons, it is surely also an acknowledgement that they add little to public debate. I’ve succumbed myself from time to time – and in these pages. I have on occasion taken exception to what I felt to be largely ill-founded critiques of science and scientists by the columnist Simon Jenkins, and responded with outrage, with mockery and with facts. But after the latest exchange, I paused to re-consider. It might have been cathartic to vent my frustration and then to be cheered from the sidelines by friends and followers (almost all of them of a scientific stripe), but to what real end? We just seemed to be talking past one another. So I tried a different tack. I bought a copy of one of my favourite popular science books (Matthew Cobb’s Life’s Greatest Secret) and sent it to the columnist with a conciliatory note, to follow up on the offer of buying him a drink that I had appended to my latest broadside. And blow me if he didn’t email back to accept the invitation. A couple of weeks ago we met in a quiet bar around the corner from where I work and over a couple of pints of a rather tasty Kent lager talked about science, universities, Brexit, grammar schools, Northern Ireland, and the travails of online discourse. I won’t go into specifics since it was a private encounter but, while we still might not agree on everything, face-to-face there was plenty of cordiality and common ground. I know what you’re thinking: “Two people who write for the had a drink and found that they agreed on some stuff? Big deal!â€\x9d Well, yes, I’m skating on platitudinous ice and this is hardly an original point, but the meeting was to me an important reminder of how the human factor, so vivid in real life, is so readily forgotten online. It’s complicated. Although anonymity is often blamed for online rudeness, it can also foster participation and risk-taking, opening up new opportunities for discussion. But how do we find the right balance between open, constructive argument and ending up in an echo-chamber? This question is at the core of the ’s laudable The Web We Want campaign. There are no easy answers – though some experiments in nudging community self-regulation online are showing promise. Even scientists need to be mindful of becoming trapped in tribal enclaves, whatever the provocation. On Twitter I try to use the mute button sparingly – only when the rancour gets too much. Each time I do feels like a defeat but I just don’t have the time or the heart to engage with every dispute. And although it’s not possible to have a drink with everyone you end up arguing with on the internet, I have resolved to try to imagine doing so. That strategy will make little headway with the out-and-out trolls or the shitposters, but there are still plenty of people of good faith out there that I disagree with profoundly. Carswell may well be one of them. Should we happen to rub up against one another online, hopefully at least one of us can take away something positive from the encounter. The author is a professor of structural biology at Imperial College and is on Twitter as @Stephen_Curry, if you’re looking for an argument.',
 'Natalie Cole, singer and daughter of Nat King Cole, dies aged 65 Natalie Cole, the award-winning singer and daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, has died. Cole, whose hits included This Will Be and Unforgettable, died aged 65 on Thursday night, according to her publicist Maureen O’Connor. Her family said she died at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles due to complications from ongoing health issues. “Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived … with dignity, strength and honour. Our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain unforgettable in our hearts forever,â€\x9d read the statement from her son, Robert Yancy, and sisters Timolin and Casey Cole. The singer had battled drug problems and hepatitis for many years. She had a kidney transplant in May 2009. Fellow performers paid tribute on Friday night following the news of her death. Aretha Franklin said: “I am sorry to hear about Natalie Cole’s passing. I had to hold back the tears. I know how hard she fought. She fought for so long. She was one of the greatest singers of our time.â€\x9d Tony Bennett described her as “an exceptional jazz singerâ€\x9d. He said: “It was an honour to have recorded and performed with her on several occasions. She was a lovely and generous person who will be greatly missed.â€\x9d Dionne Warwick said she was “more like family than friend … My heart aches. My sincere condolences to her family and may she now rest in peace.â€\x9d The Rev Jesse Jackson tweeted: “#NatalieCole, sister beloved & of substance and sound. May her soul rest in peace. #Inseperable.â€\x9d The comedian Arsenio Hall said he named his bass guitar after her when he was in college. “As a young stand up comic I opened for Natalie Cole. She was all that, in all ways! (RIP ).â€\x9d Cole’s greatest success came with her 1991 album, Unforgettable … With Love, which paid tribute to her father with reworked versions of some of his best known-songs, including That Sunday That Summer, Too Young and Mona Lisa. Her voice was spliced with her father’s in the title track, offering a delicate duet more than 25 years after his death. The album sold about 14m copies and won six Grammys, including album of the year, and record and song of the year for the title track. While making the album, Cole said she had to “throw out every R&B lick that I had ever learned and every pop trick I had ever learned. With him, the music was in the background and the voice was in the front.â€\x9d Cole was also nominated for an Emmy award in 1992 for a televised performance of her father’s songs. “That was really my thank you,â€\x9d she said in 2006. “I owed that to him.â€\x9d Another father-daughter duet, When I Fall in Love, won a Grammy in 1996 for best pop collaboration with vocals, and a follow-up album, Still Unforgettable, won best traditional pop vocal album of 2008. Born in Los Angeles to Nat King Cole, who was already a well-known singer, and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Hawkins Ellington, Cole was exposed to some of the greats of US soul music. By the age of six, she sang on her father’s Christmas album and by 11 was performing in her own right. In 2008, she said: “I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.â€\x9d In her 2000 autobiography, Angel on My Shoulder, Cole discussed how she had battled heroin, crack cocaine and alcohol addiction for many years. She spent six months in rehab in 1983. When she announced in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, a liver disease spread through contact with infected blood, she blamed her past intravenous drug use. Cole received chemotherapy to treat the hepatitis and “within four months, I had kidney failureâ€\x9d, she told CNN’s Larry King in 2009. She needed dialysis three times a week until she received a donor kidney on 18 May 2009. Cole toured through much of her illness, often receiving dialysis at hospitals around the world. “I think that I am a walking testimony [that] you can have scars,â€\x9d she told People magazine. “You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life.â€\x9d',
 'The Man Who Fell to Earth review – a freaky concept album of a film Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth is rereleased after 40 years and it looks more exotic, more preposterous, more fascinating than ever, like a hyper-evolved midnight movie in the manner of Roger Corman. Roeg shows us some of his classic narrative dislocations and juxtapositions; this has something of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, but Roeg is genuinely uninhibited about sex in a way that Kubrick never was. And of course there is an extraordinary sui generis central performance by David Bowie as the intergalactic visitor Thomas Newton – his unselfconscious gentleness and vulnerability now look very moving and bizarrely authentic in a way that they didn’t in 1976. Is the movie a metaphor for immigration and innovation and a sclerotic corporate culture? Or is it perhaps a pop culture parable for the British music invasion? (I like to think that Newton’s astronaut-ambitions inspired our own Richard Branson.) Or is it simply about Bowie himself? The story unfolds in a daring sequence of narrative leaps. Newton crash-lands in a small town where he is befriended by a hotel receptionist Mary Lou (Candy Clark) in whose presence this delicate stripling faints; she has to carry him to his room – an extraordinary sequence. They become an item. Newton quickly finds himself in New York, where his superior intelligence and knowledge allow him to create a world-beating energy and media company, which hires a disillusioned, lecherous chemistry professor Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), the only person in whom the increasingly reclusive Newton can confide. Newton needs to establish utter mastery of Earth’s technology so that he use its water for his own drought-stricken planet. But, far from being a sinister predator, Newton is a delicate victim, a Wildean holy child of poignant unworldliness, whose business is taken from him. He stays young while everyone else gets old. A freaky, compelling concept album of a film.',
 'Manchester United 2-0 Southampton: Premier League – as it happened An eventually comfortable win for Manchester United, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring both goals – the first a thrilling, cavemanic header. Paul Pogba improved as the match progressed and showed his class with some penetrating runs and cocky passing. Southampton had more of the ball and should not be remotely discouraged by their performance, the thought of which will keep their fans warm for at least 10 minutes of their 47-journey home. Thanks for your company; goodnight. 90+3 min In the last minute of added time, Pogba spanks wide of the near post from 18 yards after fine play from Mkhitaryan. 89 min Still no sign of Marcus Rashford, as Chris Smalling comes on to replace Wayne Rooney. He put in a good cross for the first goal but was otherwise ineffective. 88 min Targett’s low cross is curled a few yards wide of the near post by Tadic. That, as Alan Smith says on Sky, sums up their night – they have played some really good football but have not been efficient in the final third. 86 min “Evening Rob,â€\x9d says Simon McMahon. “Your other reader may not know that Pogba’s brother Mathias plays for Partick Thistle in the SPFL. I saw him play at Tannadice the other week in the League Cup. He’s not worth 100 million euros, but could his brother cut it at a wet and windy Tannadice in front of 4000 fans on a Tuesday night?â€\x9d 84 min Southampton make their final substitution, with Jay Rodriguez replacing an aggrieved Shane Long. 83 min The sliding Bailly does well to intercept Targett’s dangerous low cross. Southampton have shown an admirable refusal to accept they have lost this game. 82 min Ander Herrera replaces Anthony Martial, which suggests a switch to 4-3-3 and a shutting up of shop. 80 min “Do you know what were the pre-season odds for Ibrahimovic to finish top scorer, or to win the Player of the Year awards?â€\x9d asks David Wall. “For someone with his record there seemed more talk of him as someone merely doing a valedictory tour than of him as someone perhaps a little past his prime but still a bonafide star, game-changing, season-shaping player. Now he’s taking penalties as well as being United’s main striker he’s sure to be in the running to lead the goal-scoring tables (barring injury, of course).â€\x9d I don’t know the odds. But yes, for a team in transition it looks like an extremely smart short-term move. He’s 34 going on 29. The three behind him isn’t quite right yet, though. 79 min The game isn’t quite petering out - Southampton keep coming back for more - but there is a persuasive sense that it’s over as a contest. 77 min So what’s going on with Marcus Rashford then? If I were a United fan that would worry me a bit, because he is a glorious talent. 76 min Pogba marauds infield from the left and then curls well wide from just outside the box. 74 min Long flicks a near-post header just wide of the far post from Soares’s cross, and then Mata is replaced by Henrikh Mkhitaryan. 73 min If it goes to 2-1 then Mourinho might take Pogba off but there’s no need at the moment, especially as he’s having his best period of the match with the ball. Tonight is all about Pogba and Ibrahimovic but Valencia has been a revelation going forward, close to his 2009-12 best. 69 min Pogba, who is starting to boss the game, gives it to Valencia on the right. He skins Targett and stands up a deep cross to Ibrahimovic, who rises imperiously and then completely mistimes a looping header back across goal. Rooney was flagged offside but it wasn’t going in anyway. 67 min “Rob,â€\x9d says Mark Tuite, “who is this Tasic you keep banging on about?â€\x9d No idea. You’re welcome! 66 min United are playing some great stuff now. Pogba ignores the cries of “shoooootâ€\x9d and gives it wide to Ibrahimovic. He plays a deliberate chip all the way across the area to Martial, who dummies Soares by pulling it down on his chest but then seems to forget to shoot and is tackled by the recovering Soares. Moments later, Davis is replaced by Charlie Austin for Southampton. 65 min Martial scorches past Fonte and into the area, where his shot is outstandingly blocked by Van Dijk. The ball rebounds to Rooney, who chips it pitifully out of play. Moments later, Martial finds the underlapping Shaw in the area and his cutback is cleared. That was a great run from Shaw. 63 min Pogba beats Clasie beautifully without touching the ball to start a move that leads to a corner on the right. It’s curled in and headed over from six yards by Pogba, under pressure from a defender. 61 min A mistake from Zlatan allows Southampton to break. Van Dijk’s sot is blocked by Bailly and then Clasie splashes the follow-up miles wide from 20 yards. Southampton have done lots of things very well tonight; United have just been more efficient. 58 min Southampton continue to push forward. A cross from the right is flicked towards Redmond, who can’t quite get it out of his feet and eventually shoots wide under pressure from Mata. That was a decent opportunity. In an unrelated development, it turns out the Tadic goal was disallowed, rightly, for offside. 55 min Pogba’s confidence is one of his greatest strengths. He’ll take the ball in any situation, no matter how tight or dangerous. There are still doubts as to whether he’s a better central-midfield option than Rafael and Ji-sung Park but he is a fascinating talent. Zlatan makes it four goals in three games with a good penalty, sidefooting into the bottom-left corner before roaring to the crowd while flexing his muscles. He is a preposterous and magnificent man. A daft trip by Clasie on Shaw, who was going nowhere. It’s a clear penalty. 50 min Martial comes infield from the left and hits a dangerous low shot that bounces just in front of Forster. He does well to palm it away and it’s lumped clear by a defender. 49 min Tasic has a goal disallowed for a foul on Bailly. His lack of complaint suggests it was fair enough, though we haven’t seen a replay. It was a smart flicked header but I think he shoved Bailly out of the way. 48 min “In Pogba it looks to me like Mourinho has finally got his hands on the Gerrard type player he’s wanted since he came to the Premier League,â€\x9d says Phil Martin. “It’ll be interesting to see what he does with him, does he coach out the risks, or build his team around covering for them?â€\x9d He’ll change him a bit but Pogba’s main weakness is decision-making and that should improve naturally. I can’t see Mourinho going the full Joe Cole, certainly. I’d imagine he’ll eventually play 4-3-3 and let Pogba run free. 47 min An intrepid run from the impressive Shaw takes him to the edge of the area before he is tackled. The ball runs to Mata, who wallops it into orbit from range. 46 min Southampton begin the second half, trailing to a moment of Zlatanic magic in a first half that they dominated. Kipling latest “‘If you can concede to a ridiculous header from a certifiable genius, And still knock it about prettily in the middle of the park, You’ll be a man, my son,’â€\x9d says Matt Dony of my 42nd-minute entry. “Of course, the implication being that ‘manhood’ is something to aspire to and inherently better than those weak women. Typical media sexism. You’ll be blaming the immigrants, next.â€\x9d Nigel Farage is my Rushmore, what of it? Half-time reading United lead, slightly against the run of play, through a fierce header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Paul Pogba has been brave and progressive in possession, though not always successfully. Southampton have had more of the ball and are certainly in this. See you in 10 minutes! 44 min Davis, who has probably had more of the ball than any midfielder on either side, drills over the top from 25 yards. 43 min Pogba thrills the crowd with a fine run straight down the centre of the pitch before playing the ball to Martial. His cross is disappointing, just as he has been so far. His unhappy Euro 2016 might have affected his confidence. 42 min Southampton have reacted to the goal in a manner that would please Kipling, resuming their confident possession football. They have been the better team, although let the record show that United seem happy enough playing on the counter-attack. 41 min “All the attributes of an English No9 allied to the nonchalant sills of a Balkan No10,â€\x9d says Adam Hirst. “Wish he’d arrived six years ago.â€\x9d What, about of Bebe? No thanks. 39 min “Judging purely from the Man Utd teamsheet, they don’t appear to have a midfield of any description,â€\x9d says Ian Copestake. “Unless you count Fellaini as a midfield target man.â€\x9d United take the lead against the run of play with a belting header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Valencia found Rooney on the right, and he did well to keep the ball in play. Then he curled a high, outswinging cross towards the far post, where Ibrahimovic beasted above Fonte and thumped a downward header into the net from 10 yards. 34 min A well-struck low shot from Rooney, 25 yards from goal, is comfortably saved by Forster. 32 min A chance for Southampton. Tadic sweeps an excellently early ball into the space behind Bailly to find Long in an inside-left position just outside the box. With Bailly making up the ground, Long hits a feeble low shot straight at De Gea. That was the best chance so far. 30 min Mata’s volleyed pass somehow finds its way to Ibrahimovic, whose cross from the right towards Rooney takes an important deflection off the sliding Van Dijk and goes behind for a corner. 29 min A Hollywood move from United: Pogba’s dink, Mata’s header across the box and Zlatan’s flying volley over the bar. It was a quarter-chance at best. 28 min Pass count: Man Utd 94-160 Southampton. United don’t really mind playing on the counter-attack, though having pace up front would help. Rooney is, sad to say, peripheral at best and embarrassing at worst. 26 min Davis’s flat, fast free-kick finds Van Dijk, whose volley is well blocked by Valencia. The ball comes to Long, who rattles it just wide of the near post. There were cheers from some of the Southampton fans, who thought it was in; a fleeting moment of joy before the reality of a 47-hour trip home with nothing but a bottle of warm Volvic to sustain them hit home once again. 25 min At the moment United look like a collection of players rather than a team. It’s a cliché but it’s true. The sooner they get Rashford in the side, for Mata, Rooney or even Martial, the better they will be. Southampton have a serious chance of winning this game. 23 min “Thanks for the MBM, it is the only way I have to follow the game while waiting for my flight in Ougadougou airport,â€\x9d writes Danny Kelly. “Do you think Ferguson secretly hopes that Pogba will be a failure thus vindicating his, now infamous, decision not to offer him a better contract and keep him at the club?â€\x9d I thought the issue was playing time rather than the quality of his contract? Either way, I doubt Ferguson cares, at least not in terms of professional vindication. It might be different on a personal level. He can’t be happy about Pogba or Mourinho being at the club. 22 min Valencia has been United’s best attacker so far. Pogba has been up and down but with his usual willingness to take the risky option whenever possible. Rooney and Zlatan have been anonymous. 19 min Redmond spins neatly behind Bailly and into the area on the right. Tadic is free at the far post, a few yards from goal, but Redmond just overhits the cross. Southampton are, at the moment, playing like the home side. 18 min I certainly wouldn’t rule out a third consecutive Southampton win at Old Trafford. They have started this game very impressively, especially when you consider they were supposed to roll over. 17 min “Poor Rob,â€\x9d says Ian Copestake. “I bet you would like to wet your whistle this footballing Friday night. Have Sky attached some epithet to this day of days? Super is obviously not applicable or alliterative enough, but it must be an f-word of sorts.â€\x9d Aren’t they just calling it FNF? Or, if you’re a Southampton fan who has to get home tonight, FFS. 15 min A cross from the left eventually bounces to Tadic, who volleys into orbit from a tight angle. This is a pretty open game. But then this is not a typical Jose Mourinho side; they are pretty top heavy. 13 min Ibrahimovic on the left eases the ball back to Pogba, who opens his body smartly just inside the box. and hits a decent shot that is patted down by Forster. 13 min “Hi,â€\x9d says John. “Pogba’s headphones are P7 not P5.â€\x9d Typical embarrassing Grauniad error. Somebody deserves a P45 for that, and I’m not talking about headphones. 12 min Romeu is indeed replaced by Jordi Clasie. Mata’s corner is headed clear by Shane Long. 11 min Valencia combines well with Mata, whose return pass is put behind for a corner by Davis. Romeu is down again, and might need to be replaced before the corner is taken. 10 min “‘If two teams play a game of football and the media couldn’t give a flying toss about the smaller team, do they actually exist?’,â€\x9d begins Tamara Hampton, quoting an earlier entry. “So does that make Southampton #SchrödingersTeam?â€\x9d In modern football, Schrödinger has a lot of teams. 9 min There’s a break in play while Romeu receives treatment. He’s fine. 7 min Southampton’s passing has been confident and assured in the early stages. It’s been a bright, breezy start to the game. 5 min Valencia, who has staked an early claim to be the surprise success of Mourinho’s first season, wins a corner with the kind of no-frills run he used to attempt all the time in the Ferguson years. Nowt comes from it but that was more promising for United. 4 min After a long spell of Southampton possession, United get to touch the ball. Pogba tries a cute pass to Ibrahimovic that is well cut out by Soares. 1 min Peep peep! United kick off from right to left. Pogba gives the ball away immediately and Southampton break dangerously to win a free-kick right on the edge of the box. It’s a fair way to the left of centre but well within shooting range. Tadic blasts it straight into the wall. “Who is the ref?â€\x9d asks Peter Nelson, politely highlight the inadequacy of my work thus far. It is Anthony Taylor, and he’s about to moisten his whistle. “I don’t have any answers to the questions in your Preamble but the Bowers & Wilkins P5 headphones Pogba is wearing are really great,â€\x9d says Petter Settli, chief executive of Bowers & Wilkins . They are Pre-match reading Wouldn’t bother with the article but some of the comments are well banter. Here’s our man Ryan Dunne “Is it wrong to wonder where Fellaini-Pogba ranks on the most mismatched midfield pairings, talent-wise?â€\x9d I can’t believe you’re writing Pogba off already. Honk! Ho-honk! Honk? Actually I think Roy Keane and Michael Appleton played together against Swindon in 1996, which is a bit of a mismatch. “Sky’s new show pretty much redefining the term ‘one-eyed’,â€\x9d says Gary Naylor. “I don’t often find fault with Sky’s sports coverage, but this is ridiculous. There are two teams playing tonight.â€\x9d Ah, but you know what the philosophers say: if two teams play a game of football and the media couldn’t give a flying toss about the smaller team, do they actually exist? Manchester United (4-2-3-1) De Gea; Valencia, Bailly, Blind, Shaw; Fellaini, Pogba; Mata, Rooney, Martial; Ibrahimovic. Substitutes: Romero, Smalling, Herrera, Schneiderlin, Young, Mkhitaryan, Rashford. Southampton (4-D-2) Forster; Soares, Fonte, Van Dijk, Targett; Romeu; Hojbjerg, Davis; Tadic; Long, Redmond. Substitutes: McCarthy, Yoshida, Clasie, Rodriguez, Austin, Ward-Prowse, Pied. Hello. In the last few years Old Trafford has doubled up as a public nap station, but nobody will be getting 40 winks tonight. Manchester United host Southampton in a match that is full of talking points before a ball has been miskicked. Will Paul Pogba start on his return to Old Trafford? Where is Stormzy watching the game? How will Zlatan fare on his home debut? Will Jose Mourinho be able to maintain as his poker face as he finally, finally lives his dream of walking down the Old Trafford touchline as Manchester United manager? Will he continue to ignore the otherworldly talent of Marcus Rashford so that he can postpone an awkward conversation with Wayne Rooney? Will anyone acknowledge the existence of Southampton, let alone point out that they have won here in the past two seasons? Will Southampton’s fans make it home for Sunday lunch? Is the introduction of Friday Night Football a deliberate attempt to sabotage the viewing ratings of Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords on Channel 5? And what did happen to Arthur Graham? Kick off at 8pm BST. Rob will be with you shortly. In the meantime, why not have a read of Sachin Nakrani on Friday night football and GIL! SCOTT! HERON!',
 "Hillary Clinton denies foundation donors' influence – as it happened Donald Trump’s new presidential campaign chief is registered to vote in a key swing state in an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development. ...or, at least, he was, until today. After the disclosed that he was previously registered at an empty house in Florida where he did not live, Bannon moved his voter registration to the home of one his website’s writers. Bannon also faced domestic violence charges after a fight with a woman he was married to 20 years ago, in which she accused him of grabbing her by the neck “violentlyâ€\x9d and destroying a telephone when she tried to summon police. Documents from the Santa Monica, California, police department relating to the case were first published by Politico on Thursday. The case was eventually dismissed. A Maine state lawmaker has complied with Maine governor Paul LePage’s request that he, the lawmaker, make public a voicemail in which LePage calls him a “cocksuckerâ€\x9d and a “little son-of-a-bitch socialist cocksucker.â€\x9d The unpleasantness arose out of LePage’s belief that the lawmaker, Democratic Representative Drew Gattine, had called LePage a racist. Gattine denies that. “I want you to prove that I’m a racist,â€\x9d LePage challenges Gattine in the voicemail, which you can listen to on the Portland Press Herald web site. “I’ve spent my life helping black people.â€\x9d LePage, a Republican, gets on well with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a relationship the Boston Globe has described as a “bromance.â€\x9d LePage’s daughter is a state coordinator for the Trump campaign. Iraq war co-architect and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz has told Der Spiegel that he will probably have to vote for Hillary Clinton. Wolfowitz told Spiegel that Trump represented a security risk and that his apparent affection for Russian president Vladimir Putin was “disturbing.â€\x9d NJ.com reports that New Jersey governor Chris Christie is at least partially behind Donald Trump’s moderation this week on immigration. Trump indicated for the first time this week that he may be open to an immigration reform plan that includes a path to legal status for some undocumented migrants. The Trump campaign debuted its iPhone application this morning to relatively little fanfare - its release was accompanied by an email, but no tweets from the candidate himself - but privacy experts in the tech sphere are already casting a wary eye at the “America Firstâ€\x9d app as a potentially serious security risk for its users. According to ABC News, anyone who downloads the app opens the gate for the campaign to access and collect unusually vast quantities of data, including their entire address book and contact lists. Donald Trump’s gastroenterologist wrote the letter stating that Trump “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidencyâ€\x9d in a matter of minutes, according to an interview the doctor gave NBC’s Lester Holt. Dr. Harold Bornstein told NBC that he stands by the assertion that Trump would be the healthiest man to ever hold the nation’s highest office, saying of the obvious hyperbole: “I like that sentence, to be quite honest with you.â€\x9d Bornstein’s one-page assessment of the septuagenarian’s health - in which he called Trump’s latest test results “extraordinarily excellentâ€\x9d - have drawn new scrutiny since the letter’s release in December as the candidate and his acolytes have pointed to conspiracy theories that rival Hillary Clinton suffers from any number of secret ailments, from epilepsy to fainting spells, as proof that she does not have the “staminaâ€\x9d to serve as president. Bornstein said that the decidedly non-medical language he used in the letter was gleaned from Trump’s own vernacular: “I think I picked up his kind of language and then just interpreted it to my own.â€\x9d Bornstein’s credentials have been called into question, after CNN’s Sanjay Gupta pointed out that the professional gastroenterological association mentioned in the letter has not counted Bornstein as a member for decades. Additionally, Bornstein’s website redirects to something called Annoying Teddy, a teddy bear that sings for three hours at a time. Speaking to a roundtable of Latino business leaders in Las Vegas, Donald Trump bragged - without apparently secret evidence - that his campaign is doing well with Latino voters: “We’ve been doing very, very well with the Latinos, we’ve been doing amazing - far, far greater... than anyone understands,â€\x9d Trump said. “And they want to see jobs coming in, we’re going to bring jobs. They want to see things happen, I don’t know if you just saw, the GDP was just reduced from last month to 1.1%, when they had it last month it was 1.2, everyone thought that was a catastrophe, well they just did an adjustment and brought it down.â€\x9d The “attackâ€\x9d in question: releasing a transcript of Jill Stein’s sitdown with the Washington Post’s editorial board. Jared Taylor was prominently featured in a Hillary Clinton campaign ad released ahead of her speech denouncing the “alt-rightâ€\x9d in Reno on Thursday and “appreciatesâ€\x9d the Democratic presidential nominee for “calling attention to the message I have for Americaâ€\x9d. The self-described “race realistâ€\x9d is unrepentant in embracing the label and expounding his views. He founded the alt-right American Renaissance website 25 years ago, which started as a print monthly to emphasize race as society’s most “prominent and divisiveâ€\x9d fault line, and that mainstream politics and media tries to “gloss overâ€\x9d the issue. Clinton has attacked Trump’s associations with the alt-right, describing it as a “a fringe element that has taken over the Republican partyâ€\x9d. Taylor said her speech was “a typical lefty campaign ployâ€\x9d, and maintained Trump is not a part of the movement. “Is Hillary Clinton responsible for the views of everyone who supports her?â€\x9d he asked. Asked to define what the diffuse alt-right stands for, Taylor said there were “areas of disagreementâ€\x9d, but that “the central element of the alt-right is the position it takes on race.â€\x9d That position, until recently, would have been clearly beyond the pale of presidential politics, and rejected by liberals and mainstream conservatives alike. Now, Taylor sees an opportunity to further proselytise his views. He does not think Trump is solely responsible for the alleged growth of the alt-right. But, “it is encouraging because here we have a candidate for president who is saying some things that we have been saying for yearsâ€\x9d. Donald Trump, for one, is still an avid reader of Breitbart News: Statement from the Iowa chair of the Republican party on Hillary Clinton’s “alt-rightâ€\x9d speech: Hillary Clinton’s latest strategy of deflecting from her corrupt pay-to-play scheme at the State Department by leveling personal attacks against Donald Trump is as desperate as it is predictable. For decades, Hillary and other Democrats have taken minority support for granted while offering them embarrassingly little results. Donald Trump’s powerful message of hope, opportunity and empowerment for minority communities threatens to resonate with Hillary’s base, and that’s why she’s lashing out. Hillary Clinton can add the endorsement of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to her pile of endorsements from LGBTQ-oriented organizations, with business association’s CEO declaring in a statement this afternoon that LGBTQ Americans have “come too far to lose [their] seat at the tableâ€\x9d. “The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce has never endorsed a candidate in its nearly fifteen year history, but the stakes have never been so high for the future of the LGBT business community,â€\x9d said NGLCC co-founder and CEO Chance Mitchell in a statement. Calling Clinton “the progressive champion our businesses and our families need to thrive,â€\x9d the head of the nation’s largest business organization for LGBTQ people wrote that the advocacy group is “certain that Secretary Clinton will be the president fighting for the collective economic and social longevity of America’s 1.4 million LGBT business owners.â€\x9d In its endorsement, the Washington, DC-headquartered organization, which aims to expand economic opportunities for LGBTQ businesses and business owners, cited Clinton’s long (albeit checkered) history of advocacy for LGBTQ communities, including her support for antidiscrimination legislation and reduction of red tape for small businesses. “The NGLCC and our partners are proud to endorse a champion for equality and opportunity who will promote the Democratic Party’s most progressive platform yet,â€\x9d added Mitchell. “Secretary Clinton proudly affirms an essential core value of the NGLCC: that we are all stronger together, and that our economy only succeeds when the American Dream is available to all LGBT and allied Americans.â€\x9d Clinton responded enthusiastically to the endorsement: “I am honored to have earned the first-ever endorsement of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce,â€\x9d Clinton said in a statement. “The stakes in this election could not be higher for LGBT Americans. When Donald Trump says he’ll ‘make America great again,’ that’s code for ‘take America backwards.’ He has said he would appoint judges who would overturn marriage equality. The man Trump chose as his running mate signed a law that opened the door for Indiana businesses to discriminate against LGBT people and said marriage equality could cause ‘societal collapse.’â€\x9d “As we’ve seen in North Carolina, discrimination isn’t only wrong – it’s bad for business. North Carolina’s egregious HB2 measure has caused companies to pull jobs and millions of dollars out of the state.â€\x9d The Trump campaign debuted its iPhone application this morning to relatively little fanfare - its release was accompanied by an email, but no tweets from the candidate himself - but privacy experts in the tech sphere are already casting a wary eye at the “America Firstâ€\x9d app as a potentially serious security risk for its users. According to ABC News, anyone who downloads the app opens the gate for the campaign to access and collect unusually vast quantities of data, including their entire address book and contact lists. The app’s privacy policy informs users that the campaign “may access, collect, and store personal information about other people that is available to us through your contact list and/or address book.â€\x9d That’s a long step further than Hillary Clinton’s analogous campaign application, which does not acquire any contact information beyond that of the user. “Trump’s is asking to collect significantly more data, and not just data about you, but data about anyone who might be in your contact list,â€\x9d technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California Nicole Ozer told ABC News. “You have the situation where an individual is wanting to use the app, and they’re making decisions about other people’s privacy,â€\x9d Ozer said. “Just because you choose to use an app, doesn’t mean that all the people you come in contact with want information about them shared with that campaign or that company.â€\x9d Donald Trump’s campaign chief has moved his voter registration to the home of one his website’s writers, after the disclosed that he was previously registered at an empty house in Florida where he did not live. Stephen Bannon is now registered to vote at the Florida house of Andy Badolato, who reports for Breitbart News and has worked with Bannon in the past on the production of political films. According to public records, Badolato, 52, and two of his adult sons are also registered to vote at the property, which he co-owns with his ex-wife. A spokeswoman for Bannon, a spokesman for Trump, and Badolato did not respond to emailed questions about whether Bannon lives at the single-family house, which is listed as his residence on his new voter registration record in Sarasota County. Alexandra Preate, a spokeswoman for Bannon, said earlier in an email that “Mr Bannon moved to a different residence in Floridaâ€\x9d, repeating a statement about the issue that was previously released by Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller. The Sarasota County supervisor of elections advises new registrants that they must use the address of their legal residence, and notes prominently that applying with untrue information can result in a felony charge punishable by five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000. Bannon, the recently hired chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign, made the amendment to his registration after being contacted by the for a report published on Friday morning about his previous voting registration arrangements. The 62-year-old executive chairman of Breitbart News was from 2014 until this week registered to vote at two rented houses in Miami where his ex-wife lived. The second house has been vacant for months, according to neighbors, and is due to be demolished. Bannon, who owns property in California, works predominantly in Washington and New York. Bannon, his ex-wife Diane Clohesy and the Trump campaign have not disputed that Bannon did not live in the Miami houses with Clohesy when given eight separate opportunities to do so before and after publication. Badolato states on his website that he is an “entrepreneur, senior level executive, venture capitalist and seed stage investorâ€\x9d and claims to have founded companies that reached a total of $26bn in market capitalization. According to federal court records, he has filed for bankruptcy four times since 2008. He is also an “editorial journalist and blog contributorâ€\x9d at Breitbart News and formerly worked as an associate producer on some of Bannon’s films such as The Undefeated, a documentary about the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Which is your favorite? In 2004 Donald Trump told CNN that he dealt with stress by reflecting on how “nothing mattersâ€\x9d: Donald Trump will attend a fundraiser this evening at Harrah’s casino Lake Tahoe, in an event hosted by the Nevada Republican party. Beforehand he will participate in meetings with local Hispanic leaders and small business owners, according to local reports: NJ.com reports that New Jersey governor Chris Christie is at least partially behind Donald Trump’s moderation this week on immigration. Trump indicated for the first time this week that he may be open to an immigration reform plan that includes a path to legal status for some undocumented migrants. Former New York City mayor and Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani told NJ.com how it played out, the site reports: And, Giuliani says, even more Christie-inspired changes to Trump’s immigration stance will be forthcoming, like his call for tracking immigrant visas like Fedex packages, and using the E-Verify system to reduce illegal labor. In an interview with NJ Advance Media on Thursday, Giuliani, a top adviser to the Republican presidential nominee, said Trump’s recent reversal on immigration policy came after his inner circle for several weeks suggested a more nuanced, practical, and humane approach in dealing with the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Asked if Christie was responsible for Trump’s softening approach to immigration, the former mayor responded: “The answer to that question is yes.â€\x9d Iraq war co-architect and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz has told Der Spiegel that he will probably have to vote for Hillary Clinton. Wolfowitz told Spiegel that Trump represented a security risk and that his apparent affection for Russian president Vladimir Putin was “disturbing.â€\x9d Hillary Clinton voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Donald Trump said beforehand that he favored the invasion but later withdrew his support. In this week’s Politics for Humans podcast – our series that takes on headline news with thoughtful conversations about real lives – host Sabrina Siddiqui takes a look at the great immigration debate of 2016. She’s joined by the Republican National Committee’s Helen Aguirre Ferré, Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and Cecilia Muñoz, director of the Domestic Policy Council. Have a listen! Barack Obama will campaign for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia on 13 September, and Joe Biden will campaign for the Democrats in multiple events in Ohio on 1 September, the White House has announced. The White House notes that there’s a voter registration deadline in Pennsylvania on 11 October. Donald Trump confused everyone this week by indicating that he may be open to an arrangement under which undocumented migrants in the United States would be able to stay here if they had no criminal background and pay back taxes. Previously he called for the expulsion of all undocumented migrants, citing as inspiration president Dwight Eisenhower’s expulsion in the 1950s of hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants. Now Trump tweets that illegal immigration is “such a big problem for our country-I will solveâ€\x9d. But that’s not quite enough information for some people: Arizona senator John McCain, whose primary opponent attacked him yesterday as “weakâ€\x9d and “oldâ€\x9d – McCain turns 80 Monday – has told TMZ that he finds Britney Spears attractive. TMZ caught up with McCain at the Los Angeles airport and asked him to name his favorite “younger generationâ€\x9d female celebrity (video at TMZ): “Britney Spears?â€\x9d a man off camera said. “There you go,â€\x9d McCain said. “Britney Spears is certainly very attractive.â€\x9d Spears has a new album out. She also is in a new episode of Carpool Karaoke with Late Late Show host James Corden. Didn’t expect to find reason to add this to today’s live blog politics coverage, but sometimes everything comes together: (h/t @bencjacobs) In reply to Donald Trump’s brash pitch to African American voters – “what do you have to lose?â€\x9d Trump says – the Hillary Clinton campaign has produced a television ad called “Everythingâ€\x9d: We’ll post new Trump ads when we see them – there haven’t been any since the one that was released when Trump’s first TV ad buys were announced last week. Do Instagram videos count? Trump is out with a new one today, hitting Clinton for a 1996 warning about juvenile “super predatorsâ€\x9d. The video draws on footage of a Democratic debate in which Bernie Sanders calls the comments “racistâ€\x9d: This May video of Ted Cruz predicting Donald Trump will betray supporters “on every issue across the boardâ€\x9d particularly immigration has aged well: (h/t @awzurcher) Cruz wasn’t alone. Here’s National Review editor Rich Lowry in January: In news from off the campaign trail, the president has created the largest marine protected area on Earth, which also has what must be competitive for the longest name for a marine protected area, PapahÄ\x81naumokuÄ\x81kea. It’s Friday. Treat yourself to some photos: And read our coverage here: A Maine state lawmaker has complied with Maine governor Paul LePage’s request that he, the lawmaker, make public a voicemail in which LePage calls him a “cocksuckerâ€\x9d and a “little son-of-a-bitch socialist cocksucker.â€\x9d The unpleasantness arose out of LePage’s belief that the lawmaker, Democratic Representative Drew Gattine, had called LePage a racist. Gattine denies that. “I want you to prove that I’m a racist,â€\x9d LePage challenges Gattine in the voicemail, which you can listen to on the Portland Press Herald web site. “I’ve spent my life helping black people.â€\x9d LePage, a Republican, gets on well with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a relationship the Boston Globe has described as a “bromance.â€\x9d LePage’s daughter is a state coordinator for the Trump campaign. “I want you to record this and make it public, because I’m after you. Thank you,â€\x9d LePage concludes his voicemail to Gattine. LePage apologized in January for giving voice to a fantasy of marauding outsiders who come to his state to sell drugs and “impregnate a young white girl.â€\x9d “These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,â€\x9d LePage said. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.â€\x9d LePage, who had already been known for incendiary rhetoric, said those comments were a “mistake.â€\x9d “I was going impromptu and my brain didn’t catch up to my mouth,â€\x9d LePage said. “Instead of Maine women I said white women … If you go to Maine, you can see it’s 95% white.â€\x9d Read further: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Hillary Clinton denied Friday morning that her work as secretary of state was affected by donations to the Clinton charitable foundation, after an Associated Press investigation revealed earlier this week that a large share of meetings she took as secretary with non-governmental counterparts were with foundation donors. “My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces,â€\x9d Clinton said in a phone interview with MSNBC. “I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interest abroad. I believe my aides also acted appropriately. And we have gone above and beyond ... to voluntarily disclose donors.â€\x9d Clinton also suggested that the foundation would become less active on the world stage, saying its governors were “trying to make sure good work continues as we wind it downâ€\x9d and that “the Foundation is looking for partners but that’s going to take time to carry outâ€\x9d. The interview followed a speech Thursday in Reno, Nevada, in which Clinton described what she said was Donald Trump’s “long history of racial discriminationâ€\x9d. She repeated that description Friday. Senior Republicans have declined to comment on the speech or its content (read our news coverage of the speech here). That includes the leaders of both chambers of Congress. Separately, it emerged Thursday evening that Stephen Bannon, the head of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, faced domestic violence charges after a fight with a woman he was married to 20 years ago, in which she accused him of grabbing her by the neck “violentlyâ€\x9d and destroying a telephone when she tried to summon police. Documents from the Santa Monica, California, police department relating to the case were first published by Politico. The case was eventually dismissed. “She complained of soreness to her neck,â€\x9d wrote a police officer who responded to the incident. “I saw red marks on her left wrist and the right side of her neck. These were photographed.â€\x9d Read further: Additionally, a investigation has revealed that Bannon is registered to vote in a key swing state at an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. From our report: Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development. “I have emptied the property,â€\x9d Luis Guevara, the owner of the house, which is in the Coconut Grove section of the city, said in an interview. “Nobody lives there … We are going to make a construction there.â€\x9d Neighbors said the property had been abandoned for several months. Read further: Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.",
 "Breast cancer study finds 'astonishing' drug combination that gives results Using Herceptin in combination with another drug before surgery shrinks and may even destroy tumours in women with an aggressive form of breast cancer in less than two weeks, an “astonishingâ€\x9d study suggests. The results of the Cancer Research UK-funded trial, presented at the 10th European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam, could – if successfully replicated – lead to fewer women needing chemotherapy. Around a quarter of 66 women with HER2 positive breast cancer treated for 11 days with both trastuzumab (the generic name for Herceptin) and lapatinib saw their tumours rapidly shrink significantly or even disappear. Prof Nigel Bundred, from the University of Manchester and the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS foundation trust, who presented the data, said: “This has groundbreaking potential because it allows us to identify a group of patients who, within 11 days, have had their tumours disappear with anti-HER2 therapy alone and who potentially may not require subsequent chemotherapy. “This offers the opportunity to tailor treatment for each individual woman.â€\x9d Samia al Qadhi, chief executive at Breast Cancer Care, said: “The astonishing findings in this study show that combining these two drugs has the potential to shrink HER2 positive breast cancer in just 11 days. “For some HER2 positive breast cancer patients the effect of this drug combination will be amazing and mean they can avoid chemotherapy and its gruelling side effects completely. For others, their tumours may not shrink, but doctors will know either way very quickly, giving them the ability to rapidly decide on further treatment. “Although an early study, this has game changing potential. Yet before this can be made available we need to see more evidence. Particularly because, at present, trastuzumab’s (Herceptin) licensing means it is only available to be used alongside chemotherapy and not alone. All cancer patients deserve access to clinically effective treatments.â€\x9d Trial co-leader Prof Judith Bliss, director of the clinical trials and statistics unit at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: “It was unexpected to see quite such dramatic responses to the trastuzumab and lapatinib within 11 days. “Our results are a strong foundation on which to build further trials of combination anti-HER2 therapies prior to surgery – which could reduce the number of women who require subsequent chemotherapy, which is also very effective but can lead to long-term side effects.â€\x9d The trial, led by researchers from Manchester University, the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS foundation trust and the Institute of Cancer Research, studied 257 women with HER2 positive breast cancer in the short gap between their initial diagnosis and surgery to remove their tumours. Initially women were randomised to receive either trastuzamab or lapatinib or no treatment. Halfway through the trial, after evidence from other trials of the effectiveness of the combination, the design was changed so that additional women allocated to the lapatinib group were also prescribed trastuzumab. Of the women receiving both, 17% had only minimal residual disease – defined as an invasive tumour smaller than 5mm in size – and 11% had no biological sign of invasive tumour in the breast. Of the women treated with trastuzumab only, 3% had residual disease or complete response. HER2 positive breast cancer is more likely to come back after treatment than some other types of breast cancer. It is generally treated with surgery, chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and targeted anti-HER2 drugs. Current treatments are effective, and complete response is common after three to four months, but observing a disease response so quickly took the researchers by surprise. In the UK, around 53,000 women a year are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and in 10% to 15% of these cases it is HER2 positive breast cancer. Around 11,500 women die from the disease every year. Herceptin was approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) 10 years ago after pressure from patients. Lapatinib has not been approved and so is not routinely available on the NHS due to its expense. According to Cancer Research UK, current treatments are effective, and women often experience a complete response after three to four months. Nevertheless, researchers said the 11-day response was very surprising. Prof Arnie Purushotham, senior clinical adviser at Cancer Research UK, said: “These results are very promising if they stand up in the long run and could be the starting step of finding a new way to treat HER2 positive breast cancers. “This could mean some women can avoid chemotherapy after their surgery – sparing them the side-effects and giving them a better quality of life.â€\x9d",
 'Love through a lens: how Ingrid Bergman took the world’s breath away Nearly 20 years ago, I went to stay with my husband in a house owned by the family of Roberto Rossellini, the great neorealist Italian film director. We spent our days as you do when you find yourself in an idyllic hideaway in the Italian sunshine: reading; lying by the pool; watching the light through the trees. And I thought about Ingrid Bergman, who must have visited this secluded villa at a time when her life was in free fall. It’s hard now to imagine the kind of scandal Bergman caused when she became pregnant with Rossellini’s child, while still married to her first husband Petter Lindström. She wasn’t just a wife, she was a mother, and had left her daughter Pia behind when she went off to Italy to work with Rossellini. The outrage was scalding. “Bergman news jolts Hollywood like an A Bombâ€\x9d screeched one newspaper headline, neatly combining two of the most important news items of 1949. In the US, religious groups began a campaign to ban her films on the grounds that they glorified adultery. In Italy, she and Rossellini were followed everywhere by paparazzi, their companions for the rest of their tumultuous life together. “I was a danger for American womanhood,â€\x9d she told an interviewer, years later. “Even my voice over the radio was supposed to be dangerous. Of course I was hurt, but I didn’t think that what I had done was so much other people’s business ... If you don’t like the performance, you can walk out, but to criticise people’s private life, I thought was wrong.â€\x9d That defiant statement of intent is quoted in Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words, a new documentary film directed by Stig Björkman that tells the story of one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars. It draws on her diaries, letters and interviews, interspersed with home movies, and glimpses of the actor in all her screen glory, from her Swedish debut in 1935 to her Hollywood heyday in the 1940s to her final roles nearly 40 years later. It is a revealing insight into a woman who consistently defied expectations. In her first American screen test, in bleached-out colour and silence, “with no makeupâ€\x9d as the clapper board proclaims, she shines. It is as if she is in possession of a secret and that knowledge illuminates her from the inside, as she glances directly at the camera, or smiles with a warmth that could thaw a Swedish winter. It’s a sign of all that is to come. If you think of Bergman on screen, in Casablanca, Notorious or Gaslight, it is that radiance that first comes to mind. In part this was a simple matter of her beauty. Daniel Selznick, son of the powerful David O who first swept Bergman away to Hollywood, told her biographer Charlotte Chandler: “There is no one I have ever met, of any age, of any generation, that took one’s breath away at every meeting the way she did. The complexion, the lips, the cheeks, the ears, the nose, the eyes, the body of a goddess. And she was just completely unselfconscious.â€\x9d Gregory Peck, her co-star in Hitchock’s Spellbound, suggested that she was even more beautiful away from the studio cameras – a judgment vindicated by the home movie footage that shows her relaxed with family and friends. But there is some other mysterious force at work. From the very first, she was confident in front of a camera, and it is Pia Lindström – the daughter she abandoned when she ran off with Rossellini – who offers a psychological explanation for her mother’s dazzling impact on screen. Bergman’s mother had died when she was two, so she was brought up by her father, a photographer, whom she adored, until he too died when she was 13. “Love would come right through that lens,â€\x9d suggests Lindström. “She was looking through that lens and she is looking at her dear dead father, and she would flirt and play with him and pose with him. She was completely comfortable with the camera and knew how to pose.â€\x9d Bergman herself was aware of her gift. She was a poor little orphan girl, lonely and bereft, yet filming made her feel alive. There’s a photograph of her going to her first ever job as an extra that is notable not only for her staggering loveliness, but for the sheer vitality of her pose as she peers along the line of waiting hopefuls, looking outwards and forwards. “I love the freedom I feel in front of the camera,â€\x9d she said. But she was a dab hand behind a camera, too, inheriting from her father a desire to record the world and the people around her. She filmed her honeymoon with Petter, and when she left him suddenly she wrote saying she didn’t want many of the “treasuresâ€\x9d she had left behind. “The only problem will be our 16mm film. Maybe you will lend it to me so I can see what I looked like in my youth.â€\x9d That desire to preserve each aspect of her life in photographs and footage has left Björkman a wealth of material on which to draw; in this private footage you see her falling in love with Rossellini, stroking his head tenderly as they talk; you watch the three children they had together grow up; you see their fear as their parents’ marriage falls apart. Later, you watch the sadness cross Bergman’s face as she climbs into an ambulance when her daughter Isabella is diagnosed with scoliosis. But just as revealing are the letters and diaries that Bergman also preserved, rich in self-knowledge and the honest confrontation of the contradictions in her character. Writing to a friend, when she is enjoying the first flush of success in her Hollywood career, she describes her panic at not working for four months “which is two months too longâ€\x9d. She is at home with Petter and Pia, but confesses: “Only half of me is alive. The other half is packed away in a suitcase suffocating. What should I do?â€\x9d She has an affair with Robert Capa, the war photographer, and her free spirit soars. She tries to be a good wife and to knit at home, but the siren call of something different propels her onwards. With Rossellini, it is his work she falls in love with first; she admires Rome, Open City and writes him a bold proposal. “If you ever need a Swedish actor who speaks very good English and a little German, who can make herself understood in French and can only say ‘ti amo’ in Italian, then I’ll come and make a film with you.â€\x9d Years later she explains his appeal more fully. “It was a combination of passion that I fell in love with a man who was so different from any other man I had ever known, and it was my boredom in Hollywood – I wanted to do something that they didn’t expect me to do.â€\x9d When her relationship with Rossellini broke down, and she began to think about returning to Hollywood, she was still determined “to do the kind of films I feel comfortable withâ€\x9d. Success mattered greatly to Bergman, but not at any price. At the same time, as the film makes clear, though her children mattered to her intensely, she was prepared to leave them to pursue her career. Her priorities were not those expected. “If you took acting away from me I would stop breathing,â€\x9d she said. She admitted she had missed a lot, by leaving not just one child but her second set of children to be brought up mainly by others. “I do regret it, but I don’t think they suffered,â€\x9d she said. That complexity – the authentic voice of a woman who knew her own fallibility, of someone who loved and lost but never complained – makes Bergman, who died of cancer, aged 67, in 1982, a peculiarly admirable Hollywood star. She was a pioneer before her time; protected and constrained by her loveliness, she voyaged ever onwards, brave and strong. There is a rose named after her, which I have in my garden. It is deep red, lightly perfumed and almost too perfect in shape and form. It blooms for a very long time, lingering long after other flowers shed their petals. There could not be a better tribute to an actor who is always worth remembering. • Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words is at the BFI Southbank, London SE1, from 12 August and then at selected cinemas. At the BFI, the film will be accompanied by a mini season, Ingrid Bergman on Screen. bfi.org.uk',
 'ECB cuts eurozone interest rate to zero to jump-start economy The European Central Bank has surprised financial markets by cutting interest rates in the eurozone to zero, expanding its money printing programme and reducing a key deposit rate further into negative territory as it seeks to revive the economy and fend off deflation. The ECB chief, Mario Draghi, implied interest rates would stay “very lowâ€\x9d for at least another year but played down speculation they could be cut even further. Unveiling a bigger package of help for the eurozone than investors had expected, Draghi predicted that inflation in the single currency bloc would remain stuck in negative territory over the coming months and cited a host of risks to economic growth from stumbling emerging economies, volatile financial markets and the slow pace of structural reforms. “Rates will stay low, very low, for a long period of time and well past the horizon of our purchases,â€\x9d Draghi said, referring to the ECB’s quantitative easing (QE) programme, where the bank pumps money into the European economy by buying bonds from banks, which is expected to run until at least March 2017. But asked at a news conference how low the ECB could go on interest rates, he said: “From today’s perspective and taking into account the support of our measures to growth and inflation, we don’t anticipate that it will be necessary to reduce rates further. Of course, new facts can change the situation and the outlook.â€\x9d Going further than economists had expected, the Frankfurt-based ECB cut the eurozone’s main interest rate from 0.05% to zero, initially prompting a sharp drop in the euro against the pound and the dollar. As part of a package of measures to revive lending and economic activity in the eurozone, the central bank cut its two other interest rates, expanded QE and announced new ultra-cheap four-year loans to banks, allowing them to borrow from the ECB at negative interest rates. On currency markets, there were big swings in the euro as traders sought to establish if the ECB had now exhausted its options or if more stimulus was still to come. On stock markets, share prices were boosted when the rate cuts were announced but gains were cut as Draghi suggested there was no additional help to come. Economists said the package of measures announced was more than had been expected. “The European Central Bank announced a broad attack on below-target inflation, using all monetary policy tools at once to boost the economy and increase inflation,â€\x9d said Tomas Holinka, economist at economic researchers Moody’s Analytics. “While the bank has revealed its policy instruments step by step in the past, now it announced all of them – cutting the interest rates, expanding the QE programme and providing long-term liquidity – together.â€\x9d George Efstathopoulos, portfolio manager at fund manager Fidelity International, commented: “This is a bold stance from Draghi and the ECB, which should be positive for both financial markets but more importantly the real economy.â€\x9d As expected by markets, the deposit rate was cut by 10 basis points, further into negative territory to -0.4%. The latest cut in the deposit rate means the ECB will be charging banks more to hold their money overnight, with the aim of encouraging them to lend it to businesses. The marginal lending rate, paid by banks to borrow from the ECB overnight, was cut from 0.3% to to 0.25%. The ECB expanded QE to €80bn (£61bn) a month, up from €60bn. That was more than the €70bn economists had been expecting, according to the consensus in a Reuters poll of economists. The programme will now include buying bonds issued by companies and not just by financial institutions. The ECB had come under growing pressure to increase support for the eurozone’s flagging economy after the single currency bloc slipped back into negative inflation in February. But the latest moves come amid growing scepticism on financial markets that central banks have enough ammunition left to bolster growth and stop falling prices becoming entrenched. The ECB itself is now predicting inflation in the eurozone will be just 0.1% this year, 1.3% in 2017 and 1.6% in 2018 - all under its target for inflation close to but below 2%. Draghi echoed comments by his UK counterpart, Bank of England governor Mark Carney, that governments cannot leave central banks to do all the work on driving the economic recovery. Draghi said: “Monetary policy is focused on maintaining price stability over the medium term and its accommodative stance supports economic activity. However, in order to reap the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively.â€\x9d Those comments reflected evidence that “the effectiveness of monetary policy is clearly diminishingâ€\x9d, said Alasdair Cavalla at the consultancy Centre for Economics and Business Research. “Draghi threw down the gauntlet to fiscal policymakers, arguing for infrastructure spending while lowering the ECB’s own growth forecasts,â€\x9d said Cavalla. Against that backdrop of bleaker growth prospects and falling prices, Draghi had already indicated the central bank would announce fresh stimulus at the conclusion of this week’s policy-setting meeting. Economists had widely expected the ECB to expand QE and cut the deposit rate so the reduction of the main interest rate and the marginal lending rate caught markets off-guard. Alex Edwards, analyst at currency transfer company UKForex, said: “The ECB has delivered nothing more than dovish news. Rates were cut, inflation forecasts slashed and an extra $20bn announced in quantitative easing. Draghi has not left many stones unturned, and the fact he announced this all at once sent the euro spiralling downwards. “The euro has been extremely volatile since Draghi spoke, and bounced back as quickly as it fell after he also hinted that rates may now be at their bottom. It’s going to be a very bumpy ride for the euro into the end of the week.â€\x9d',
 'HSBC escapes action by City regulator following Swiss tax scandal HSBC will not face formal action from the City regulator following revelations that the Swiss arm of Britain’s biggest bank helped clients to evade tax. HSBC was engulfed in scandal a year ago when leaked bank account details showed how the bank’s Swiss unit helped wealthy customers to dodge taxes by concealing assets and handing out bundles of cash to avoid the authorities. At the time, the Financial Conduct Authority said it was looking at the working practices inside the bank after admitting it had learned about the details of the activities in the Swiss bank from the reports in the and other publications. However, the FCA has now concluded that review and will not take formal action against HSBC. The FCA would not comment on the decision, first reported by Sky News, butit said in February 2015 that the leak of the bank account details “has served to reinforce the importance of firms operating with the right culture across all of their operationsâ€\x9d. Martin Wheatley, the then chief executive of the FCA, said: “The allegations are about a Swiss unit of the bank, based on events of predominantly 2005-2007 ... We are very closely monitoring the ability of the bank overall … and we think significant improvements have been madeâ€\x9d. Wheatley resigned in July when George Osborne did not renew his contract, sparking speculation that the chancellor wanted to take a softer stance towards the City. A successor for Wheatley has not been named and the regulator ended 2015 facing criticism of its decision to end a review of culture at banks that had been outlined in its business plan earlier in the year. HSBC, which declined to comment on Monday, has repeatedly said it has changed its practices, including an overhaul of its structure that began in 2011. Last year, the Geneva authorities instructed HSBC to pay a record 40m Swiss francs (£28m) for “organisational deficienciesâ€\x9d. A month ago, Hervé Falciani, an IT expert, was sentenced to five years in prison by a Swiss court for aggravated industrial espionage, data theft and violation of commercial and banking secrecy. Falciani was convicted in his absence and did not attend the trial. HSBC is currently reviewing whether to keep its headquarters in the UK, where it has been based since the early 1990s following the takeover of Midland Bank. The outcome is expected early this year. The bank has published 11 factors it will consider during the review, which include the government’s tax policy and attitude to financial services companies. The FCA decision emerged as the bank’s UK arm – which has 17 million customers – tweeted on Monday that people were having problems logging on to online and mobile banking services. Towards the end of the day, it tweeted: “Personal banking customers should now be able to access the mobile app, although we continue to work on a fix for desktop usersâ€\x9d. It is the latest IT problem for a big bank. On New Year’s Day, Royal Bank of Scotland’s customers had problems using their debit cards in shops.',
 'Shapeshifter Antonio Conte stamps his dynamic personality on Chelsea For Chelsea fans, or indeed anyone with an interest in the high-rev methods of Antonio Conte, there was a slightly alarming moment as the Premier League international break arrived at the start of October. Conte announced he would be going to Italy to rest. He was already exhausted. OK, then. Just the 31 league games, two domestic cups, one transfer window and 10-15 miles of febrile touchline sprints left to go this season. What could possibly go wrong from here? It is understandable Conte should have arrived in west London less than refreshed given his summer at Euro 2016, the burdens of starting a major job and his own full-body absorption in the process: the hair-tearing grief at every setback, the tendency to celebrate each high with uncontained, eye-popping joy, haring about like a man who has just struck oil beneath his patio decking or made the first ever recorded discovery of chocolate ice cream. In reality Conte is simply a manager who works best coiled tight and always on the edge. In this respect he looks a pretty good fit for a Premier League season where top spot has changed hands nine times and where the ability to cajole a cohesive whole out of a new-ish group of players while simultaneously sliding down the banisters and performing complex calculus on an abacus is likely to decide the destiny of an open title race. With just under a third of the season gone four points separate the top five teams, all of whom have a reasonable chance of going on to win it. Beyond this the league is unusually interesting in a tactical sense, with a shared attempt at the top to marry technical players and positional fluidity with a full-throttle physicality that feels quite English in its unquestioning intensity. As Conte nipped off for a lie-down at the start of October there was a view in these pages that any team finishing ahead of Liverpool at the end of the season would do so “bloodied and blistered and breathlessâ€\x9d. Six weeks on the latest club to take up the slack at the front of the peloton are Chelsea, to whom the same reasoning might now be applied. Chelsea’s current run of six league wins without conceding a goal has its roots in Conte’s bold shift of shape in September. The early attempts at a 4-2-4 had already begun to elide into a 4-3-3. Defeat by Arsenal brought some soul-searching and a more profound change to 3-4-3, with Cesc Fà bregas discarded and the roles of three key players clarified with thrilling results. At which point, enter David Luiz, defensive giant. Yes, that David Luiz, a player who has had a peculiar double-life, damned by his own relentlessly trumpeted mistakes and at the same time rewarded with ever more extravagant playing contracts. During the last World Cup in Brazil there was an airline advert that featured a zanily grinning David Luiz in full pilot’s outfit proudly inviting you to board his waiting jet, arguably the least reassuring passenger safety message ever devised. And yet he has been key to Chelsea’s recent stability, not just as a deep playmaker at the heart of that three but as the aggressive, spirited defensive leader he has always been in between the odd horrific performance. Aged 29 now, the only major club football medal to escape the world’s most expensive defender across European three countries is - so far - a Premier League title medal. Which is fairly steady going for a man routinely dismissed as a flake and a saboteur. Further upfield Eden Hazard has been liberated by the 3-4-3, allowed to operate in forward gear by a manager who has accepted his lack of cover rather than simply fuming at it like a disappointed stepdad. In 12 league games Hazard has made 52 successful dribbles, compared with 89 the whole of last season. He should pass his total of 36 shots in the whole of 2015-16 against Tottenham on Saturday. Against that Hazard has made just four tackles. But Chelsea are top, and their best player has rediscovered his lateral spring, the ability to take the ball and turn in a single movement. Victor Moses, high-class wing-back, has been the most obvious gain. Moses is also the epitome of a common trait among the insurgent Conte-Klopp-Guardiola managerial type, the ability to make good use of the things that they find, recycling some talented but dormant part into a key component. Like James Milner’s fine turn at left-back, or Guardiola’s tweaking of key creative midfielders, Moses has been Conte’s own Womble-player, an itinerant winger and No10 across five English clubs before the age of 25 but now in the best period of his career as a powerful and utterly committed right wing-back. The sudden surge of eviscerating form, sparked by a decisive switch of shape, is nothing new in a Conte team. There are parallels with his first season at Juventus in 2011-12, where 14 of his first 27 Serie A matches were drawn but Juve ended up winning the title unbeaten in the league. Conte had been desperate to fit the thrillingly energetic Arturo Vidal into his team. In late September Vidal finally made the starting XI, Juve ran through Milan in Turin, a new 4-3-3 shape was up and running and Conte was on his way to a hat-trick of titles. As with Juve that year the lack of European football looks a significant advantage for Chelsea. There is an idea that the major plus here is to do with fatigue or injury, but managers talk instead of simply having those extra two days to plan and drill their players. Such is the way of the modern coach. In contract with the old Alex Ferguson-era idea of momentum, winning teams rolling on with the same system, combinations ever-more grooved under pressure, it is the interventionist, hands-in-the-cake-mix tendencies of the modern breed that stand out. Conte is obsessed with the fitness and physicality of his players, talking constantly with his medical staff, brooding over sprockets and hinges like an F1 pit boss, shifting his team on reports of twinges and twangs. Similarly the hands-on nature of Jurgen Klopp’s coaching has been noted, the tendency to physically haul players around the training pitch, something Ron Greenwood could be seen doing at West Ham in the 1970s. Klopp’s Liverpool experienced their first little gulp this weekend, as Southampton set out to defend against a slightly depleted team. Like a batsman who comes out and hits a flurry of fours, then has to change gear as the field drops back, Klopp will now look to adjust, to pick up the ones and twos, to hold Liverpool’s attacking fire for the right moment. No doubt the same process of reeling in and counter-adjustment will hit Chelsea in the coming weeks as opposition managers find a way to get behind the wing-backs or to harry David Luiz as Middlesbrough did on Sunday. Chelsea’s next two opponents are Tottenham and Manchester City. This evolving team may find life less comfortable against similar high-intensity machines, fellow hard-pressers. But a year on from the last days of José they can at least be sure they will not fail for want of sheer, thrilling focus.',
 'Sa Dingding: The Butterfly Dream review – Chinese folk-electronica fusion for global pop market This should have been an intriguing set. Sa Dingding is one of China’s most successful and unusual artists, a powerful singer who has specialised in reviving Chinese and Mongolian folk themes while mixing traditional instruments with electronica. And the producer of her new album is Karsh Kale, the New York-based tabla player who has worked with Anoushka Shankar. But this is not the China-India sound-clash that it could have been, even though Dingding plays the guzheng zither and morin khuur fiddle, and the Indian musicians include flautist Naveen Kumar and sitar player Azeem Ahmed Alvi. There are some strong songs here, but they are weakened by the overuse of electronica. The yelping Ding Ding Sa or clattering Yin and Yang are aimed at the global pop market, though the cool, sitar-backed Oriental Beauty and rousing finale, Good Luck Song, are reminders of Dingding’s versatile, often acrobatic vocals.',
 'Family rifts over Brexit: ‘I can barely look at my parents’ ‘I’m worried Brexit has made me ageist,â€\x9d a friend said, following the shock of the referendum result on Friday morning. “I saw this older couple in the street and just felt this sudden, enormous wave of fury towards them and their generation. It was almost physical.â€\x9d In the immediate aftermath of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, emotions have been running high. Since YouGov reported that 75% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 56% of 25- to 49-year-olds voted in favour of remain, versus 44% of 50- to 64-year-olds and 39% of those over 65, the extent of the generational gulf between Generation Y and the so-called baby boomers and their parents has been palpable. As has the anger many younger people including my friend, are feeling. Over the past few days, thousands have vented on social media. “I’m never giving up my seat on the train for an old person again,â€\x9d read one tweet. The overwhelming consensus on the part of “millennialsâ€\x9d (defined as those aged 18-34), has been that, by opting for Brexit, the older generation has selfishly voted against the interests of subsequent ones. What happens if the people voting against your interests were members of your own family: your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts? Stephanie is 21, from Merseyside, and was visiting her parents for the week of the referendum. “Right from the moment I got back I was bombarded with questions about which side I was on and why,â€\x9d she said. “I’m not one to shy away from healthy debate, but my parents completely refused to see things from any point of view but their own, and would deliberately misunderstand my view or rubbish it completely. “After the leave result, my parents continued to insult and degrade the 48% of us [who voted remain], with my dad at one point getting into an argument with a family friend who is an EU citizen and telling her she ‘should leave if she loves the EU so much’. Even when stories of legitimised racism and xenophobia were highlighted, my parents refused to accept this may have been partly because of the leave vote,â€\x9d she adds. The referendum may have ruined Stephanie’s trip home, but it has shifted her perspective. “What was supposed to be a nice week turned into a week of being belittled and endless arguments, and I have never felt so insulted by members of my own family before. As much as I love my parents, this referendum has made me see them in a different light – people who are unwilling to listen to the opinions of others and disrespectful of those with legitimate concerns about what their opinion could lead to.â€\x9d Stephanie is far from being the only young person now seeing her family differently. “I’ve been having the most terrible rows with my mum about it, as I’m so heartbroken by the result,â€\x9d says Alex. “Both my parents voted to leave despite me begging them not to. I tried to explain the effects it would have on my future, and my children’s future – but each time it would just end in the most awful arguments. Now, with the way things are, I feel like I can barely look at them. It sounds melodramatic, but I feel so betrayed by it all.â€\x9d Some will think Alex is going over the top, but the realisation that your parents may not just have voted against your interests but embody wildly different politics and values from yours can be a bitter pill to swallow. Jamie, 28, grew up in a council flat with a single mother who worked hard to make their difficult life better for her children. “I’ve always been so proud of her for all the things she sacrificed for us. She’s warm, kind, generous and funny. She has such acute sympathy that she’s been known to cry hearing about the illness of other people’s relatives. Oh, and she also hates immigrants.â€\x9d It is not a prejudice that Jamie shares. “My mum voted to leave the EU because she doesn’t want non-British citizens here. Despite the fact that my brother and I have been extremely vocal about our reasons for staying in, she’s chosen to vote out because she doesn’t like the local Asian population. It makes no sense to me. “When she tells me wildly embellished stories about how disgusting the local peaceful, quiet, mostly elderly immigrant community are, I laugh at her and calmly tell her she’s wrong. Most of the time, I can see past her views. But right now, I’m angry and ashamed.â€\x9d Sarah is also struggling with anti-immigrant sentiments among those close to her. She is the only known remain voter in her family. “I grew up in the Midlands on a council estate where many of my relatives still live, so I do wonder if that has something to do with their choice,â€\x9d she says. “It came to a head post-result, when a relative asked: ‘How can Remain voters call leave voters ‘racist?’â€\x9d “I had pointed out that sharing EDL, Britain First and BNP posts online [means] people will assume you share those views and are likely to call you a racist, homophobe and a sexist.â€\x9d After that, things took a nasty turn. “I’m no longer engaging with it. My family isn’t impressed I ‘called my family racist’, and the whole referendum has certainly created a them versus us divide that I don’t think will heal any time soon. I haven’t spoken to any of them since Friday. It’s a bit sore.â€\x9d Naturally, not all tales of post-referendum familial disharmony will be so extreme. Where some parents are defiant in their voting choice, for others, a certain amount of guilt is setting in. “My whole family voted leave,â€\x9d says Emma. “My brother, who is 31, now feels awful about it and wishes he hadn’t even voted at all. My parents have been staunch Eurosceptics their whole lives, and are pleased with the result. But my mum now feels bad about how upset I am; and all of her friends’ children have been upset, too. We are having very tense conversations. “I don’t begrudge her the life that she has had – my parents are homeowners who retired early with nice pensions – because she has worked damn hard for it. I’m not even angry with her for voting the way she has, because she has a right to her views. I just feel sad about my own future and I can’t pretend that I’m not. And so she feels bad for making me feel sad, which just keeps going in a never-ending cycle. I feel like we are both hurting and we can’t help each other.â€\x9d Jo, too, is cut up about her parents’ decision. “My parents voted out. I was very shocked when I found out how they were voting,â€\x9d she says. “My parents were anti-Thatcherites, originally from the north-east, and they partially blamed Europe for the loss of industry and jobs in the north. They are not racists and they are degree-educated people who had decided years ago that if the vote ever came up they would vote out. “They felt lied to in the original vote as to what Europe would become. It seemed to be a vote for nostalgia. I had a hard time picking up the phone on Friday, and I think mum was upset as to how distraught I was about the result. She said she never thought it would actually be out and was surprised. I feel like something has died that we can’t get back as a nation.â€\x9d One woman I speak to is so furious with her uncle for voting leave that she is considering not inviting him to her wedding. “I just don’t want anything to do with him at the moment,â€\x9d she says. “Maybe after a few days I will calm down. Then again, maybe not.â€\x9d From speaking to young people up and down the country, many of whom are now embroiled in rifts with the closest members of their families, it becomes clear that their reactions to the result are not just matters of political principle, but come from a place of profound grief and betrayal. It sounds dramatic but, for many, the heartbreak is total, because of the futures so many feel they have lost. One person I speak to, from west Wales, has spent their entire adult life studying or working on an EU-funded programme across several European countries, and is furious that despite this their mother didn’t even bother to vote. Another, who speaks two EU languages, is working on a third, and dreams of living abroad, is furious. “Now, because of petty quibbles with EU practice, my parents have voted away my right to live and work in nearly 30 countries,â€\x9d she says. “Everything I’ve studied for, for as long as I can remember, has been thrown away over false constructs of sovereignty and lies about immigration. “I am presumably one of the citizens who leave voters thought they were winning the country back for. I don’t want their toxic, pathetic little country, it is not mine. If I had anywhere else to go I would burn my passport.â€\x9d You can imagine how it must feel, to invest so much of your young adult life into the European project, only to have your parents undermine it. “How could they do this?â€\x9d is the phrase that comes up again and again. Some tell me they are leaving the Labour party, dismayed at what they perceive as Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to passionately fight for the EU they so love, or are moving to Scotland and plan to vote SNP, and several mention the Lib Dems’ promise to campaign to reverse the decision if there is a snap general election. Whatever happens, there is a huge swell of political support among young people for remaining in the EU that clever politicians could potentially galvanise. In the meantime, young people are reflecting on the fact that you only get one adult life, and it’s one that politicians and parents alike have gambled with. “I’m ashamed of my own mother,â€\x9d says Jamie. “It’s a horrible feeling. I’m incredibly angry that she didn’t consider the future of her young children who are just starting out in the world. “We’re graduates, starting our careers and beginning postgraduate studies. We’re newlyweds and nearlyweds, looking for our first homes and who will be starting families in the next 10 years. But when our mum voted, she chose to ignore that, driven by her hate for foreigners, rather than love for her own children. She’s sacrificed a lot in life to give us the best chances but now, with one little cross in a box, she’s undone all the good she did for us. I just don’t understand why she didn’t listen to her children before she voted.â€\x9d Not all young people voted to remain, of course. Emily, 26, voted leave, while her mum, dad and grandad all voted remain. “My mum hung up the phone on me when she found out my younger sister and I had voted leave. Dad said he was devastated at the result, and my granddad, a second world war veteran, initially told me he was worried for a future he wouldn’t see.â€\x9d Her younger sister, who is a student, also voted leave. “Being young, both my sister and I felt we were at the sharp end of the economic crash. She’s saddled with £9,000-a-year tuition fees she didn’t have any say about, and set to work under the dreaded junior doctor contact in a decimated NHS. I’m still paying nearly half my income in rent. We wanted something to give. Mum and Dad are second-home owners. Grandad has been retired longer than he has worked. The system worked for them. Now the economic reality is beginning to set in, I’m not sure if I made the right decision. Mum says we all make bad choices, she voted for Thatcher in 79, and she forgives me. Grandad says not to worry, nothing will be as bad as the Great Depression he grew up in. When he was a child, he was so hungry he ate acorns for dinner and had no shoes. People nowadays need to toughen up, he says. It’ll be OK in the end.â€\x9d • All names have been changed',
 "Demand mounts for Trump Apprentice tapes that may hold 'far worse' footage The repercussions were swift following last Friday’s leak of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Donald Trump can be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women: House speaker Paul Ryan told fellow Republicans that he would no longer defend the party’s nominee, while hordes of party members distanced themselves from Trump’s comments with some – including Senator John McCain – even saying they could no longer vote for Trump. Supposedly, things could get even worse for the Republican nominee. Following the release of the footage by the Washington Post, Bill Pruitt, a producer on the first two seasons of The Apprentice, the NBC reality show Trump hosted from 2004-2015, tweeted that there are “far worseâ€\x9d behind-the-scenes tapes of Trump on the program. Emmy award-winning producer Chris Nee has alleged that Trump says the n-word in the recordings. In light of the allegations, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, which owns the rights to the show, and The Apprentice creator Mark Burnett are facing mounting pressure to make public the footage. But on Monday, MGM and Burnett said in a joint statement to the , that they do “not have the ability nor the rightâ€\x9d to release the material, citing “various contractual and legal requirementsâ€\x9d. MGM and Burnett also refuted allegations that staffers have been threatened with legal action for releasing the outtakes, stating that: “the recent claims that Mark Burnett has threatened anyone with litigation if they were to leak such material are completely and unequivocally false.â€\x9d Burnett “has consistently supported Democratic campaignsâ€\x9d, the statement said. In past presidential cycles, he has been a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee. But leaking The Apprentice tapes comes for an alleged asking price of $5.1m – needed to cover the potential penalty fee for breaking Burnett’s non-disclosure agreement. With mounting interest surrounding The Apprentice footage, the Huffington Post on Tuesday published an in-depth report on how Comedy Central’s 2011 Roast of Donald Trump came together, displaying yet more misogynistic remarks by Trump. Still, The Apprentice leak is sure to be more destructive. Rumors of the footage has spurred UltraViolet Action, a group committed to “expose and fight sexismâ€\x9d, to post a petition calling on MGM and NBC to release the tapes and “stop protecting Donald Trumpâ€\x9d. The form was signed by more than 30,000 people in less than four hours after it went live on Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, that number rose to 115,000 according to the organization. Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo is among those who have joined the cause, tweeting his support for the petition. Additionally, A GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign was launched on Sunday, with the goal of raising $5m to “reward the whistleblower responsibleâ€\x9d to “assist them as they move forward in their careerâ€\x9d. “Any unused funds (or if no one comes forward) will be donated to a reputable organization that supports freedom of the press and journalistic integrity,â€\x9d reads the Trump Sunlight Campaign page. So far the campaign has amassed more than $20,000. David Brock, a Hillary Clinton ally who runs a network of Democratic groups to help her campaign, including Media Matters, has also promised he would back the leaker financially. “Time is of the essence,â€\x9d urges Karin Roland, chief campaigns officer for UltraViolet Action. “I know that MGM has said that there are contractual reasons for withholding the tapes, but that’s not acceptable. Every day and every hour is time that MGM and Mark Burnett are keeping the truth about the man who wants to be president from voters – and that’s totally unacceptable.â€\x9d “The reality is MGM and Burnett have profited off of Trump’s brand and now they’re protecting who he is from the public, in particular from women voters,â€\x9d Roland adds. “The American public deserves to know.â€\x9d MGM and Burnett’s response comes a week after the Associated Press released an in-depth report of Trump’s behavior on the NBC show, which he hosted from 2004 to early 2015, in which more than 20 contestants and crew members from The Apprentice shared on-and-off the record accounts of his allegedly lewd behavior. Randal Pinkett, who won the competition in December 2005, told the AP he remembered Trump talking about which female contestants he wanted to sleep with, even though Trump had married former model Melania Knauss earlier that year: “He was like ‘Isn’t she hot, check her out,’ kind of gawking, something to the effect of ‘I’d like to hit that.’â€\x9d Former producer Katherine Walker said Trump speculated about which female contestant would be “a tiger in bedâ€\x9d. The Trump campaign denied the claims, calling them “outlandishâ€\x9d and “unsubstantiatedâ€\x9d. On Monday, the Huffington Post obtained a transcript from the ninth season of The Apprentice where contestants were tasked with giving three country music stars a makeover. During a boardroom session to present their transformations, Trump reportedly made a series of comments on singer Emily West’s physical appearance, specifically her skin, saying: “I assume you’re gonna leave this off, don’t put this shit on the show, you know. But her skin, her skin sucks, okay? I mean her skin, she needs some serious fuckin’ dermatology.â€\x9d Trump was fired from hosting The Apprentice by NBC in 2015 after making controversial comments about Mexican immigrants while launching his campaign for president. He’s been replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger for an upcoming season. The former Republican governor of California has since distanced himself from Trump, retracting his support following the Access Hollywood leak. “It is not only acceptable to choose your country over your party – it is your duty,â€\x9d he said in a statement.",
 "Genius by numbers: why Hollywood maths movies don't add up In the Tina Fey sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, wealthy Manhattanite Jacqueline Vorhees wails to her assistant that she can’t afford to get divorced. Even though she’d get $1m for every year of her marriage. “I spend 100 grand a month. I’ll be broke in 10 years,â€\x9d she wails. “No, that’s wrong,â€\x9d counters Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), who scribbles some sums with a marker on Mrs Vorhees’s window. “So $100,000 times 12 months. That’s $1.2m a year. Divide that into $12m, and yes, you’d be broke in 10 years. But if you invest some of it, assuming a 7% rate of return, using the compound interest formula, your money would almost double.â€\x9d Kimmy turns round triumphantly: “Mrs Voorhees, I mathed, and you can get divorced!â€\x9d Mrs Vorhees eyes Kimmy narrowly. “Those are not,â€\x9d she complains, “erasable markers.â€\x9d What she doesn’t mention is that math isn’t a verb. Not yet. The scene is, among other things, Fey’s satire of the Hollywood cliche of genius squiggling on glass. In A Beautiful Mind (2001), for instance, Russell Crowe, playing troubled maths star John Forbes Nash Jr, writes formulae on his dorm window. This scene is echoed in The Social Network (2010), where Andrew Garfield sets out the equations for Facebook’s business model on a Harvard window while Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg looks on. In the opening scene of Good Will Hunting (1997), janitor prodigy Matt Damon writes equations on a bathroom mirror. Why do so many Hollywood maths whizzes forego paper? Stanford mathematician Keith Devlin explains. “Depicting a mathematician scribbling formulas on a sheet of paper might be more accurate, but it certainly doesn’t convey the image of a person passionately involved in mathematics, as does seeing someone write those formulas in steam on a mirror or in wax on a window, nor is it as cinematographically dramatic.â€\x9d Good point. When we watch A Beautiful Mind and look through the window at our Russ, Hollywood’s most built mathematician (counterexamples on postcards, please show your workings), we pass beyond incomprehensible equations and convince ourselves we’re seeing Genius at Work. Even if, as some critics have complained uncharitably, Russ’s pi glyphs, greater-than and less-than symbols and such don’t make sense. But there’s another way maths movies can confound the Boredom Equation, namely by leaving a black hole where the maths should be. The Man Who Knew Infinity, the new film starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons about the great Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, is intriguing in this respect. Although we see Ramanujan doing maths, mostly the film is interested in other things – how he falls in love with his wife, the pain of separation when he travels from Madras to study at Cambridge, the racism he suffers in England and, most stirringly, the narrative arc from lowly clerk to globally recognised mathematician. That said, the film has its charming moments. When Hardy visits Ramanujan in a nursing home, he complains about the boring number of the cab that brought him there. Ramanujan begs to differ: 1,729 is the smallest that is expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. Today 1,729 is known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number. How does that work, you may be wondering? Like this: 1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103. Ramanujan’s mentor GH Hardy (Irons) is an atheist and rationalist, exasperated that this Indian prodigy cannot produce proofs for his work and, worse, is doubtful that proofs can explain the inexplicable. “You wanted to know how I get my ideas,â€\x9d says Ramanujan. “God speaks to me.â€\x9d But while the film may sketch two different mathematical philosophies, we leave the cinema with a warm glow that comes from anything but hard thinking. If you want to learn some more about Ramanujan’s contribution to mathematics, rent High School Musical. Freeze-frame it at the moment brainy Gabriella Montez challenges her teacher. On the board are two of the equations of the inverse of the constant pi (1/Ï€) that Ramanujan offered in his first paper published in England. “Shouldn’t the second equation read 16 over pi?â€\x9d asks Gabriella. Of course it should. Cinema often struggles with dramatising difficult ideas, particularly if they are abstract. One way of overcoming that problem is by metaphorical explanation. For instance, in Nicholas Roeg’s Insignificance (1985), a Marilyn Monroe-like character demonstrates relativity using toy trains and flashing lights. In The Theory of Everything, Jane Hawking uses a pea and a potato to explain the difference between quantum theory and general relativity, while her husband’s friends explain Hawking Radiation with beers and crisps. Movie explanations of difficult stuff, though, may obscure rather than enlighten. What’s more, some directors know this and have fun pointing out the shortcomings of their medium – and those of their audiences. In Adam McKay’s The Big Short (2016), for instance, Margot Robbie sits in a tub sipping champagne and describing how sub-prime loans work. Her explanation is doubtless coherent, but when I’m looking at a beautiful woman in a bubble bath, I’m not thinking about credit default swaps. So sue me. Later in the film, chef Anthony Bourdain chops fish in his kitchen while describing how collateralised debt obligations work. Finally, Selena Gomez plays roulette to illustrate the idea of gambling on other people’s gambles. Each scene serves as a parody of explanation. They are part of a film that mocks you, you poor jerk, and your intellectual aspirations. You are never ever going to understand how difficult stuff works from watching movies, however much you’d like to. Sometimes, though, cinema can give a real insight into the intellectual process. In Agora (2009), Rachel Weisz as ancient philosopher Hypatia does an experiment on a ship to test relative motion. If, she hypothesises, you drop a heavy sack from the mast while the ship is moving forward, it will fall on the deck several feet behind the mast. The sack is dropped and falls much closer to the mast than she predicted. Hypatia claps her hands in delight. “But you were wrong!â€\x9d says the ship’s captain. “Yes, but it is definitive proof! The sack behaves as if the boat were stationary.â€\x9d “What does that mean?â€\x9d “I don’t know. But the same principle could be applied to the Earth. It could be moving around the sun without us realising.â€\x9d Hypatia, that is to say, infers a revolutionary heliocentric cosmology from her falsified hypothesis. The film thus generously gives us what we are effectively denied in Good Will Hunting or A Beautiful Mind – the inside track on how someone clever is thinking about a problem. What’s more, it’s an antidote to Hollywood’s vision of genius. It suggests that getting stuff wrong is at least as important in the story of human intellectual progress as being right all the time. Maths is often reduced to nothing more than a MacGuffin. In Rushmore (1998), for instance, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is reading the newspaper while his teacher tells his class that on the blackboard is the hardest geometry equation in the world. What credits would anyone solving it get, asks one student. “Well, considering I’ve never seen anyone get it right, including my mentor Dr Leaky at MIT, I guess if anyone here can solve that problem, I’d see to it that none of you ever have to open another math book again for the rest of your lives.â€\x9d Thus tempted, Fischer folds his paper and goes to the blackboard, and squiggles his solution while nonchalantly sipping espresso. The film at this point has nothing to declare but Fischer’s genius. Do we really believe Jason Schwartzmann can compute the area of an ellipse? Sure. Whatever. Genius squiggling is there once again merely to help Hollywood tell the sentimental story it never tires of: namely the story of someone – usually borderline demented and by definition insufficiently recognised – sticking it to the establishment. None of this should suggest we can’t learn maths from movies. In Tina Fey’s Mean Girls (2004), for example, Lindsay Lohan plays a finalist in the Illinois high school mathletes state championship. Will her North Shore High team stick it to those prep school toffs opposite? Here’s the first question: “Twice the larger of two numbers is three more than five times the smaller, and the sum of four times the larger and three times the smaller is 71. What are the numbers?â€\x9d Got it yet? 14 and 5. In the end, Lohan’s team become the new state champs because she wins the sudden death tie-break. What does the scene prove? That those of you who thought Lindsay Lohan can’t do maths should really have a word with yourselves. Perhaps the most resonant maths scene in Hollywood cinema, though, comes in a very old comedy. In the Abbott and Costello movie In the Navy (1941), Lou is a ship’s cook. He’s baked 28 doughnuts, which he reckons is just enough to give 13 to each of his seven officers. But seven goes into 28 four times, objects Lou’s straight man. Not so, says Lou, who goes on to prove it on the blackboard in a masterclass of cheating and illusion. The scene demonstrates a general truth, namely that when Hollywood does maths, it doesn’t necessarily add up. • The Man Who Knew Infinity is released on 8 April.",
 "Deutsche Bank: Germany's financial colossus stumbles Deutsche Bank fuelled Germany’s rise to the status of economic powerhouse, financing its industry in the 19th century and helping the country’s economy to rise again from the rubble of the second world war. It took on the giants of Wall Street in the postwar globalised economy and survived the 2008 banking crisis without a bailout. Such is its stature that in 2008 Angela Merkel organised a special 60th birthday party, with a dinner of fresh asparagus and veal schnitzel, for its then head, Josef Ackermann, at her chancellery. But now as the institution enters its 146th year, questions are being raised about how it will reinvent itself in a banking landscape that is undergoing seismic change as a result of regulatory change and fears of a global economic downturn. The bank has turned to a 55-year-old Briton, John Cryan, to try to carve out a vision for its future and its 100,000 employees. But Cryan – taking the extraordinary step of declaring Deutsche “rock solidâ€\x9d – has spent the last 72 hours trying to calm concerns about its financial health after a dramatic plunge in its share price that, even after a 10% rise on Wednesday, is still down more than 30% in the first six weeks of 2016. After announcing the bank’s first full-year loss since the 2008 crisis last month, Cryan’s bank has become the focus of anxiety about the health of the global financial system, and its woes are raising questions about Germany’s reputation as a haven of financial stability. Experts suggest that the country’s entire banking system would have to be redesigned in order to save its standard-bearer. According to Jörg Rocholl, president of Berlin’s European school of management and technology, “there is no other country in the world in which a bank has a similarly central role as Deutsche Bank has in Germanyâ€\x9d. Christopher Wheeler, banks analyst at Atlantic Equities, said Deutsche had resembled the UK’s Barclays: an investment bank and large lender to big businesses with a retail banking arm. But it is now attempting to cast off its retail business – Postbank, which it only acquired in 2010 – raising questions about how it will generate revenues in the future. Attempts to spin off Postbank are proving troublesome and a report on Wednesday suggested that Deutsche would have to write down the value of the business by a third to €2.8bn (£2.2bn) before it could proceed any further. Add to that concerns about the potential bill from litigation and fines. Analysts at Morgan Stanley have forecast another €3.9bn of charges in 2016 and 2017. “It is also possible the litigation may not be resolved until 2017, leaving uncertainty on the stock,â€\x9d the analysts said. They cite “unresolved litigation which the market struggles to book-end, weak capital generation and need for capital raising actionsâ€\x9d. Cryan – who has already announced plans to reduce the workforce by a quarter – took on a bank that had been rocked by scandals, including a record £1.7bn fine for rigging the Libor interest rate, which sparked accusations it had been obstructive towards regulators. He has described the task ahead of him like mowing the lawn. In December he said previous attempts to cut costs at the bank had involved taking off the top layer, which grew back when it rained as the number of blades of grass remained the same. What he needed to do, he said, was to make the lawn smaller. Investors are yet to be convinced by his plan for shrinking the bank. The cost of insuring Deutsche against default – by using complex financial instruments called credit default swaps (CDS)– has risen, although the Morgan Stanley analysts suggest this could be for technical reasons. With rumours – denied – that Deutsche might not be able to make payments on specialised bonds known as CoCos that can be converted into shares during times of crisis, investors may have been using the CDS as a form of insurance. Others point to speculators. “Hedge funds are betting the regulator will make Deutsche pass on paying the coupon on the CoCo, so buy the CDS as a proxy for the subsequent decline in the CoCos’ value … As the CDS spikes, other investors get nervous about the bank’s health,â€\x9d said Wheeler. He is confident that Deutsche will emerge from the crisis, which has already prompted German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble to intervene to insist he had “no concernsâ€\x9d about the bank. While Schäuble will have been pleased to see the lack of panic about Deutsche’s troubles in the German media, he may have been irked by a damning front-page comment in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Headquartered in the same city as the bank, the newspaper said: “What is one to think of a bank that has to promise its customers and investors that it is able to pay back credits? How solid is a bank that has shed a third of its shareholder value in a month, and half of it over the course of a year? It’s no longer just the customer of a couple of Greek banks that are asking such tough questions, but the customers of Deutsche Bank.â€\x9d",
 'Lloyds Banking Group reveals surge in buy-to-let lending Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, has revealed a surge in activity by buy-to-let and second-home buyers in the run-up to tax changes in April. António Horta-Osório, chief executive of the bailed-out bank, said mortgage activity had been strong in the run-up to the changes, which came into force on 1 April and require buy-to-let and second-home buyers to pay a 3% surcharge on stamp duty. He was speaking as the bank, which owns Halifax, reported its profits had almost halved in the first three months of the year. Last month, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said there had been a 22% year-on-year rise in January in buy-to-let mortgages – although estate agents have warned they expect activity to slow down because of the EU referendum on 23 June. The London-focused chain Foxtons said on Wednesday it expected a “reduced sales pipelineâ€\x9d in the coming three months. Horta-Osório said as the Bank of England had not increased interest rates from the record low of 0.5% he had started to pull back slightly from mortgage lending to focus on business lending. The low interest rate environment means he is also accelerating a plan, outlined in late 2014, to close around 200 branches – around 6% of the network – and axe a further 9,000 roles, on top of the 45,000 lost since the rescue of HBOS in 2008. The Lloyds finance director, George Culmer, said the bank was “ahead of plan on where we expected to beâ€\x9d. Rather than the 46% fall in first quarter profits to £654m, Horta-Osório preferred to focus on the £2.1bn in underlying profits. “These results demonstrate the strength of our differentiated, simple, low-risk business model and reflect our ability to actively respond to the challenging operating environment,â€\x9d he said. The UK government has had to postpone a plan to sell most of its remaining 9% stake to retail investors because of the plunge in bank shares since the start of the year. The shares were trading at 67.9p, down 2%, shortly after the Lloyds results were published, below the 73p average price at which the state’s 43% stake was bought during the 2008 crisis. Sandy Chen, analyst at Cenkos, described the performance as “a bit flat, as in deflatedâ€\x9d. The fall in profits was caused by a controversial plan to buy back £3bn of debt, which is expected to reduce the bank’s costs annually. The buy-back cost £790m in the first quarter, while other items including £161m of restructuring charges and £115m for possible compensation claims also knocked profits. The bad debt charge was down 6% to £149m. However, there was no new provision for payment protection insurance selling, a scandal which has so far cost the banking industry more than £30bn, and £16bn at Lloyds.',
 'Huge rise in hospital beds in England taken up by people with malnutrition The number of hospital beds in England taken up by patients being treated for malnutrition has almost trebled over the last 10 years, in what charities say shows the “genuinely shockingâ€\x9d extent of hunger and poor diet. Official figures reveal that people with malnutrition accounted for 184,528 hospital bed days last year, a huge rise on 65,048 in 2006-07. The sharp increase is adding to the pressures on hospitals, which are already struggling with record levels of overcrowding. Critics have said the upward trend is a result of rising poverty, deep cutbacks in recent years to meals on wheels services for the elderly and inadequate social care support, especially for older people. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, unearthed the figures in a response to a recent parliamentary question submitted to the health minister Nicola Blackwood. “These figures paint a grim picture of Britain under the Conservatives,â€\x9d he said. “Real poverty is causing vulnerable people, particularly the elderly, to go hungry and undernourished so much so that they end up in hospital. “Our research reveals a shocking picture of levels of malnutrition in 21st-century England and the impact it has on our NHS. This is unacceptable in modern Britain.â€\x9d The Department of Health figures showed that the number of bed days accounted for by someone with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition rose from 128,361 in 2010-11, the year the coalition came to power, to 184,528 last year – a 44% rise over five years. Such patients only account for one in 256 of all hospital bed days, or 0.4% of the 47.3m total, but the financial cost is considerable as each bed costs the NHS an average of £400 a day to staff and given the condition each spell in hospital because lasts an average of 22 to 23 days. Simon Bottery, the director of policy at the charity Independent Age, said: “These new figures on malnutrition are genuinely shocking. As a society there is no excuse for us failing to ensure that older people are able to eat enough food, of the right quality, to stay healthy. “Yet we have been cutting back the meals on wheels services and lunch clubs on which so many vulnerable elderly people relied and reducing the numbers who receive home care visits.â€\x9d Freedom of information requests submitted to local councils in England early last year by the then shadow care minister Liz Kendall found that 220,000 fewer people were receiving meals on wheels in late 2014 than in 2010, a fall of 63%. Research by the National Association of Care Catering found that only 48% of local councils still provided meals on wheels, compared to 66% in 2014. Only 17% of councils in the north-west of England still do so, and 91% of providers expect the provision to fall further in the next year. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence classes someone as malnourished if they have a body mass index of less than 18.5, have suffered the unintentional loss of more than 10% of their weight over the last three to six months, or if they have a BMI under 20 and have unintentionally seen their weight drop by more than 5% over the previous three to six months. The decision by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, not to give the NHS or social care any more money in his autumn statement last week would only worsen the situation, Ashworth said. “The reality is the government have failed this week to both give the NHS and social care the extra investment it needs while also failing to invest in prevention initiatives to foster healthier lifestyles. The cuts to public health budgets along with an emaciated obesity strategy are both utterly misguided,â€\x9d he said. Figures are not available for exactly how many patients accounted for the 184,528 bed days last year, but information supplied to Ashworth by the House of Commons library shows that 57% of the patients were women and that 42% were over-65s. Worryingly, four out of five people who needed inpatient hospital care because of malnutrition were admitted as an emergency, which suggests their health had deteriorated significantly in the days before they were taken in. Not enough health and social care professionals have the time or knowledge to correctly identify malnutrition, Bottery said. Dianne Jeffrey, the chair of the Malnutrition Task Force and Age UK, said: “If malnutrition is left untreated older people can become much more susceptible to illness and injury, are more likely to end up in hospital and on average take much longer to recover if they do become unwell. “It is shocking that in modern times over a million older people across the UK are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.â€\x9d A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The NHS is getting much better at spotting malnutrition and giving early treatment, and we are improving our data collection, all of which helps explain what might otherwise appear a significant rise in cases. But importantly, to prevent cases in the future, we have given £500,000 to Age UK to help reduce malnutrition among older people and will continue to train staff so early action can be taken.â€\x9d Stephen Dalton, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: “Our members take malnutrition seriously. Good nutrition is a fundamental human right our citizens can expect, and vulnerable, particularly older, people are most at risk of serious consequences if denied basic compassionate care. At a time of unprecedented demand on health and social care we need to be alert and will take seriously any reliable evidence of basic care not being delivered.â€\x9d • This article was amended on 29 November 2016 to correct a percentage increase. The number of bed days accounted for by someone with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition rose by 44% over five years, not 61%.',
 'Do you stand by, or stand out from the crowd? A few months ago I was in a bar with two friends when, a few tables away, we heard a glass smash and looked up to find a man and woman in the middle of an argument. He slapped her and walked out. Everyone froze. She looked horribly alone for a few seconds, hurt and humiliated. Then a customer walked over to see if she was all right, as did a member of staff. They sat with her for some time, while my friends and I wondered awkwardly what we should be doing. It seemed as if she was being offered the support she needed, but was that enough? Should we have offered to act as witnesses if she wanted to take it further? We didn’t – and ended up feeling powerless, even guilty. A decade ago, on the top deck of a night bus wending its way out of central London, I heard a commotion behind me. A man was harassing two women, both clearly uncomfortable and frightened. He sat in the seats behind them, leaning in and talking while they asked him to leave them alone in broken English – they were tourists. Feeling brave, I went over and sat down near them, hoping that would inhibit him. He wasn’t happy and turned his fire on me. Although he got off after a stop or two, he promised to “cut [my] fucking head offâ€\x9d as he went down the stairs. After it was all over, the two women thanked me and I got a pat on the back from another passenger after they’d left too. It seemed as if I’d done the right thing and I felt pleased with myself. Another time, I was on a very crowded tube train. Someone pulled the emergency cord and a woman, hyperventilating, stumbled out on to the platform. She was terrified, crying out between breaths, and was led to a bench by the baffled-looking commuter who happened to have been standing next to her. He sat with her, shrugging his shoulders slightly as hundreds of us stared, standing like penguins in front of the open doors, waiting for the train to get on its way. It occurred to me that she needed to be told to breathe more slowly. She was experiencing a panic attack and could have done with reassurance and someone to help her pace herself. There was no reason I couldn’t have done it – I wasn’t in a hurry. But instead I stayed put. I felt embarrassed right then and selfish afterwards. Those are the times I’ve been a bystander, and it’s a mixed record. It’s an intensely awkward role to play, and it’s not always clear in the moment what the right thing to do is. Intervening can feel like an act of bravado, or attention-seeking – maybe that’s what motivated me on that night bus. But primed by all those videos of racist abuse, and stories of the pain that the silence of onlookers can cause, shouldn’t we always be prepared to speak up for someone who is being attacked? Each of the incidents I’ve described happened in the “realâ€\x9d world. There was the opportunity for face-to-face interaction. But I’ve been a bystander far more often, I suppose – we all have – in another arena: online. And a new paper in the journal Computers and Human Behaviour raises some interesting questions about when and why we intervene. Researchers at UCLA set up a fake Facebook profile in which a “meanâ€\x9d comment was posted under a range of different status updates, such as “I hate it when you miss someone like crazy and you think they might not miss you backâ€\x9d. In each case, the “meanâ€\x9d riposte was: “Who cares! This is why nobody likes you …â€\x9d Most subjects agreed that this constituted bullying, and many said that they would be likely to intervene – either by challenging the comment or sending a private message of support. Interestingly, there was less sympathy when the original message was more personal, suggesting that people who “oversharedâ€\x9d might be seen as bringing criticism on themselves. More important, perhaps, is the finding, uncovered in earlier studies, that people are less likely to intervene online than they are in the real world. This could be due to the bystander effect – psychologists have known for a long time that the more witnesses there are to an emergency, the less likely any given individual is to take action. It’s a kind of apathy related to the sense that someone else will probably deal with it, so we don’t have to. But it could also be due to the terrifying nature of online bullying, which can very easily expand to involve hundreds, if not thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. Who wants to mess with that volume of fury? But the literature also shows that, whether online or off, “victims experience heightened distress when bystanders do not interveneâ€\x9d. What’s more, it has been shown that “receiving support from onlookers can significantly alleviate victims’ plightâ€\x9d. One a recent flight from Paris to Sydney, the writer Catharine Lumby found herself sitting next to a volatile, aggressive man Part-way through the flight, he suddenly shouted, “I will kill you! I will kill you!â€\x9d Lumby writes: “I’m a woman in my 50s who has travelled a lot and I have a very thick skin. But the man next to me put me in fear of my life. The flight attendants on Air France, however, refused to move me. The other passengers looked the other way. I spent the next eight hours scared and very upset. On reflection, what really upset me was that no one offered to help.â€\x9d Echoing Lumby’s experience, a report into anti-Muslim abuse towards the end of last year found repeated examples of people standing by while bullying occurred. “When I suffer abuse in public, people walk off or stare,â€\x9d said one respondent. Another recalled, “When I was walking to the shops a man behind me pulled my hijab and strangled me but no one stood up for me, and he said to me, ‘Are you going to bomb Boots?’â€\x9d In contrast, Ruhi Rahman drew strength from the reaction of her fellow passengers after a “racist and threateningâ€\x9d man approached her and her sister on the train. “Before I even got a chance to react to his comments the women beside me supported me and helped. After a while most of the people on the metro came over and spoke up for us and were being so supportive.â€\x9d Rahman told the Newcastle Chronicle the experience made her feel “really optimistic and hopeful … I have never felt more proud of being a Geordie. It was lovely that everyone came together to help us and I can’t thank them all enough.â€\x9d I’m not saying we should all become have-a-go heroes. Stepping in can be dangerous. But intervention doesn’t have to mean tackling an aggressor. It can involve reaching out a hand of support in the moments afterwards, offering practical help, or sending a message once things have died down. Increasingly we find ourselves in crowds – making our way through cities, flying between them, joining in discussion and argument on the internet. Ironically, these crowds, each one a mass of humanity, can feel like the least human force on Earth. Perhaps from time to time we can try to be among the faces that stand out.',
 'Victor Moses goal seals Chelsea comeback as Tottenham lose unbeaten record The team who are already developing an air of Antonio Conte’s Undroppables cruise on. After fielding the same Premier League selection for the sixth successive – and successful – time, Chelsea continued their revival as they saw off Tottenham, showing the mettle to muster a comeback after going a goal behind in the first half. Two of the players who have thrived most from the Conte redesign, Pedro and Victor Moses, supplied the goals to settle a riveting local tussle. After Manchester City and Liverpool had plundered points earlier in the day, nothing less than three would suffice to return to the top of the table. Chelsea reacted ruthlessly. It left Conte with the air of a contented manager. He acknowledged the evolution that makes his team a different proposition in the high-intensity games to the side who capitulated against Liverpool and Arsenal. “Now we are another team compared to the Liverpool and Arsenal games,â€\x9d he said. “If we were the same team we would lose this game, for sure. Now we have another type of confidence. I liked our reaction a lot. We won and I am pleased because it wasn’t easy.â€\x9d For Tottenham, defeat here to a long-term bogey side is nothing new but what must hurt is that for a spell their performance showed them at their best, with a refreshed appetite for the style that had them unbeaten in the Premier League until the winter chill had set in. History suggested that Stamford Bridge might be a test too far and what felt like a week of reckoning duly delivered two heavyweight blows. After tumbling out of the Champions League in midweek, Mauricio Pochettino’s men were punctured in the league. The Tottenham manager managed to be frustrated and philosophical at the same time: “If you want to analyse the result, Chelsea win, congratulations. If you want to analyse the 94 minutes, Tottenham had a lot of positives. But in football you need to score. In football sometimes it’s difficult to explain but this is not difficult. They were clinical in front of the goal and we weren’t.â€\x9d After the smouldering volcano of this fixture last season, he had called upon his team to be “braveâ€\x9d and his players began as if that instruction was still ringing in their ears. Keeping a semblance of self-control was imperative and they started by exerting important authority in midfield, pegging Chelsea back and keeping confident possession. Ten minutes in they soared in front. Mousa Dembélé worked the ball up the left and it was moved via Dele Alli to Christian Eriksen. The Dane saw a chink of goal to aim at. His thunderous shot was laced with curl and flew into the net. It was the first time Chelsea’s defence had been beaten in 600 minutes. Conte looked exasperated as his team could not get a foothold. The muscle in Tottenham’s midriff, with Dembélé and Victor Wanyama patrolling in front of Eric Dier and Jan Vertonghen, proved a meaty barrier. David Luiz mustered Chelsea’s first shot just before the half-hour mark, a whack of a free-kick that Hugo Lloris caught comfortably. Tottenham’s dominance was such that they continued to create strong chances. After efforts from Kyle Walker, Harry Kane and Eriksen the visitors wondered how they were not even further in front as half-time approached. What more devastating time for Chelsea to summon some inspiration. A minute before half-time all Tottenham’s hard work was speared by a moment of glorious individual skill. Pedro picked up possession 20 yards out and wrong-footed the Tottenham defence with a touch that had a dash of Cruyff turn about it. The Spaniard bent his shot into the top corner with a flourish. Off the hook after a pretty uncomfortable first 44 minutes, Conte delivered some choice words at half-time. Chelsea came out with enhanced determination and were soon ahead. They pressed the ball off Tottenham and broke with intent. Eden Hazard invited Diego Costa to drive forwards and he capped a bullish and clever run with a killer pass to Moses, whose shot squirted off Lloris and Vertonghen on the way in. The pendulum had swung. Chelsea’s energy levels suddenly made Tottenham look ponderous. It spoke volumes about how the balance of the game shifted that both Chelsea’s wing-backs had so much more room to get involved. Although Tottenham tried to manufacture a comeback of their own, Chelsea’s second-half solidity was a far tougher nut to crack. Conte’s Undroppables cherished their win. Tottenham’s pain was palpable. Conte tried hard to deflect any title talk at this stage. “It is not right to talk about this,â€\x9d he said. “We have a long way in front of us. It’s important to stay humble and continue to trust in our work. Today we won a game against a really strong team. Tomorrow it’s important to think about the next game, against City, another very strong team. We have to continue to work. We don’t forget that against Arsenal and Liverpool we lost.â€\x9d In attitude and application, Conte’s Chelsea are a force to be reckoned with.',
 "Wonga's losses expected to double to £70m for 2015 Wonga’s losses are expected to almost double after a slump in revenues at the payday lender following price caps imposed by the City regulator. The results, due to be announced on Wednesday, appear to raise questions about the success of the company’s attempts to reinvent itself in the tougher regulatory environment, as it tries to shrug off past controversies over its business practices. Last year Wonga was ordered to pay more than £2.6m compensation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for “unfair and misleading debt collection practicesâ€\x9d, after it was found to have sent threatening letters to customers from non-existent law firms. In 2012 the Office of Fair Trading told it to clean up its act after it sent letters to customers accusing them of fraud. On Tuesday Sky News reported that Wonga would post a pre-tax loss of about £70m in 2015, compared with £37m a year earlier. The results will also show a sharp decline in Wonga’s revenues from £215m in 2014, the channel said. The company declined to comment. The numbers come after a year in which Wonga and other payday lenders have been forced to operate under tighter regulations. Last year interest and fees on all high-cost short-term credit loans were capped at a daily rate of 0.8% of the amount borrowed. Meanwhile, if borrowers do not repay their loans on time, default charges must not exceed £15, while the total cost including fees and interest is capped at 100% of the original sum. According to the FCA, which introduced the rules, this means no borrower will pay back more than twice the amount they borrowed. The move followed a string of criticisms levelled at the sector amid allegations of unscrupulous practices and customers running up huge debts. Wonga –which recruited Andy Haste, a former boss of RSA insurance group, to clean up its image in 2014 – has said it wants to move its business away from the short-term lending that made its name, but also made it the focus of public anger. “Wonga has understandably faced criticism and we know we need to repair our reputation and regain our right to be an accepted part of the financial service sector,â€\x9d Haste said when he took on the £500,000-a-year job. However, the scale of the turnaround facing Haste is illustrated by the latest figures, which take Wonga’s losses for the past two financial years to more than £100m. In the two years before that, the company made a profit of £39.7m in 2013 and £84.5m in 2012.",
 "Disco's Saturday Night Fiction Picture it: a writer pens a magazine article and it’s an instant sensation. Producers come calling, he sells the rights for tens of thousands, the tabloids give him a nickname, acquaintances greet him as a friend, cheques flood in, he attends the premiere of his film in Los Angeles with a famous disco singer on his arm. It’s glitzy, it’s glam, it’s Hollywood, baby. But as he makes his way through the frenzy outside the theatre, through security, paparazzi and screaming teenage girls, he is filled with moral panic. Why? Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977, and has since grossed $285m worldwide. The soundtrack became one of the bestselling film album of all time after staying at No 1 for 24 consecutive weeks, reinvigorating the Bee Gees’ career, and its star, John Travolta, became one of the youngest actors to be nominated for the best actor Oscar. Decades on, not many remember that the phenomenon was down to one man: Northern Irish rock critic Nik Cohn and his report of 7 June, 1976 for New York magazine, Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Nights, which was published 40 years ago this month. Cohn was the author of a number of books including the 1969 rock history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom. A protege of swinging London, he partied with rock stars, joined the Who on tour, and is said by some to have been instrumental in the genesis of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. He had his portrait shot by Iain Macmillan – the photographer behind the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover – and from the age of 18 was contributing briefings about mods and rockers to the . After crossing the Atlantic and signing on with New York magazine in 1975, the writer, who came to feel disenchanted with the establishment music business, persuaded the mag’s founder and editor Clay Felker to let him document disco – a new, largely ethnic, largely gay underground trend that had taken over parts of New York City. The result was the profile of an “ultimate Faceâ€\x9d. Vincent, a young Italian-American worked in a hardware store during the week and partied at a disco club called 2001 Odyssey on the weekend. Vincent “was the very best dancer in Bay Ridge … he owned 14 floral shirts, five suits, eight pairs of shoes, three overcoats, and had appeared on American Bandstandâ€\x9d. He and his friends knew nothing of flower power, Bob Dylan or Ken Kesey. They were opulent but poor, proud but shy. “The new generation takes few risks,â€\x9d Cohn wrote. “It goes through high school, obedient; graduates, looks for a job, saves and plans. Endures. And once a week, on Saturday night, its one great moment of release, it explodes.â€\x9d The intro declared: “Everything described in this article is factual and was either witnessed by me or told to me directly by the people involved. Only the names of the main characters have been changed.â€\x9d The rest is cinema history: film rights were sold to producer Robert Stigwood, who had just signed a three-picture deal with a young TV actor called John Travolta. Screenwriter Norman Wexler transformed Vincent into Tony Manero. So unprecedented was the fanfare that when Stigwood’s 23-year-old assistant Kevin McCormick traipsed through Los Angeles looking for a director, one agent, according to Vanity Fair, told him, “Kid, my directors do movies. They don’t do magazine articles.â€\x9d Director John Badham had no such qualms, and in December 1977 his movie took $11m in its first 11 days and Travolta became an overnight sensation. Twenty years later came a bombshell. In December 1997 New York magazine published an article in which Cohn confessed that there never was a Vincent. There was no “Lisaâ€\x9d, “Billyâ€\x9d, “John Jamesâ€\x9d, “Lorraineâ€\x9d or “Donnaâ€\x9d either. While 2001 Odyssey existed, it wasn’t the way the writer described it in 1976. The whole scene of disco-loving Italians, as mythologised in Saturday Night Fever, was exaggerated. The most bizarre detail was that his disco protagonists were in fact based on mods Cohn had known in London. The writer was “painfully awareâ€\x9d that everything Fever had brought him – the fame, the fortune – was the result of a lie. The real story went like this: in 1976 Cohn met a disco dancer named Tu Sweet, who introduced him to the clubs of New York, including one in Bay Ridge called 2001 Odyssey. One night the two trawled through the underbelly of New York – a land of auto shops, transmission specialists and alignment centres – to find the place. A drunken brawl was in progress and as Cohn opened the cab door one of the guys reeled over the gutter and threw up over his trouser leg. So he just upped and returned to the safe comforts of Manhattan. One image stayed with the writer, though, that of a figure in flared crimson pants and a black body shirt standing in the doorway of the club and calmly watching the action. There was a style about him, Cohn said, a sense of his own specialness that reminded the writer of a teen gang in his hometown of Derry and a mod named Chris he’d met in London in 1965. When Cohn went back to Odyssey he didn’t see the young man in the doorway again. “Plus, I made a lousy interviewer,â€\x9d he wrote. “I knew nothing about this world, and it showed. Quite literally, I didn’t speak the language. So I faked it. I conjured up the story of the figure in the doorway, and named him Vincent. Taking all I knew about the snake-charmer in Derry and, more especially, about Chris the mod in London, I translated them as best I could to Brooklyn. Then I went back to Bay Ridge in daylight and noted the major landmarks. I walked some streets, went into a couple of stores. Studied the clothes, the gestures, the walks. Imagined how it would feel to burn up, all caged energies, with no outlet but the dancefloor and the rituals of Saturday night. Finally, I wrote it all up. And presented it as fact.â€\x9d So how did he get away with one of the most daring acts of journalistic forgery? While Tribal Rites reads like a novelisation, it must be understood in the context of the time it was written: the tail-end of the era of New Journalism, where writers used literary techniques and a subjective perspective to present fact as fiction. It followed similar works by the likes of Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Hunter S Thompson and Norman Mailer. When I first approached Cohn for this article, he said he no longer wanted to discuss the topic. But after several back-and-forth emails, he did say that he doubted any magazine would publish the Tribal Rites piece today. “It reads to me as obvious fiction, albeit based on observation and some knowledge of disco culture. No way could it sneak past customs now. In the 60s and 70s, the line between fact and fiction was blurry. Many magazine writers used fictional techniques to tell supposedly factual stories. No end of liberties were taken. Few editors asked tough questions. For the most part it was a case of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. “Magazine writing then was basically a boys’ club. There was a lot of wretched excess. Along with some great writing came reams of self-indulgent bollocks. Tribal Rites being fiction was never a great secret. I remember once, at the end of a long night, blurting out to a publisher that the story was made up. ‘You don’t say,’ the publisher drawled. ‘And Liberace is gay.’â€\x9d For context, Gay Talese, now a bestselling author and one of the pioneers of new journalism and author of ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’, explains that his intention as a young journalist was to write short stories using real characters. “I have always been inspired by great short story writers, the first being the French writer Guy de Maupassant,â€\x9d he said. “Later I also began reading short stories by famous novelists – F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and more contemporary writers such as John O’Hara, Irwin Shaw, Carson McCullers, John Cheever and others. My newspaper articles were all written as if short stories: there was scene-setting, dialogue, much description of people and places.â€\x9d But while the articles were presented as stories, they were never fictionalised. “Nothing was invented, all the names of the characters were real, and verifiably truthful.â€\x9d Caroline Miller, who edited New York magazine at the time of Cohn’s confession, said her predecessor, Felker, wouldn’t have published Tribal Rites if he thought it fabricated. “That said, remember that 70s Brooklyn was a foreign country to most New York magazine editors,â€\x9d she told me. “It wasn’t cool, and some of them had probably never been there – even to Brooklyn Heights, which was Norman Mailer territory. So they may not have had good radar for credibility. Also, after the zeitgeisty opening about the blue-collar disco tribe, [Tribal Rites] is all narrative, and that much narrative detail tends to read as real. Conversation in cars. What Vincent was thinking as he looked in the mirror…â€\x9d Miller and her team published Cohn’s admission because it was newsworthy. “Here’s a guy basically bragging about fabricating a legendary story and getting away with it,â€\x9d she said. “And it certainly added to our understanding of pop culture myth-making – the idea that a mashup of people and scenes Nik had collected on both side of the Atlantic could go essentially unchallenged, and have such staying power.â€\x9d Cohn has said that were it not for Jim McMullan’s accompanying illustrations the piece might never have seen daylight. McMullan based these on the photographs he took in 2001 Odyssey but, fundamentally, he never met Cohn’s protagonist. “I went to the club twice and moved around, taking my photos without interacting much with any of the patrons,â€\x9d McMullan recalled. “Nik took a different path through the crowds so we didn’t exchange notes. “I finished my paintings several weeks before Nik finished his story so I wasn’t really reacting to how he saw the scene at the club. It did seem like an amazingly dramatic story arc and the kind of ‘working-class’ story he was already famous for.â€\x9d It so happened that the design director of New York magazine, Milton Glaser, was amazed by the reportage style of the paintings. “Clay also came to see the work that way... I suspect that because the art was all ready to go before Nik finished writing, it put some pressure on him to get it written. Had the paintings not already impressed Milton and Clay, I suppose it might have been easier to scuttle the whole project.â€\x9d Did McMullan’s art indicate a truth to the piece? While Cohn’s descriptions of the club’s “Facesâ€\x9d were based on the working class in England, they weren’t entirely off the mark. “Just like the Italian-Americans, the mods shopped for that perfect shirt,â€\x9d Colleen “Cosmoâ€\x9d Murphy, an American radio broadcaster, DJ, producer and founder of Classic Album Sundays, explained to me over coffee in London one morning. “It was about looking like they were better off than they really were, sticking their money into things like music and clothes. They bought records, certain types of trousers, certain types of jackets. It was an attitude. “It’s that culture of people who have their regular job during the week and live to go out on the weekend. A blue-collar worker in Brooklyn isn’t going to be defined by their job. Who they really are is who they are when they go out. Just like a mod. A mod might be bricklayer, but they’re a mod.â€\x9d Bill Brewster, former editor of Mixmag USA and founder of Djhistory.com, echoed this: “It’s a universal story that had been going on for decades even before there were DJs playing records,â€\x9d he said. “Working-class kids going out on a Friday and Saturday and getting off their heads to American black music. It was happening in the cellars of Paris during the occupation in terms of jazz records. Those archetypes, even though Cohn based them on people in London, were obviously happening in New York as well. I think it was an educated guess on his part, and a correct one.â€\x9d Disco as a genre and culture had already been gathering pace in New York so Saturday Night Fever was just the tipping point of something that had been going on for a while. “Even before disco was officially called disco, you had David Mancuso’s loft parties, in the late 60s, in downtown Manhattan, where he played danceable acid-rock, R&B, mixing it all up,â€\x9d said Murphy, who has collaborated with Mancuso in the past. “They were all about integrating different kinds of people, whether it was class, race, sexual orientation. People like David Morales and Larry Levan were going as kids. At the same time Francis Grasso became the first DJ to start mixing records together with two turntables. In the mid-70s these other clubs started rising – Studio 54, which was the glitzy manhattan club, where Andy Warhol, Grace Jones and Liza Minelli hung out, and places like 2001 Odyssey, which were for the working-class Brooklynites.â€\x9d But in the end it was Cohn’s article and Saturday Night Fever that gave the decade its cultural identity. “As a child I was living in Massachusetts, in a white suburban New England small town, listening to rock and pop ,â€\x9d Murphy said. “Then this article happened, the movie came out and disco blew up across white America overnight. Me and my friends would dance to the soundtrack at slumber parties. I had aunts and uncles who were taking disco-dancing lessons.â€\x9d Then came the backlash. DJ Steve Dahl headed up a Disco Demolition Night in Chicago in July 1979. People wore “disco sucksâ€\x9d T-shirts. The Bee Gees became cheesy, Chic became cheesy, and by the 80s disco was a dirty word. “Saturday Night Fever was probably the thing that killed off disco in the end,â€\x9d Murphy said. Cohn, now 70, lives in Ghent, New York. His life reads like a blockbuster of its own – after Tribal Rites he continued writing, true stories mostly, and in 1983 was arrested for conspiring to import millions of dollars worth of heroin and cocaine into the US. The more serious charges were dropped and Cohn was given five years’ probation for possession. His life, the writer then realised, had been unravelling and it was time for a change. “Why did I decide to come clean in 1997? It simply felt like time,â€\x9d he told me. “What seemed OK to me when I was young and stoned no longer sat right. Accountability, let’s say.â€\x9d Cohn has always maintained that what was genuine was the staying power of Saturday Night Fever itself. That central figure, with all his grace, energy and passion. A nobody who once a week was a somebody. “Tribal Rites is about identity,â€\x9d he said. “Finding a place in the world where you can shine. What still resonates, to me at least, is the sense of yearning. If I was writing the story today, Vincent might be trans…â€\x9d",
 'Wilderness – the festival that mixes music and Momentum Naked cricket. A Chicago house legend. The uplifting sound of a 30-piece orchestra. Wilderness certainly has a varied palate, yet caters to a rather one-note clientele. Now in its sixth year and hosted on the 5,000-acre Cornbury Park estate in the heart of Oxfordshire, the festival is the kind of place David Cameron might leave his kid behind at. Or, to put it another way: I spent Saturday at a Raymond Blanc lunch sat between an accountant and a former Whitehall staffer. One half of the Brexit divide writ Magnum-size. With a weaker lineup than in previous years, Wilderness still delivers some strong musical moments on what is a gloriously sunny weekend. Robert Plant, the Corbyn-aged (67) former Led Zeppelin frontman, electrifies the Friday night headline slot with Whole Lotta Love during his only UK 2016 gig. Lianne La Havas, returning after her memorable 2012 appearance here, exudes genuine joy on the main stage, switching deftly between numerous Gibson Les Pauls and telling us her mum just called to say her music’s being used on the BBC Olympics coverage. A cover of Aretha Franklin’s Say a Little Prayer is a treat, and the singer’s dress is so much admired that someone in the front row has the good sense to ask where it’s from (Temperley). Elsewhere, stumbling upon Diana Yukawa’s haunting violin while scoffing an £8 falafel scotch egg is a revelation as the sun sets on the Atrium stage. James Rhodes proves, via Rachmaninov, why he has 50,000 Twitter followers. And local boys Glass Animals impress with their intelligent fusion of R&B, zig-zag bass-lines and Tetris beats. Shura’s set is assured and Touch gets the twentysomethings up from east London throwing angular shapes. Over in the Valley, a deep cleavage of greenery and ancient trees, Derrick Carter’s perfectly judged 2am house is elegantly lit by Tracey Emin-inspired neons. But Sunday headliners the Flaming Lips disappoint with a weak vocal and the bizarre choice to have frontman Wayne Coyne barely visible behind a curtain of lights Away from the music, there is spoon carving, wild swimming and a cabaret show featuring a PVC-clad Kitty Bang Bang. Oh, and a man riding a bicycle along a tightrope through flames, because why the hell not? The star of one of numerous insightful debates is Larry Sanders, forever to be introduced as brother of Bernie, but delivering salient points as Green Party health spokesperson in his own right. In the same debate, George Galloway “will not apologiseâ€\x9d for being a straight white man and rails against “rightwing Ed Milibandâ€\x9d. He’s dressed all in black despite the 26 degree heat and is wearing a fedora indoors. Momentum’s James Schneider speaks of a burgeoning Labour membership and there’s a ripple of applause like a second round Wimbledon win on court 2 from an audience who have just paid £20 for glitter accessories. Wilderness’s general vibe appears to be a mashup of Latitude and Hay, with the dress-up chops of Secret Garden. And Sunday night’s Bowie tribute – featuring the Wilderness orchestra and choir; London Contemporary Voices; Kate Nash and Charlotte Church – is a properly stirring experience. Ending with Memory of a Free Festival might be somewhat awkward for obvious reasons, but it does allow for a rousing finale singalong. The audience filters away to a Bowie voiceover: “see you all once again, another day, in another placeâ€\x9d. Wilderness might not be where the wild things are, but it’s jolly good fun nonetheless, old sport.',
 'West Ham stun 10-man Everton as Dimitri Payet seals fightback win Season tickets at Goodison Park come with a guarantee of entertainment and the promise of frustration. Those at the Olympic Stadium may come with the carrot of Champions League football. Everton announced on Friday that they are reducing prices for next season. West Ham United are raising expectations for it. An extraordinary comeback, featuring three goals in 12 minutes, turned defeat into victory and maintained their hopes of a top-four finish. Credibility was stretched as the points were pilfered. “Unbelievable,â€\x9d said Slaven Bilic. “Nobody can deny we deserved it. We showed our quality, we showed our stubbornness and we got a great win.â€\x9d They are a team transformed. They used to approach trips to Merseyside with trepidation, but won at Anfield for the first time in 52 years in August. A 16-game winless run against Everton in the top flight came to an abrupt end, courtesy of Michail Antonio, Diafra Sakho and Dimitri Payet. West Ham’s signing of the season provided the dramatic denouement. Andy Carroll headed Aaron Cresswell’s diagonal ball down, Sakho improvised a backheel flick and Payet nipped in to score the winner. A catalytic signing contributed a crucial goal to determine a cracking game. Yet another Hammer exerted an equal influence and made the fightback feasible. West Ham were two goals adrift and being run ragged by Romelu Lukaku when twin pieces of acrobatics by Adrián proved to be turning points. The Spaniard saved twice from Everton’s top scorer, once from a strangely hesitant penalty and once when he burst clear on goal. He had already made stunning stops to deny James McCarthy and Ross Barkley, who each eyed spectacular long-range strikes, in a one-man rearguard action. It brought a belated reward when his attacking colleagues conjured three goals. “If they had scored that penalty they would have won the game maybe 3-0 or 4-0,â€\x9d Bilic admitted. Everton could rue Adrián’s excellence and Lukaku’s misses. Yet, profligate as he was, he has also proved prolific. In any case, there were other reasons for Everton’s seventh home league defeat of the season. They display a costly carelessness, and have squandered a two-goal advantage four times already. A poor, porous defence has been a regular source of complaint and Ramiro Funes Mori stood flat-footed for two of the West Ham goals. Roberto MartÃ\xadnez’s initial gambit of matching Bilic’s 3-4-3 formation had paid off and his half-time introduction of Muhamed Besic brought a benefit when the Bosnian won the penalty that Lukaku spurned. Yet the removal of two in-form goalscorers who were tormenting West Ham – first Aaron Lennon and then Lukaku – afforded the visitors the initiative. And the culpable Belgian really was Kevin Mirallas, not Lukaku. The winger had been booked for diving before he upended Cresswell. His arm was immediately raised in apology but it was not enough to spare him a second yellow card, or Everton an hour with 10 men. The Goodison faithful afforded the departing winger a generous ovation and blamed the referee, Anthony Taylor. So did MartÃ\xadnez, who identified a scapegoat for a setback. “The second booking is a decision the referee has to make,â€\x9d he admitted. “The first one is a ridiculous decision. Why should we book a player because we feel it is not a free-kick? I don’t feel he is a referee who understands the game in a way that we want it played.â€\x9d Everton’s understanding was apparent in a slickly worked opener, Bryan Oviedo finding Lukaku, who accelerated away to score in an eighth successive game against West Ham. “The performance for spells was outstanding,â€\x9d said MartÃ\xadnez. So was Lukaku’s. Bilic admitted: “When they had the ball, he makes that one-player loss less visible. He creates mayhem.â€\x9d He also fashioned Lennon’s fifth goal in seven games, the winger accepting Lukaku’s return pass to score. Then Adrián intervened. “The penalty was a big blow psychologically,â€\x9d said MartÃ\xadnez. “Romelu Lukaku is such a reliable footballer that we were all a little bit shocked.â€\x9d West Ham were galvanised. Bilic had gambled, bringing on Carroll and Sakho. Substitutes starred after a starter scored. Antonio’s third goal in three games was headed in from Mark Noble’s cross. Another delivery from the visitors’ left flank yielded an equaliser. Payet was the supplier, Sakho heading in. Payet’s winner left even Bilic bemused. “I didn’t know what to do, so I ran down the tunnel and I came back straightaway,â€\x9d he said, though a celebration was the product of a half-time conversation. “I said that ‘we are one down but we are going to do it’,â€\x9d he revealed. “We had to be less sexy and more lethal.â€\x9d Everton could do with displaying a similar hard-nosed pragmatism. “I thought our performance, defensively, was outstanding for 78 minutes and very poor from then on,â€\x9d said MartÃ\xadnez. But whether discounting tickets or gifting goals, their generosity knows no bounds.',
 'Tottenham win title for youthful promise and being the most watchable If you’ve somehow managed to miss the opening eight months of the Premier League season you could have picked up a pretty decent precis of the action so far just by watching Sunday’s games at the Stadium of Light and White Hart Lane. Basically it’s been like that all along. Leicester City have scored lots of breakaway goals and played like a proper team. It’s been emotional. People have cried. The usual heavyweights have ranged from poor to bafflingly dreadful. And beyond that Tottenham Hotspur have been the most watchable, most promising, most intriguing team in the league this season. All issues of sentiment, underdoggery and fairytale glee aside, it is an achievement that deserves at least a slice of the adulation being lavished on the champions-elect. This is not to suggest Leicester are unworthy league winners. The table is never wrong. Leicester have been the most consistent team by some way, seven points clear and not so much sprinting for the line as already off on one of those helmet-doffing, high-fiving home-run trundles around the baseball diamond, waving to the crowd, taking the cheers, ball safely spiralling off above the bleachers into the blue. Even in the second half of the season Leicester have dropped fewer points than their nearest challengers. They beat Spurs 1-0 at White Hart Lane in January, and deservedly so. For Claudio Ranieri’s team this has been both a wonderful story and a purely sporting triumph of teamwork, talent and unblinking focus. Still, one achievement should not diminish another and Spurs have been by so many other measures the most compelling team in the Premier League, the most layered, all the while remaining the only Premier League team (fairytale Foxes included) to run a profit on transfer spending over the past five years. Against Manchester United on Sunday they started poorly. Dele Alli made a lovely run for his goal but otherwise he was largely absent. Harry Kane ragged Chris Smalling about once or twice but touched the ball only 33 times, a rare lack of involvement for an unusually assertive No9. The full-backs were muted, Kyle Walker bothered at times by the high-class menace of Anthony Martial. And yet even on an off-day Tottenham were hugely enthralling in the periods when the pistons began to fire. By the time the goal rush arrived in the final 20 minutes Mauricio Pochettino’s team had begun to swarm in that familiar way, every passing angle, every pocket of space choked off. This isn’t so much the old push-and-run Spurs as push-and-run-and-snipe-and-hustle, albeit in a controlled kind of way. The idea Tottenham will inevitably tire themselves out before the season’s end has always been based on a slight misunderstanding. This isn’t simply covering every blade of grass, Carlton Palmer-style. There is no blur of perpetual motion here. Spurs’ defensive movements are instead minutely drilled, with every shift of position among the opposition a cue for some interlocking reshuffle of the pieces, energy not so much wasted as put to synchronised good use. Often Eric Dier and Mousa Dembélé will stand still, waiting for the play to arrange itself around them. There are some interesting similarities between the league’s top two. Both have a simple set of methods based around teamwork and quick, accurate passing. Both are genuine collectives, the role of each player equally weighted, without favourites or luxuries or glitzy passengers. But Spurs simply have more depth to their game. They are a team who can score all kinds of goals, can play with the ball or on the break, for whom eight players have scored three or more goals in the league this season. Spurs have scored more goals than anyone else while conceding fewer. Their starting outfield players were, on average, almost four years younger than Leicester’s equivalent on Sunday. Ranieri’s men will be hugely impressive champions but there is another gear to come in this Tottenham team. Or at least, there should be. If there is reason to celebrate Spurs excellence, even as the season dwindles into a race for second place, it is the simple fact that such progress is precarious. Last weekend Sir Alex Ferguson gave an interview to Sky Sports, apparently at his own behest, in which he lavished praise on Pochettino’s work. It is hard to see any obvious reason, beyond the really obvious, why Ferguson would choose to do this. Pochettino is an ambitious manager. He will be hugely in demand now, as will Tottenham’s best players. There is a shelf life to any rising team these days. Money will not allow this to go on unchecked for ever. Not that there is reason to think anyone’s leaving just yet. This Spurs team can look forward to another title challenge next season, with plenty of flux among the usual heavyweights and the new champions facing a different set of challenges, not least the demands of running a midweek team as well. Spurs dropped seven points this season after Europa League fixtures, the exact extent of Leicester’s lead at the top. By the end against United, Tottenham were lolling about at White Hart Lane like drunken lords, no doubt thrilled by the sense of their own power in that three-goal burst but still aware that for this season the race may be done. For the most captivating of second-placers the challenge now is simply to make their excellence count in more tangible ways.',
 'Sherlock: The Abominable Bride cinema sales top £21m worldwide The Sherlock Christmas special, The Abominable Bride, has rocketed to fifth place at the US box office despite a limited release, with total international cinema sales exceeding $30m (£21m). BBC Worldwide said the 90-minute Victorian-themed show, which debuted on the PBS TV network in the US, was screened in 750 cinemas nationwide on 5 and 6 January and grossed $2.7m. On a per-screen gross ticket sales average, Sherlock topped the US box office over its two-day run, beating hits including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it added. “The intention was always to give Sherlock: The Abominable Bride a limited release to amplify the TV moment and create a piece of event cinema for fans to enjoy,â€\x9d said Sally de St Croix, head of drama brands at BBC Worldwide. “We never expected it to outshine major Hollywood franchises at the box office and couldn’t be more thrilled with the results.â€\x9d Sherlock has become a global phenomenon, but nowhere more so than in China where it topped the box office on its first weekend, prompting the BBC to extend its cinema run with sales currently at $20m. In South Korea, where the film hit the number two spot, The Abominable Bride has so far grossed more than $7m. In Australia it racked up more than Aus$750,000 over its two-day release on the first weekend of the new year. In Europe, the film was aired in Poland and Russia. In the UK, 18,600 fans watched Sherlock on the big screen despite the episode airing simultaneously on BBC1. The Abominable Bride drew a total consolidated TV audience of 11.6 million, making it by far the most popular show over the festive period. Doctor Who is made in-house by the BBC and has become one of BBC Worldwide’s bestselling shows. However, the corporation’s commercial arm acts only as an agent for Sherlock’s production company, Hartswood, which is run by Beryl Vertue, mother of Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, who is married to the show’s co-creator Steven Moffat. “Thank you to all the fans around the world that have enjoyed our special episode,â€\x9d Sue Vertue said. “I’m pleased to say that preparations for series four are well under way … the game continues.â€\x9d Sherlock is licensed to more than 225 territories and The Abominable Bride is set to transmit across many international TV networks. It has so far been screened in cinemas in more than 20 countries. Filming for the fourth series is scheduled to start this year.',
 'The view on British politics after Brexit The seismic political upheavals triggered by June’s calamitous vote to leave the European Union have greatly intensified in recent days, with the Tories at their conference in Birmingham following Labour and Ukip in a frantic, often divisive and persistently contradictory drive to identify and occupy the elusive “new centre groundâ€\x9d of British politics. The most striking aspect of this struggle is that, in seeking to capitalise on the post-referendum state of flux, politicians in both main parties are paradoxically moving sharply away from the middle. In doing so, they set at risk fundamental liberal values and the universal, progressive principles that Britain, since the 18th-century Age of the Enlightenment, has been instrumental in spreading around the globe and in which its modern-day democracy and open society are rooted. Theresa May’s first major speech as Conservative prime minister was intriguing for its renunciation of Thatcherism’s pernicious but still pervasive emphasis on individualism and antisocial self-interest. Taken by itself, this public recanting is as welcome as it is overdue. May stressed instead her intention to use the power of government to change and improve people’s lives, lauding “the good the state can doâ€\x9d. But in anointing herself as standard-bearer for the interests of what she patronisingly called “ordinary peopleâ€\x9d, May tottered on the edge of the old Benthamite trap of suggesting she and her ministers know what is best for everyone. They should tread carefully. In a parliamentary democracy, overweening executive authority, convinced of its own moral rightness, is a creature to be feared, not admired, as America’s founding fathers knew full well when they built checks and balances into the US constitution. Even as the Tories dream lazily of ruling in perpetuity, the rational parts of their brains must surely understand that May’s old school, top-down, take-what’s-good-for-you governance is neither desirable, democratic or effective. If May really believes they can become “the party of the workers, the party of public servants, the party of the NHSâ€\x9d, she must learn to talk to those workers, not down to them – and listen before leaping on issues such as grammar schools and Hinkley Point. As a matter of respect and basic common sense, May should also heed the cautionary words of Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man, who wrote in 1792: “Mankind, as it appears to me, are always ripe enough to understand their true interest, provided it be presented clearly to their understanding, and that in a manner not to create suspicion by anything like self-design, nor offend by assuming too much. Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach.â€\x9d Worryingly, influential figures around May, pushing for a hard Brexit, are in danger of forgetting such wise maxims, assuming they were ever aware of them. What they call reform is unabashed regression and vengeful revisionism. There is a clear tendency, exhibited most brashly by Amber Rudd, the home secretary, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, to interpret the referendum result as unambiguous support for a divisive, rightwing agenda far removed from the political centre. It is worth restating that a thumping 48% of those who voted, or 16.1 million people, chose to Remain, while 28% of those eligible to vote expressed no opinion either way. That result places those actively backing Leave in a distinct minority. They should show a little humility. Instead, ignoring Paine and the majority, they assume too much. They dangerously overreach. Brexit did not, for example, provide a mandate for arbitrary restrictions on British-based companies hiring the best and brightest of foreign workers. In the integrated, globalised economy in which Fox claims a post-EU Britain will thrive, how shortsighted is that? Brexit was not a vote for British jobs for British workers, either, despite what Rudd insultingly implied. Many of the jobs in question are low skilled and badly paid; British-born workers simply do not want them. Some are demandingly high skilled, as in the NHS and care sectors, where there are critical shortages. Here, EU nationals perform vital work. Nor was Brexit a vote to trash one of modern Britain’s great success stories – its internationally admired university sector – by limiting the numbers of foreign students who study here (and making it uncompetitively expensive for those who do). Already, the future of much joint research funding is in serious doubt. Notwithstanding vague government assurances about future financial support, Rudd’s reckless comments will only compound damaging uncertainty. These and other noisome, ill-thought-out ideas, emanating from senior ministers bearing the seal of government, are as alarming as they are unpleasant. They carry a gross whiff of xenophobia. They convey an inescapable undertone of racism and intolerance. And they are a testament to what looks increasingly like an accelerating retreat from Britain’s liberal, inclusive and open-minded tradition and a return to the narrow, delusional world of Little England. Despite much of what was said last week, Brexit was not a vote to scrap free access to the single market, thereby alienating Japanese and other overseas investors. Does Fox really think China, America or India will helpfully offer Britain, negotiating by itself, the same favourable terms that an EU bloc of 28 countries negotiating collectively has obtained? If he does, he should seek other work. Do these hard Brexiters truly believe our European partners will sit on their hands if Britain sets about demolishing EU founding pillars such as freedom of movement and goods? Do they honestly pretend Britain can continue to trade while rejecting agreed EU rules policed by the European court of justice? Do they somehow think British soldiers who commit war crimes should escape the sanction of European human rights conventions and international law? If they do, then dunderhead must be added to duplicity on the lengthening Brexiter charge sheet. François Hollande, France’s president, is a socialist, but no radical. He faces a fierce challenge from the hard right in next year’s elections. Yet swiftly responding to the messages coming out of Birmingham, Hollande reacted sharply last week. Britain must and will pay if it persists in such gratuitous vandalism, Hollande said. Viewed from the French, German and Italian mainstream, there is less and less to distinguish hard Brexiters from Marine Le Pen’s extremist Front National (which enthusiastically eggs them on) or the similarly xenophobic, nationalist Alternative for Germany. They are wreckers. They are reckless. They are irresponsible. They know only what they do not like. And they have little or no practical idea how they will replace the hard-won principles and institutions they traduce. Whatever these delusional Tories believe, theirs is not the path to Britain’s new centre ground. Yet Labour, too, seems to have wholly lost its way as it struggles with internal divisions and the mortal threat to its working-class heartlands posed by Ukip. Rarely has the country required a purposeful, effective opposition as badly as it does now. Rarely if ever has there been such urgent need of a champion ready to defend workers’ rights, regardless of race or nationality, to fight for the values of tolerance, inclusion and equality embodied in the European treaties and to lead those who feel threatened by mass migration, job insecurity, poverty and globalisation towards a broader understanding of who their real enemies are. Stand up, Jeremy Corbyn, newly re-elected Labour leader. Except, on Europe, the defining issue of our time, Corbyn has consistently failed to stand up, show a lead or demonstrate an appreciation of the wider issues. Yes, more social housing is important. Yes, a higher minimum would be nice. Yes, the railways are a mess. But this is hardly the point. Without a prosperous economy and expanding tax take, such policies will remain as unfunded wishful thinking. And if a hard Brexit takes hold, pushed through arbitrarily from next March onwards while a blinkered Corbyn vainly squabbles with his MPs and parliament is sidelined, much current public spending may be at risk, let alone any new programmes. Corbyn must now demonstrate that he is the man to rise to this pre-eminently urgent national challenge. The line of attack is clear. It is not unpatriotic, as May & co perniciously suggest, to want this country to remain close to the EU and play as full a part as possible within Europe. It is not supercilious or elitist to suggest many Leave voters were egregiously misled about the consequences of Brexit by Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. It is only right to be concerned that this new administration is using Brexit as a means to foist a divisive rightwing agenda on the country. It is deeply worrying that, as a result, the Brexit process may be botched and our national interests, and our people, will consequently suffer across the board. On one point, all perhaps can agree: this political crisis is about taking back control. But Brussels is not the enemy. The EU was always a straw man. Nor is the crisis about a loss of community, native culture and traditions, as some maintain. In all respects, these aspects of our national life are thriving, although they are evolving in ways some conservatives do not like. No, this crisis is about reasserting and deepening democratic governance on behalf of all the people while limiting the control and excesses of those who, by one means or another, exercise power over us. Just as in the time of Tom Paine and the American and French revolutions, it is a battle for equality, justice and tolerance, for the proud liberal principles of individual freedom, openness and inclusion. It is a struggle between the forces of reaction, prejudice, ignorance, dogmatism and self-interest and the universal vision of progressive societies in which the rights of all men and women are respected and advanced. It is an ongoing historical contest that everyone who cares about a fairer society must now steel themselves to fight again – and by all means, win. For here, not on Brexit’s wilder shores, is where Britain’s centre ground truly lies. This article was amended on 22 October 2016 to clarify EU Referendum voting percentages.',
 'State of the 2016 race: Trump looks to take over America after conquering GOP Impossible, unthinkable, probable and now inevitable – Donald Trump has swept through American politics like a hurricane, upending conventional wisdom and trailing destruction in his wake. On Thursday, the ultimate celebrity candidate clinched the Republican nomination for president, setting up what could be one of the ugliest general elections in memory. Trump reached the magic number of delegates needed after a small number of the party’s unbound delegates told the Associated Press they would support him at the Republican National Convention in July. With zero political experience, Trump knocked out 16 rivals including governors and senators as he grabbed more primary votes than any Republican in modern history. Asked at a press conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, how it felt to reach the magic number, Trump said: “I’m so honored. I’m so honored by these people; they had such great sense.â€\x9d Earlier he remarked: “We were supposed to be going into July ... and here I am watching Hillary and she can’t close the deal.â€\x9d His hostile takeover of the party complete, the bombastic, swaggering, at times crass billionaire now hopes to complete a takeover of America itself. The 69-year-old will almost certainly face Democrat Hillary Clinton, 68, in the November election. The pair are running neck and neck in opinion polls. Pundits who laughingly dismissed Trump as a buffoon when he entered the race nearly a year ago are not laughing now. “It’s not only unprecedented but unfathomable,â€\x9d said Rich Galen, former press secretary to vice-president Dan Quayle. “If you’d written a novel based on what’s happened since last June, you’d have had to self-publish because no publishing house would have touched it.â€\x9d Many Americans, and observers around the world, have watched the resistible rise of Trump with consternation just eight years after the US elected its first black president. Some believe that he embodies a racially charged backlash against Barack Obama and the last gasp of white men against the nation’s diversifying demographic. One theory holds that he is merely putting into plain, populist language what rightwing Republicans have been saying in code for years. “The Donaldâ€\x9d has been variously compared to everyone from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and showman PT Barnum. He has sold himself as a charismatic leader, a dealmaker and a winner, taking a wrecking ball to the political establishment. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said this week: “He is a classic untrammeled demagogue.â€\x9d Trump was probably best known in the US as the presenter of the American version of The Apprentice when, last June, he launched his long-shot presidential campaign at the shiny, marbled Trump Tower in New York. When, after descending an escalator, the property developer said of Mexicans, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,â€\x9d the tone was set and the 2016 presidential race would never quite be the same again. Trump demolished the Republican field, throwing out nicknames that stuck: “Little Marcoâ€\x9d Rubio, “Low energyâ€\x9d Jeb Bush and “Lyin’ Tedâ€\x9d Cruz. Some tried to rise above him, and others tried to wrestle him in the mud; all fell in their turn. Questions have been raised over the culpability of the media in giving him millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity; his campaign costs were a relatively low $57m by the end of April. Trump has fired up his base, and infuriated liberal opponents, by promising to build a wall along the Mexican border, round up and deport 11 million illegal immigrants, and impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country because of fear of terrorism. His rallies are rowdy and raucous, with huge crowds wearing his trademark Make America Great Again hats, chanting, “Build the wall!â€\x9d and holding placards that say, “The silent majority stands with Trumpâ€\x9d. They have attracted protests, too, with demonstrators sometimes forcibly ejected and Trump himself stoking an ominous violence. One rally in Chicago was canceled after thousands of demonstrators surrounded the venue and the secret service could no longer guarantee the candidate’s safety. Trump, whose mother was born in Stornoway in the Hebrides – what he once described as “serious Scotlandâ€\x9d – has been condemned as anti-women, anti-immigrant and anti-poor. He still faces a battle to unify the Republican party, although some leaders, encouraged by his poll numbers against Clinton, have thrown in their lot with him, as has media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, said on Thursday: “It’s unfortunate that the Grand Old Party of Reagan and Lincoln has turned to a charlatan, and it’s our job to make sure, for the sake of the Latino community, the Asian American community, the African American community, and every American that we stop Hurricane Trump from invading the White House and that we continue to build upon the progress that has been made for hardworking Americans under Barack Obama.â€\x9d The Republican could benefit from a split among Democrats between Clinton, criticised for a peculiarly joyless campaign, and the party’s own surprise insurgent, socialist Bernie Sanders. But Jeffries insisted: “It is certainly the case that in 2016 we’re going to come together to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous threat to democracy as we know it that the United States has seen in recent history.â€\x9d With Sanders fighting to the end, and Clinton hoping to avoid a symbolically wounding loss in California next month, Trump has the luxury of watching from a lofty perch. He needed 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination and has now reached 1,238. With 303 delegates at stake in five state primaries on 7 June, Trump will comfortably boost his total, avoiding a contested party convention in Cleveland. The fact that Clinton stands to become America’s first female president has almost become an afterthought in the wild ride of this year’s campaign. She suffered a blow on Wednesday when an official report found that she violated department rules on email use by setting up a private server during her time as secretary of state. Trump has branded her “Crooked Hillaryâ€\x9d and has already drawn attention to the past sexual indiscretions of her husband Bill Clinton during his own time at the White House. Commentators fear the race can only turn nastier. Trump has married three times, loves junk food, enjoys watching sports on TV and is a particular fan of Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. Gaffes and media revelations that would have sunk a normal candidate in a normal year appear to bounce off him. What does not kill him makes him stronger. Yet he has some headaches of his own. He is under mounting pressure to release his tax returns. Hours before clinching the nomination, he announced the abrupt departure of political director Rick Wiley, who had been leading a push to hire staff in key battleground states. This was the latest evidence of a power struggle within the Trump campaign. Galen, a veteran Republican strategist, believes that Trump will win the presidency, riding a wave of anger at the status quo. “The anti-Washington sentiment is real,â€\x9d he said. “People are showing on a definitive basis that they would rather take a risk on someone like Trump who has no skills than the cronies like me who do it over and over again, just exchanging desks in the west wing every eight years. They are saying, ‘You’ve screwed it up, we’ll take a chance with this guy.’â€\x9d Asked about liberal warnings that Trump cannot be trusted with democracy, security or the nuclear trigger, Galen, 69, replied: “I’m old enough to remember the same thing being said about Ronald Reagan. They underestimated him because he was an actor and was not a member of the club. So let’s see what happens.â€\x9d Key milestones in the US election race: California primary: 7 June is the final major primary night for the 2016 election, with California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana and the Dakotas all voting and Clinton all but certain to claim the delegates she needs to cross the line and become the Democratic nominee. California is the biggest prize in the season, with 548 Democratic delegates and 172 Republicans up for grabs. Currently, RealClearPolitics aggregate polls show Clinton ahead at 50% to Sanders’ 42%. However, Sanders has been holding massive rallies across the state – with seven more planned for this weekend – and is hoping for a strong showing to help him influence the party platform at the Democratic National Convention. Democratic convention: The 2016 DNC will be held in Philadelphia on 25-28 July, where the party delegates will confirm the presidential nominee, with Sanders supporters hopeful they may be able to convince super delegates – party insiders who can vote however they want – to switch their allegiance from Clinton to their candidate, which seems unlikely. Sanders said this week the convention could be “messyâ€\x9d: “Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is where the Democratic party should go.â€\x9d Republican convention: On the GOP side, the Republican National Convention will take place in Cleveland 18-21 July, where they will officially select Trump as the party’s presidential nominee. Trump agreed to a joint fundraising deal with the RNC this week – previously his campaign had been self-funded – and Republicans are already debating how many of Trump’s controversial policies will make it’s way into the party’s platform First presidential debate: The two nominees will go directly head to head at the first presidential debate on 26 September in Dayton, Ohio, a key swing state. Tuesday 8 November: US election. The bookies are shortening their odds on a Trump presidency, with William Hill dropping to 7/4 and Paddy Power offering 2/1 for a Trump win. – Amber Jamieson in New York',
 'Patients with long-term conditions need a joined-up NHS Transforming the care of long-term conditions is the key to ensuring the financial sustainability of the NHS. But although there is wide agreement on what needs to change, progress towards achieving it is painfully slow. The seven innovation test beds unveiled by NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month are the latest attempt to build some momentum behind change. The programme is focused on long-term conditions and mental health, and is a collaboration between the NHS and some big private sector names including Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences), IBM and Philips. The idea is to use a mix of technology, data, monitoring and training. Examples include diabetes patients in the west of England having remote monitoring and coaching technology to help them manage their condition better, while in Rochdale, patients who are at high risk of becoming critically ill will be supported with telecare monitoring in their homes. These are all good ideas, of course, but it says a lot about the way the NHS struggles with adopting innovations at scale and pace that so much fanfare was given to such a modest development. With so many conflicting pressures in the NHS, there is a risk that improving the management of long-term conditions will slip as a priority; the NHS planning guidance 2016/17 – 2020/21 (pdf) published in December makes scant mention of long-term conditions, while cancer and mental health have moved to the fore. All these services overlap, but the difference in emphasis is clear. However, patients with long-term conditions should eventually benefit from the move in the guidance towards NHS bodies planning and operating as health and care systems rather than discrete organisations. The devolution deals also hold out the promise of improvements in the integration of health and social care. Among the new models of care emerging from the Five Year Forward View, two in particular promise better support for long-term conditions. Multispecialty community providers have the potential to pull together more effective packages of care for their patients – from consultant physicians prised out of their hospitals to pharmacists and community nurses – and start to shift the centre of gravity for diagnosis, treatment and support into the community. Central to this is a step change in the working relationship between the hospital consultants and GPs. It is a continuing scandal that, in many areas, patients still suffer because of poor collaboration between secondary and primary care doctors. While accountable care organisations (ACOs) are certainly not a panacea, the move to bring together care services in Northumberland as an ACO from 2017 may well offer the most promising model for keeping patients with long-term conditions active, independent and out of hospital for as long as possible. Morecambe Bay and the Isle of Wight are pursuing a similar approach. Northumberland already has an impressive record for health and social care services working together. As one of the NHS England “vanguardâ€\x9d sites it now plans to take that a stage further, with more active management of the population’s health, better access to services and more effective and widespread use of technology. If the accountable care model starts to get traction, perhaps its greatest benefit will be a psychological one. By blurring the boundaries between primary, community, social and hospital care, patients may in time come to realise that arriving in hospital is often a sign that care has failed, not that it is succeeding. That change in perception will be crucial if the NHS is ever to succeed in rebalancing its resources between hospitals and everything else. There are numerous uplifting stories of patients maintaining active, largely independent lives by managing their own condition with integrated, multidisciplinary support. But too often, the story is of missed opportunities, poor coordination and crisis intervention. Substantial improvements in the care of long-term conditions must remain at the heart of NHS planning. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'RBS admits further delays in offloading Williams & Glyn Royal Bank of Scotland is facing further problems in offloading 300 Williams & Glyn branches, in a fresh blow to the management team of the bailed-out bank. The European Union demanded the branches be separated as the price of agreeing to RBS’s £45bn taxpayer bailout. Lloyds Banking Group was also required under state aid rules to carve out TSB in return for its government rescue. But on Thursday, the Edinburgh-based RBS said the cost of the spin-out, previously put at £1.2bn, was escalating and it may miss the deadline to complete the disposal – which had already been extended to December 2017. This may make it even more difficult for the chancellor, George Osborne, to further reduce the government’s 73% stake in the bank. Spinning out the Williams & Glyn branches has already created difficulty for RBS. A sale to Santander was abandoned in 2012 and a subsequent deal was announced in 2013 with a consortium backed by investments from the Church of England to try to complete the separation. Then late last year RBS said it might also consider an auction for the branches. Shares in the bank fell almost 5%, to 240p – well below the 502p at which taxpayers break even on their stake. “Due to the complexities of Williams & Glyn’s customer and product mix, the programme to create a cloned banking platform continues to be very challenging and the timetable to achieve separation is uncertain,â€\x9d RBS said. “We have concluded that there is a significant risk that the separation and divestment to which we are committed will not be achieved by 31 December 2017. RBS is exploring alternative means to achieve separation and divestment. The overall financial impact on RBS is now likely to be significantly greater than previously estimated.â€\x9d Ross McEwan, who became chief executive in October 2013, is expected to face questions on the problems when he presents the bank’s first-quarter figures on Friday. The announcement was rushed out to the market after the board of the bank – which has not made an annual profit since 2007 – had met to discuss the first-quarter trading statement. Joseph Dickerson, an analyst at Jefferies, said: “We struggle to comprehend what management have learned about the separation business since their last update to the market on 26 February and also that the separation of this business has been under way since late 2009. The news is negative on two fronts: a potential delay in capital return and also likely higher separation costs. Moreover the delays could call into question management execution of RBS’s restructuring process.â€\x9d Analysts are expected to want clarity on any impact on the possibility of payouts to shareholders – currently expected next year. Lloyds, which admitted on Thursday its first quarter profits had fallen by 46% to £654m, has separated out 600 TSB branches, created a new image on the high street and floated the bank on the stock market before it was sold to Sabadell of Spain last year. TSB relies on Lloyds for its IT, despite being a separate bank, while RBS is trying to create a standalone branch network.',
 'Chris Rock: five of his best moments While the reaction to Chris Rock’s last stint as Oscar host was somewhat muted, hopes are high that the comedian will be able to add some much-needed edge to this week’s ceremony. Most are curious to see just how far Rock will push boundaries, given the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. But, while we wait to see if he will crash or soar, here’s a look back at some of his best moments on screen. I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Before Keenen Ivory Wayans’ handle on silliness got out of control in dross such as White Chicks and Dance Flick, he displayed a niftier touch for boisterous humour in this inventive blaxploitation parody. A 23-year-old Rock cropped up in a small but memorable role as a man desperate for ribs but unwilling to pay for a full rack. New Jack City It might not feel as sharp-edged as it did in 1991, but Mario Van Peebles’ violent gangster drama showcased an impressive cast from Wesley Snipes to Ice-T. But Rock’s crack addict-turned-informant Pookie was an effortless scene-stealer in a performance that provided both serious and comic moments. Good Hair In 2009, Rock added another string to his bow by writing and starring in this revealing documentary about African Americans’ hair. Rock proved to be a smart and curious tour guide, shining a light on a $9bn industry without turning it into a polemic or resorting to condescension. His talent for the field should be explored further. 2 Days in New York While Julie Delpy’s quick-witted relationship comedy 2 Days in Paris was undoubtedly fun, it didn’t seem like a film that required a sequel. It was therefore a refreshing surprise that the follow-up was just as charming and cleverly observed as the first. Rock, playing a talkshow host and journalist, appears like an extension of himself. Top Five Emerging from the 2014 Toronto film festival with ecstatic reviews, audience buzz and a $12.5m deal from Paramount, Rock’s major comeback film, which he also wrote and directed, seemed as if it would be a box-office hit, too. But it sort of fizzled, which is a shame because it’s a smart, funny and affectionate romantic comedy that was billed as Rock’s Annie Hall. It sadly proved that his box-office appeal may now be reserved for Madagascar movies.',
 'WHO warns against blood donations from people returning from Zika regions The World Health Organisation has advised countries against accepting blood donations from people who have travelled to regions affected by the Zika virus, as Spain announced Europe’s first known case of the disease in a pregnant woman. The announcement came as authorities in Brazil disclosed two cases of transmission tied to blood transfusions, adding a new dimension to efforts to limit Zika’s impact. With dozens of cases emerging in Europeans and North Americans returning from Zika-affected areas, the WHO stressed the potential link between Zika and microcephaly – which causes children to be born with abnormally small heads – and urged health authorities to take precautions. “With the risk of incidence of new infections of Zika virus in many countries, and the potential linkage of the Zika virus infection with microcephaly and other clinical consequence, it is estimated as an appropriate precautionary measures to defer [blood] donors who return from areas with Zika virus outbreak,â€\x9d the WHO told AFP in a statement on Thursday. The virus, which has spread quickly across Latin America and the Caribbean, is usually transmitted by the bite of a mosquito, although health authorities in Texas this week reported a case which had been transmitted through sexual contact. Marcelo Addas Carvalho, the doctor who is the director of the blood center at the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo, said genetic testing confirmed that a man who received a blood transfusion using blood donated by another man infected with Zika in March 2015 became infected with the virus, although he did not develop symptoms. Carvalho said another man, who had suffered gunshot wounds, also became infected with Zika after receiving multiple blood transfusions that included blood donated by an infected person in April 2015. Carvalho said that infection probably was caused by the transfusion but genetic tests have not yet been conducted to confirm it. He said it was very unlikely the infection was caused by a mosquito bite because the patient was in a hospital intensive care unit for three months. The patient later died from his gunshot wounds and not the Zika infection, health officials and Carvalho said. “Transmission of the virus through blood transfusion is very rare and not an important factor in the epidemic. Governments and society in general should focus on eliminating the mosquito, which is the main form of transmission,â€\x9d Carvalho said. Meanwhile, in the first case of its kind in Europe, Spain’s health ministry said a pregnant woman who had returned from Colombia had been diagnosed with the virus. “One of the patients diagnosed in (the north-eastern region of) Catalonia is a pregnant woman, who showed symptoms after having travelled to Colombia,â€\x9d the ministry announced, adding that she was one of seven cases in Spain. The mosquito-borne virus has so far spread to 26 countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean and health authorities have warned it could infect up to four million people on the continent and spread worldwide. The disease starts with a mosquito bite and normally causes little more than a fever and rash. But since October, Brazil has reported 404 confirmed cases of microcephaly – up from 147 in 2014 – plus 3,670 suspected cases. The timing has fuelled strong suspicions that Zika is causing the birth defect. The virus has also been linked to a potentially paralysing nerve disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome in some patients. Spain’s health ministry sought to ease concerns over the spread of the virus, pointing out that all seven cases in the country had caught the disease abroad. “Up to now, the diagnosed cases of Zika virus in Spain ... don’t risk spreading the virus in our country as they are imported cases,â€\x9d it said. The news comes a day after South American health ministers held an emergency meeting in Uruguay on the disease. The meeting focused on ways to control the mosquito population spreading the virus, though reports of a US patient catching the disease by having sex fuelled fears that it will not be easy to contain. WHO earlier this week declared the spike in serious birth defects an international emergency and launched a global Zika response unit. Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and the US territory of Puerto Rico have all warned women not to get pregnant. The WHO warning on blood donations follows moves by Canada and Britain to protect their blood supplies. Canadian blood agencies on Wednesday announced that anyone who had travelled to a Zika-risk area would be ineligible to give blood for three weeks upon their return. The 21-day waiting period also applies to cord blood and stem cell donors who have travelled to Zika-affected areas. In Britain, the National Health Service Blood and Transplant agency has said that from Thursday, anyone returning from Zika-affected countries would be made to wait 28 days before being allowed to donate blood, as a “precautionary measureâ€\x9d. This report contains material from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse',
 'Bruce Springsteen announces four UK stadium shows for the summer Bruce Springsteen has announced four UK stadium shows for this summer. He brings the E Street Band to Britain for The River tour, in which he plays the entirety of his 1980 double album, finishing his set with a selection of highlights from the rest of his career. Springsteen will play the Etihad Stadium in Manchester on 25 May, Hampden Park in Glasgow on 2 June, Ricoh Arena in Coventry on 3 June, and Wembley Stadium in London on 5 June. Tickets go on sale on 25 February at 9am. The US leg of the tour has been received ecstatically. “The greatest revelation of the revisiting of this album is that, at its core, The River sees the band do something rare: get quiet,â€\x9d wrote Mark Guarino, reviewing the Chicago show for the . “With the songs played in order, the album begins slowly to stretch out and soon, the slower songs begin to edge out the quick and fast. These songs – Point Blank, Fade Away, Stolen Car – grow into cinematic set pieces and since they are not often featured on the band’s setlist, there is a sense the band was energized, skillfully filtering all their strengths for big gestures into smaller pockets.â€\x9d',
 'Rod Temperton obituary Those who pore over the writing credits on album sleeves know the name of the songwriter Rod Temperton, who has died of cancer aged 66. But despite his huge hits for Michael Jackson, above all the title track for Thriller, he was so low-profile that he was nicknamed the “invisible manâ€\x9d. His compositional skills led to him writing three songs for Jackson’s 1979 album Off the Wall, which went on to sell more than 20m copies. In 1982, he wrote three of the nine songs on Jackson’s Thriller, including the title track, and his contributions helped the album to shift 65m copies and become the biggest seller of all time. Temperton, who had previously been a member of the funk-disco band Heatwave, was recruited to the Jackson team by producer Quincy Jones in 1978, as Jones was preparing to record Off the Wall. Temperton formed a fruitful partnership with Jones and the recording engineer Bruce Swedien, prompting the three of them to be dubbed the A-Team. “I’d never heard Heatwave until Quincy told me about them,â€\x9d Swedien recalled. “Rod was like Beethoven – when he would bring a demo in the studio, every detail was complete.â€\x9d Of the songs Temperton wrote for Off the Wall, the title track reached the Top 10 of the US Billboard pop chart, while Rock With You topped it. Both were Top 10 hits in Britain. His third track, Burn This Disco Out, was released as the B-side of Beat It. When Thriller was recorded three years later, Temperton was seen as indispensable by Jones. “Quincy said, ‘Well, you came up with the title of the last album, see what you can do for this album’,â€\x9d Temperton recalled in a 2006 interview for Radio 2, describing how he wrote Thriller. “I went back to the hotel. I wrote two or three hundred titles for this song.â€\x9d He toyed with the idea of calling it Midnight, before he hit upon Thriller. “Something in my head just said ‘this is the title’. You could visualise it on top of the Billboard charts ... So I knew I had to write it as Thriller, and I wrote all the words very quickly, then went to the studio and we did it.â€\x9d It was also Temperton’s idea to include the macabre spoken word section at the end of the song: “One thing I’d thought about was to have somebody, a famous voice in the horror genre, to do this vocal.â€\x9d As luck would have it Jones’s wife was friendly with the actor Vincent Price. He was delighted to be offered the job. Temperton wrote out the text in a cab on his way to the recording session, Price (who took a flat fee) did only two takes, and the result entered into music industry folklore. The album also featured the Temperton songs Baby Be Mine and The Lady in My Life; only Jackson himself contributed more numbers. The songwriter’s journey to the centre of the West Coast entertainment business began in the Lincolnshire seaside resort of Cleethorpes, where he was born. He would later describe how his father put a transistor radio on his pillow when he was a child and he would fall asleep listening to the pop station Radio Luxembourg. He attended De Aston school in Market Rasen, where he formed a band in which he was the drummer. On leaving school he worked for a time at the Ross Foods frozen fish factory in Grimsby. Meanwhile he persevered as a musician. Switching from drums to keyboards, he played in several dance bands and in the early 1970s moved to Germany. With guitarist Bernd Springer he formed a band called Sundown Carousel, which played soul music covers in bars and GI clubs across Germany. In 1974, having also been part of a group called The Hammer, he replied to an advert in the Melody Maker that had been placed by Johnnie Wilder Jr. He had sung with a number of groups while serving with the US army in West Germany and was putting together a new outfit. The band began performing in London as Chicago’s Heatwave before shortening their name to Heatwave, adding a funk beat to their disco sound and signing to GTO Records in 1976. They recorded a debut album, Too Hot to Handle, and in 1977 their third single from it, Boogie Nights (written by Temperton, as were all the songs on the album), reached No 2 on both the UK chart and the Billboard Hot 100. “I’ve always tried to write my music with an American flavour and really Boogie Nights is the most universal song I’ve written,â€\x9d he said at the time. The follow-up single, the ballad Always and Forever, reached the UK Top 10 and climbed to 18 on the Billboard pop chart. Luther Vandross recorded a version of it for his album Songs (1994). A second album, Central Heating, appeared in 1978, and another Temperton composition, The Groove Line, delivered another US Top 10 hit. It was in 1978 that Temperton decided to leave the group to concentrate on songwriting, though he would continue to contribute material to Heatwave. He soon received his priceless opportunity with Jackson and became a writer for countless major artists. Among his credits are George Benson’s most successful single, Give Me the Night (1980), from the album of the same name, various contributions to Jones’s The Dude (1981), and several co-writing credits on Donna Summer’s album Donna Summer; Baby, Come To Me for Patti Austin and James Ingram; and tracks on Herbie Hancock’s Lite Me Up (all 1982). He also wrote for Manhattan Transfer, Siedah Garrett, Aretha Franklin, Jeffrey Osborne, Karen Carpenter, Mica Paris and many more. In 1986 he was nominated for the Oscar for best original song for the track Miss Celie’s Blues, which he had co-written with Lionel Richie and Jones for the film The Color Purple. Temperton also wrote five songs for the Billy Crystal movie Running Scared (1986). He remained self-effacing, though his success funded homes in Los Angeles, the south of France, Fiji, Switzerland and Britain. Tongue in cheek he summed up: “I watch telly, catch up on the news, and maybe the phone will ring.â€\x9d He is survived by his wife, Kathy. • Rodney Lynn Temperton, songwriter, musician and producer, born 9 October 1949; death announced 5 October 2016',
 'Referendum campaign lacked evidence, but the fallout must not It’s hard to gauge the full scale of the decision to leave the EU, but while public services must be prepared for several years of uncertainty, it is crucial that we carry out a detailed analysis of public finances before making any decisions. Not only will the UK extract itself from EU law and protocols while commencing bilateral trade agreements around the world, but also face a likely second vote on the future of the UK, too. A new prime minister, and probably a new leader of the opposition, must grapple with this and public rejection of the present deal between our institutions and communities. Don’t understate how time-consuming this will be. For public services, financial uncertainties will limit confidence to invest in the medium term. There are many questions to be answered, including whether EU funds will be replaced when funding is repatriated to Westminster; whether devolution and new funding models, of which George Osborne has been the architect, will be as great a priority under a new chancellor; and whether it will be harder to attract European staff to our hospitals and schools before it’s clear how we want our borders to change. Around 50,000 NHS staff, 4.5% of the total workforce, are from the European Economic Area, and the Commons public accounts committee has already raised concerns that the NHS is struggling with a shortage of about 50,000 clinical staff. But while the deckchairs move after the referendum, the ship of globalisation, new technologies and new ways of working continue to make the world a smaller and more joined-up place. Public services need to learn from others. UK cities and regions will want their economic development aspirations to align with European opportunities, even though we will leave the EU. Government ministers and public servants alike must avoid knee-jerk reactions that could do more harm than good in this rapidly changing situation. If the campaign was one of claim and counter claim, often a lacking in evidence, the execution of next steps must be thorough, clear, honest and considered. Nigel Farage’s admission on Friday that claims of future additional NHS funding from the UK’s EU contribution were “a mistakeâ€\x9d highlights the fact that public service leaders will not know how their finances will stack up. And if the subsequent fall in markets means that the gap of many pension liabilities have grown, any future claims that public sector funds are not being managed well will be met with derision from exasperated finance directors. In the build up to the referendum, we at Cipfa interviewed public sector leaders, including chief financial officers and chief executives. They believed the EU provided a source of greatly needed skills and expertise. They also appreciated support networks within the EU, which they felt powered research and allowed practitioners to share knowledge. These sort of collaborative relationships must continue. The crime and security sectors, for instance, would keenly feel the absence in responding to cross-border crime. But public sector leaders saw drawbacks of the EU, too. For example, immigration has been placing great strain on local services in certain areas. And clearly from the referendum we see that immigration in its present form is dividing our nation. Our research also demonstrated that EU regulations are at times over the top – for example, in restricting business rate relief that may assist growth. So there are opportunities to give more powers to incentivise local economies. A key question, with no present answer, is whether Westminster will repatriate from Brussels to itself through greater centralisation or devolve more to local solutions. Finally, Britain is deeply divided by geography and class. Take those with degrees voting one way and those without voting another as an example. From my experience of leading public bodies, I don’t believe that “taking back controlâ€\x9d is a philosophical debate for many communities, but is their proxy for the better housing, skills, jobs, pay and hope they desperately want. Public services face uncertainty and challenges, in the face of which they must basically keep calm and carry on. Their vision, funding and capabilities will be a key determinant of whether we heal our divided nation over the next decade. Rob Whiteman is chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounting, former chief executive of the UK Border Agency and former chief executive of the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.',
 'BuzzFeed faces $11m defamation lawsuit from viral news agency BuzzFeed is being sued for $11m (£7.7m) by a news agency and its founder over an article titled “The King of Bullsh*t Newsâ€\x9d. Central European News, founded and run by British journalist Michael Leidig, has launched a US legal action claiming that BuzzFeed’s 7,000-word article deliberately set out to damage its business. The article, published in April last year, alleged that the agency frequently runs attention-grabbing stories that are “often inaccurate or downright falseâ€\x9d. CEN and Leidig allege that BuzzFeed maliciously intended to damage the news agency in order to “obtain a greater share of the market for viral news in Great Britain and elsewhere around the worldâ€\x9d. They are seeking $5m each, as well as a further $1.04m for lost business opportunities, and further punitive damages. “The BuzzFeed story accuses Mr Leidig, an experienced and award-winning journalist, of the worst thing you can accuse a journalist of – fraud,â€\x9d said Harry Wise, the New York-based lawyer representing CEN and Leidig. “It is unfortunate that BuzzFeed refuses to recognise that its story is completely unfounded, and has done terrible damage to Mr Leidig and his company. We look forward to demonstrating those things in court.â€\x9d Leidig, CEN’s chief executive, claims that when BuzzFeed originally contacted him about writing a piece it was under the guise of wanting to write a feature on CEN’s “laudable investigative journalismâ€\x9d. He launched his legal action after failing to get BuzzFeed UK to remove the article. “I wrote to BuzzFeed’s newly appointed editor Janine Gibson offering to settle this without any money needing to change hands, if they removed the article and apologised,â€\x9d said Leidig. “At that stage it might still have been possible to rescue certain investments and undo the damage. This olive branch was ignored and as BuzzFeed is not regulated by any independent body, the only alternative was to take legal action.â€\x9d CEN says the article has had major ramifications for its business. It said that the Daily Mirror, its second biggest client, said it would now use CEN stories only “if it was absolutely necessaryâ€\x9d. “[The Daily Mirror] is now using CEN again, but at a much-reduced level from the period before defendant’s publication,â€\x9d said CEN in its 16-page legal filing. CEN said that sales of stories, which generally hovered around 900 a month before the BuzzFeed article was published, have dropped by about 30%. The company also says it lost a “potential high six-figure investmentâ€\x9d as a result of the article. “We’re aware the suit was filed, but we don’t comment on potential litigation,â€\x9d said a BuzzFeed spokesman.',
 'Three Bristol University students die within weeks of term starting A coroner is investigating the circumstances surrounding the sudden deaths of three students, all believed to be first years, at one of Britain’s top universities within weeks of the new academic year beginning. Though the causes of the deaths will have to be established by the Avon coroner, online tribute and fundraising pages for two of the three suggested they had taken their own lives. The University of Bristol said the deaths were not being treated as suspicious and were not connected but it would carry out its own investigations to find out if lessons could be learned. According to a survey by the National Union of Students (NUS) published last year, eight out of 10 students said they had experienced mental health issues in the previous year and a third said they had had suicidal thoughts. One of the students who died has been named as Miranda Williams, 19, from Chichester, who was just three weeks into her first term. An online fundraising page set up to raise money for the charity Papyrus, which works to prevent young people from killing themselves, said Miranda had died three days after she “decided to take her own lifeâ€\x9d. A message on the page said: “Miranda suffered with depression and anxiety a lot of her teenage life … We blame the stigma of her illness for her death. It restricted the help she got, the support and the understanding.â€\x9d She was studying philosophy and was a member of the Jazz Funk Soul Bristol society, according to an email to students from the students’ union announcing her death. It said support was available for students and added: “Shock, grief and understanding what has happened will affect us all differently. “It is important to let this happen in its own time. Talk to each other, to your school, to your residence pastoral team and to your friends.â€\x9d The second first year student who died was the law student Kim Long, 18, from Penzance in Cornwall. On an online tribute page his family wrote: “We have lost our dearest, loveliest and only son. Kim took his own life last week. He was considerate to the end by leaving us a loving letter which helps us to respect and accept his choice. May he rest in peace.â€\x9d A university spokesperson said: “Sadly we can confirm there have been three unrelated student deaths this term. These events are always extremely upsetting and our thoughts are with the students’ families and friends. “Our student welfare services are offering support to anyone affected. It would be inappropriate for us to comment on the cause of these deaths until the coroner has undertaken independent inquests, although we understand that there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding them. “The University of Bristol has around 22,000 students. We will, of course, be investigating if there is anything we need to do to learn from these sad events but we have no reason to believe they represent a wider issue.â€\x9d Bristol University students’ union’s student living officer, Stephen LeFanu, said the organisation was working hard to improve pastoral care. He said: “Starting university can be extremely difficult. Some new students are without their support networks from home for the first time, and will be experiencing new academic and social pressures. “Rising fees mean that students are also increasingly under a great deal of financial pressure, with many taking on part-time work alongside their studies. Many people will also experience complex mental health difficulties, regardless of their environment.â€\x9d In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.',
 'Grimes live review – big bass, even bigger hooks It is only when you witness this much unfettered female joy on stage that you realise how rarely it is that you see it. Grimes’s feral K-pop rave is easily the best thing to be run through a mixing desk this year, maybe longer. It is every kind of awesome. Shrieks greet the atmospheric introductory passage, Laughing and Not Being Normal, that opens Grimes’s most recent album, Art Angels, and her set. Grimes – Claire Boucher, on her passport – then lets loose the Japanese-themed melody from Genesis, off her previous album, 2012’s Visions. Flanking her are two fierce dancers, Alison and Linda, who recall the Security of the First World, Public Enemy’s old pseudo-paramilitary helpmeets, crossed with ninjas. Soon, she’s unleashing gut-juddering sub-bass for Realiti, crunchier, and weirder than on record. She starts Flesh Without Blood off conducting the air, strumming a guitar riff and then singing about a false friendship in a bubblegum coo. “Got a doll that looks like you,â€\x9d she smiles meaningfully. Bittersweet hook after bittersweet hook plays out on her gear. The bass is carnivorously loud; HANA, Boucher’s support act-cum-band member, whacks drum pads and tosses her plaited horsetail around. The tune is huge. Everywhere you look, there are women dancing. That pop music can be done with so much sweet, kaleidoscopic ferocity comes as a shock after a lifetime of regretfully accepting that the dead-eyed Britney version was the only way mainstream pop could work. There is no doubt that Miley Cyrus is having a ball, but you can still just see the marionette strings when she moves. Seeing Grimes tour Art Angels, her fourth and most accessible album (released last November), is like entering a parallel universe, where riot grrrl won the World Cup, where the K-pop-worshipping PC Music scene (Sophie et al) gained control of the means of production, currently hogged by a small cabal of producers who might not have the best interests of pop starlets at heart, where Peaches is as big as Madonna. Grimes the cult producer used to stay glued conscientiously to her equipment. In her new incarnation, she spends an hour bounding dementedly around, head-banging, running back to her workstation to start the next beat, play a keyboard line or trigger a sample. The stage set is as cheap as you like, what look like army surplus tarpaulins lit from beneath in lurid pinks and yellows, or strafed by lasers. When she’s not singing, Grimes cradles the microphone in the crook of her neck like a phone, both hands feverishly organising the live bits of the show’s playback. And so it goes on, euphorically, menacingly, with Grimes mixing what she calls “deep cutsâ€\x9d (mostly songs off her previous album, Visions) with the bulk of Art Angels, everything marinated in an enhancing dry rub of MSG cut with PCP. A big red bow controlling a mane of blond hair, lurid turquoise T-shirt over cut-offs, she is possessed by gleeful energy. Then, between songs, Grimes becomes Boucher, a nervous young Canadian woman, embarrassed at the repeated pauses she has to take because the crowd won’t stop cheering, even when she asks us nicely. “Stop it, it makes me stressed out, I’m very shy!â€\x9d she blethers. Cue more screaming. The only thing to do is to start rapping in Russian – the vocal to Scream, originally in Mandarin, by Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes. Later in the set, for Venus Fly, the song’s martial rhythm section is multiplied tenfold. The build is monstrous; the drop, apocalyptic. The dancers have lasers shooting from their fingertips for a revamped version of Be a Body. For Go, a non-album cut that Grimes did with Blood Diamonds, they have daggers. Soon afterwards, Grimes apologises for having swallowed her own hair. Before Oblivion, she reminds us to hydrate, and not crush our peers. (The girl behind me has already fainted.) She plays her encore straight after the main set, because, thanks to her nerves, “Once I’m gone…â€\x9d It’s easily the most explosive track off Art Angels, Kill V Maim, which may (or may not) be about The Godfather if he were a gender-bending vampire. It features the keynote chorus: “Hey, oh, don’t behave.â€\x9d Hosting the pop rave of your dreams, Grimes and her crew are having a blast so palpable, so unrelenting, it actually feels like a game-changer.',
 'Taylor Wimpey: housing demand still strong after Brexit vote The UK housing market has remained buoyant since the vote for Brexit as potential buyers have continued to snap up new homes, according to Taylor Wimpey. In a trading update, Britain’s third-biggest housebuilder said sales and cancellations since the 23 June referendum had barely changed from a year ago and that customers were confident. It said the effect of the vote was not yet clear but that the market’s long-term health was underpinned by strong demand. Like other housebuilders, Taylor Wimpey noticed a brief faltering of demand straight after the Brexit vote followed by business picking up to normal levels. Before the referendum, remain campaigners warned of a housing shock if there was a vote to leave and some analysts have said a crash remains likely. Prices in some parts of central London have fallen and sales of “super primeâ€\x9d homes costing £10m or more have plunged but Taylor Wimpey said the mainstream market was holding up. In London’s zones one and two, prices have fallen slightly for the highest priced homes but demand remains strong, it said. Pete Redfern, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive, said: “Trading during the second half of 2016 and into the autumn selling season has been strong. While there remains some uncertainty following the UK’s vote to leave the EU, we are encouraged to see that the housing market has remained robust and trading has remained resilient.â€\x9d Taylor Wimpey said after almost 11 months of its financial year it had sold 0.75 properties a week at each of its developments compared with 0.76 for the same period last year. Cancellation rates stand at 13%, up slightly from 11% a year earlier. The company’s shares rose 3% to 150p. The shares plunged by more than a third to as low as 116p soon after the referendum as investors feared the vote would knock confidence in the property market. The company said it was sticking to its plan to pay £450m in dividends next year.',
 'Burpy, baldy, deafy … auctioned artwork reveals rejected Snow White dwarves A display of concept drawings by the seminal movie artist Albert Hurter have shed new light on some of the rejected characters who didn’t make the cut in Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The final lineup – Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey – was selected from a pool of around 50 brainstormed by his team; in the Grimms’ original 1812 story, the dwarves are anonymous. Although many of the ultimately rejected names – including Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzey, Hickey, Wheezy, Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty and Burpy – were already known, the artwork reveals how close some of them came to actual animation. The drawings were sold as part of an auction of 400 pieces at Bonhams in New York that raised a total of £500,000. A sketch of Deafy shows a tunic-clad chap cupping his ear and leaning unhappily towards the noise. Baldy, meanwhile, appears to be attempting to conceal his lack of hair with a huge hood, while also distracting the attention with an impressive tum and some unfortunate tights. Dr Catherine Williamson, director of entertainment memorabilia at Bonhams, said: “I think the guys at Disney will be relieved that the names of the dwarfs were changed at the last minute. “I’m sure they wouldn’t have offended sensibilities back in the 1930s but it would be a different story today. The original ones aren’t as good as what they eventually came up with. “The great thing about the names they used is that they’re not just physical references, they’re emotional. It’s good that they made it more about personality than physicality.â€\x9d The film is widely regarded as one of Disney’s finest. Its success turned around the studio’s fortunes, and its legacy is still apparent in cinema today. A live-action revisionist spinoff, told from the point of view of Snow White’s sister, Red Rose, was announced by the studio earlier this year.',
 'White evangelicals are playing the long game. This is the result they wanted Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been possible without the support of white evangelical voters. For nearly four decades, white evangelicals have been a mainstay of the Republican party, and that’s no small matter. By some estimates, one in four voters fit that demographic, meaning that white evangelicals constitute one of the GOP’s most reliable voting blocs. This election was no exception to the rule. Exit polls suggest that four out of five white evangelicals turned out as usual and cast their lot with Trump. What seems different this time, however, is the candidate for whom they voted. Since Jerry Falwell Sr founded the “moral majorityâ€\x9d in 1979, white evangelicalism has sought to position itself as the moral voice of the nation. For the most part, that has translated into unwavering support for socially conservative politicians and policies, undergirded by a strong sense of individual piety. Hence the designation of white evangelicals as “values votersâ€\x9d. Trump, by most accounts, deviates sharply from this norm. As The Atlantic’s Jonathan Merritt has succinctly put it, “Donald Trump is immodest, arrogant, foul-mouthed, money-obsessed, thrice-married, and until recently, pro-choice,â€\x9d all of which flies in the face of professed evangelical standards. Combined with his often-overt misogyny, racism, and xenophobia, Trump seems more than a far cry from the Jesus whom evangelicals claim to love and preach. Throughout his campaign and now after, the apparent contradiction between Trump and so-called evangelical values has been the focus of much of the commentariat. Some prominent evangelicals to their credit sought all along to raise the red flag, urging their flock to think twice about lining up behind Trump. Less sympathetic observers have understandably charged white evangelicals with blatant partisan hypocrisy. Such criticisms make some sense, but they don’t take us very far in understanding white evangelicalism as a social and political phenomenon. Evangelicals may very well consider themselves “values votersâ€\x9d, but the emphasis has never really been on the perceived moral uprightness or religious bona fides of the candidate in question. It’s always nice when the two appear to line up, but the heart of contemporary white evangelicalism lies in advocating for a specific, right-leaning set of social policies. More important than individual proclivities is stemming the tide of what they see as widespread cultural decay. Trump’s nostalgia-laden promise to “Make America great againâ€\x9d hit the right note in this respect. For many white evangelicals, a great America is a Christian America, and a Christian America is one whose laws are socially conservative and geared towards evangelical identity. Traditionally, much of the focus has been on anti-abortion politics and issues related to so-called family values and religious freedom, and Trump sounded all the right notes here. He also smartly solidified himself as a friend to evangelicals by choosing Mike Pence, a socially conservative, evangelical Catholic, as his running mate. Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, racially charged rhetoric played right into the hands of white evangelicals as well. Although white evangelicals may often express a desire to love their neighbours as themselves, in reality the commandment is selectively applied. Anyone considered and deemed a threat to evangelical self-understanding, which includes a narrow vision of what America looks like, is on the other side of the fabled “culture warâ€\x9d. At the end of the day, that war is based in a particular conception of whiteness, filtered through the lens of religious identity and social conservatism. It’s not surprising, then, that four out of five latched on. I’m sure most white evangelicals would balk at the charge of racial politics, but the overall motivation in backing Trump has never been much of a secret. It’s safe to say that for many evangelicals, Trump never represented any sort of ideal, and most weren’t under any illusion about the direction of his moral compass. But for white evangelicals, God works even through the imperfect, and God’s work must – and will – be done. The “workâ€\x9d involved this time around is as old as the moral majority: it’s about protecting some modicum of evangelical identity and social values against a perceived onslaught of antagonistic liberalism. More specifically in regard to this election, white evangelical support for Trump was and is all about appointing conservative, evangelical-friendly judges to the supreme court. It’s also about enacting laws that they hope will put a stop to what they consider as threats to religious freedom, even if the latter border on discrimination. White evangelicals, in other words, are playing the long game, and that has nothing to do with who Trump is as an individual. That may all sound hypocritical, but that’s just what white evangelicalism is in the US. Although laden with the rhetoric of personal piety, it is primarily a social and political phenomenon, and we would do well to view it in such terms. As this election has made clear, white evangelicals will also stop at nothing in their attempt to establish their version of a “Christian Americaâ€\x9d. That includes supporting someone like Trump, who told them exactly what they wanted to hear. It was a match made in heaven.',
 'Mike Hart obituary The singer-songwriter Mike Hart, who has died aged 72, sang with the Liverpool band the Roadrunners, and was a member of the poetry and music collective Liverpool Scene, but he will be best remembered for his solo album Mike Hart Bleeds. Released by John Peel’s Dandelion label in 1969, it was an eccentric, defiant record by someone who was prepared to argue his corner. The song Aberfan berates celebrities for crying publicly at the tragedy in the Welsh mining village; Shelter Song criticises the church for not housing the homeless in its huge cathedrals; and Almost Liverpool 8 is a diatribe at the latest girl to leave in his extensive list of doomed relationships. Hart’s album was the antithesis of easy listening and his career was equally edgy: there can be few artists who have so consistently sabotaged their own success. Hart was born in Bebington, on the Wirral, son of Colin Hart, who ran a sailmakers’ business, William Hart & Co, and his wife, Beryl, and educated at Birkenhead school. In 1962 he formed the Roadrunners, a rhythm and blues band, which had residencies in Liverpool at Hope Hall (now the Everyman theatre) and the Cavern. Roger McGough claimed the group could perform Twist and Shout and Money better than the Beatles, and remembered Hart – “Artyâ€\x9d – as “the wild man in front … [who] was very popular with the ladies. He was weird-looking but he was very charismatic, a Jaggeresque thing.â€\x9d In 1963, George Harrison told some Liverpool musicians that he had seen the Rolling Stones “who are almost as good as the Roadrunnersâ€\x9d. Their tour de force was Cry, Cry, Cry, which Hart would perform passionately, his eyes tight shut as if reliving some past ordeal. Hart turned down management from Giorgio Gomelsky and also a recording contract with Fontana. If Hart said no, that was it. There is subsequently little of the Roadrunners on tape, save for a live set from the Star-Club in Hamburg and a fundraising EP in 1965 for Liverpool University rag week. After travelling with the band to York, Hart refused to play and said it was over. He then joined Liverpool Scene alongside the poet Adrian Henri, and the musicians Andy Roberts, Mike Evans, Percy Jones and Brian Dodson. Their first single was Hart’s witty, rasping song Son, Son (1968), in which everyone is too preoccupied to answer a child’s questions. “It was exposure to the poets that changed him and he found out how to express himself,â€\x9d said Roberts, “but he wouldn’t tolerate things going wrong. He would throw his guitar against the wall if he had a bad gig.â€\x9d The key track of the band’s 1968 album The Amazing Adventures of the Liverpool Scene was Hart’s bitter-sweet Gliders and Parks, where he hopes a girl will turn up for a date in Coronation Park in Crosby. Unexpectedly, she arrives and the track is over, a rare Hart song with a positive ending, although a drunken row is not far away. The song opens with the words, “Saturday, got a Ribble busâ€\x9d, an example of how Hart chronicled daily life, a theme later taken up by Morrissey and Billy Bragg. Liverpool Scene were bohemians, but they recognised that some discipline had to prevail and Hart was too wayward to last beyond the first album. He returned to Liverpool and formed a duo for a while with the 17-year old Jude Kelly, now artistic director of the Southbank Centre. Another girl, this time from Belgium, appears on the cover of Mike Hart Bleeds. To create the image, Hart dripped his blood on her photograph and stubbed his cigarette out on his face, writing the liner note as if he were in an asylum. She is probably the subject of the track Arty’s Wife. “It is a brilliant title with a brilliant cover,â€\x9d said McGough, “and I loved his heart-wrenching voice, but he lacked confidence and he would back away from opportunities. He couldn’t believe that people admired him. He didn’t trust that and maybe that is where the pain and the soul came from.â€\x9d Although many thought of Hart as the Liverpool Dylan, the album was too raw to find a large audience. Hart moved to Edinburgh in 1971 and worked with actors around the fringe festival. This led to a second Dandelion album, Basher, Chalky, Pongo and Me (1972), which combined jokes and sketches with his strident songs, including one about a brief affair with the playwright Nell Dunn. His later songs were either unrecorded or exist in cheaply made demo recordings. Hart’s health deteriorated with constant drinking and he lost his memory. He spent his later years in a nursing home in Edinburgh. He is survived by a sister, Susan, two nephews and a niece. • Michael William Hart, singer and songwriter, born 3 December 1943; died 22 June 2016',
 'Hugh Grant to star in Paddington sequel as a vain acting legend past his prime Hugh Grant will appear in the forthcoming Paddington film, it has been announced, with Brendan Gleeson also joining the cast. Grant will play Phoenix Buchanan, a celebrity who lives on the same road as the eponymous bear and his adoptive family, the Browns. Buchanan is described by the production company as “a vain, charming acting legend whose star has fallen somewhat in recent yearsâ€\x9d. Gleeson will join the cast as safecracker Knuckles McGinty, while Ben Whishaw, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters, Peter Capaldi and Jim Broadbent all return. The plot of the new film concerns Paddington’s attempt to buy a book as a present for his aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday, only for the book to be stolen. Director Paul King welcomed Grant and Gleeson to the cast. “It has been a complete joy to return to the world of Paddington,â€\x9d he said. “It was such a delight to see his first big-screen adventure embraced by audiences around the world, and I couldn’t be more excited about Hugh and Brendan joining the cast to bring his next outing to life.â€\x9d The first Paddington film was a commercial and critical success, with a global box office of $289m, making it the highest-grossing non-studio family film ever. Filming on Paddington 2 has already begun, and it is scheduled for release in November 2017. A third film has already been confirmed.',
 'RNC communications head Sean Spicer to become White House press secretary Donald Trump has picked his presidential press team, naming Sean Spicer, chief strategist and communications director of the Republican National Committee, as his White House press secretary. Trump named other loyalists for top communications posts: Hope Hicks (director of strategic communications), Jason Miller (director of communications) and Dan Scavino (director of social media). “Sean, Hope, Jason and Dan have been key members of my team during the campaign and transition,â€\x9d the president-elect said in a statement. “I am excited they will be leading the team that will communicate my agenda that will Make America Great Again.â€\x9d Spicer worked closely with the RNC chair, Reince Priebus, in an election marked by bitter intra-party opposition to Trump. Both men have been rewarded for such loyalty: Priebus will serve as White House chief of staff. Using Twitter, Spicer said the appointment was an “amazing honorâ€\x9d. Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, congratulated the appointees and said in a statement: “We look forward to working with all of them in the months ahead.â€\x9d During the campaign, Trump made a point of criticising the press for supposed bias against him, often picking out individual reporters by name and directing crowds at his rallies to boo them. Perhaps consequently, his political team has not been particularly open with the media. The president-elect has not held a press conference since July, preferring recently to stage campaign-style events in states that voted for him. Earlier on Thursday, Trump announced that his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, would serve in the White House as counselor to the president. Conway told ABC’S Good Morning America: “This will be a traditional White House in the sense that you will have a great deal of press availability on a daily basis and you’ll have a president who continues to be engaged with the press.â€\x9d Last weekend, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump hosted an off-the-record gathering for journalists. On Monday, the Washington Post published a summary of Jason Miller’s daily transition teleconferences with journalists and his inability to provide answers, given his boss’s predilection for communicating via Twitter instead. One question in a briefing last week, the paper wrote, concerned Trump’s dispute with the CIA over Russia’s hacking of the presidential election. Miller, the Post wrote, answered: “I’d let the president-elect’s tweets speak for themselves.â€\x9d',
 "Trump implies 'second amendment folks' could stop Clinton judge picks – as it happened Final item from us tonight. Hillary Clinton paid a visit earlier to a health clinic in Miami, the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in the US, and appealed to Republican leaders to convene an emergency session of Congress to pass funding to combat the mosquito-borne virus, reports Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington. The Democratic nominee used the bully pulpit of the presidential campaign to voice her frustration with lawmakers in Washington, who left town last month for a summer recess without meeting the federal government’s request for funds to fight the spread of the Zika virus. “I am very disappointed that the Congress went on recess before actually agreeing on what they would do to put the resources into this fight,â€\x9d Clinton said. “And I really am hoping that they will pay attention.â€\x9d Clinton delivered her remarks following a tour of the Borinquen Health Care Center, a community clinic in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, which has borne the brunt of Florida’s Zika outbreak. The state of Florida, a key battleground in November’s presidential race, has been the most severely hit by the virus, which poses the greatest threat to pregnant women due to its cause of birth defects such as microcephaly. Clinton said she first learned of Zika in December through her daughter Chelsea, who was pregnant at the time with her second child. “We don’t want to wake up in a year and read so many more stories about babies like the little girl who just died in Houston,â€\x9d Clinton said, citing a fatal case of Zika-related microcephaly reported out of Texas on Tuesday. “That is just not something we should tolerate in our country.â€\x9d The Obama administration requested a $1.9bn spending package several months ago, basing its figure on the needs of public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The request quickly devolved into partisan politics on Capitol Hill, as House Republicans instead passed a measure that included riders to overturn certain clean water regulations, restricted money for Planned Parenthood and undermined the health care law. Senate Democrats twice filibustered the House-passed proposal, which Barack Obama has also said he would veto. Republicans have in turn accused Democrats of blocking the necessary funding and on Tuesday took aim at Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator and Clinton’s vice presidential running mate, for voting against their Zika bill. Clinton urged lawmakers to put aside politics and advance a separate bipartisan agreement that cleared the Senate in June and would allocate $1.1bn in funding with no strings attached. She also took aim at Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has ignored the Zika virus all together and told a local television station in Florida he did not need to opine on the issue because the state’s governor, Rick Scott, had it “under controlâ€\x9d. “I disagree with those who say that Zika is an insignificant issue,â€\x9d Clinton said. “This is something we need to take seriously.â€\x9d Contrary to Trump’s claims, Scott, a Republican who has endorsed the nominee, has sounded repeated alarms over the Zika outbreak. He, too, implored US lawmakers to return to Washington and address the funding gap. “The federal government must stop playing politics and Congress needs to immediately come back to session to resolve this,â€\x9d Scott said on Tuesday, as Florida’s health department identified four more individuals who likely contracted Zika through a mosquito bite. Salman Rushdie, himself no stranger to threats of assassination, has delivered his verdict on the nature of Donald Trump’s remarks: US Secret Service, on Donald Trump’s comments: The Secret Service is aware of the comment. The NRA might have changed the channel a little early. Donald Trump’s campaign’s initial clarification of his remarks in Wilmington, North Carolina, today was to blame the “dishonest mediaâ€\x9d for quoting Trump as saying that the use of firearms could be considered a logical recourse in the event of Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices. So, in the interest of providing as much information as possible to American readers and voters, here are Trump’s full comments regarding the Second Amendment today: Hillary wants to abolish, essentially, the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day. If Hillary gets to put her judges in, right now we’re tied. You see what’s going on. We’re tied ‘cause Scalia, this was not supposed to happen. Justice Scalia was going to be around for ten more years, at least, and this is what happened. That was a horrible thing, So now look at it. So Hillary essentially wants to abolish the second amendment. Now speaking to the NRA folks, who are great: when you, when you, and I tell you, so they endorsed me. They endorsed me very early. My sons are members. I’m a member. If you, we can add, I think the National Rifle Association, we can add the Second Amendment to the justices, they almost go, in a certain way, hand and hand. Now the justices are going to do things that are so important. And we have such great justices. You saw my list of eleven that have been vetted and respected and have gotten great, and they, a little bit, equate. But if you don’t do what’s the right thing, you’re not going to have - either you’re not going to have a Second Amendment or you’re not going to have much of it left. And you’re not going to be able to protect yourselves, which you need. Which you need! When the bad guys burst into your hours, they’re not looking about Second Amendments and ‘do I have the right to do this.’ The bad guys aren’t going to be giving up their weapons. But the good people will say, ‘oh, well, that’s the law.’ No, no. Not going to happen. We can’t let it happen. We can’t let it happen. Video: Donald Trump implying that the use of firearms might be adequate response to Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices. Roger Stone, an informal adviser to the Trump campaign, implied last month to internet agitator Milo Yiannopoulos that the notion of discrediting the election as “illegitimateâ€\x9d is part of Trump’s campaign strategy. “I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly,â€\x9d Stone said. “He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’â€\x9d “If you can’t have an honest election, nothing else counts,â€\x9d Stone continued. “I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it.â€\x9d Ex-CIA director Michael Hayden, on Trump’s comment: If someone said that outside hall, they’d be in a police wagon being questioned by Secret Service. Note: Threatening to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm on a presidential candidate is a felony, punishable with up to five years in prison. The last time that a major candidate joked - or appeared to offhandedly suggest - that their opponent be assassinated, it helped result in their resounding defeat. In 2010, Nevada senate candidate Sharron Angle said in a radio interview that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms could be construed to encourage firearm-bearing Americans to throw off the shackles of elected officials, including her then-opponent, senate minority leader Harry Reid. “I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry,â€\x9d Angle said at the time. “This not for someone who’s in the military. This not for law enforcement. This is for us. And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny. This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical.â€\x9d “It’s to defend ourselves. And you know, I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.â€\x9d Members of Congress are already responding to Donald Trump’s comments, reading them as a call for Hillary Clinton’s assassination or that of her would-be supreme court nominee: In comment provided to the , Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called Trump’s suggestion that firearms be used in response to Hillary Clinton’s nomination of supreme court judges “dangerous.â€\x9d This is simple - what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to the be President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has responded to accusations that the candidate implied that the use of firearms might be an appropriate response to Hillary Clinton’s election to the presidency and nomination of supreme court judges, blasting “dishonest mediaâ€\x9d for quoting Trump. “It’s called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,â€\x9d Jason Miller, the campaign’s senior communications adviser, said in a statement. “And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.â€\x9d The ’s David Smith has more on Rudy Giuliani’s introduction of Donald Trump in Wilmington, North Carolina, in which he implied that Hillary Clinton should face a similar punishment to a man who was executed by Iran for spying. Trump was introduced by Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who brought up the case of Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist executed for spying for the US. Clinton received emails mentioning him on her controversial personal server when she was secretary of state. Giuliani said: “Remember Hillary told us there was no top secret information on her emails? Remember she told us that. Well, she lied! And I don’t know the connection between that and the death of Mr Amiri, but what I do know is it put a lot more attention on him when they found those emails. It certainly put him at great risk, even if they didn’t find them, and it shows you that when the director of the FBI said she was extremely careless, he was being kind.â€\x9d But Giuliani repeatedly waved away chants of “Lock her up!â€\x9d from the crowd. Priorities Action USA, a Super-Pac that supports Democratic candidates, has issued a succinct statement in response to Donald Trump’s apparent implication that firearms might be used in response to Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices in an email titled “Donald Trump Just Suggested That Someone Shoot Hillary Clintonâ€\x9d: THIS IS NOT OK. The apparent implication that the use or ownership of firearms would be a potential recourse for Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices from Donald Trump this afternoon is not the first time that such a suggestion has come out of the Trump campaign. Trump’s adviser on veterans issues, Al Baldasaro, called for Clinton’s execution by firing squad in a radio interview last month. “This whole thing disgusts me, Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason,â€\x9d Baldasaro said, calling Clinton a “piece of garbage.â€\x9d Trump campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks said that Trump’s campaign was “incredibly grateful for [Baldasaro’s] support, but we don’t agree with his comments.â€\x9d Baldasaro was later investigated by the US Secret Service for the comments. The has reached out to the US Secret Service regarding Trump’s comments today. Speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared to suggest the use of firearms as a solution to rival Hillary Clinton choosing federal judges in the event of her election. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the second amendment, and by the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno,â€\x9d Trump said. The audience cheered and whistled. “But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day,â€\x9d Trump continued. “If Hillary gets to put her judges... right now, we’re tied - you see what’s going on. We’re tied, ’cause, Scalia, this was not supposed to happen. Justice Scalia was going to be around for ten more years, at least, and this is what happens. That was a horrible thing.â€\x9d The has reached out to the Trump campaign for clarification of the comment. Appearing at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump lashed out at Hillary Clinton as Isis’ “most-valuable player,â€\x9d and forewarned that voter fraud will rob him of victory in the general election if his followers are not vigilant. “If I’m Isis, I call her up and give her the Most Valuable Player award,â€\x9d Trump said of his general election opponent, further saying that the late general George Patton is “spinning in his graveâ€\x9d over American military operations fighting Isis. He then elaborated on a frequent theme from his recent rallies, declaring that his possible loss in the general election would be the result of voter fraud. “Voter ID, what’s with that? What’s with voter ID? Why aren’t we having voter ID?â€\x9d Trump asked the crowd. “In other words, I wanna vote. Here’s my identification. I wanna vote. As opposed to somebody coming up and voting 15 times for Hillary. Well, and I will not tell you to vote 15 times. I will not tell you to do that, okay? You won’t vote 15 times, but people will. They’ll vote many times. And how that could have happened is unbelievable and the governor just told me that they’re going before the United States supreme court. Justice Roberts. And maybe they can get a stay. let’s see what happens, okay? Let’s see what happens. That’s a very important thing.â€\x9d Russell Simmons, the American entrepreneur and founder of Def Jam Records, said his one-time friend Donald Trump has “fueled a lot of hateâ€\x9d in the pursuit of the presidency. Appearing on the inaugural episode of Politics for Humans, a podcast hosted by US political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui, Simmons recalled taking Trump to a mosque in New York City years before he sought the Republican nomination for president. Back then, Trump, who as the Republican nominee has proposed banning all Muslim immigration to the US, was more amenable to meeting with Muslim leaders. “He was very kind and that was the end of it,â€\x9d Simmons said. “But years later this fire has come up. He’s fueled a lot of hate and a lot of people are ignorant, and he’s helped to promote that ignorance.â€\x9d Simmons said he was once good friends with Trump - they traveled together to Trump’s Florida resort Mar-A-Lago each weekend, and Simmons even recalled being present for the real estate mogul’s first date with his wife Melania Trump. But the Trump he now sees on the campaign trail is someone he no longer recognizes. “It’s scary, you don’t want him to be president for God’s sake,â€\x9d Simmons said, adding that Trump was “a grudge carrierâ€\x9d and the two no longer speak. “He don’t talk to me after I said I’d rather Kim Kardashian be president.â€\x9d In the podcast, which examines the Black Lives Matter movement, Simmons also reflected on his experience as a black male and encounters with law enforcement. “As a young person, I was always afraid of the police, and I have had experiences of being mistreated and yelled at and talked down to,â€\x9d Simmons said. Listen to the podcast here: Watch it live here: After being challenged by opponent Hillary Clinton to accept the terms of three upcoming presidential debates after quibbling on the schedule, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Time in an interview that he will commit to the debates - but some of the terms might be “renegotiated.â€\x9d “I will absolutely do three debates,â€\x9d Trump said. “I want to debate very badly. But I have to see the conditions.â€\x9d The nonpartisan organization in charge of general-election debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates, selected the dates, format and venues of the three presidential debates and single vice-presidential debate in September of last year - but that hasn’t kept Trump from insisting that the schedule was “riggedâ€\x9d by Clinton’s team. “I renegotiated the debates in the primaries, remember?â€\x9d Trump said, of the primary debates, one of which he elected not to appear on. “They were making a fortune on them and they had us in for three and a half hours and I said that’s ridiculous. I’m sure they’ll be open to any suggestions I have, because I think they’ll be very fair suggestions. But I haven’t [seen the conditions] yet. They’re actually presented to me tonight.â€\x9d Trump also declared that he is willing to veto the selection of moderators, which have not been announced. “I’ll have to see who the moderators are,â€\x9d Trump said. “Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely. I did very well in the debates on the primaries. According to the polls, I won all of them. So I look forward to the debates. But, yeah, I want to have fair moderators … I will demand fair moderators.â€\x9d Last night, Clinton’s campaign released a statement urging Trump to commit to the debates, calling it “concerning that the Trump campaign is already engaged in shenanigans around these debates.â€\x9d The three debates are scheduled for 26 September in Hempstead, New York; 9 October in St. Louis; and 19 October in Las Vegas. The lone vice-presidential debate will be held on 4 October in Farmville, Virginia. In a damning editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, a former Minuteman III nuclear launch officer wrote that Donald Trump “cannot be trustedâ€\x9d to responsibly wield America’s nuclear arsenal. The op-ed, titled “I was a Minuteman III nuclear launch officer. Take it from me: We can’t let Trump become president,â€\x9d was penned by John Noonan, who worked more than 300 nuclear “alerts,â€\x9d 24-hour shifts in which he was entrusted with the execution of US nuclear protocols if so ordered by the president. Noonan “spent five years of my life as a Minuteman III launch officer,â€\x9d and an additional year as an instructor. In the piece, Noonan expressed horror at Trump’s apparent fascination with nuclear weapons, and his lack of familiarity with the concept of deterrence as a strategy. “It gives me no pleasure to say this, but I believe my party’s nominee for president is mentally unfit to assume this heavy responsibility,â€\x9d Noonan, a longtime Republican, wrote. “Trump cannot be trusted with weapons that can kill millions ... These duties are simply too grave to entrust to a man who has exhibited sociopathic and chronically narcissistic behavior throughout his checkered career.â€\x9d Citing the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails that revealed bias against his presidential campaign among senior members of the party, Vermont senator and former Democrat Bernie Sanders is using his considerable fundraising apparatus to kick Debbie Wasserman Schultz out of Congress. “This race is very important for Our Revolution because if we can win this tough fight in Florida, it will send a clear message about the power of our grassroots movement that will send shockwaves through the political and media establishments,â€\x9d Sanders penned in an email to his followers. “The recent emails leaked from Democratic Party staff showed that under Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC staff were not exactly fair and even-minded during the presidential primary,â€\x9d Sanders continued. “What was revealed wasn’t much of a shock to us, because we knew all along that the establishment wasn’t on our side.â€\x9d After her resignation as chair of the DNC, however, Sanders wrote that “we have the opportunity to transform the Democratic Party and open up its doors to working people and young people - people who want real change.â€\x9d With a DayGlo-orange face and his trademark floppy hair, Donald Trump stands gleefully holding an inflatable globe. He has the whole world in his hands and he is thrilled. This scene, while possibly not far from reality, is drawn from one of the most topical satirical shows at this year’s Edinburgh fringe. Trumpageddon invites its audience to an intimate political rally where they can fire questions at the Republican nominee, play golf with him and even help him decide on policy – which country he would invade first, for example. The show is the creation of satirist Simon Jay, who is the only person taking on the persona of Trump at the fringe. Jay, who first landed on the idea of creating a caricature of the billionaire businessman in January, said he never anticipated that the show would be quite so topical by August. Walking through the streets of Edinburgh dressed as Trump, he said he regularly has groups of US tourists shout: “We’re not voting for you,â€\x9d at him. “This is so out of my comfort zone,â€\x9d he said. “I’m the antithesis of him, really – a gay, liberal, English socialist who usually prefers playing women. And here I am playing an alpha male with racist and misogynistic views.â€\x9d With so many US tourists visiting Edinburgh for the festival, Jay said he hopes his satire will be a release valve. At the end of every show, he asks for a show of hands from those who intend to vote for him; he has yet to have a Trump fan reveal themselves. He said: “The show features so many of the ludicrous things he has said and presented as fact – that Isis wants to take over the Vatican, or calling Hillary Clinton the devil. And when I repeat those things, I’ve had Americans in the audience who shake their heads and look pained, as if they are saying: “Help me.â€\x9d People are terrified, and rightly so.â€\x9d Scenes from a Trump rally: Public Policy Polling’s latest numbers out of North Carolina show good signs for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s chances in the state - and not-so-good signs of post-election bipartisanship. According to the survey, released this morning, Clinton leading in North Carolina for the first time since March, 43% to Donald Trump’s 41%, with 7% of voters saying they plan to support Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and 2% expressing support for Green candidate Jill Stein. In a head-to-head contest, Clinton’s lead shrinks to a single point over Trump, 47% to 46%. But Trump’s insistence that the election may be “riggedâ€\x9d in Clinton’s favor appears to have found fertile ground in North Carolina Republicans. The survey found that 69% of Trump supporters believe that if Clinton wins the election, it will have been due to voter fraud, compared to only 16% who think that it would mean that she received more support than Trump. A full 40% of Trump voters think that Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, will steal the election for Clinton, despite the organization’s notable handicap of not existing since 2010. PPP also asked a few more troll-y questions, resulting in statistics that show that 41% of Trump voters in North Carolina say that they think Clinton is the devil, 47% of his voters say they saw a nonexistent video of Iran collecting $400m from the United States and only 38% of voters think Trump can be trusted with nuclear weapons. The rise of Trump has led, perversely, to the revival of Obama. Republican candidates are saying they will not vote for their presidential nominee, and the party’s national security officials are lining up to condemn Trump as a reckless danger to the Republic. How could the incumbent not look like a statesman compared to a man who apparently can’t be trusted with the elevator button, never mind a nuclear one? Inside the White House, Obama’s aides talk about a president liberated from previous constraint. On the trail, and at the podium, he seems to love campaigning against his orange nemesis. His party’s candidates can’t get enough of him, and his potential successor – instead of putting distance between them – believes Obama doesn’t get enough credit for his economic achievements. This one-term president is having an unusually successful end to his second term, and for that he can thank the Republicans who were so determined to destroy him. The father of the man who killed 49 people in a gay Orlando nightclub in June has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, appearing behind Clinton at a rally in Kissimmee, Florida, last night. “Hillary Clinton is good for United States versus Donald Trump, who has no solutions,â€\x9d Seddique Mateen, father of the deceased shooter Omar Mateen, told WPTV. Of his attendance at the rally, Mateen said: “It’s a Democratic party, so everyone can join.â€\x9d The Clinton campaign has issued a short statement stating that Mateen was not invited to the Kissimmee event, despite his proximity to the candidate. “The rally was a 3,000-person, open-door event for the public,â€\x9d the campaign said. “This individual wasn’t invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.â€\x9d Clinton began the rally in Kissimmee by paying tribute to those killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in June. “I know how many people, families, loved ones and friends are still grieving, and we will be with you as you rebuild your lives,â€\x9d Clinton said. Donald Trump’s sharpest critic: Donald Trump. When Donald Trump visited Detroit on Monday to unveil his economic vision for the US, the Republican presidential nominee held the Rust Belt city up as a bastion of failed Democratic party policies, calling it a “living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic agendaâ€\x9d. “Detroit is still waiting for Hillary Clinton’s apology,â€\x9d Trump said in a nearly hourlong speech before the business-friendly Detroit Economic Club. But in a town that has consistently voted for the Democrats, Trump will be hard-pressed to find support, warned residents and business owners. “If he really knew, like, the politics of Detroit, for example, a lot of the failed policies were Republican, like the schools,â€\x9d said Alyson Turner, of Source Booksellers, a nonfiction bookstore located outside of downtown Detroit. Turner said the appointment by Republican governor Rick Snyder of several emergency managers to take over operations of the Detroit public school system has led to disastrous effects. Teachers this year, for example, have staged large-scale protests in light of the possibility they might work without pay. Turner’s mother and Source owner, Janet Webster Jones, pointed to the expansion of US highways under President Eisenhower as another Republican policy with a major impact on the city. Among the litany of problems that led Detroit into fiscal uncertainty and, eventually, a massive municipal bankruptcy, the highway system in metro Detroit is viewed by researchers as having helped accelerate white flight – in turn, decimating the city’s tax base. The highway act “tore up the city of Detroitâ€\x9d, Jones said. Trump may have delivered his remarks before a welcoming crowd on Monday. But the candidate was interrupted by protesters more than a dozen times, a notable reminder of the multiple derailments along the way of his unconventional campaign. Hillary Clinton will seize on criticism of Donald Trump’s plan to repeal the so-called “death taxâ€\x9d, which only benefits families with multi-million dollar estates like his own. Clinton will dismiss Trump’s proposal as further proof of the charge that he is only interested in policies that benefit himself, labeling it the “friends and family discountâ€\x9d, according to a Clinton campaign official. Trump, who has put himself forward as the champion of the American workers, laid out his economic agenda, which included a roster of proposals that align with Republican orthodoxy, including slashing tax rates,reducing the corporate tax rate and eliminating the so-called “death taxâ€\x9d. Trump presented his pledge to repeal the estate tax, worth an estimated $25 billion a year, as a boon for the working class, but it only applies applies to estates larger than $5.45m for individuals, or $10.9m for married couples – effectively, people like himself and his children. “American workers have paid taxes their whole life, they shouldn’t be taxed again when they die,â€\x9dhe said Monday. Clinton will explain how this applies only to people in and around Trump’s tax bracket. If Trump is truly worth “in excess of ten billion dollarsâ€\x9d as he’s claimed, she will say, then he wold pay 40% for the estate tax, or approximately $3.996 billion when he passes his estate along to his heirs. Clinton will also make the case that it’s “no coincidenceâ€\x9d Trump is pushing tax reforms that largely benefit his own family. Clinton has said she will push for a tax system that ensures the wealthiest Americans and large corporations pay higher rates than middle class households. The families of two Americans killed in the 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, accusing the former secretary of state of “extreme carelessness in handling confidential and classified information,â€\x9d which they say contributed to the death of their sons. Patricia Smith, mother of Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith, and Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, accuse the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate of making “false and defamatory statements negligently, recklessly, purposefully, and/or intentionally with actual malice … by stating that plaintiffs were lying about Clinton having told them that the Benghazi attack was caused by an anti-Muslim YouTube video.â€\x9d The lawsuit, filed on Monday in the US District Court of DC, claims that “as a direct resultâ€\x9d of Clinton’s use of private email servers during her tenure as secretary of state, “Islamic terrorists were able to obtain the whereabouts of Ambassador Christopher Stevens ... and subsequently orchestrate, plan, and execute the now infamous September 11, 2012 attack.â€\x9d Nick Merrill, the Clinton campaign’s traveling press secretary, issued a statement in response, saying that “while no one can imagine the pain of the families of the brave Americans we lost at Benghazi, there have been nine different investigations into this attack and none found any evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing on the part of Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d In the 2012 attack, Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in the port city of Benghazi, killing four Americans, including Smith and ambassador Chris Stevens. A second assault a few hours later targeted another compound, during which Woods was killed. The State Department was criticized in the aftermath of the attacks for not providing adequate security for the facilities, and for initially reporting that the attack was the outgrowth of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muslim film made by an American preacher. Later investigations revealed that the attack was premeditated, and had been joined by rioters who were protesting the video. Smith and Woods have been vocally critical of Clinton as a presidential candidate, accusing her of fabricating the narrative that riots sparked the attack. At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month, Smith told the audience that she blamed “Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son.â€\x9d The suit was filed by infamous Washington DC attorney Larry Klayman, a conservative former Justice Department prosecutor who filed 18 lawsuits of against the Clinton administration in the 1990s. Among other cases, Klayman has brought legal action against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the National Security Agency, supreme court justice Elena Kagan and Barack Obama, whom he accused of secretly allowing the Ebola virus to enter the United States so it could be used against US citizens who are members of the “Caucasian race and Jewish-Christian religionâ€\x9d. Good morning, and welcome to the ’s campaign live blog, as we continue our minute-by-minute coverage from the US presidential campaign trail. Republican nominee Donald Trump’s address to the business-friendly Detroit Economic Club yesterday was intended to reset his campaign after a calamitous post-convention week, but Democratic rival Hillary Clinton doesn’t appear ready to let him shift gears quite yet. Late last night, the former secretary of state’s campaign announced that she has preemptively accepted the Commission on Presidential Debates’ invitation to three presidential debates this fall – in an apparent bid to force Trump, who has expressed concerns about the dates of the debates, to agree to meet with her. Campaign chair John Podesta said in a statement: Secretary Clinton looks forward to participating in all three presidential debates scheduled by the independent debate commission. It is concerning that the Trump campaign is already engaged in shenanigans around these debates. It is not clear if he is trying to avoid debates, or merely toying with the press to create more drama. Either way, our campaign is not interested in playing along with a debate about debates or bargaining around them.The only issue now is whether Donald Trump is going to show up to debate at the date, times, places and formats set by the commission last year through a bipartisan process. We will accept the commission’s invitation and expect Donald Trump to do the same. The dates for this year’s debates have been set since before Trump was a candidate, but that hasn’t kept the Republican nominee from accusing Clinton of scheduling misbehavior. “Well, I tell you what I don’t like. It’s against two NFL games,â€\x9d Trump told ABC’s This Week on 31 July of the debates. “I got a letter from the NFL saying this is ridiculous … because the NFL doesn’t want to go against the debates because the debates are going to be pretty massive, from what I understand.â€\x9d (The NFL, for what it’s worth, says it did not send Trump any kind of letter.) The presidential debates were set some time ago by the Commission on Presidential Debates for Monday 26 September, Sunday 9 October, and Wednesday 19 October, with the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday 4 October. We’ve put in word to the Trump campaign inquiring whether their candidate plans to attend the debates. We’ll let you know what they say. Here’s today’s events schedule: Clinton will be in Miami, taking a tour of Borinquen Health Care Center, while running mate Tim Kaine will attend a volunteer appreciation event in Austin, Texas. Trump will be holding a rally at Trask Coliseum at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, in Wilmington, North Carolina at 2pm ET, followed by a 6pm ET rally at Crown Arena in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Running mate Mike Pence will be holding a town hall at Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at 3pm ET and a “celebrationâ€\x9d (that’s the campaign’s description) at Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh at 7pm ET.",
 "MEPs to question man set to be UK's last EU commissioner The man likely to become Britain’s last EU commissioner is due to be grilled by MEPs about his suitability for the job. Sir Julian King, a career civil servant currently serving as ambassador to France, is the British government’s choice to become the UK’s top official in Brussels. But first he must win the backing of MEPs on Monday evening, who will vote on whether to confirm him in the role of commissioner for “security unionâ€\x9d. King would take Britain’s place around the table at the EU executive’s headquarters in Brussels following the departure of Jonathan Hill, who resigned as financial services chief following the Brexit vote. MEPs on the European parliament’s civil liberties committee will quiz King at a three-hour public hearing in Strasbourg. The committee, led by British Labour MEP Claude Moraes, will question King on the details of EU counter-terrorism strategy. The British commissioner-designate will almost inevitably face questions over Brexit, although at the commission his job would be to act in the common EU interest, not to speak for the British government. Some prominent MEPs had argued the UK should not get any portfolio in the commission following the Brexit vote. But MEPs may be reassured by the fact King will be a junior member of the commission. He will report to the commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, who will have the final say over any legislative initiatives. King will also not automatically attend ministerial meetings, usually a key part of a commissioner’s job. Dimitris Avramopoulos, the commissioner in charge of home affairs and migration, will represent the commission on security policy at meetings with national ministers. King will have the opportunity at Monday’s hearing to make a 15-minute statement setting out his objectives before facing questions from all political groups in the committee. No decision on King’s appointment will be made until Thursday, when there will be a vote in the European parliament. Although the parliament’s vote is not binding, tradition has shown that a commissioner cannot take office without its support.",
 'Jack Reacher: Never Go Back review – pecs, punchups and popcorn galore Tom Cruise is back in the role of Jack Reacher, badass military cop turned maverick civilian engaged in freelance pro bono asskicking. He is suffused with pimpernel mystery. At the end of an adventure, Reacher will stick his thumb out and hitchhike his way into the night. (At the end of Pulp Fiction, John Travolta is derisive about Samuel L Jackson’s ambition to “walk the earthâ€\x9d like Caine from the TV show Kung Fu on the grounds that he would just be a bum. But maybe he would be like Jack Reacher.) This is the second in Tom Cruise’s silly, entertaining Reacher franchise, and I was hoping he would marry a woman called Round and go for the double-barrelled surname. Instead, he monkishly refrains from sex but does pull a classic Cruise/Reacher move: semi-undressing in a motel room after a punchup, disclosing pecs which fall impressively on the right side of the moob borderline. An attractive woman also partially disrobes, flaunting a workaday bra strap. Another Reacher trope is the grumpy solo meal in the scuzzy cafe, which generally comes just before or after the biggest Reacher signature of all: beating the daylights out of five or six bullies whose sneery expressions and close-cropped goatees denote imminent victim status more clearly than red shirts on Star Trek crew. Cruise also gives us his some vintage sprinting — now as distinctive a trait as Nic Cage’s sudden shouting — as well as a bit of free climbing and some Olympic-quality ledge dangling. The story opens as Reacher has rather sweetly fallen for Lt Susan Turner, just through talking to her on the phone. She is played by Cobie Smulders (who plays Agent Maria Hill in the Avengers films). But when Jack shows up in Washington DC for their blind date, he is informed that Lt Turner has been arrested for espionage. Clearly she is the victim of a shady cover-up from corrupt top brass, and Reacher’s quietly furious demands to know what’s going on are undermined when the army claims he is the subject of a paternity case, and that he is the dad of a stroppy teen, Samantha (Danika Yarosh). Reacher is wrongly accused of murder by the crooked authorities, and in time-honoured style goes on the run, taking his quasi-spouse and daughter, while blowing the lid off a terrible conspiracy. The highlight of the first movie was its outrageous villain, played by Werner Herzog. I was hoping for a similar auteur bad guy in this one – surely Paul Verhoeven would have been a good sport? Well, there is no juicy high-concept baddie this time around, but there is a lot of enjoyable hokum and cheerful ridiculousness, especially when Reacher has to spring someone from military prison using his trademark combo of resourcefulness and punching. Popcornily preposterous and watchable.',
 'Human rights must be protected against the abuse of power The way we protect human rights is under sustained attack. Politicians and the press, hostile to Europe in all its forms, peddle lies and distortions about the European convention on human rights, the Strasbourg court, and the Human Rights Act which protects convention rights in UK law. They allege that the system distorts justice, preventing evil people from getting their just deserts. It hampers governments in tackling terrorism and serious crime. They decry rulings preventing deportation to a country where there is a risk of torture or the death penalty. They object when a court decides that bed and breakfast owners cannot refuse to accommodate a gay couple. They express outrage when our soldiers are made to account for complicity in torture. They accuse Strasbourg of overriding our sovereign parliament. If the UK were to leave the EU after next month’s referendum it would remove crucial rights protection enshrined in EU law, but our fundamental rights would still be protected by the convention – the jewel in the crown of the 47-nation Council of Europe, often confused with the EU. That is why the home secretary, Theresa May, said last month, “If we want to reform human rights laws in this country, it isn’t the EU we should leave but the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its court.â€\x9d The attorney general, Jeremy Wright, affirmed the government’s intention to replace our Human Rights Act with a “British bill of rightsâ€\x9d. He told parliament that the government would “rule out absolutely nothing in getting that doneâ€\x9d, but preferred the UK to remain a member of the European convention. That threat remains – whatever the outcome of the EU referendum. May seemingly favours a position that would delight a medieval king – a government-controlled legislature that enjoys absolute power. The government’s attitude to the convention pleases Vladimir Putin’s Russia. After the UK’s repeated failure to implement Strasbourg’s ruling against a blanket ban on prisoner voting, Russia indicated it would follow suit – then passed a law allowing the Russian constitution to trump the convention. British withdrawal from the convention would set a terrible example to Europe’s pseudo-democracies as well as staining the UK’s good reputation for upholding the rule of law. May says she wants the UK to be part of international institutions, so long as they do not “bind the hands of parliamentâ€\x9d. But, as Winston Churchill understood, the European convention ensures that national sovereignty cannot be used to shield the perpetrators of human rights abuses from being brought to account. Even parliament must respect international law. It was once said that power is delightful and absolute power absolutely delightful. Fifty years ago, official discretion was poorly controlled and human rights were weakly protected. Unlike the rest of Europe and most of the common law world, we had (and have) no written constitution protecting us – no binding ethical code to guide decision takers. In 1966, UK citizens were granted the right to take complaints of human rights violations to Strasbourg, but we had no Human Rights Act to bring the convention rights into our domestic law. Parliament under government control can behave like an elected dictatorship – tyranny by the governing majority. That is what happened in 1968 when parliament approved the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, a racist law depriving British-Asian refugees from east Africa of their right to live and work in the country of which they were citizens, in breach of a promise made to them. Fifty years ago, our judges were executive-minded, interpreting acts of parliament narrowly. Discrimination was prevalent and not unlawful. There was no positive right to free speech or respect for privacy. Excessive official secrecy was deep-rooted in Whitehall. We had no right of public access to government information. Male homosexuality was a crime. The right to liberty could be taken away easily by legislation. In Northern Ireland, majority rule was allowed to discriminate against the Catholic community, resulting in sectarian violence and division. For want of remedies at home, vulnerable minorities needed the convention and Strasbourg to come to their rescue – which it did, again and again. European judicial oversight protected the right of gay men and lesbians to love at a time when this was still criminal in Northern Ireland. It ruled that parliament had subjected British-Asians to racial discrimination and degrading treatment. Strasbourg protected the right to privacy, ruling that police could not tap telephones without clear legal authority. It prevented deportation to countries where there was a risk of torture. It gave redress to children when UK law still permitted corporal punishment in schools. Our own courts could not give remedies, until at last, in 1998, the Human Rights Act was passed. This enables everyone to bring complaints of UK human rights violations (other than by parliament itself) in British courts. We rely on the act and the convention to protect everyone, popular and reviled, against abuses of public power. In the absence of a written constitution, the act and the convention are the bedrock of our democracy based on the rule of law. The Human Rights Act is not perfect. It relies on a treaty that was not designed to be a national constitution. No other country does that. But NGOs rightly warn that the government’s threat to replace it with a new-fangled British bill of rights is fraught with danger. A bill crafted by the present government may deprive victims of the right to seek redress from Strasbourg or weaken protection against the abuse of parliamentary powers. These fears are not fanciful. They were echoed last week by the House of Lords EU select committee, which found “serious questions over the feasibility and value of a British bill of rights of the sort described by the secretary of stateâ€\x9d. The committee rightly cautioned that there was “a forceful caseâ€\x9d for a rethink. The rights contained in the convention are embedded in the devolution acts – to protect against abuse by the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A home-grown bill of rights would make sense only as part of a new UK constitutional settlement – and only if its protections were at least as strong as they are currently. Without a new constitutional settlement, a British bill of rights, shorn of the protection of the convention and the court, would be much weaker than the Human Rights Act. That is precisely why we must fight any attempt to damage the umbilical cord connecting us to Strasbourg. The bill of rights commission, of which I was a member, consulted widely and found massive support for the Human Rights Act. We made it clear in our report that “any future debate on a UK bill of rights must be acutely sensitive to issues of devolution and, in the case of Scotland, to possible independence, and it must involve the devolved administrationsâ€\x9d. To understand the rupture that would be caused by the government imposing a so-called “Britishâ€\x9d bill on the rest of the UK, look only to Scotland. The SNP has vowed to fight a British bill of rights tooth and nail. And the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, has spoken in open disagreement with David Cameron’s government. Human rights are not the gift of politicians and bureaucrats. They are our birthright – part of our common humanity. They need to be protected against the abuse of power. That is an idea we must fight for. Anthony Lester’s book, Five Ideas to Fight For: How Our Freedom is Under Threat and Why it Matters, is published by Oneworld',
 "Millionaires' new challenge: they're not rich enough for private banking So you’ve just sold those Facebook shares that your high school buddy, Mark Zuckerberg, let you buy years before it went public, and you’ve made an after-tax profit of $4m. You’re feeling very, very rich. Until, that is, you talk to a private bank that specializes in managing money for rich people. That’s when you realize that you’re nothing more than a “single-digit millionaireâ€\x9d. You’re just not that special. In fact, the rate at which the ranks of millionaires is expanding is so great, you’re actually pretty boring. Last year alone, the US welcomed 300,000 new millionaires: that translates into a growth rate of 3%, outpacing the growth in the US gross domestic product. In fact, there are now so many millionaires out there that the private banking system simply can’t cope. JP Morgan Chase’s private bank has been raising the minimum amount of assets you need to become of its clients slowly and steadily for many years. Early this year, it announced that the minimum asset level to remain a private banking customer would double from $5m to $10m. When that takes effect early next year, about 10% of the bank’s customers could be shuffled off to a less deluxe service, Private Client Direct. While a private banker might work with only 20 or so people, those working with “single digit millionairesâ€\x9d might have 100 clients – meaning that every one of them gets much less of their adviser’s time and attention. JP Morgan’s move was partly aimed at convincing clients to shift any assets they might be stubbornly holding at other banks, bringing them up above the $10m threshold. But it’s also a recognition that with the proliferation of millionaires, the private banks that you’ve heard about – the ones that will walk your dog, deliver gold bars with your monogram stamped into them and provide “wealth therapyâ€\x9d so your children don’t grow up entitled brats – can pick and choose the clients that they deal with. A sign of just how ruthless they have become is that JP Morgan’s new rule even applies to the corporate lawyers with whom its investment bankers work closely on big deals. Until now, access to private banking programs have been among the perks offered to lawyers at firms like Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; now, the word is that they too will be shut out from this special treatment (and the access to hedge fund investments and other products and events that only the super-elite can tap into). Imagine how the poor lawyer who does a deal for a Silicon Valley billionaire must feel: he’s negotiating with the very bankers who have thrown him out of their private club, on behalf of a client who is welcome to join it. If you don’t feel much empathy for that hypothetical lawyer, worth millions, just because he can’t qualify for super-special treatment from banks, I don’t blame you. The fact is that as banks scramble to emphasize with wealthier clients, it comes at the expense of serving the rest of their clientele. JP Morgan’s private clients might feel offended at being demoted. On the other hand, those of us who merely toil for our money and whose net worth hasn’t reached seven digits yet might be flattered to be invited to join Private Client Direct, a program serving the “mass affluentâ€\x9d that offers after-hours access, a phone number to reach a banker any time and a few special perks. (Yes, even if that also involves some heavy pressure to buy the bank’s proprietary investment products.) But even then, we’ll need $500,000 in investments or $250,000 in deposits to qualify, and minimums for other such programs at other banks aren’t very different. All of which brings me to an important point. Big banks are struggling to make money. That’s why Wells Fargo’s 5,300 rank-and-file employees were “encouragedâ€\x9d, or at least not discouraged, to set up phony accounts in the names of existing clients, earning the bank more in fees (phew) and helping those employees hit sales targets. The bank opened 1.5m of these ghost accounts – and has paid out $185m in penalties to various regulators, including a record $100m to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s also why the banks want to focus on their richest clients. Investing time and money in working with those of us who may only have a few thousand dollars to put to work is a waste of their resources – in their eyes. The problem is that as they keep conducting triage, and denying access to investment guidance to one group after another, more and more of us will end up without the ability to turn to the banks to help us manage our investments. Let’s face it, JP Morgan and other private banks can boost their investment minimums dramatically, but the incomes of most Americans are barely budging. We’re less and less likely to have the minimum level of assets that most investment counselors want to see before accepting us as a client. Robo-advisers – the new breed of automated investment platforms that use algorithms to invest your money, taking into account factors such as age, income and risk tolerance – offer sensible alternatives. But they work best for those people who are familiar with how financial markets work. Someone who isn’t comfortable with markets, doesn’t understand the concept of an index fund, isn’t completely sure about how an asset allocation will help them, or isn’t certain about the relationship between stocks and bonds may not want to simply hand over their money to a robo-adviser and then step away. So, big banks are in love with the billionaires who generate the bulk of their profits. Even the single-digit millionaires these days are starting to realize that they just don’t count as much as they used to. But at least if those folks make an error or two along the way, they have financial padding to cushion their fall. The rest of us? Like everyone else, we’re increasingly underserved by the banks and the rest of the financial services industry, and our needs are growing. A third of all Americans lack any retirement savings in a 401(k) plan or other tax-deferred account. That isn’t the fault of the banks, but it’s something that the banks could help to fix by offering even basic financial education and counselling to those who don’t have balances with many, many digits. Then we’d at least feel we were getting value for the account fees we’re already paying. As it is, if I were a single-digit millionaire tossed out of the “paradiseâ€\x9d of private banking, I’d walk away from that bank altogether. They don’t want me? Heck, I don’t want them either. There are plenty of independent financial advisers out there who – unlike the banks – aren’t intent on making more money flogging their own proprietary investment products. Instead, they vow to put their clients’ financial interests before their own, come what may. Try one of those instead. For the rest of us? Well, we can keep demanding better financial education, however and whenever possible. And that the banks at least try to employ a better-functioning moral barometer.",
 'Job losses gather momentum across UK and Europe Bombardier has become the latest major company to announce job cuts in the UK, with 1,350 posts set to be axed. Cutbacks are being announced in virtually every sector, in the UK and across Europe, with tens of thousands of jobs due to go in coming months. Here’s a round-up of companies that are reducing their UK workforces. Banking and insurance Lloyds Banking Group is cutting a net 1,585 jobs and closing 29 branches across Britain. Barclays to axe 1,200, in its investment bank worldwide. Credit Suisse is cutting 4,000 jobs, including “rightsizing the bank’s London presenceâ€\x9d. Legal & General is pushing ahead with plans to close its Surrey offices by 2018, putting 1,500 jobs at risk, although some will transfer to Hove or Cardiff. Energy BP is laying off 7,000 more people. Shell is also slashing jobs, with 7,500 gone and 2,800 losses still to come. British Gas owner Centrica is cutting 1,000 jobs this year as part of a net 4,000 cutbacks by 2020 (it is slashing 6,000 jobs but also creating 2,000 new posts). French utility company EDF is cutting up to 4,200 jobs in France and a further 6,000 worldwide by 2019, with the bulk expected to be at its UK division. Media Virgin Media plans to cut 900 jobs from its UK workforce by 2017. Pearson, the world’s biggest educational publisher, is shedding 4,000 jobs around the world, including 500 in the UK. Manufacturing The Canadian aerospace giant Bombardier is cutting 7,000 jobs globally over the next two years, including 1,350 in the UK, with the rest in Germany and Canada. US conglomerate General Electric intends to lay off 6,500 people across Europe over the next couple of years, including about 600 in Britain. Tata Steel, Europe’s second-largest steel producer, announced a further 1,050 job cuts last month. Carmaker Ford plans “hundredsâ€\x9d of job cuts across the UK and Europe through voluntary redundancy. Retail UK shoe chain Brantano went bust after a tough Christmas, although a rescue deal has saved nearly 1,400 jobs, which means redundancies have been reduced to 600. British clothing brand Ben Sherman has been sold through a pre-pack administration deal, putting 100 jobs at risk. Boots is cutting up to 350 jobs, its second round of layoffs in the last seven months. Asda is cutting 200 jobs at its head office in Leeds.',
 "Jodie Foster: 'I think this is the most risk-averse period in movie history' “I’m not a spokesman for anything – I know nothing,â€\x9d Jodie Foster declared in Cannes on Wednesday, in front of a room of press attending her Kering Women in Motion talk. But over the course of her hour-long conversation with Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh, she proved herself wrong, passionately advocating on behalf of fellow female directors. The actor and film-maker is in Cannes to premiere her fourth feature as director, Money Monster, outside of competition. She previously directed 1991’s Little Man Tate, 1995’s Thanksgiving comedy Home for the Holidays and 2011’s Mel Gibson vehicle, The Beaver. The two-time Oscar winner, who famously began her career as a child actor, opened the discussion by reflecting on her 50 years in film, addressing how far she believes women have come in Hollywood despite the challenges they still face – a recent report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women directed just 7% of Hollywood’s top 250 films in 2014. “I’ve seen drastic changes,â€\x9d Foster said. “When I was younger, I only saw women as the script supervisor, makeup person or as fellow actors. I saw faces change as time went on. When I was young, there were a lot of men on movie sets ambling around these towns, getting into trouble and unhappy. Everything changed when women got onto movie sets. Suddenly it felt more like a family – and movie sets became healthier.â€\x9d Foster, who played the lead in hits including The Silence of the Lambs, Nell and Contact, was asked why projects with women in the lead have largely shifted to the independent film arena, as well as television. “I think studio executives are scared, period,â€\x9d Foster said. “I think this is the most risk-averse period in movie history. Now so many things have changed in terms of the economy, the structure of studios.â€\x9d She urged the film-makers in the room “to realize the business is shiftingâ€\x9d and “get used to the landscapeâ€\x9d. “Every film is a new invention,â€\x9d Foster elaborated. “We’re not a factory where we make shoes and we keep making shoes. So the rules are going to be different. The conversation has to become as complex as possible to really attend to the issues.â€\x9d Foster said that female directors looking to make an impact in a male-dominated industry need to be as adaptable as possible. “You want to tell stories with whatever technology is happening,â€\x9d Foster said. “If you’re telling them on iPhones, great. You roll with the time and stay relevant – and adapt to what’s around you. There’s a democratization that technology has brought that’s wonderful – women can take advantage of them, minorities can.â€\x9d Foster, who has also directed for television, taking on episodes of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, meanwhile praised the medium for being “more open to womenâ€\x9d. Asked why women are afforded more opportunities on the small screen, both behind and in front of the lens, Foster offered: “Financially, it’s less of a risk.â€\x9d “When you have less risk, you’re willing to take more chances,â€\x9d she added. Foster didn’t concede that television is producing greater content than film, but did stress that “TV is where you go for narrativeâ€\x9d nowadays, with studios so invested in releasing franchise films and tentpoles. Over the course of her acting career, Foster has only worked with one fellow female director: Mary Lambert, who directed her in the 1987 film Siesta. Asked how the experience of making a film with a woman differed from working with male film-makers, Foster said it all boils down to a directing style she describes as “good parentingâ€\x9d. “I was 23 or 24, and I needed somebody to tell me to change my behavior [on the set],â€\x9d Foster recalled. “I won’t tell you what that was, but Mary took me aside sat me down and said, ‘No, you can’t do that. That’s disrespectful.’ She took me aside the way a parent would. At that age, I really listened. I was really grateful that a director sat me down like a person. “Our leadership styles are informed by our mothers and how we were raised. If you’re a woman, you’re going to have a different leadership style based on your background.â€\x9d On her own temperament as a director, Foster admitted to confusing people for being very direct with her colleagues on set. “I think men are often confused by women who don’t follow traditional rules in conflict,â€\x9d Foster said. “But guess what: all they need to do is have more experiences with them. I don’t think it’s a big plot of men putting women down in the film business – the film industry is pretty progressive. They’re just stuck with the same traditional models and they’re trying to figure out how to get around that. But they haven’t had enough experiences with women to do that.â€\x9d",
 "Donald Trump's secretary of state search expands to include new raft of hopefuls Donald Trump’s very public auditions for the job of next US secretary of state look set for an extended run, as surprise new hopefuls were added the invitation list to ride the golden elevator to the top of Trump Tower. Among the new names floated in press leaks on Monday were Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor and ambassador to China, Rex Tillerson, the chief executive officer of the Exxon Mobil oil company and Nato’s former commander in Europe, and the retired admiral James Stavridis. The expanded search will come as a disappointment to the four men who were on the shortlist last week: the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the retired general David Petraeus and the Republican senator Bob Corker. They seemed headed for a final until the weekend, when Trump, a former reality TV star and a master of suspense, unveiled a new season with a fresh cast of characters. Not all the new names are necessarily in line for the secretary of state job. Juli Hanscom, a spokeswoman for the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where Stavridis is the dean, confirmed that he would be going to New York to talk to the president-elect on Thursday but added: “There has been no discussion of a position in the Trump administration.â€\x9d Stavridis, a registered independent, was vetted by the Hillary Clinton campaign in July as a possible running mate. The former supreme allied commander in Europe (Saceur) derided Trump’s foreign policy, after the candidate gave an interview to the New York Times suggesting US protection for Nato allies could depend on if “they had met their obligations to usâ€\x9d. “I can picture the scene: national security advisor Tiffany Trump walks into the Oval Office with a load of charts on trade policy, basing agreements, cost-sharing, and balance of payments – all while Russian troops are pouring into Estonia,â€\x9d Stavridis wrote in Foreign Policy. “Unfortunately, his reckless proposals would deeply damage the underpinnings of the global system and work to America’s profound disadvantage.â€\x9d Huntsman wavered in his loyalties over the course of the campaign, publicly withdrawing support from Trump after a video surfaced in October in which he boasted about sexually assaulting women. Huntsman urged Trump to drop out of the race and let his running mate compete for the presidency instead. “I’m around to serve my country. I’ve always believed in that, and any way I can help I can always stand up, salute and do what I can,â€\x9d Huntsman told NBC News on Monday. He defended Trump’s controversial decision to hold a phone conversation with the Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, which broke a 37-year diplomatic norm and upset Beijing. “It provides space and leverage in the overall US-China relationship. It’s been tried and talked before, but what is different this time is you’ve got a businessman who has become president of the United States, who understands real leverage and how to find real leverage in that relationship,â€\x9d he said. Huntsman, who speaks Mandarin Chinese, was appointed ambassador to China by Barack Obama in 2009 and served there until 2011 when he resigned and returned to the US to stage a presidential campaign. Forbes magazine noted that if Huntsman were nominated as secretary of state, he would be the third scion of a billionaire family to be picked for Trump’s cabinet. The 56-year-old Utah politician’s father founded Huntsman Corp, a Texas-based chemical company. Like Romney, Huntsman comes from an established and wealthy Mormon family. Tillerson, the Exxon executive, is due to meet Trump on Tuesday. He is a prominent conservative businessman who has generally funded Republican campaigns, but did not contribute to the Trump presidential bid. Also mentioned in press leaks as being under consideration for the secretary of state job are the Californian Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, an outspoken supporter of Vladimir Putin (who recalled over the weekend a drunken arm-wrestling match in the early 1990s with the future Russian leader) and a Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, who backed Clinton in the campaign. Manchin met the president-elect last week, and was touted earlier as a possible energy secretary. Also on the newly extended list is John Bolton, an ultra-conservative former ambassador to the UN, who was thought to have dropped out of contention, but who visited Trump in New York on Friday and is said to be still under consideration. “It’s true he’s broadened the search,â€\x9d Trump’s aide, Kellyanne Conway, said on Sunday. “He’s very fortunate to have interest among serious men and women, all of whom need to understand that their first and foremost responsibility as secretary of state would be to implement and adhere to the president-elect’s America first foreign policy and be loyal to his view of the world.â€\x9d Trump’s cabinet hiring process has been far more public than previous presidential transitions, so although it has not taken longer than its predecessors, to many observers it has felt that way. “The time it has taken is not unusual. The fact he is talking to several candidates is not unusual. The fact he is turning it into a parade is quite different,â€\x9d said Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. “One of the reasons people normally do it quietly is that you can avoid humiliating and embarrassing the people who don’t get the job or are asked to serve in a more junior capacity.â€\x9d The public way Trump has gone about it and the risk of wounded pride, Walt said, “is quite short-sighted, because the last thing you want is other Republicans or VIPs out there bad-mouthing you from the outsideâ€\x9d. “Trump more than anything else views the transition as public relations. It is dominating the news cycles,â€\x9d Walt said. “He has turned it into an audience-participation spectacle, which creates enormous suspense.â€\x9d Part of that spectacle so far has been a line of public figures who had failed to support or even derided the president-elect during the campaign, entering Trump Tower in recent days and then emerging, singing his praises.",
 'The Clan review – grisly kidnap drama has sledgehammer punch Argentinian film-maker Pablo Trapero lands a sledgehammer punch with this terrifically well-made movie, which incidentally contains the most gobsmackingly realistic attempted suicide scene I think I have ever seen in any film. It’s the queasily horrifying story of the notorious Puccio crime family in post-junta 1980s Argentina who maintained the grisly totalitarian craft of “disappearingâ€\x9d people, effectively repurposing it into the lucrative business of kidnapping. Trapero’s movie persuasively suggests that this family, carrying on its comfortably haute bourgeois existence while hostages were chained up in the cellar, was maintaining a chillingly dysfunctional denial about what was happening. In some ways, it is like something by Haneke (The Seventh Continent, say), although Scorsese might admire the brash way Trapero deploys a pop soundtrack: in this case, the Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon. Guillermo Francella plays the blank-eyed clan capo and paterfamilias ArquÃ\xadmedes Puccio, who controls his family with his mesmeric and lizardly gaze – especially favourite son Alex (Peter Lanzani) – and somehow believes that his activities are licensed by the still potent, unseen military forces who will surely soon return in triumph once Argentina’s futile experiment with democracy is over. His unsettling calm is the most disturbing aspect of the film.',
 'Costs of overdrafts to fall as part of UK banks overhaul Banks will be forced to publish their maximum charges for unauthorised overdrafts as part of measures intended to save customers £1bn over five years, by encouraging switching and breaking the stranglehold of the big four on the high street. But even as the Competition and Markets Authority pledged the measures would halve the £1.2bn customers pay in unauthorised overdraft fees each year, consumer bodies, challenger banks and independent analysts said they would do little to crack the 77% market share Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays have on current accounts. The competition watchdog has spent £5m on its investigation, first announced in July 2014 at a time when the Labour party was promising to create new banks. The banking industry generates £14bn of revenue a year from current accounts and small businesses, and the watchdog calculated overdraft users could save up to £153 on average by switching accounts. Alasdair Smith, chair of the CMA’s retail banking inquiry, is relying on the use of new technology to crack a competition conundrum that has sparked 10 investigations in the last 20 years. The CMA is ordering the major players to upgrade their IT capabilities by creating an online system that would enable price comparison websites to offer better information on rival products. This has to be done by the end of March 2017. The other measures include: Requiring that banks set out a monthly maximum charge for unauthorised overdrafts – but the watchdog held back from imposing an industry-wide cap on charges, as some had hoped. Customers to be warned by text when they go overdrawn. The Financial Conduct Authority reviewing ideas for banks to publish their service records, with data collected twice a year. Willingness to recommend the account to a friend could be included. FCA working on prompts banks could send to customers to move their accounts, such as when branches close. The beefing up of the current account switching service set up three years ago. Innovation charity Nesta offering a £5m challenge prize – funded by the banks – for financial technology companies to create ways for small businesses to move accounts, although this will not be completed until mid-2018. Banks providing standard rates for small business loans and overdrafts up to £25,000. Smith said the proposed saving to customers over five years of £1bn was based on an increase in the number of customers switching their current accounts each year from 3% to 4%. The move on overdraft charges was welcomed by Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, who said the charity helped with 55,000 overdraft problems a year, where in some cases consumers are charged more than they would be for a payday loan. But Alex Neill, director of policy and campaigns at consumer body Which?, said: “After 18 months this inquiry achieved little more than to propose basic information measures that the big banks should have introduced years ago. Steps to stimulate switching are welcome but the chance to deliver better banking for all consumers has been missed.â€\x9d Smith defended the CMA’s decision to back away from avoiding radical measures such as breaking up banks or demanding account portability, whereby customers keep their account number, because it could have cost up to £10bn. Criticised after its preliminary report in October for not taking bold enough measures, the CMA also incurred the wrath of challenger banks by refusing to ban “free-if-in-creditâ€\x9d banking accounts, which rival banks say hide the true costs of banking. Paul Pester, chief executive of TSB, spun out of Lloyds, said the CMA had missed a golden opportunity by refusing to require banks to issue customers with monthly bills to tackle the hidden costs of free banking. John Lyons, retail and commercial banking leader and partner at PwC, said: “A market which was seen by many as a closed shop despite new entrants looking to make inroads is unlikely to be transformed by the range of proposed remedies published today.â€\x9d Banks analyst Sandy Chen at Cenkos said Lloyds had most to lose because of its high share of current accounts at around 25% and its reliance on them for generating income. Customers rarely move their accounts: nearly 60% of personal customers have stayed with the same bank for more than 10 years. More than 90% of small businesses get their business loans from the bank where they have their current account. “There is therefore not going to be a single ‘magic bullet’ that puts everything right,â€\x9d the CMA’s 400 page report said. Smith said: “I don’t accept ... that this is a missed opportunity ... I’d rather do it properly than do it quickly. For too long, banks have been able to sit back and not work hard enough for their personal and small business customers. “We believe the strong and innovative package of measures we are proposing will give customers the information and tools they really need to get a better deal out of the banks. They will also protect those who fall into overdraft from being stung with unexpected fees.â€\x9d The CMA estimates that the industry will incur costs of £75m– £110m to implement the changes. A consultation runs until 7 June before the final report on 12 August. Harriett Baldwin, the Treasury minister, said the report was “an important piece of work and we stand ready to take action once the final report is published in the summerâ€\x9d.',
 '‘In Wales social work is recognised and valued. It’s a better place to be’ Nick Lovell crosses the border twice a day as he commutes between his English home and his job as a social worker in Wales. He’s not alone. “I know a number of social workers who live in England but would rather work in Wales,â€\x9d he says. “It’s a better place to be a social worker. Social work is recognised and valued; in England I don’t think it is.â€\x9d Lovell, interim chair for the British Association of Social Workers Cymru, was a social worker in London, before choosing to work in a country where he feels the profession is more appreciated. He is not surprised then by the findings of research published last month, which showed that social workers in Wales enjoy their jobs more than their peers across the UK – 87% said they were happy, compared with 79% across the UK as a whole and as few as 69% in south-west England. The findings, due to be presented to an audience of Welsh social workers in Cardiff tomorrow, also show that Wales scores better across a range of indicators such as workload, support from employers and health and social care integration. The Welsh and English social work landscapes have been diverging for some years. The differences include both structural ones – more local authorities in Wales have held on to combined adult and children’s social services departments than in England, for example – and variations in education and training. The legislative landscape is also different: post-devolution reform has seen a Social Services and Wellbeing Act passed in Wales. Another act, reforming the regulatory and inspection framework, is due for royal assent this month. Gerry Evans is director of standards and regulations at the Care Council for Wales, which regulates the workforce and is due to take on a wider role driving standards and innovation next year under the regulation reforms. He says the sector has worked hard to support social workers and encourage them to stay in the profession. “I think we’ve got to a pretty stable position in the last five years or so in terms of turnover, after a low period where turnover was high and there was generally low morale,â€\x9d he says. “The key issue is that the whole of the sector and employers recognise the importance of investing in and supporting the workforce.â€\x9d In particular, he points to the strong partnerships between local authorities and universities in Wales. Under these arrangements, councils have to agree to host students to ensure they get the right experience, in stark contrast to England where a shortage of placements has been a longstanding issue. And the Care Council has also introduced a professional development programme once social workers are qualified – again a more formal arrangement than in England. An evaluation of the first year of the programme found 99% of social workers who took part were proud of being a social worker and 91% thought they would be working in social work in five years’ time. “It is critical to ensure the most experienced staff can stay in practice, which many want to do, rather than being taken into management to progress their career,â€\x9d says Evans. Liz Majer, director of social services at Blaenau Gwent council in South Wales and lead director for workforce at the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, also believes that the fact that Wales is a relatively small country helps. “In my own authority, I meet my social workers – I am sure the director in Birmingham can’t get out to meet their social workers in the same way,â€\x9d she says. “You can have those conversations and understand the front line, that personal contact is very important. And because we are smaller, the interface with politicians, managers and regulators is a lot closer. It’s all about relationships.â€\x9d Social services in Wales have been relatively protected from cuts. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that while health spending in Wales fell by 2% between 2010 and 2015, spending on social services only fell by 0.8% – compared with a 4.3% rise in health spending in England over the same period, but a 11.5% cut to social services. The Welsh government’s minister for health and social services, Mark Drakeford, says there has been a “very deliberate decisionâ€\x9d in Wales to try to protect the system in the round. “It’s really no help to an individual to find themselves trapped in one part of system because another part of the system has been starved of resources,â€\x9d he says. Drakeford, who trained as a social worker, also sees in the higher satisfaction of social workers in Wales a reflection of a more positive environment for the profession. “The approach to social work and social services has always been a cross-party one with very broad support,â€\x9d he says. “You don’t hear in the Welsh context some of the language used in some parts of the media in England about social workers and the job they do. I would hope people feel that they do a job that’s valued and supported by the political climate we have in Wales. We have a progressive agenda for social work and one worked out with people doing the job rather than simply being imposed on them..â€\x9d Central to that is the 2014 legislation, which, he claims, will ensure that people are seen “not as problems to be solved but as coproducers of their own futureâ€\x9d. It is an approach some have characterised as a return to the old values of social work. Evans says: “It has better aligned the social work role to the ethos and principles of why people go into social work – working alongside people on their difficulties, as opposed to a heavy emphasis on assessment and care managementâ€\x9d. Yet despite the reforms, significant challenges remain for social work in Wales,, Drakeford concedes. “I’m not going to say for a single minute that for frontline social workers in Wales the work doesn’t have real pressures of demand and of bureaucracy, which we are doing our best to slim down.â€\x9d “We have an ambition to sustain the basic framework of the welfare state that we’ve been so lucky to inherit in our lives. The pressures of poverty are absolutely real in the lives of many Welsh families and communities. The deeply flawed austerity regime followed in Westminster is taking millions and millions of pounds out of pockets of people across the land. Our aim is for services to be alongside those people to do what we can to mitigate the impact and for our public services to continue to be part of the glue that knits together communities and societyâ€\x9d Majer says that although social services in Wales haven’t yet been hit as hard as in England, financial pressures are set to increase. “I know colleagues are having to look at cutbacks in social work and that would be very concerning as we know caseload pressures would result in more stress,â€\x9d she says. On the frontline, there’s certainly an expectation that there are tough times ahead. But as Lovell puts it, social work has never been an easy choice. “I’ve been a social worker for 30 years and I’ve certainly never worked in the golden years of social work having endless resources. It’s always been tight, but it’s getting tighter. Our priory is making sure social workers are supported and enabled to do the job they are employed to do in increasingly difficult times and that they get the support and recognition they deserve.â€\x9d For more details about the Social Lives survey in Wales contact stacey- rebekka.karlsson@theguardian.com',
 'Leave.EU may challenge extension of voter registration deadline Arron Banks, the funder of the unofficial Brexit campaign Leave.EU, is considering whether to legally challenge to the government’s decision to extend the deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum by 48 hours. David Cameron promised to force through legislation to extend the deadline to midnight on Thursday after the government’s registration website was overwhelmed by a surge in applications in the the final hours before the initial deadline of midnight on Tuesday. Banks, an insurance millionaire, revealed that his lawyers were examining the decision. In a statement he said: “We believe it is unconstitutional at best and have been advised that with legitimate cause we could challenge this extension. “We are therefore considering all available legal options with our legal team, with a view to potentially launching a judicial review now and after the outcome of the referendum on 23 June.â€\x9d Vote Leave – the official Brexit campaign, which is not funded by Banks – also criticised the decision to extend registrations, but has not suggested it will sue the government. The possible judicial review comes after 242,000 people applied to register to vote on Wednesday – a day after the initial deadline. At least as many are likely to apply on Thursday, after a record 525,000 applied on Tuesday. It is thought that the remain campaign stands most to gain from late registrations as most of those applying are younger voters. Pollsters point out that young people are twice as likely to vote to remain in the EU, but under-25s are only half as likely to vote as over-65s. The number who will actually be given the right to vote is likely to be significantly smaller than the number applying. Philip Cowley, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, pointed out that many people apply to register to vote who are either already registered, or who turn out to be ineligible. The pro-Brexit Tory Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, questioned why the government was failing to put in the same effort to find misregistered EU citizens who had been issued polling cards. “The government is having to rewrite the rules to clear up a shambles of their own making. Why are they not acting with the same vigour over weeding out misregistered EU nationals who have been sent polling cards and even postal ballots, but who are not eligible?â€\x9d Jenkin said. He warned that if the referendum result was close, the decision could be challenged by a judicial review because of the deadline’s extension. A source within the remain campaign said: “Arron Banks is free to waste his money in any way he sees fit. But it’s extraordinary that the leave campaigns are so angered by the prospect of people wanting to take part in the democratic process.â€\x9d Following emergency discussions with the Electoral Commission and opposition parties, the government plans to table a statutory instrument in parliament to amend the referendum conduct regulations, reducing from five to three the number of working days before the poll that the electoral lists must be published. This will extend the registration deadline to the end of Thursday, while preserving a separate five-day period for appeals against entries on the register. The website’s collapse emerged at around 10.15pm on Tuesday when dozens of potential voters complained on Twitter that they could not access the website.',
 'Stay out of EU affairs, leading MEP tells British government The British government has been given a blunt warning to stay out of the EU’s post-Brexit business by a senior leader in the European parliament, who lambasted Boris Johnson for his “unbelievable arroganceâ€\x9d and insisted Britain would have “no say any moreâ€\x9d in the long-term future of Europe. Manfred Weber, the leader of the largest centre-right group in the European parliament, criticised the British foreign secretary for his support of Turkey’s EU membership, which has infuriated European politicians. The MEP spoke minutes after the European parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said the UK may have only 14 months of proper negotiations to tie up its EU exit and pressed for talks to be completed by mid-2019. Johnson has irked many in Europe by offering to help Turkey join the EU despite Britain’s looming departure. After becoming foreign secretary he reverted to his support for Turkey’s EU hopes, after being accused of stoking prejudice during the referendum campaign by suggesting Turkish migrants would flood into the UK if Britain stayed in the EU. Weber, a longstanding opponent of Turkey joining the EU, described Johnson’s support for Ankara as “unbelievableâ€\x9d and “a purely arrogant provocationâ€\x9d. Saying he could not respect Johnson’s actions, Weber urged the UK to refrain from getting involved in decisions about the EU’s long-term future. “I ask the British government not to influence this discussion, which will go on over the next two, two-and-a-half years,â€\x9d he said. “Please step back; it is a question of fairness and respect. When you want to leave a club, you have no say any more in the long-term future of this club.â€\x9d The MEP also called on the UK not to block EU defence cooperation, although the 27 remaining members struggle to forge a consensus, even without Britain obstructing the way. Weber was speaking after meeting David Davis, the secretary of state for Brexit, who was on a whistlestop tour of Strasbourg. On Monday, Davis met the European commission’s Brexit pointman, Michel Barnier, in Brussels for a coffee, and on Tuesday he met Verhofstadt. The EU is refusing substantial talks until the government triggers the article 50 exit process; some European officials think the British do not have much to say. And Weber said he had not heard anything new from Davis about what Brexit really meant. Only 60% of EU legislation relates to the single market, Weber said, while the rest covers areas such as research, cooperation on crime and migration. “Brexit means leaving: you cannot stay for 90% of the legislation and only have a Brexit on migration, that is not possible,â€\x9d he said. Davis had told MEPs he wanted the UK to remain in the single market, according to Weber. But both Verhofstadt and Weber made clear that the UK could not have unfettered access to the single market without accepting the EU’s core principles, including free movement of people. “I must stress again: Brexit means Brexit, that means leaving the European Union, that means cutting off relations ... and not cherry picking, not special relationships,â€\x9d Weber said. Downing Street has repeatedly refused to rule out staying in the single market. A spokesman for Theresa May said: “We are very clear that what we want is a trading relationship that allows UK companies to trade both with and within the single market and lets European businesses do the same.â€\x9d Meanwhile, Verhofstadt said the window for negotiations was “14 or 15 monthsâ€\x9d, once political processes were taken into account, shaving months off the two-year timetable the UK government is counting on. Davis described his meeting with Verhofstadt as “great funâ€\x9d and denied having compared the MEP to Satan. A jokey remark, where he said “get thee behind me, Satanâ€\x9d, had been aimed at the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, he told the BBC. He described Verhofstadt as “a very nice manâ€\x9d who races British classic cars. Davis added: “We got on very well. It was a very useful constructive conversation.â€\x9d If May sticks to her promise of triggering article 50 by the end of March 2017, the 27 governments of the EU can be expected to agree a mandate by late April or early May, paving the way for serious talks to begin. Verhofstadt sees negotiations winding up in late 2018 to allow the European parliament to complete its internal processes. MEPs are anxious to complete the UK’s exit before European parliament elections in mid-2019. Some governments, such as France, also see this as an unofficial deadline, but other member states are more relaxed on timing, so Verhofstadt’s timetable is highly provisional. Verhofstadt also said Brexit was not his only priority, as he urged the EU to pull together in the face of Donald Trump’s election. In a striking intervention, he grouped the US president-elect with two of the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan. Instead of “the ring of friends around Europeâ€\x9d, Verhofstadt said, he saw people who want to “bash and destroy our valuesâ€\x9d. “What I see today is now Russia, Americans and Turks working together on European soil to destroy the European model,â€\x9d he said. Elaborating on his theme, he said ErdoÄŸan wanted to shut down European movements in Turkey and Putin “openly finance[d] extremists and populist parties everywhere in Europeâ€\x9d, while Trump’s right-hand man appeared to be trying to “influence electionsâ€\x9d in France and Germany. The Belgian MEP was referring to incoming White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News, which recently revealed plans to launch sites in Germany and France. “What I see today is now Russia, Americans and Turks working together on European soil to destroy the European model,â€\x9d Verhofstadt said. The European parliament has a very limited role in shaping EU foreign policy, so its representatives tend to be more outspoken than diplomats. Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium and lifelong federalist, urged the EU to “fight backâ€\x9d against “the ring of autocratsâ€\x9d by working together on defence and reforming the eurozone.',
 '‘I’m not a thing to be pitied’: the disability backlash against Me Before You When the marketing team behind Me Before You came up with the hashtag #LiveBoldly to promote this story of a young disabled man considering assisted dying, they could scarcely have predicted that it would be used to expose the movie’s problematic message. “Do you really want us to #LiveBoldly or do you just want us to #diequickly?â€\x9d asked one commenter during a Twitter Q&A session last week with the film’s star, Sam Claflin. He plays Will, a wealthy former playboy who becomes involved with Lou (Emilia Clarke), a kooky misfit in thrift-shop chic. It’s rather as if Thomas Crown had fallen for Amélie. The film, adapted by Jojo Moyes from her own best-selling novel, portrays the burgeoning romance between these two apparently mismatched souls. But their differences are not simply sartorial. Lou has full use of her body. Will has been quadriplegic since a road accident several years earlier. Before Lou became his carer, Will decided he wanted to kill himself. Now the Dignitas paperwork is in the post and it seems that Lou’s chipper disposition can do nothing to change his mind. A spoiler alert will be necessary for anyone who hasn’t read the book and so won’t know that he goes ahead with his plan. The full meaning of the name “Willâ€\x9d becomes clear only after he dies and leaves Lou more money than she has ever seen. It will be enough cash, he says, for her to swap her timid life for adventure. The problem, according to activists who picketed the film’s premiere last week, is this motto applies in this context only to the able-bodied – and comes at the cost of a disabled man’s life. Many of those same activists also used Twitter to take issue with the film. The hashtag #MeBeforeEuthanasia was used by @grindmastrgrant, who tweeted: “I’m not your inspiration porn and I’m not a thing to be pitied or killed off to make the audience cry,â€\x9d while @JohnBrianKelly wrote: “I have Will’s disability. Stop killing me on film! #liveboldly, fight cripple snuff films.â€\x9d The idea that it is better to be dead than disabled has been seen many times before. In Million Dollar Baby, it is expressed in a mercy killing. In Whose Life Is It Anyway? and The Sea Inside, it takes the form of a quadriplegic man fighting the medical establishment for his right to die. The familiar spectre of the worthless disabled body is hidden behind the apparently valiant struggle of an individual against the state. Of course, it would be wrong to pretend that suicide and disability are mutually exclusive. The Sea Inside is based on Ramón Sampedro’s life, while Me Before You is partly inspired by the 23-year-old rugby player Daniel James, who chose to kill himself after a severe spinal injury. (His parents said he was “not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existenceâ€\x9d.) But the screen-time granted to these stories, to the exclusion of more diverse representations of disability, has helped plant in the public consciousness the notion that life is worth less when it resides in a disabled body. “We have so few opportunities in the media to explore disability,â€\x9d says the actor and activist Liz Carr, who participated in the protest. “But there is a disproportionate number of stories which relate to the ‘problem’ of disability being solved by death. Television and film seem to love those individuals who want to die. They’re less keen to cover the rest of us who might want to live but are struggling to get the health and social care resources to do so.â€\x9d The screenplay offers one pre-emptive riposte to the charge that it is speaking for all disabled people. “I get that this could be a good life,â€\x9d says Will. “But it’s not my life. I can’t be the sort of man who accepts this.â€\x9d Since Will is shown to be strong, determined and uncompromising, it seems clear that the “sort of manâ€\x9d who would put up with a paralysed body and its demands could only be inferior to him. This problem could be tempered, if not solved, by the presence of just one disabled character to provide some contrast and show that suicide isn’t the only option. But there isn’t one. The film isolates Will entirely, stacking the odds so that the choice to take his own life is made to seem like the logical one. “When non-disabled people talk of suicide, they’re discouraged and offered prevention,â€\x9d she says. “Even though it’s legal, it’s not seen as desirable. When a disabled person talks of it, though, suddenly the conversation is overtaken with words like ‘choice’ and ‘autonomy’ and people are rushing to uphold these prized principles whilst talk of prevention and mental health support are rare. Will is not offered any psychiatric support. What kind of message is this that we’re giving disabled people and the non-disabled audiences?â€\x9d Only in its acknowledgement of economic disparity does Me Before You come close to being honest. Accompanying Will to a glitzy wedding, Lou puts it to him that he would not even be talking to her were she not his carer. In fact, she would most likely be serving the drinks at such a function. A working-class woman like her would be as invisible socially to him and his friends as the disabled are to the rest of society. Disability in popular culture often exists to allow the able-bodied to unlock their potential. Lou is a beneficiary of Will’s death, not unlike the struggling novelist in Betty Blue, who is inspired to write his next book only once he has smothered his hospitalised girlfriend. But Lou’s story also plays like a chaste, romantic ideal dreamed up by the abstinence lobby. Will won’t be making any sexual demands on Lou. And, like the perfect terminally ill boyfriend in The Fault in Our Stars, he won’t stick around to get old and wrinkly: Lou can treasure the image of her handsome billionaire forever. As love stories go, it’s every bit as creepy as Ghost, which suggested that the perfect relationship was exclusively spiritual, or Pretty Woman, which proposed the idea of prostitution as a short-cut to true love. One of the improvements that Will makes in Lou’s life is to open her eyes to foreign-language films. This he does by showing her Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois’s 2010 drama inspired by the French Cistercian monks in Tibhirine, Algeria, who refused to flee in 1996 despite violence from Islamic extremists. The monks made themselves martyrs rather than forsake the area and its people. Will’s choice is entirely symbolic: it prepares Lou, and the audience, for the idea of self-sacrifice. Somehow this manages to feel like an insult both to disabled people in general and those monks in particular. If their murder is analogous to Will’s choice to kill himself so that Lou can have a buffer of wealth, then the stock-price of martyrdom has plummeted since the days of Joan of Arc. It’s typical of the soft-pedalling tendency found in Me Before You that it borrows the most evasive element of Beauvois’s film. When the monks trudge off to meet their terrible fate, it is in a blizzard; they fade from view prettily, in contrast to other characters seen having their throats slit. They get a send-off every bit as euphemistic as Thelma and Louise, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Me Before You does the same for Will. One minute he’s lying fetchingly in his bed at Dignitas, the next we dissolve to Lou receiving news of her windfall in a Parisian cafe. This movie which has stood proudly behind Will’s decision to die seems in an awful hurry to conceal what that might entail. Death, like disabled people who choose to live boldly, is nowhere to be seen. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.',
 'Premier League relegation battlers brace themselves for a telling weekend This might not be the end of the football season, yet as the old saying goes when the fourth round of the FA Cup heaves into view and the days begin to lengthen, you can see the end of the season from here. The good news for Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa is that all three clubs have shown a slight upturn in form and fortune, in some cases very slight, over the past few weeks. The bad news, obviously, is that these grand old clubs still form the Premier League’s bottom three in mid-January. Actually it is worse than that. Mid-January has already gone, and after this weekend’s fixtures January will have gone. The Premier League takes a break for the FA Cup next week, so it will be February before we know it. The better news for the three clubs in trouble, or at least the less bad news, is that this weekend’s games are all winnable. Yes, I know that is a ridiculous thing to say. All games are theoretically winnable, though it may be truer of this season that all games are actually losable, and if our doughty trio had managed to win some of their previous winnable games they would be higher in the table than they are at the moment. Yet even so, Sunderland are at home to Bournemouth, Newcastle away at Watford, while Villa have the small matter of a Midlands derby at The Hawthorns. At the start of the season, had anyone told the bottom three they were going to need points in a hurry to end January on a positive note, they would not have been too frightened by the fixtures just detailed. Villa arguably have the most arduous task, what with being adrift at the bottom and away from home, but anything can happen in a local derby. The two north-east clubs play newly promoted sides, and if you cannot take points in extremis from such games you probably deserve to be down among the relegation candidates. The flaw in that theory is not difficult to spot. It is no longer the start of the season. After new year you are not really a newly promoted side any more, you are a Premier League team with more than half of your fixtures completed. And for most of the season Watford and Bournemouth have not been playing like newly promoted sides with scant experience of the top flight; they have been playing with confidence and no little application, picking up points against bigger opponents with some notable results. But, and here is the big question, where has it got them? Undoubtedly Watford and Bournemouth have been among the surprise successes of a generally surprising season but late January finds all three promoted sides in the bottom half of the table, with Bournemouth and Norwich (at home to Liverpool on Saturday since you ask, probably thankful that Luis Suárez will not be around) looking particularly vulnerable to recoveries by the bigger clubs beneath them. Watford do not look in too much trouble. They are on the same points as Everton and even Roberto MartÃ\xadnez’s biggest critics have not mentioned relegation yet, though they have lost four straight league games since taking a point from Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day and it could be that top-flight fatigue, sometimes known as reality, is beginning to set in. Saturday may offer some pointers as to how the rest of the season plays out. Bournemouth gave themselves a lift with a convincing win over Norwich at the weekend, though they are still only three points above the drop zone. Should they lose at the Stadium of Light, and Sam Allardyce has probably had the fixture circled on his calendar for some time, Newcastle could close the gap with a win at Watford. There seems no obvious reason why Newcastle should win at Watford, except Steve McClaren’s side finally seem to be improving while Quique Sánchez Flores needs to prove his players have not hit a wall. With Swansea at Everton on Sunday, where the home side really need to release the handbrake to prevent their manager’s claims of a European finish looking silly – for a team playing so well Everton have been stuck in 11th for far too long – this could be the weekend for a few incremental yet important shifts in league position. Although nothing is ever decided in January, not even late January, February can turn into a long month for teams heading downwards in the table. Those that can see a glimmer of hope, on the other hand, especially ones already out of the FA Cup, can start counting out the games to the end of the season and working out exactly what they have to do. So to cut to the chase, before the last league games in January, it looks as if the two north-east clubs have a chance of escaping their present predicament, while Bournemouth, Norwich and Swansea are in danger of getting sucked down. One would imagine the three teams eventually relegated will come from the current bottom six. Chelsea are still theoretically in trouble, only one point ahead of Bournemouth, but no one seriously expects the Stamford Bridge crisis to get that much worse now. They dropped a couple of points at home at the weekend but Everton are a good side, and Chelsea probably regarded it as a point saved, if not stolen. West Bromwich are not as high in the table as they would like but appear capable of getting over the line in the 16 games that remain, as do Watford, assuming their slump does not continue for long enough to cause panic. Clearly this is all guesswork until a few more games have been played; it just happens that one or two fairly crucial matches are coming up this weekend. Not least the one at West Bromwich. The last rites were read over Villa’s survival chances some weeks ago but the situation is not yet hopeless. On the final weekend in January last year Leicester were bottom of the table with 17 points, and look what has happened to them since. Villa are bottom with 12, with only two wins to their name, and although that does appear desperate, a win against local rivals on Saturday would take them to 15 and possibly signal a change in outlook. Villa do not appear to have Leicester’s squad strength, it must be said, but if they are going to do anything other than meekly accept their fate they need to start now. Although no prizes are ever handed out in January, there is no better time to start a recovery. After February, or to be more exact after the first week of March, the remaining games start to be expressed in single figures. Unless you happen to be Leicester, that is when teams near the bottom of the table usually find the season slipping away.',
 'Cruz goes negative on Rubio as Iowa approaches – campaign updates In a radio interview in Iowa on Friday, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum dredged up the conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton were somehow responsible for the death of former deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1993. When asked about the latest revelation that 22 emails from Hillary Clinton’s home server have been labeled top secret, the Republican presidential hopeful told WHO-AM’s Simon Conway that this was an example of Democrats “circling the wagon no matter what the case is.â€\x9d He went on to say: “That’s what the left believe. Nothing they can do, well, look at what the Clintons were accused of with certain folks like Vince Foster. I was going to say short of murder but there’s even allegations that they did that.â€\x9d Foster, a longtime friend of the Clintons who was under intense pressure from his White House job, committed suicide in July 1993. Fringe conservative groups in the 1990s long sought to push the discredited theory that Foster was murdered by Bill and Hillary Clinton and his death was subject to an elaborate coverup. This allegation has been disproven by multiple investigators, including special prosecutor Ken Starr, although it has continued to periodically resurface. When asked for clarification about the remark, a Santorum spokesman told the that the presidential hopeful was “being facetiousâ€\x9d in the statement and simply trying to make a joke about the extent to which Democrats rally around the former secretary of state. The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment. It was ladies’ hour at the juice shop just blocks from the New Hampshire state capitol building on Friday – and the woman of the hour was none other than feminists and author Gloria Steinem, reports Lauren Gambino in Concord, New Hampshire. Introduced as the “mother of feminismâ€\x9d (to which she quickly interjected: “more like sisterâ€\x9d), Steinem told the mostly white-haired crowd that it was time to elect a woman to the highest office and that this woman must be Hillary Clinton. “I’m not here to speak against Bernie,â€\x9d Steinem said at a Women for Hillary event on Friday. “We don’t have to be against someone to understand that someone is better for this moment.â€\x9d Steinem – who had a black eye she said was from falling into a pothole as she ran to catch a cab – told Clinton’s female supporters that every vote could make a difference, especially when it came to electing women to office. “I want to give you a little ammunition here,â€\x9d she began, recalling the 1982 US senate race in Missouri between Democrat Harriet Woods and Republican John Danforth. Woods, an activist and politician, presented a strong challenge to her Republican opponent, running a campaign powered by grassroots activism and the slogan, “Give ‘em hell, Harriet.â€\x9d When it came to voting day, Danforth defeated Woods by a margin of less than two percentage points, just a few thousand votes, Steinem said. “If Danforth hadn’t been senator, Clarence Thomas wouldn’t have gone with him to Washington as a staff member,â€\x9d Steinem said. Several women in the audience groaned and gasped. “If Thomas hadn’t been visible in Washington as a rare African American who opposed his community’s majority views, he wouldn’t have been appointed by the first President Bush to head and to disempower the equal employment opportunities commission and then to sit on the DC court of appeals.â€\x9d She went on to tell of Thomas’s supreme court appointment, and his vote in crucial 5-4 decisions, including the decision to halt a recount of the Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election, which therefore ceded the presidency to George Bush. Steinem said that if a recount had been allowed to take place, the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, might have won the election. If he had, she said, climate change would have been at the forefront of the political agenda and the nation may have avoided intervening in Iraq. “I could go on, but I just want to say, that is the lost nail of a couple thousands votes,â€\x9d Steinem said. “And we are in a more crucial situation now.â€\x9d Steinem was introduced by US senator Jeanne Shaheen, who broke a glass ceiling of her own when she became the first female governor of the state in 1997. Shaheen described a cartoon by the Concord Monitor after she was elected governor, that showed her standing in front of the state capitol with the remnants of the glass on the ground around her. “It was great,â€\x9d Shaheen said. “But it only works if we have broken that glass ceiling for every woman in the country; for every woman in the world.â€\x9d Hillary Clinton has a straightforward message in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, writes Sabrina Siddiqui in Dubuque, Iowa: I’m the candidate Republicans fear the most. The Democratic frontrunner, who remains locked in a competitive race with Bernie Sanders both here and in New Hampshire, has repeatedly emphasized electability as part of her closing pitch to voters in both of the early states. Clinton’s argument has largely centered on the distinction between what she says is Sanders’s idealism as opposed to her own pragmatism. “I’d rather under-promise and over-deliver than vice versa,â€\x9d Clinton told a crowd of roughly 450 in Dubuque on Friday. At an earlier stop in Des Moines, she described Sanders’ plan for single-payer health care as “an idea that will never, ever come to passâ€\x9d. Clinton’s campaign has argued that Sanders’s proposal would dismantle Obamacare, the president’s popular health care law, and require a significant tax hike on most Americans. She also urged voters not to be swayed by Republican efforts to promote Sanders - Clinton and her campaign have seized on reports that the opposing party is trying to help boost the Vermont senator as a way of preemptively defeating her. Republicans are “jumping all overâ€\x9d trying to influence the outcome of the Democratic Party, Clinton said. “The last thing they want is to face me in a general election.â€\x9d Today in Campaign 2016 If it’s possible to be hungover from politics, we’re feeling it. With two debates, a town hall forum, a veteran-focused “special event,â€\x9d email releases and more polls than there are actual Des Moines residents, this week has been the campaign equivalent of a frat party the weekend before pledge week: exciting while it happens, but a disaster once you have to wake up and deal with the aftermath. Here’s a recap of today’s top stories: The Trump-less Fox News debate had a rating of 8.4%, or roughly 11 to 13 million viewers – the second-lowest rating of the election so far.That figure is far lower than Fox News’ first Republican debate back in August, when a record 24 million people tuned in. Trump called Ted Cruz is an anchor baby - in Canada. “I think that’s one of the reasons he’s a nervous wreck,â€\x9d Trump said. “Now they’re saying, I think, his career is over, right? … how about this, he’s a citizen of Canada and he’s a senator from Texas and he’s a citizen of Canada joint with the US.â€\x9d The Obama administration is withholding seven email chains found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home email server because they contain “top secretâ€\x9d information, according to the Associated Press. The emails include messages related to “special access programs,â€\x9d which have the potential to help identify confidential sources or clandestine government surveillance networks or programs. The state department will also partially censor 15 additional emails that contain top secret material. Three days before the Iowa caucuses, it’s not good news for Clinton. There are only three days before Iowans decide the first state of the 2016 election. Stayed tuned here for the ’s up-to-the-minute coverage of everything from Trump to Cruz, from Clinton to Carson, from Iowan sandwiches to New Hampshire bathroom graffiti. Porn icon Ron Jeremy has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House, in one of the weirder headlines we’ll type today. Jeremy, nicknamed “The Hedgehogâ€\x9d in the industry, told Buzzfeed that he couched his support of Clinton in his positive feelings towards her husband’s administration. “I got to shake hands with her husband,â€\x9d Jeremy said. “When he was in office, she gave him a lot of advice. When she’s in office, he’ll give her a lot of advice.â€\x9d The actor was more skeptical of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. “America has spanned decades and decades with capitalism and democracy, we’re gonna give it all up because of one schmuck?â€\x9d he said. “One Jewish schmuck - I can say that because I’m Jewish - one Jewish schmuck wants to become a leader and bring us all into socialism?â€\x9d The billionaire Koch brothers are set to convene one of their famed retreats this weekend for several hundred of their fellow super-rich conservatives in Palm Springs, California, as observers forecast a record year for secret donations, dubbed dark money, to Koch-backed groups and other outfits from the NRA to the League of Conservation Voters, reports the ’s Peter Stone: “Given the trends we’re seeing, we wouldn’t be surprised if dark money spent on direct advocacy [in the US 2016 election] hit half a billion dollars,â€\x9d said Viveca Novak, the editorial director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. “Spending by these groups in the 2016 cycle is way ahead of previous cycles, and [dark money groups] are more integrated into campaigns than we’ve seen in the past.â€\x9d In 2012, the center has reported, dark money groups spent over $300m, of which more than 80% came from Republican-leaning outfits. Dark money is the name for cash given to nonprofit organizations that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions without disclosing their donors. Under IRS regulations these tax-exempt groups are supposed to be promoting “social welfareâ€\x9d and are not allowed to have politics as their primary purpose – so generally they have to spend less than half their funds directly promoting candidates. Other so-called “issue adsâ€\x9d paid for by these groups often look like thinly veiled campaign ads. The boom in dark money spending in recent elections came in the wake of thesupreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which held that the first amendment allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and unions. That decision and other court rulings opened the floodgates to individuals, corporations and unions writing unlimited checks to outside groups, both Super Pacs and dark money outfits, which can directly promote federal candidates. Dark money spending rose from just under $6m in 2006 to $131m in 2010 following the decision. Read the full story here: Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his mother, real estate demi-billionaire Anne Spitzer, have donated $100,000 to a super PAC supporting former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s struggling presidential campaign, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday. The super PAC in question, Generation Forward PAC, raised a mere $514,000 in the second half of last year, which makes the Spitzers’ donation even weightier. The super PAC spent roughly $10,000 of that money on negative advertising targeting Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Spitzer, the scion of a real estate empire who became the state’s attorney general, resigned from office in 2009 after reports that he had been the client of a high-end sex worker came to light. Spitzer has been vocally critical of fellow New Yorker Clinton, calling her immigration stance “a metaphor for her vacillation.â€\x9d At the time of the donation, Spitzer was in a relationship with Lis Smith, O’Malley’s deputy campaign manager. As Americans prepare to cast the first votes of the 2016 election race, the ’s Dan Roberts determines what is at stake for the three Democratic and 11 Republican hopefuls: Hillary Clinton Lost the state in 2008 to an outsider called Barack Obama. Needs to stop the same happening again with Sanders to reassure nervous Democratic leaders. Bernie Sanders If the revolution starts anywhere, it needs to start here. A win could snowball, a heavy loss would be a buzzkill for the democratic socialist from Vermont. Martin O’Malley The former Maryland governor is likely to struggle to reach the 15% threshold in many Democratic precincts. Wipeout may spell lights out. Donald Trump New York’s bombastic billionaire is looking less confident after a no-show debate drama. Needs to win here to maintain an aura of impregnability. Ted Cruz Tarnished by failing to unequivocally back Iowa’s corn ethanol industry and by Canada “birtherâ€\x9d distractions. A win or close second would banish doubts for the maverick from Texas and put him back on track to catch Trump. Marco Rubio Iowa is alien territory to the establishment’s best hope, but the Florida senator’s new evangelical-tailored message is gaining traction and should deliver him third place. Ben Carson The retired neurosurgeon is currently crashing from a brief polling high last November. He could disappear for good in Iowa but is likely to soldier on in hope of recapturing that brief momentum. Rand Paul A one-time darling of the libertarian right, the Kentucky senator is staging a late recovery in Iowa. Fourth place could save his campaign (for now). Jeb Bush The former frontrunner is banking on New Hampshire to salvage what is left of his campaign. Iowa threatens to be a disaster, but expectations are at least suitably low. Chris Christie Likewise, the New Jersey governor is more at home on the east coast, but even a handful of Iowan votes will be helpful when it comes to staging the establishment fightback in New Hampshire. Read the full analysis here: Jeb(!) Bush’s campaign may be withering on the vine, but his Vine presence is blooming. Remember Lyndon LaRouche? Political activist, eight-time presidential candidate, economist, brainwasher, conspiracy theorist and convicted tax evader? Well, his Super PAC has endorsed former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley for president, a voice of support that the bottom-tier Democratic candidate could really use right now. In a moderately confusing post on LaRouchePAC’s website, the longtime political activist declared that “we want active support, from us, to boost O’Malley’s campaign, because it’s necessary that his campaign be boosted.â€\x9d We’re going to boost this intervention, with LaRouche’s name on it - especially from and through Manhattan and nearby points. That’s our strongest point ... And what we’re saying to O’Malley is: we’re suggesting strongly that you focus yourself on your own policy directly. We support your making this the issue, and we recognize our responsibility to make a contribution to that effect. We recommend O’Malley follow the indicated policy, and we’ll commit ourselves to support that policy; we make ourselves answerable to support that program in the election. “I’ll personally support his option if he wants to follow that option,â€\x9d LaRouche said. The release continues: The US requires a human option as opposed to Hillary and Bernie Sanders. O’Malley has the option, if he wants to narrow the issues, of presenting something which will outflank these guys. I strongly recommend that the O’Malley campaign team do this: get rid of the dubious things, and go for a straightforward address to what the problem is, because Hillary is a fraud - her record is that of a fraud, since she capitulated to Obama. She’s totally a stooge for Obama. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Obama, and we’re not voting for Obama. Sanders is the same kind of thing: he’s an opportunist who tries to patch something together to fool people. We don’t see any clear option coming from him or her. You don’t want a “line,â€\x9d-- you want to solve the problems of the United States. So O’Malley’s got that going for him... The Obama administration will withhold seven email chains found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home email server because they contain “top secretâ€\x9d information, according to the Associated Press. The seven emails, which total up to 37 pages, include messages related to “special access programs,â€\x9d which have the potential to help identify confidential sources or clandestine government surveillance networks or programs. Additionally, the state department will partially censor 15 additional emails that contain top secret material, and will not include them in the newest batch of emails set to be released later today. State department officials would not indicate whether the content of the emails was classified as top secret at the time of their transmission - Clinton has previously defended the existence of classified materials found on her home server as being related to classified programs that had been discovered by the press - but told the Associated Press that diplomatic security has begun investigating. “The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information,â€\x9d state department spokesman John Kirby told the Associated Press. Clinton, who is only three days away from the Iowa caucuses, has continued to insist that she neither sent nor received any classified materials that was designated as such at the time on her private email account. One of the unique culinary innovations of Iowa is the loose meat sandwich, popularized by local fast food chain Maid Rite. It’s a cross between a sloppy joe and a hamburger, with the patty replaced by loose meat but without the sauce that accompanies a sloppy joe. The sandwich is served with a spoon to scoop the meat which didn’t stay on the bun. It comes with the option to add ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles to the sandwich. I stopped at one of the chain’s newest franchises in Oskaloosa, Iowa, for lunch. From our inbox : Subject: Clint Eastwood’s thoughts on Ben Carson Clint Eastwood, in his own words, explaining why he likes Dr. Ben Carson might be our favorite candidate video since someone found Bernie Sanders’ 404 message on his campaign website. According to the video’s caption, “Trump doesn’t want you to watch this. Neither does Cruz, or the establishment. Watch it anyway. Maybe you’ll feel lucky.â€\x9d Well? Do ya? Do ya, punk? Fresh off loaning his voice to an anti-Marco Rubio ad currently being aired by Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has some thoughts on last night’s Republican presidential debate: “I was almost rightâ€\x9d on Donald Trump attending the debate after all, Limbaugh said, but once Trump threw out his $5m demand at Fox News in exchange for his attendance, “I knew he wasn’t gonna do it.â€\x9d As for Trump’s event, “it was unlike any Trump event that has taken place,â€\x9d primarily because “Trump was barely in it!â€\x9d Instead, the billionaire frontrunner turned over his spot at the lectern to veterans, acolytes, donors, other presidential candidates and Adele - at least, by audio. Due to Trump’s absence from the debate stage three miles away, “Cruz became the frontrunner by defaultâ€\x9d - which, according to Limbaugh, wasn’t nearly the place of honor that it might have been. “Without Trump to take any incoming,â€\x9d Limbaugh said, “all the incoming could be focused on Cruz.â€\x9d The dynamic “automatically made Cruz the target.â€\x9d As for the debate’s victor? “There was one winner last night, and it wasn’t even close, and it was Marco Rubio.â€\x9d Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Texas senator Ted Cruz is shifting nearly every dollar his campaign has allocated for negative advertising from focusing on billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump to fellow freshman senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the New York Times reports. Although Cruz and Trump have been locked in a virtual tie in polls of likely caucus-goers for weeks, Cruz is redirecting the full force of his campaign’s communications team towards Rubio, whose support has been steadily increasing in the waning days of the Iowa campaign. The change in priorities comes less than a week after Cruz’s campaign began airing negative advertisement of any kind - the first anti-Trump spot, “New York Values,â€\x9d aired only three days ago. The first anti-Rubio ad, “Trust,â€\x9d was launched on Thursday afternoon and focuses on Rubio’s record on immigration. “Rubio betrayed our trust,â€\x9d the advertisement says, as a voiceover from an episode of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show calls the Florida senator “part of a ‘gang of eight’ that tried to secure amnestyâ€\x9d for undocumented immigrants. According to the Times, Cruz’s campaign will continue to air a duo of positive spots about the Texas senator, but the rise of Rubio as a potential spoiler in the caucus has Cruz’s advisers worried enough to shift focus away from Trump, who currently bests Rubio in nearly every public poll available. Spotted in a restroom in Iowa: The ’s Ben Jacobs was not immediately available for comment. Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton is pulling out the big guns - and handing over control of her Snapchat account to husband and former president Bill Clinton. Don’t worry - we’ll be sure to screencap. In 2008, political guru Mark Penn dismissed then-senator Barack Obama’s massive following among Iowa college students by telling Hillary Clinton that his campaign rallies “look like Facebook.â€\x9d The massive youth turnout at the caucuses helped blow Clinton’s expected win in Iowa out of the water, and helped ignite a movement that sent Obama to the White House. Eight years later, the ’s Ben Jacobs reports, that same population of young, ultra-liberal students is on the verge of repeating history: On a college campus of 1,600 students, 1,280 people flocked to a gleaming new gymnasium to hear Sanders speak on a snowy afternoon that marked the first day of classes after winter break. The idealistic young students who flocked to him seemed unconcerned about his prospects in a general election. They were not concerned about the self-proclaimed socialist’s perceived unelectability. “If I have to vote for someone just because I think they are more electable that’s messed up,â€\x9d said Thomas Grabinski, a recent college graduate. Others were confident about Sanders’ prospects in a general election. “I think a lot of people in this country are liberal enough to vote that way,â€\x9d said Charlotte Love, a student originally from near Asheville, North Carolina. The Sanders campaign’s effort on campus is dominated by what one unaffiliated student described as“Bernie Brosâ€\x9d, the strident, earnest and ardently liberal men who view Clinton with a certain contempt. They protest against other candidates and try to plant questions about capitalism to throw rivals off guard. “I almost feel like they are not as respectful of other people’s opinions,â€\x9d said John Lof, a high school student who volunteered for the campaign, guardedly. “I don’t thing that’s Bernie in general but more people who side with the further left liberal part of the spectrum,â€\x9d he added. “It’s not every single Bernie supporter, but a fair amount.â€\x9d Read the full story here: One of the great mysteries of the 2016 primary so far is turnout: will the crowds who feel the Bern or revel in Trumpian glory actually show up to vote on Monday? DC bureau chief Dan Roberts is in Iowa with the campaigns, and has tried to parse out an answer. Iowans are made of sterner stuff than the Washington DC residents still paralysed by the blizzard of a week ago, but roads here are as endless as they are treacherous. A traffic accident recently claimed the life of a young campaign worker for former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and a smaller snow storm last Monday left ditches across the state littered with cars that had skidded off into the fields like some strange new crop variety. The vicissitudes of caucus season are a source of private frustration for candidates, many of whom believe this state of corn and hogs and evangelical Christians has undue influence because of its privileged spot at the outset of the lengthy primary process – and can skew selection toward candidates who are unrepresentative of the national mood. Despite being accredited and arriving on-time to check in, my colleague Lauren Gambino and a handful of journalists were barred from Trump’s event at the Raddison hotel Nashua, New Hampshire. Initially, the press coordinator said there wasn’t a problem. But then she sent her assistant to break the news. “I’m sorry. Check in closed 40 minutes ago,â€\x9d he said. That’s not what the email said. I showed him the email that said badges would be given to the press until 9.30am. He promised to come back with an explanation. After some minutes, the press coordinator once again appeared from behind a curtain. She approached us carefully, and stopped before crossing the security line – as if we journalists would suddenly turn the tables after months of being ridiculed and belittled by her boss. “I’m sorry,â€\x9d she said, feigning remorse. “The Fire Marshall said we are at capacity.â€\x9d A moment ago the excuse was that we were late. Now we were on time but the event was at capacity – even though we had been approved and had reserved spots. After some bickering, she said simply: “Try coming earlier next time.â€\x9d She then turned on her heels and disappeared behind the blue curtain. All was not lost, though. Lauren still got to interview the Trump faithful waiting outside the hotel – many of whom were also denied entry. Maria Rawlings of Nashua came to see Donald trump for the fourth time on Friday morning, but as had happened to her once before, she didn’t make the cut. Rawlings says she’s an independent but thinks Trump offers the best vision for the country. She said he could work on his delivery, and maybe tone down his rhetoric, but at heart she believed he was a good person who had the business acumen to restore the country’s sagging middle class. Rawlings said she intended to watch the Trump-less debate but fell asleep watching the earlier one. She called Trump’s stunt not to appear in the debate last night “strategicâ€\x9d but worried how it might affect his campaign. “I’m worried that decision will hurt him but I hope it doesn’t,â€\x9d she said. As this reporter set out on the long hike back to the car, she passed Rawlings and her two friends standing outside the back entrance to the hotel. “Do you think Donald will come this wayâ€\x9d She asked. She smiled. “We’d really like to see him.â€\x9d Elsewhere on the campaign trail: racial politics get some attention, though not on stage or in front of the cameras. Jeb Bush declares victory, Rubio’s campaign is lowering expectations (via Politico) … … and Rand Paul finds an extremely tacky car. Trump finishes off his speech with his complaints about the economy, tailored for his New England audience. He says he would just tell companies like Ford andApple to bring jobs and factories back to the US. “I would tell the guys at Ford build it in Michigan … maybe New Hampshire.â€\x9d Build it in this country, who the hell cares. We’re gonna get you plenty. By the way New Hampshire, New England, you guys got screwed. You lost so many businesses … You need jobs, not service stuff, you need jobs … We’re gonna take it back … I mean you were decimated, almost I would say more than anywhere else.â€\x9d He says he’ll “bring jobs back from China, from Japan, from Mexico … China is the greatest theft in the history of the world to this country.â€\x9d “I’m so glad I made this ridiculous trip … Go out and vote February 9th!â€\x9d Also a problem is Ted Cruz, Trump says. “Ted Cruz may not be a US citizen … He’s an anchor baby … Ted Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada, but Canada doesn’t accept anchor babies, they just waited a long time.â€\x9d I think that’s one of the reasons he’s a nervous wreck … Now they’re saying, I think, his career is over, right? … how about this, he’s a citizen of Canada and he’s a senator from Texas and he’s a citizen of Canada joint with the US. The billionaire says that his campaign is self-funded, a claim disproven repeatedly. He uses the line to mock Cruz for his loans to major Wall Street banks, including a loan from Goldman Sachs that the senator did not report as campaign rules require. He didn’t know about Goldman Sachs loaning him money, and he didn’t know about Citibank loaning him money. Other than that he’s got a great memory. He waxes exasperated: “Oh, these politicians, what’re we gonna do with them? … Remember that loan you got, Ted? … I’m having fun.â€\x9d Trump is holding a rally in Nashua, New Hampshire, at the Radisson Hotel. “We have a right to be angry, folks, we have a right.â€\x9d The billionaire’s in a generous mood this morning: he’s mixed his usual dire proclamations – trillions in debt, wounded veterans, immigration – with a dose of hope. “We’re gonna put our country back on track.â€\x9d He says that with “great guys to run your agenciesâ€\x9d he can sort out the US no problem. But you need the right people. The problem with the agencies, with everything, we have political hacks. … Guys who gave political contributions to the Jebs of the world, to Ted Cruz, who’s totally controlled by the oil industry. Fear not, Trump goes on. He will prove a great negotiator on the world stage. “I get along great with China and the Chinese people.â€\x9d I sell condos to the Chinese. With Mexico I have a great relationship, and I employ thousands and thousands of Hispanics, and they’re fantastic … The problem is their leaders … The leaders are too smart for our leaders, and they’re too cunning. Highlights of the Trump variety hour: An imitation of Jeb Bush as a lost and frightened child: “He’s probably looking for me … Has anyone seen Trump? Where is Trump? Where is he?â€\x9d An imitation of Fox News executives begging him to come back to their debate: “Fox has been extremely nice the last number of hours actually. And they wanted me there and said, ‘How about now?’â€\x9d One-upping the Oscars: “This is the Academy Awards. We are actually told that we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit.â€\x9d “You know what, I don’t know. Is it for me personally is it a good thing, a bad thing? Will I get more votes, will I get less votes? Nobody knows. Who the hell knows.â€\x9d Someone more courageous than Trump (veteran John Wayne Walder), followed by cash courage: “I’m financially courageous, about the other stuff I don’t know.â€\x9d Rick Santorum jokes: “I am supporting another candidate for president.â€\x9d And comments for Trump’s pregnant daughter: “We have a hospital all lined up, we’re doing great … But I love the people of Iowa. I said Ivanka, it would be so great if you had your baby in Iowa. It would be so great. I would win.â€\x9d Trump highlights from across town: Ironical Ted Cruz doing an impression of Trump: “Let me say, I’m a maniac. And everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly.â€\x9d Jeb Bush: “I kind of miss Donald Trump … I wish he were here.â€\x9d Sardonic Marco Rubio: “He’s an entertaining guy. He’s the greatest show on earth.â€\x9d Iowans appreciate all the attention showered on them by candidates, but are they any good at choosing the eventual nominee? Not exactly. Courtesy Nadja Popovich of the ’s interactive team. Democrats fare better after winning Iowa, history suggests. Trump won without showing up. Or Rubio or Bush or Paul did, because they showed up. Or Ben Carson lost. Or nobody can make up their minds, what with no actual votes cast or caucuses caucused on Thursday night. But one metric should at least give somebody bragging rates: ratings. Total viewership numbers should be released on Friday afternoon, but Nielsen data can provide some clue. The Trump-less Fox News debate had a rating of 8.4%, or roughly 11 to 13 million viewers – the second lowest rating of the election so far. That figure is far lower than Fox News’ first Republican debate back in August, when a record 24 million people (a 15.9% rating) tuned in. Viewership for Thursday’s debate is more comparable to the Fox Business Network debate from December, which had a 7.4 rating and drew about 11 million viewers. (Far fewer Americans get Fox Business Network in cable packages than Fox News.) MSNBC and CNN aired Trump’s competing event and had about a quarter of the viewers as Fox did for its debate. Both Trump and Fox live streamed their competing events for free; neither have released viewership numbers. Democratic debates have drawn fewer viewers than their Republican counterparts, in part because the party has scheduled several on weekends, before holidays and at the same time as high-profile sporting and entertainment events. The highest rated Democratic debate was held by CNN in October, with almost 16 million viewers. Debate reviews are in. Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media tycoon and owner of Fox News, liked what he saw. So did Trump. But this is not a poll … Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the groggy day after the final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses. Last night, frontrunner Donald Trump declined to show, instead hosting a charity event supposedly for veterans … though its organizers declined to say which groups would receive donations. The other leading Republican candidates bickered – over substance! – on a stage in Des Moines. Marco Rubio sniped at Ted Cruz, the closest to Trump in the Iowa polls, and both faced awkward questions over their inconsistent histories on immigration. “This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on,â€\x9d Rubio said of his fellow senator. Rand Paul similarly attacked what he called Cruz’s “falsenessâ€\x9d. Nearly all the candidates had to do some damage control over their immigration positions. When Rubio accused former Florida governor Jeb Bush of changing his policy about eventual citizenship for undocumented people, Bush retorted: “So did you, Marco.â€\x9d Trump’s shadow loomed over the debate, even from off stage. “I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,â€\x9d Cruz said, mocking the billionaire, who led a surreal variety show across town in protest of one of Fox News’ moderators. Two minor candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee – both kept out of the main debate because of their subterranean poll numbers – appeared at the event with Trump. An hour east of Des Moines, the Democratic primary race took on familiar overtones. At Grinnell College, where Hillary Clinton’s supporters failed to muster a caucus for her eight years ago, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders wooed idealistic students. Clinton leads Sanders by double digits in averages of national polls, but the poll averages also show the senator nearly tied to the former secretary of state in Iowa, and leading her by 15 points in the second state of the primary, New Hampshire. Clinton has worked hard to pitch voters on her long experience as a senator and the country’s top diplomat – and on the notion that only she can defeat a Republican in the general election. There are only three days before Iowans decide the first state of the 2016 election. For a few candidates, the race to shake hands and kiss the heads of babies is getting literal. The Trump-Cruz-Clinton-Sanders-Rubio-Bush battle to become the most powerful politician in the world has a lot more chaos to come. We’ll have all the updates here, with word from the trail from: DC bureau chief Dan Roberts, west coast bureau chief Paul Lewis, national reporter Lauren Gambino, political reporters Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui … and Adam Gabbatt, who says he’s a plumber.',
 'Letter: How Muhammad Ali showed his love for Bangladesh In the late 1970s I headed a modest film production company in London and hit upon the idea to take Muhammad Ali to Bangladesh, then a new country which needed world recognition. After many trips to the US we got Ali to agree, but first there was a small matter to be settled in the ring. Ali had a fight pending against Leon Spinks, which he thought would be a walkover. Not so. Spinks beat Ali on points. Ali rang me from Los Angeles and said he could not face his fans since he had been beaten. I said: “No Brother, they still love you as The Greatest. The whole of Bangladesh, from the president to the lowest peasant, is waiting for you. You must believe me.â€\x9d He, ever the joker, lowered his voice and asked: “Brother Reg, are you serious?â€\x9d I replied, “In the name of Allah, I am dead serious!â€\x9d He replied, “OK, I will come. But don’t die just yet.â€\x9d We filmed the visit of Ali, who was accompanied by his then wife, Veronica, and a posse of friends and guards. Bangladesh I Love You was cut and edited in London and distributed by Lord Grade. Years later I wanted to make India I Love You to repeat the same formula with Ali when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. All went well and filming was on schedule, but then international politics scuppered the film. We were in Madras (now Chennai) when a call came to my room. The voice, in a southern US accent, said: “I wanna speak to Ali.â€\x9d I said: “Ali is resting in his suite. It’s hot in south India.â€\x9d The voice said: “Well get to him. Tell him it’s Jimmy Carter from the White House who wants to talk to him now.â€\x9d I transferred the call to Ali’s suite and rushed to his floor. When I got there, Ali was standing to attention and saying: “Yes Mr President, I will drop everything here.â€\x9d Carter had asked Ali to fly to all the Islamic countries to request they pull out of the Moscow Olympics. An hour earlier the USSR had attacked Afghanistan. “My president has ordered me,â€\x9d he told me. “I must obey him.â€\x9d Within three hours an aircraft arrived with US commandos on board. It flew off with Ali and his family. My film had perished.',
 "Pentagon admits it is 'looking to accelerate' cyber-attacks against Isis The Pentagon has acknowledged using its storehouse of new digital weapons to attack Islamic State communications networks, the first time that the US military has acknowledged doing so during an active war. Operators from the US Cyber Command, the young military command twinned to the National Security Agency, have launched assaults on nodes, overloading them with data, US defense chief Ashton Carter said on Monday. Carter told reporters the US was “looking to accelerateâ€\x9d cyber-strikes he likened to the traditional disruption of enemy command networks. The US cyber-attacks, which Carter said complemented familiar methods of signal jamming over radio frequencies, seek to instill a loss of confidence in the security and efficacy of internal Isis communications. Analysts who have long tracked the development and incorporation of digital weapons into the US military arsenal considered Carter’s acknowledgment to be a milestone. “The cyberwar seal has been broken in publicâ€\x9d, said Peter W Singer of the New America Foundation. Thus far, the US has only acknowledged using digital weaponry in vague terms. Secrecy has surrounded their use, as the US cyber arsenal has seen operation as part of covert intelligence activities, rather than as a component of an ongoing war. Stuxnet, a worm that disrupts the functions of industrial centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear program, is widely believed to have been jointly developed by the US and Israel. The Obama administration has never formally acknowledged possessing a broader panoply of cyber weapons aimed at the Iranian nuclear program, known as Olympic Games. The New York Times recently reported that the US prepared a campaign for their use, Nitro Zeus, in the event that a diplomatic effort to halt the program broke down. But the administration considered those online efforts alternatives to warfare. Against Isis, the US is using cyber weapons as a method of warfare alongside the airstrikes, indigenous force training and special operations raids that characterize the US campaign in Iraq and Syria. With Olympic Games, unlike Stuxnet, Singer said, “the US military is making clear that it can and will carry out offensive cyber operations. Everyone knew we could do it and Isis as the target makes this less controversial, but it is still a big line to cross.â€\x9d Carter and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Marine Gen Joseph Dunford, declined to speak about the US cyber campaign in detail, but said it contributed the broader objectives of isolating the Isis capital of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. “Conceptually, that’s the same thing we’re trying to do in the cyberworld,â€\x9d Dunford said Monday. Both senior officials acknowledged a potential loss of intelligence coming from the assaults on Isis networks the US monitors, but expressed hope that they would press Isis fighters into using more interceptable modes of communications. In addition to overloading or defacing Isis’s web presence, known as a denial of service attack, and aiming to prevent the uploading or distribution of propaganda, particularly on social media, it is likely that the US Cyber Command is “mapping the people behind networks, their connections and physical locations and then feeding that into targeting on the kinetic side – injecting false info to create uncertaintyâ€\x9d, Singer said.",
 'The EU referendum is already following the Scottish playbook, Project Fear 2.0 Let’s call it Project Fear 2.0. As the remain campaign moves up the gears, it has the considerable advantage of a road-tested playbook. In the run-up to the 2014 Scottish referendum, the UK government and, in particular, the Treasury set about frightening the voting natives with a series of high-profile warnings of the apocalypse that would surely follow any breakup of the union. In an unprecedented breach of civil service protocol, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, published his private advice to the chancellor. It homed in on what would become a key issue – the refusal to allow an independent Scotland to continue using sterling. His letter to George Osborne concluded: “I would advise you against entering a currency union with an independent Scotland. There is no evidence that adequate proposals or policy changes … could be devised, agreed and implemented by both governments in the foreseeable future.â€\x9d Not unexpectedly it caused a massive row, and his subsequent rationale was nothing if not revealing: “My view in this case – and it’s a very exceptional case – is that if publishing advice could strengthen the credibility of the government’s position, then it was my duty to do it.â€\x9d Fast forward to cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood’s letter to permanent secretaries published this week advising them that civil service resources “must only be used in the referendum campaign if they support the government’s official stance in support of Britain’s membership of the EUâ€\x9d. The same missive warned special advisers attached to Brexit ministers that they should campaign only in their own time and at their own expense. Should they be found to be doing so in the course of their normal working day their salary would be adjusted accordingly. This week’s letter from a number of business leaders also has a useful precedent. In 2014, the bosses of major supermarkets and retailers were summoned to No 10 and encouraged to make public their fears for trade if an artificial border were set up between Scotland and England. The argument over how the British economy would suffer from “Scexitâ€\x9d was reinforced by RBS and Lloyds, among other banks, admitting to contingency plans to move their main offices to London. In case nobody was paying sufficient attention, the Treasury helpfully put out a press release. Memorably, the Treasury was also able to tell the BBC’s political editor about RBS’s game plan before the bank’s relevant evening board meeting had concluded. Truly, the Treasury’s night vision and predictive powers are a thing of wonder. The Ministry of Defence has form too. As the no camp continued to slip in the polls, it was able to assure the nation that were a Scottish government to insist on Trident removal from the Clyde, neither Devonport nor any other English base would be suitably secure to house the Vanguard submarine fleet. So: less strong, less secure, more dangerous in a dangerous world. Has a familiar ring? By that stage the Scottish public were bracing themselves for news from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that the latter would sadly not be in a position to aid the Scottish Department of Agriculture and Fisheries when the upcoming locust plague threatened to relocate north of Berwick. Somewhat to the bemusement of that same tartan electorate, the leave campaign is wasting no opportunity to lecture its audience on the joys of self-determination. All those chaps who made cross-border forays into the 2014 referendum campaign to advise Scots that separatism was a dangerous – yes, folks – “leap in the darkâ€\x9d, have binned that rather negative script and joyously embraced “the capacity to make our own laws and decisionsâ€\x9d. This is a particularly rich intervention from London’s own blond bombshell, Boris Johnson, given the time he previously devoted to the importance of getting the whingeing Jocks to realise how lucky they were to be joined at the hip to metropolitan brain power, enterprise and major trading partners. But there is a whopping irony in all of this, and I doubt first minister Nicola Sturgeon finds it of the delicious variety. Historically, Scotland has always been more enthusiastic about Europe – and still is. The polls for staying in regularly top 60%. The first minister has said that she will campaign vigorously for remaining in the EU, even if, like Jeremy Corbyn, her reasoning is predicated more on social and employment policies. So imagine the joy with which she, and most of the erstwhile yes campaigners, view the prospect of spending the next few months metaphorically in bed with Team Dave, while Boris’s battalions urge voters to rise up and be a nation again. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.',
 'Viral video: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Adele, Golden Globes This week was dominated by the untimely deaths of two stars – David Bowie and Alan Rickman. Both died at the age of 69, and both leave bodies of work that have been widely shared by their fans in the wake of their passing. Bowie’s death was marked by many fans with an animated GIF rather than a video – illustrator Helen Green’s striking drawings of the star’s hairstyles throughout his career. Created to mark the Thin White Duke’s 68th birthday, it became one of the defining image of his death almost exactly a year later. In terms of video, it’s impossible to give more than a taste here of Bowie’s legacy in video, from Space Oddity to Ashes to Ashes to the singles from his latest album Blackstar. Bowie videos broke Adele’s record for the most views in a day on video platform Vevo, with his clips watched 51 million times on Monday. They were led by Bowie’s most recent single, Lazarus, which features the opening line “Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got scars that can’t be seenâ€\x9d. The lyrics took on a new resonance in the wake of the star’s death, while fans scoured the video for references to his career, with some pointing to the skull on the desk (also in the Blackstar promo) and others highlighting that his clothes as he gets into the wardrobe are was identical to an outfit from 1976’s The Man Who Fell To Earth. Arguably one of the best Bowie videos is also the simplest – Mick Rock’s 1971 promo for Life on Mars? Featuring the star with striking red hair and piercing blue eyeshadow, it allows his personality to shine straight through the screen. Fellow musicians’ tributes to Bowie also made waves this week, with Madonna singing Rebel Rebel live in Houston and Elton John performing a piano piece echoing Space Odyssey. Amid all the gloom surrounding Bowie’s death, it’s easy to forget that the singer had a great sense of humour and did a string of turns sending up his cool image, from a voice role in a Spongebob Squarepants movie to a cameo on Zoolander. Perhaps the best is his appearance in Ricky Gervais’s Extras, with the star mocking the comic as a “chubby little loser, national jokeâ€\x9d. Here’s an interview in which Bowie gives a deadpan account of his cameo. Although he did his share of serious theatical roles, Rickman was also notable for his comic appearances. As well as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, he played the deliciously evil Hans Gruber in Die Hard. But perhaps his most memorable comic appearance was as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, where he pretty much steals the show fom Kevin Kostner with lines such as “Locksley! I’ll cut your heart out with a spoon!â€\x9d Another standout moment was Rickman’s voiceover for Marvin the robot in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, a masterclass in comic misery. His line “I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressedâ€\x9d echoed the feelings of many fans this week. Sunday’s Golden Globes provided plenty of headlines this week, from Ricky Gervais ribbing the audience to Jennifer Lawrence telling off a reporter for looking at his phone during a press conference. But the highlight for many viewers was the glimpse of Leonardo DiCaprio’s face as Lady Gaga brushed past on her way to pick up best actress for American Horror Story. His look of horror as the singer appears next to him is a million miles away from a Poker Face. Finally, the week’s most-shared video was Adele’s appearnce in James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke slot. Hearing the Hello star belt out the Spice Girls’ Wannabe is a highlight while her rap of Nicki Minaj’s Monster shows her talents reach beyond singing. 1) Adele Carpool Karaoke She’s no wannabe 2) Leonardo DiCaprio vs Lady Gaga at the Golden Globes Shady behaviour 3) Saoirse Ronan Tries To Teach Stephen Colbert An Irish Accent Brooklyn brogue 4) EL VY & Stay Human Pay Tribute To David Bowie Let’s dance with Stephen Colbert 5) Snowboarding An Empty Water Park Liquid moves 6) The Path on Hulu Teaser Trailer #1 (Official) New show from Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul looks like cult viewing 7) Mulder, Scully and Jimmy Kimmel in The X-Files David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson embrace their return 8) 1 Day Old Sea Otter Trying to Sleep on Mom Cute overload 9) “Tonight Show Celebrity Photobombâ€\x9d with Jimmy Fallon and Sesame Street Look out for the “double cookieâ€\x9d 10) Dog Knocks Another Dog Off of Couch Canine catastrophe',
 'Benicio del Toro set to take on Predator Sicario star Benicio del Toro is set to take the lead in the latest Predator film, according to Deadline. Currently titled The Predator, this will be the fourth in the series featuring the invisible, bloodthirsty alien, which was put on the map by the 1987 original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. (There are also two crossover Alien vs Predator films, released in 2004 and 2007.) This latest version will be directed by Shane Black, currently riding high after the success of Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys. Black also had a small role in the first Predator film, as part of Schwarzenegger’s special forces crew (and the first one to be killed by the alien). No plot details have yet emerged, but Schwarzenegger criticised the franchise in a Reddit interview, saying the films following his original hit were “not satisfactoryâ€\x9d.',
 'Wheelchairs have come a long way – shame the NHS hasn’t Gone are the days of clunky wheelchairs seemingly designed to hinder as much as to help – at least for some. The latest promising development in the disability world comes from ex-Royal Marine Phillip Eaglesham, who was almost paralysed after contracting Q-fever on his last day in Afghanistan. When he began to lose strength, he used a Segway to get around and realised how helpful its versatility was. Now that he cannot use one, he has designed a new chair that copies some of the Segway’s features to allow wheelchair users to manoeuvre easily and, most importantly, raise themselves up to eye-level and have a decent conversation. My electric wheelchair is nowhere near as cool, but I can raise myself to just below standard eye-height. It’s hard to express how much this helps me have a normal life. Yes, of course it means that I can reach things on shelves and whatnot. But it also means I can do typical twentysomething activities such as introduce myself in a noisy environment or even, God forbid, sit at a bar. Without it, crowded places such as clubs become a nightmare, as does meeting new people. People are conditioned to notice others of a standard height and to patronise those whose heads are more at the level of a child’s. My cerebral palsy makes it hard to project my voice, so being able to raise myself up allows me to engage with others as an equal. Yet the relevant authorities do not believe that features such as this are important. The NHS wheelchair service will only provide wheelchairs that meet medical needs; independence and social needs are ignored. The result is that decent wheelchairs, and by extension a decent quality of life, are reserved for those who can afford them – and they can be prohibitively expensive. The new design is projected to cost a tidy £10,000. My friend Anna has spinal muscular atrophy, and relies on a highly specialised chair that can transform into a standing frame to help retain her muscle strength. Last year her old chair malfunctioned – throwing her to the ground, leaving her with sprained ankles. Since then, while she fundraises for a replacement, she has been given a manual chair that she cannot move at all, and a borrowed powerchair that does not meet her needs. The model she needs, that will allow her to go about her daily life, costs £24,000. The NHS provided a voucher for £1,295, the cost of its standard chair. This barely makes a dent in the total sum needed. Over a year later, Anna is finally ready to order the right chair. Others may not be able to work so hard to raise money. For some disabled people, our wheelchairs are the substitute for our legs. Yet the way we treat disabled people is like asking someone who has broken both legs to pay for the operation to fix the second break – and this from a government that aims to get more of us in work, while remaining indifferent to helping us do so. Inventions like Eaglesham’s have the potential to make disabled people’s lives much better. But with so many people unable to access a chair that is even remotely suited to their lives and needs, progress seems far off. As technology improves, the possibility of better equipment grows, but so does the gap between those who can and cannot afford it. Only the state can level this cruel inequality.',
 'Spike Lee to boycott the 2016 Oscars over lack of nominee diversity Spike Lee is to boycott the 2016 Oscars over the US Academy’s failure to nominate a single black actor for the second year running. Lee received an honorary Oscar at a ceremony in November last year for his work as a film-maker. But writing on Instagram on Monday, the director of Do the Right Thing and Chi-Raq said he had decided not to attend the main event. “I would like to thank president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for awarding me an honorary Oscar this past November,â€\x9d he wrote. “I am most appreciative. However my wife, Mrs Tonya Lewis Lee and I will not be attending the Oscar ceremony this coming February. We cannot support it and mean no disrespect to my friends, host Chris Rock and producer Reggie Hudlin, president Isaacs and the Academy. But, how is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let’s not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all. We can’t act?! WTF!!â€\x9d It was not clear if Lee was responding to Jada Pinkett Smith’s tweeted suggestion on Saturday that a boycott of the Oscars by ethnic minority actors might be justified. “At the Oscars … people of colour are always welcomed to give out awards … even entertain,â€\x9d Pinkett Smith wrote on Twitter. “But we are rarely recognised for our artistic accomplishments. Should people of colour refrain from participating all together? People can only treat us in the way in which we allow. With much respect in the midst of deep disappointment.â€\x9d Lee’s Chi-Raq, a critically acclaimed musical comedy about a woman who goes on sex strike to protest against black-on-black gun violence in Chicago, failed to make an impact on the current awards season despite an Oscars push by the film’s studio, Amazon. Pinkett Smith is married to the actor Will Smith, who missed out on a best actor nomination for his role in the film Concussion. Other absentees from Thursday’s list of Oscar nominees included British actor Idris Elba, who was widely expected to challenge for the best supporting actor prize following his Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild-nominated turn as an African warlord in the Netflix drama Beasts of No Nation, Benicio del Toro for Sicario and Michael B Jordan for Creed. Meanwhile, Straight Outta Compton producer Will Packer described the 2016 list of Oscar nominees as “embarrassingâ€\x9d in a lengthy Facebook post after the film’s sole nomination was handed to its white screenwriters, Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff. Boone Isaacs has described the omission of actors from ethnic minorities, which is once again being highlighted by Twitter users under the hashtag #Oscarssowhite, as “disappointingâ€\x9d.',
 'HMV moves ahead of Tesco as second biggest entertainment retailer HMV has reclaimed is position as the second biggest entertainment retailer in the UK as high street chains enjoy a revival against their online competitors. HMV recorded a 2% year-on-year rise in sales of music, DVDs and games over the last quarter, giving it a market share of 16.9%, ahead of Tesco’s 16.1%. The figures represent HMV’s best performance since it collapsed into administration more than three years ago. It was eventually rescued by Hilco, the investment firm. Overall, sales of entertainment products in bricks-and-mortar shops fell by 2% during the 12 weeks to 10 April, according to Kantar Worldpanel. However, online retailers suffered a much larger decline, with sales down by 12%. Amazon, the country’s biggest entertainment retailer, saw its sales fall by 0.6% year-on-year, reducing its market share from 22.6% to 22%. Analysts said that high street entertainment stores were being underpinned by music and video games. One-in-four customers still only buy CDs, while 77% of video games were bought at shops during the quarter. Tesco and Game achieved their biggest share of video game sales for five years. This helped high street stores and supermarkets to claim 69.8% of spending on all physical entertainment products, up from 67.5% a year ago. Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar, said: “Despite recent high profile casualties for high street fashion retailers the performance of bricks and mortar entertainment stores has demonstrated the strong appeal this channel still holds for consumers. “Some 14% of the population now has a music subscription service and paid-for Spotify subscriptions are growing at 25%. Yet the CD is still the most popular way to consume music content. “Such a strong performance from HMV has not been seen since it entered administration in 2013. HMV has really focused on creating an in-store environment that stimulates and excites consumers like it did in its heyday. “This focus is clearly reflected in the fact that over half of its sales this quarter came from customers who hadn’t planned to make a purchase – significantly higher than the market average of 38%.â€\x9d Across the industry, music sales dipped by 1% during the period, with DVDs down 6% and games down 8%. Popular products include David Bowie’s albums Blackstar and Best of Bowie following his death in January, as well as the compilation Now That’s What I Call Music! 93 and Adele’s 25. The best-selling DVD during the period was Spectre, the latest James Bond film, which has sold more than 1.7m copies since it went on sale in February.',
 "Even the pro-Remain newspapers are sceptical about Osborne's 'dossier' Does anyone really believe George Osborne’s warning that leaving the European Union would plunge Britain into instant recession, result in 820,000 job losses and force up the price of foreign holidays? Even a leading Remain campaigner, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon, thought such “fear-basedâ€\x9d predictions were insulting to the intelligence of the electorate. Sturgeon’s statement was headlined in the , the Times and Metro. It was noticeable that the pro-European Union Daily Mirror appeared sceptical enough to give Boris Johnson’s reaction - “These types of prophecies are not credibleâ€\x9d - top billing in its news report. And the Europhile Independent ran a piece that also questioned the claims: “Five problems with the Treasury’s economic analysis of the impact of Brexitâ€\x9d. The pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph lamented that a “proudly impartial civil serviceâ€\x9d had produced a report that “could in no way be called open-minded.â€\x9d On its news page, the paper reported that the prime minister was facing threats of cabinet resignations and it quoted Johnson, who accused Cameron and Osborne of “scaremongeringâ€\x9d. It was not alone in revealing the depth of the split within the Conservative party. The Daily Mail’s splash, “Knives out for Cameronâ€\x9d, reported that “dozens of Tory MPs are threatening to topple David Cameronâ€\x9d following “the latest Brexit ‘dodgy’ dossier row.â€\x9d It said unnamed backbenchers were predicting a vote of no-confidence in their leader after the referendum vote. But it also quoted several named critics: former defence secretary Liam Fox, Commons leader Chris Grayling, former chancellors Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont, plus backbencher Bernard Jenkin. It also mentioned the tweet by the Tory MP for Yeovil, Marcus Fysh, who called the Treasury analysis “specious bollocksâ€\x9d (though the paper used asterisks). That tweet was seized on by the Sun, which ran a poster-style front page headlined “Never mind the b*!!**ksâ€\x9d. It said a “furious Tory backlashâ€\x9d over Osborne’s “doomsday dossier on Brexitâ€\x9d had taken the party to “breaking pointâ€\x9d, with two ministers threatening to quit. But it was the Telegraph that carried news giving the greatest heart to the Remain campaign by leading its front page with the results of its opinion poll. The ORB survey put Remain on 55% and Leave on 42% among voters who say they will vote. Among all voters, the Remain campaign was favoured by 58%. According to the poll, there has been “a collapse in support for Brexitâ€\x9d, with older voters, Conservative supporters and men moving into the Remain camp. The paper carried an analysis of the poll result by Lynton Crosby, the Tory party strategist, in which he wrote that one of the largest shifts in voting intention has occurred among Tory voters. In March, 60% were intending to vote Leave compared with 34% for Remain. Now the figures have moved to 57% as against 40%. Crosby concluded: “The Remain campaign should view these advancements as affirmation that the focus and messaging of its campaign is working. If Leave is to regain any lost ground, it must start paying attention to the numbers and capitalise on its strengths - its steadfast lead on immigration and the way uncontrolled immigration is seen more widely as a symbol of the country’s loss of control of its sovereignty to Europe, coupled with the enthusiasm of their base.â€\x9d The Sun’s lengthy leading article preferred to point to the decision by Cameron’s former aide, Steve Hilton, to back Brexit after saying “membership of the EU makes Britain literally ungovernable.â€\x9d It poured scorn on Osborne: “Either the chancellor’s forecasts are credible, in which case holding the vote is a monstrous act of negligence, or he doesn’t believe them himself and is in the business of whipping up hysteria. No prizes for guessing which we go for.â€\x9d For the Sun, “Remain’s tactics have been a dark mix of fiction and fear plus a vicious smearing of their opponents.â€\x9d I think that final sentence would win an award for irony.",
 'Sampha review – a polite, pulsing performance cuts to the core Sampha’s always been about the voice. Diehard fans may have been following the 27-year-old producer and musician’s work since his 2010 Sundanza EP, but most listeners will know him more for the husky vocals slathered like a soothing paste on to other people’s singles. Whether adding depth to Jessie Ware’s 2013 single Valentine, landing the emotive suckerpunch on Drake co-write Too Much or lending longtime collaborator SBTRKT’s clubland tracks their hooks, Sampha’s distinctive vocal texture has become a brand of its own. In between songs tonight, that voice is initially polite. After kicking off with forthcoming debut album opener Plastic 100°C, he thanks the crowd for being here and gives a quick shout out to friends and family – really, he sounds more like a respectful birthday party host than headliner of a sold-out show on home turf. But once he and his band launch into their thumping, electrofunk rendition of Under, you remember just why he’s earned enough of a reputation to pack out a venue before he’s even released a solo album. He has a beautiful knack for combining what was originally seen as a “nu-soulâ€\x9d sensibility with deeply personal lyrical themes that cut right into the wobbly core of our vulnerabilities. The show undulates in energy, pulsing while he belts out Blood on Me, then pulling back to vocals-and-keys simplicity on Can’t Get Close and crowd-pleaser Too Much. And whenever the band sound momentarily shaky, Sampha whips out the trick that keeps it all together: that trembling, creaking, howling voice.',
 "Malcolm Middleton's playlist: Avicii, Ellie Goulding and more Betty Boo – Hangover A classic 90s pop song that I always return to. Her second album was pretty diverse and dark, I think this should’ve been the start of her career as a performer, not the end. She did continue writing for other folk, mind you. Avicii – Wake Me Up I hated this song for ages before lightening up and listening to it properly. It gets me every time, and I wish I could write songs like this, but with more personal lyrics. I guess I’ve tried to on Summer of ‘13, but I’m not quite there yet. My song Big Black Hole couldhave been an attempt at a massive pop hit if I’d taken Gordon [Anderson]’s advice and used the hook more. I’m too obtuse though. Tegan and Sara – I Was a Fool This also influenced Big Black Hole. I wanted some kind of pure, pristine, piano-led pop hook. I wrote the motif to fit a song I already had and then sourced some R&B presets – voila. I’m not a huge fan of these guys as, like always when I find a song I love by an artist, it turned out to be a one-off. Ellie Goulding – Burn When my son was born, we’d watch lots of early-morning music TV. This was always on. Not a great song, but the ideas seeped into what I was writing at the time. So yeah, I’m with the times (2013). The Good Natured – Wolves I don’t think this band exists anymore, or even released an album. But I love a lot of their early songs: no-nonsense pop, massive chorus, sense of urgency. They’ve been a big influence on me recently as they have such a stripped-back way of making great songs. It must be a sign of good songwriting.",
 'Trump campaign reportedly vetting Christie, Gingrich as potential running mates – as it happened Donald Trump’s first town hall event featured him interrupting his first questioner, a self-described “manufacturing guy,â€\x9d three times, although the questioners got the last laugh: “Number one: I’m opposed to the murder of unborn babies being legal,â€\x9d a man asked (said?). “Number two: I’m opposed to our wasting our military in the Middle East on behalf of Zionist Israel.â€\x9d Trump, slightly flummoxed at the two issues being brought up at an address putatively about US trade policy, responded to the second comment. “Lemme just tell you that Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States, and we are going to protect them 100%. One-hundred percent,â€\x9d Trump said. “It’s our true friend over there, and we are going to protect Israel 100%.â€\x9d He also suggested that a passing plane might be a Mexican fighter jet: On the heels of (relatively less-well respected) Rasmussen’s survey depicting Trump up four points, (relatively well respected) Reuters/Ipsos releases the latest edition of their weekly tracking poll and it has Clinton up 10 points, 42-32. Whom to believe? The averages, we’re taught. RealClearPolitics hasn’t incorporated the latest Reuters yet and has Clinton up 4.9 points. HuffPost Pollster has baked in both Rasmussen and Reuters and has Clinton up 6.9 points. François Hollande of France, he of the 17% approval rating, told Les Echos that a Donald Trump presidency would be dangerous and “the best service the Democrats could render would be to get Hillary Clinton elected.â€\x9d She’ll want to get this right into her swing-state ad buys. Vermont senator and perpetual presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been granted his second 45-day extension to file personal financial disclosure reports, putting the latest deadline for Sanders to file the forms well after the conclusion of next month’s Democratic National Convention. The request, filed with the Federal Election Commission today by the campaign’s legal counsel, cites Sanders’ “ current campaign schedule & officeholder dutiesâ€\x9d as the reason for the delay in filing the required report, which would provide limited detail of the senator’s assets and liabilities. Vice president Joe Biden told NPR News that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders plans on endorsing Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid: Donald Trump will be speaking on Sean Hannity’s show in ten minutes: Speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, earlier this afternoon, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump jokes about Mexico attacking the US. Pointing out a plane flying overheard, he said: “That could be a Mexican plane up there.â€\x9d Trump has consistently criticised Mexico during his campaign and has pledged to build a wall between the two nations should he be elected president. Donald Trump may not be a fan of journalism, but he’s apparently a big subscriber to blind-item gossip columns. In a radio interview with Boston’s Howie Carr, Trump was asked about rumors that MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are romantically involved. Trump’s response: Well, I haven’t seen that, but I, I heard it was in the New York Post. And the New York Post gets it right. So, they even endorsed me. So when I got an endorsement from the New York Post, I like them even more. When I saw that, it was - people are talking about that. That’s good, I hope they’re happy. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was once a darling of the morning show, but had a falling-out after Brzezinski apparently sided with House speaker Paul Ryan when he initially refused to endorse Trump’s candidacy. Video explainer: Transgender people can now openly serve in the US military, defense secretary Ash Carter announced this afternoon. The historic change in military policy means that transgender individuals can no longer be separated, discharged, or denied re-enlistment or continuation of service just for being transgender. Donald Trump’s campaign is honing in on potential running mates for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The two men reportedly at the top of the list: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie. According to the Washington Post, the two experienced politicians are joined on the short list by a half-dozen or so potential running mates, but both Gingrich and Christie have been asked to submit documents to the vetting committee, and with less than three weeks before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland begins. The list is rounded by by Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, Tennesee senator Bob Corker and Indiana governor Mike Pence. Both Gingrich and Christie present their bonuses and complications to a potential Trump ticket. Gingrich, a former speaker of the house, would add government experience and a long history in Washington to Trump’s inexperienced candidacy, but would undercut his outsider message, and, like Trump, is on his third marriage. Christie, known as a pugnacious debater, would fulfill the traditional “attack dogâ€\x9d role as a running mate, but his tenure as governor of New Jersey has been checkered by controversies. Donald Trump has made his support for Brexit a standard stump line in the past week, but his voters have been left with a less than clear idea of the implications of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Trump, who was one of the few international political figures to actively support those seeking to leave the European Union, touted the referendum decision as a “great victoryâ€\x9d in a press conference in Scotland the morning after the result. He has since bragged that “Crooked Hillary Clinton got Brexit wrongâ€\x9d and praised the vote as a decision by British voters to “take back control of their economy, politics and bordersâ€\x9d in a major speech on trade policy Tuesday afternoon. He has even insisted he “stood with the people on the referendum while his Democratic rival “as always stood with the elitesâ€\x9d. Trump has gone on to tie the vote to his own presidential campaign, saying: “Now it’s time for the American people to take back their future.â€\x9d Many of his supporters at a rally in a college gymnasium in Ohio shared Trump’s support for Brexit, seeing the vote as a step towards Great Britain being liberated from Europe. Cathy Brown, a Trump voter who drove seven hours from outside Richmond, Virginia, though British voters “made a good choice to become freeâ€\x9d. She celebrated the fact that the vote “means that people can make their own choices they can decide on a lot of things that were decided for themâ€\x9d. In her opinion, British voters will now “have sayâ€\x9d on issues like “trade and open bordersâ€\x9d. Brown also dismissed concerns about the impact the deal will have on the US because now “we’ll be able to work out a deal that’s better to put us to work and get our people goingâ€\x9d with the UK. A new poll shows presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by double digits in a key swing state - and the gap remained much the same when third-party candidates were included in the survey. According to the latest Loras College poll, 48% of Iowa voters say that they support Clinton, compared to 34% who support Trump in a head-to-head matchup between the two candidates, a 14-point lead for the former secretary of state. When Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Jill Stein were added to the survey, Clinton’s lead narrowed slightly, 44% to Trump’s 31%, with Johnson winning 6% of Hawkeye State voters and Stein winning 2%. A full 9% of Republicans surveyed told Loras that they would definitely or probably vote for Johnson instead of Trump, a massive outpouring of support for a third-party candidate. “For Trump to win Iowa in November, he is going to need to attract those potential Johnson voters and the undecided,â€\x9d said Christopher Budzisz, the poll’s director, in a statement. “While Clinton doesn’t appear right now as vulnerable to a loss of votes to a third party candidate, she does face her own potential pitfalls.â€\x9d In March, Donald Trump called NATO “obsoleteâ€\x9d and said it would “have to be readjusted to take care of terrorism.â€\x9d Vice president Joe Biden has told NPR News that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders plans on endorsing Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid: Al Gore’s daughter was among 23 people arrested during a protest of a pipeline under construction. The arrests happened yesterday at the site of Spectra Energy’s West Roxbury Lateral pipeline in Boston. Karenna Gore was among demonstrators who tried to block construction activity on the site by lying in a trench dug for the pipeline and refusing to move until firefighters removed them, said protest group Resist the Pipeline & Stop the West Roxbury Lateral. The group opposes the pipeline because of safety and climate change concerns. Video: This afternoon, the US military ended its ban on openly transgender service members, in a speech given by US defense secretary Ash Carter. Carter said effective immediately, US service members would be able to serve openly and could not be discharged simply based on gender identity. Here’s video of Donald Trump being questioned about Muslims working at airport security: Trump’s response: “We are looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.â€\x9d Donald Trump, on a “Mexican planeâ€\x9d getting “ready to attackâ€\x9d: A woman asks Donald Trump to get rid of Transportation Security Administration workers with “heeby jobbiesâ€\x9d at US airports, an apparent reference to hijabs, veils that cover the hair and neck of observant Muslim women. Trump dodges, moving to airport security overall, and the event is over. The fourth question - well, technically the third question, since Trump never allowed the first person to ask a question - comes from a man who says “we have something in common: respect for human life.â€\x9d Trump nods reticently. “Number one: I’m opposed to the murder of unborn babies being legal,â€\x9d the man says. “Number two: I’m opposed to our wasting our military in the Middle East on behalf of Zionist Israel.â€\x9d Trump, slightly flummoxed at the two issues being brought up at an address putatively about US trade policy, responds to the second comment. “Lemme just tell you that Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States, and we are going to protect them 100%. One-hundred percent,â€\x9d Trump says. “It’s our true friend over there, and we are going to protect Israel 100%.â€\x9d “As to number one, we are all with you,â€\x9d Trump says succinctly. “Wow, that was nasty! Are we all with Israel? Man!â€\x9d Trump says, shaking his head, before taking another question. A questioner asks Donald Trump about the likely “corporate backlashâ€\x9d of international companies who won’t be too keen on cutting into their profits by manufacturing and consuming within the United States. “You’re gonna have a backlash where maybe people are gonna move from New Hampshire, but they’re gonna move to another state. Plenty to choose from!â€\x9d Trump says. “My tax plan is cutting business taxes way down, and cutting taxes for middle income and everybody way down.â€\x9d “We’re gonna simplify our tax code, number one, and we’re gonna cut our taxes. We’re at the highest tax, we’re just about he highest taxes in the world,â€\x9d Trump says, saying that “we’re gonna make corporations wanna come back.â€\x9d “Companies are actually leaving the United States and going to other countries to pick up their money cause they can’t get their money in. And that money could be used to rebuild the United States!â€\x9d Trump says. “We’re gonna bring our money into the United States - trillions of dollars, we bring it into the United States!â€\x9d “We will do things that are going to be so miraculous - and it’ll be fast! You know, it won’t take a long period of time.â€\x9d Donald Trump’s first town hall event features him interrupting his first questioner, a self-described “manufacturing guy,â€\x9d three times. Still no idea what his question was, although it seemed to be headed towards creating a culture of domestic consumption of goods. Another questioner, an impassioned man whose company manufactured police badges before he lost business to China, calls current trade issues “unfair.â€\x9d “What are you gonna do for us?â€\x9d “We don’t play the game they play the game - they play the game to win, we play the game to survive,â€\x9d Trump says of China. “We’re gonna start playing the game to win. So just hang in there - I know it’s not easy, but just hang in their, man.â€\x9d Donald Trump, speaking at a shuttered factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, emphasizes the importance of walking away from a deal as a negotiating tactic, citing the Iranian nuclear agreement as an example of a situation where his school of negotiation is superior to that of Secretary of State John Kerry. “He never walked - he lost every single point,â€\x9d Trump says. “We shoulda said no way, we shoulda left the room, we shoulda said we’re doubling your sanctions, and they would have been back on the television saying ‘please come back!’â€\x9d “I want great deals for this country,â€\x9d Donald Trump says in Manchester, New Hampshire. “Here’s my stance on trading: I wanna make great deals for the United States. Call it fair trade, call it free trade, call it whatever you want.â€\x9d “If companies leave… there’s going to be consequences,â€\x9d Trump continues. “They’re not gonna make their air conditioners in Mexico, send ’em into the United States… and there’s no consequence. Well, now there’s a consequence. The consequence is now they’re going to pay a 35% tax.â€\x9d “We’re either going to keep ’em here, or they’re going to lose a hell of a lot of money,â€\x9d Trump continues. “It’s very simple. They wanna go to another country, they gotta pay a tax to get their stuff back to this county.â€\x9d Donald Trump, speaking at a former Osram Sylvania manufacturing plant in Manchester New Hampshire, ties manufacturing woes to trade deals “pushed throughâ€\x9d by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. “Hillary Clinton pushed through the trade deal with South Korea that killed another 100,000 jobs, and she pushed it through,â€\x9d Trump says. “We protect them - we have 28,000 soldiers on the line between North and South. And what happens, what happens if there’s a war? We get involved.â€\x9d “They are an economic behemoth - and we protect them, and they don’t reimburse us for what it’s costing,â€\x9d Trump says. (Military officials have protested the idea that returning soldiers to the US would be cheaper than keeping them abroad.) “When you have large numbers of unemployed bc workers, incomes go down across the country - just across the entire country. It just affects so much and so many other people, so many other lives and so many other businesses,â€\x9d Trump continues. “Our whole standard of living goes down - we have workers for 18 years, they haven’t received an increase.â€\x9d “It’s a much better system, the way it used to be,â€\x9d Trump says, of domestic production of goods that cost the consumer more. “We’re better off if they’re not quite as cheap.â€\x9d At the former Osram Sylvania plant in Manchester, New Hampshire, Donald Trump recalls other closed manufacturing operations in the region while reading statistics and names from a sheet of paper on his lecture. “People from Mexico took their jobs,â€\x9d Trump says, of a closed Ethan Allen manufacturing plant. “Regional job losses have been fantastically poor, fantastically bad and disgraceful.â€\x9d “It’s just, it’s not very hard to explain, it’s not very hard to understand. What is very difficult is to figure out why people did this. Why? ... We have a $500 billion trade deficit with China, a massive trade deficit with Japan,â€\x9d Trump says. “They send us millions of cars, we send them beef. You oughta take a look at a chart sometime, take a look at the difference between what we send them and what they send us.â€\x9d “That could be a Mexican plane up there - they could be getting ready to attack,â€\x9d Trump says, responding to an overhead plane. Donald Trump mentions the heroin crisis facing states like New Hampshire, shocked that hard drugs could be a problem in a state with beautiful natural features. “You look at these beautiful trees and these beautiful streams and these beautiful lakes? This is not heroin country,â€\x9d Trump says. Trump also promises the group that he will “take a few questions,â€\x9d making this, as far as we can recall, Trump’s first town hall-style meeting since he became the Republican party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is holding an event - initially reported as an address on trade, but currently postulated as a “town hallâ€\x9d-style event - in Manchester, New Hampshire: The event, which is not open to the public, is sparsely attended. Donald Trump is running late to his campaign event in New Hampshire today, possibly because he is tweeting responses to an NBC News story that questions whether his campaign has filed the required documents to forgive the $50 million in loans he has personally provided to his presidential campaign: Vermont senator and perpetual presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been granted his second 45-day extension to file personal financial disclosure reports, putting the latest deadline for Sanders to file the forms well after the conclusion of next month’s Democratic National Convention. The request, filed with the Federal Election Commission today by the campaign’s legal counsel, cites Sanders’ “ current campaign schedule & officeholder dutiesâ€\x9d as the reason for the delay in filing the required report, which would provide limited detail of the senator’s assets and liabilities. The new deadline for filing the disclosure reports is now in the middle of August. Fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, assigned to chair the New Hampshire delegation to the Republican convention, is at the Trump event in New Hampshire. Semper fidelis. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a race. If your only sources of information are the Drudge Report and Donald Trump’s Super Pac. Following an appearance Tuesday by president Barack Obama with Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, vice president Joe Biden will join Clinton Friday in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Anyone had enough Thursday poll numbers yet? But wait there’s more. RABA Research, which gets a B- in FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings, gives Clinton a slight 41-38 lead in a new poll of voters in Ohio, which a Republican has never won the White House without winning. Ohio voters supporter governor John Kasich’s decision not to endorse Trump by a margin of 48-39, the poll found. A last tidbit from Trump’s Mike Gallagher interview this morning. The candidate is talking about the difficulty he has had wringing endorsements out of some former rivals and other influential Republicans. “It’s almost – in some ways, like, I’m running against two parties,â€\x9d Trump says. Again via CBS News’ Sopan Deb: The Libertarian presidential ticket of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld offers “a credible alternative to Clintrumpâ€\x9d in a new video ad. They talk about their records as governor – cutting taxes, building schools, balancing budgets, reducing unemployment – and their successes as Republicans in blue states. “They think like America thinks,â€\x9d the ad says, billing the pair as “two of the most successful governors working together for a better America.â€\x9d “The difference between the two of us and the other candidates running for president is that we’ve been there, and done that,â€\x9d the pair takes turns saying. The tag line: “What say, America, you in?â€\x9d (h/t: @bencjacobs) The Donald Trump campaign has changed its plans for his Manchester, New Hampshire, event this afternoon. Instead of a speech about trade closed to the public, Trump will hold a town hall open to the public, the campaign now says: More state polling, more iffy – no let’s just call it bad – news for Trump. This time it’s Loras College with Clinton up 14 points, 48-34, in Iowa. Trump’s unfavorability in the poll is 69%. There’s actual election news, meanwhile, in Iowa, where the state supreme court has ruled against an an expansion of voting rights for convicted criminals, the Des Moines Register reports: The 4-3 decision upholds what critics say is one of the harshest felon disenfranchisement laws in the nation, and means the state will not see a significant shift in voter eligibility ahead of the 2016 election. Bernie Sanders has received an additional 45-day extension on filing a personal financial disclosure report. “There is good cause for this extension due to Senator Sanders’ current campaign schedule and officeholder duties,â€\x9d his lawyer writes: Asked about the impromptu (?) Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch meeting, White House press secretary Josh Earnest says Lynch’s work speaks for itself, the New York Times reports: New state-level polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research points up potential flaws in Donald Trump’s strategy to remake the electoral map by winning Rust Belt states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Hillary Clinton leads Trump by 15 points in Michigan and nine points in Pennsylvania, the pollster finds: Trump’s plan to win New York state looks even worse in a new Siena College poll of Empire state voters. It gives Clinton a 23-point, 54-31 lead. The GQR poll’s 11-point lead for Clinton in Florida marks the third time this month a survey has found Clinton ahead by double digits in the state, FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten points out: People with local knowledge don’t quite believe all GQR’s numbers, however. Nevada journalism dean Jon Ralston thinks Clinton is up by “middle single digitsâ€\x9d in the state, instead of tied with Trump, as GQR depicts: Trump, for his part, registered surprise Thursday morning that he was not doing better in the polls. Trump told radio interviewer Mike Gallagher, “I go to Ohio, we were there two days ago, and Pennsylvania and near Pittsburgh and we – I was in West Virginia, the crowds are massive. And you know, I walked out of one and I said, ‘I don’t see how I’m not leading.’ You know, you see the kinds of crowds. We have thousands of people standing outside trying to get in... And I’m saying, you know, ‘Why am I not doing better in the polls?’ The Donald Trump campaign is more than doubling its roster of pollsters, with three new hires who previously backed the Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Rick Perry presidential campaigns, respectively, the New York Times reports: Kellyanne Conway, a veteran pollster who has had a long working relationship with Mr. Trump, is among those joining the effort.[...] Mr. Trump’s team is also expected to bring on Adam Geller, who works with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, and Michael Baselice, who was the pollster for former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and for the state’s governor now, Greg Abbott. Trump previously paid two pollsters. The Democratic national committee has denied a report that the party is looking into options for moving Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech at the national convention in Philadelphia from the Wells Fargo Center (seats 19,500) to a larger venue. The BillyPenn local media site exclusively reported that the Democrats were looking for a larger venue, quoting US Representative Bob Brady: Philly Congressman Bob Brady said nothing has been finalized but “there’s talk about it. “It’s a good idea by the way, too,â€\x9d said Brady, who is honorary vice chair of the DNC. “It engages people and gets people involved.â€\x9d But a DNC press secretary told BillPenn, “This is absolutely incorrect. There is no talk of changing venue.â€\x9d CBS News’ Sopan Deb flags a section from Trump’s Mike Gallagher interview in which the candidate is invited to weigh in on the Supreme Court’s striking down a restrictive Texas abortion law three days ago. “You wouldn’t see thatâ€\x9d under a Trump presidency, Trump says. “And - and people understand that.â€\x9d Hillary Clinton’s top aide’s husband likes the idea of a Christie pick: The Republicans are ready to nominate Trump for president and Democrats are doubting their luck? New Jersey governor Chris Christie is being vetted as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, CNN reports. Mike Murphy, who ran Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise political action committee, says guessing whom Trump will pick is hard: Here’s a shortcut to get the Christie vetters started: April 2016: Christie has lowest job approval rating to date, poll shows A new Rutgers Eagleton survey released Thursday found the governor’s approval has dipped to 26 percent, a drop of three percentage points since quitting the presidential race in February. François Hollande of France, he of the 17% approval rating, told Les Echos that a Donald Trump presidency would be dangerous and “the best service the Democrats could render would be to get Hillary Clinton elected.â€\x9d She’ll want to get this right into her swing-state ad buys. Hollande tells the interviewer that a Trump presidency would complicate European-US relations and says that Trump’s slogans differ little from those of the extreme right in Europe and in France: fear of migration, stigmatization of Islam, challenging representative democracy and denouncing elites, even though Trump himself is a wealthy elite. In a radio interview snagged by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, Donald Trump weighs in on the chance (?) Bill Clinton - Loretta Lynch meeting in Phoenix on Tuesday. Trump says the meeting shows how “the system is riggedâ€\x9d and calls it one of the biggest stories of the year: “It is an amazing thing. I heard about it last night,â€\x9d Trump says on the Mike Gallagher Show. “They actually went onto the plane as I understand it. And it was really a sneak. And it was really something they didn’t want publicized. “I think it’s so terrible. I think it’s so horrible. I think it’s the biggest story, one of the biggest stories of this week, of this month, of this year. [...] “It’s a massive story now. It’s all over the place.â€\x9d Like Maine, Nebraska splits its electoral votes by congressional district. Two go to the state winner and one goes to the winner of each congressional district. In 2008 Barack Obama snagged an electoral vote in Nebraska’s second congressional district – Omaha and environs. But they voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. Clinton is hoping to take Omaha back for the Democrats. The campaign has announced it will begin airing two ads in the district focusing on Clinton’s “dedication to helping childrenâ€\x9d and on the children’s health insurance program, which Clinton helped create as first lady. Here’s the CHIPs ad: Polling! Am I right? On the heels of (relatively less-well respected) Rasmussen’s survey depicting Trump up four points, (relatively well respected) Reuters/Ipsos releases the latest edition of their weekly tracking poll and it has Clinton up 10 points, 42-32. Whom to believe? The averages, we’re taught. RealClearPolitics hasn’t incorporated the latest Reuters yet and has Clinton up 4.9 points. HuffPost Pollster has baked in both Rasmussen and Reuters and has Clinton up 6.9 points. Ipsos asked 1,247 registered voters nationally: “If the 2016 presidential election were being held today and the candidates were as below, for whom would you vote?â€\x9d In the head-to-head Clinton-Trump matchup, 14% of respondents said neither. Clinton showed 75% support among Democrats and Trump showed 70% support among Republicans. In a four-way race with the Libertarian and Green Party candidates, Clinton’s lead on Trump widened to 11 points, 42-31. Trump had a 61% unfavorability rating in the poll, compared with Clinton’s 54% unfavorability rating. The poll also asks for party preference in local congressional races. Democrats have quite a lead in the poll – 44-33. Rasmussen Reports – a pollster with a mean-reverted bias of two points toward Republicans, according to FiveThirtyEight (which gives Rasmussen a lackluster C+ in its pollster ratings) – has released a new national poll in which Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by four points, 43-39. The same poll last week had Clinton up five points, 44-39. Polling averages have Clinton up by five or seven points, depending on which average you consult. The national poll, conducted by telephone and online, surveyed 1,000 likely voters on 28-29 June. The margin of sampling error was +/- 3%. Read further here. Drudge tweeted the poll and Trump has RT’d it to his fans hungry for good polling news. Unfortunately for Trump, there’s very bad polling news ahead (stay tuned for an update on Reuters’ tracking poll)... Former president Bill Clinton “walked overâ€\x9d to a plane carrying attorney general Loretta Lynch for a chat on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport Tuesday Monday, the AP reports. With the greatest threat to his wife’s presidential campaign, in many people’s opinions, being a potentially aggressive investigation by Lynch’s justice department into Hillary Clinton’s email practices, Clinton’s decision to engage Lynch could appear inappropriate, an effort to curry favor, or, cynics might even think, to prejudice the investigation. Lynch told reporters they did not talk about the emails and did talk about his grandkids, AP reports: Lynch was traveling with her husband and said her conversation with the former president “was a great deal about his grandchildrenâ€\x9d and their travels. The former president, who recently became a grandfather for the second time, told her he had been playing golf in Arizona and they discussed former Attorney General Janet Reno, whom they both know. “There was no discussion of any matter pending for the department or any matter pending for any other body. There was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of the State Department emails, by way of example,â€\x9d Lynch said in Phoenix. Former top Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod called the meeting “foolishâ€\x9d: Republican senator John Cornyn raised the prospect of a conflict of interest on Lynch’s part: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump appears not to have filed paperwork to forgive personal loans he made to his campaign, raising questions about whether donations to the campaign could still be used to pay back Trump personally. Last week, with some fanfare, Trump announced that he was writing off $45m in debt, but “the FEC has posted no record of Trump converting his loans to donations,â€\x9d NBC News reports, and “the Trump campaign has also declined requests to share the legal paperwork required to execute the transaction, though they suggest it has been submitted.â€\x9d Fox News poll shows 9-point swing toward Clinton A Fox News poll of registered voters nationwide released late Wednesday had Hillary Clinton up 44-38 over Trump in a head-to-head matchup. The poll has been trending dramatically in Clinton’s favor in the last two months. In May, it had Trump up by three points, 45-42. Real Clear Politics’ polling averages currently have Clinton 6.1 points ahead. Republican senator not quite on Trump train Utah senator Mike Lee, the first senator to endorse Ted Cruz for president, described in unprecedented detail last night why he was not ready to endorse Trump. “We can get into that if you want,â€\x9d Lee says. Then he really gets into it: Obama: ‘If in fact Brexit goes through’ At a summit of North American leaders in Canada Wednesday, Barack Obama suggested that the Brexit might not actually happen: I think there are some general longer-term concerns about global growth if in fact Brexit goes through and that freezes the possibilities of investment in Great Britain, or in Europe as a whole. Here’s that handshake again: Speaking of Brexit, maybe keep an eye on British politics today: Trump campaign in hot water for soliciting foreign donations Trump’s campaign has been asking foreign politicians for donations to help make America great again – possibly violating federal election rules in the process. On Wednesday, two campaign finance watchdog groups, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, said they will lodge a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Trump’s campaign has violated federal law by soliciting donations from politicians in Scotland, Australia and Iceland, among others. “Donald Trump should have known better,â€\x9d said Paul S Ryan, deputy executive director of Campaign Legal Center. “It is a no-brainer that it violates the law to send fundraising emails to members of a foreign government on their official foreign government email accounts, and yet, that’s exactly what Trump has done repeatedly.â€\x9d Romney says family wants him to run Two-time Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival Wednesday that members of his family are still pushing for him to enter the race a third time as a third-party candidate, if only to thwart the accession of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump to the presidency. “My wife and kids wanted me to run again this time,â€\x9d Romney said. “I got an email from one of my sons yesterday, saying ‘You gotta get in, Dad. You gotta get in.’â€\x9d But Romney said a third-party candidate could not win and he did not sound like he was going to try. Trump has a news conference scheduled for this afternoon in Manchester, New Hampshire. He will talk more about trade, his campaign advises. Here’s Lauren Gambino’s fact check of his last trade speeches. It’s not open to the public. Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.',
 "Lord Ashcroft's Belize bank hit by wave of withdrawals An offshore bank owned by Tory donor Lord Ashcroft has closed a large number of customer accounts and faced a wave of withdrawal requests after becoming increasingly caught up in a US tax-evasion crackdown, the has learned. The value of deposits at Belize Bank International (BBI) shrank by almost three-quarters in the space of just six months, and confidential emails seen by the suggest some BBI customers have struggled to recover their cash. So stretched is the position that BBI in April told a court in Belize that it could not pay a $3.3m judgment against it without liquid assets falling below the minimum amount required by law. Ashcroft, 70, has a fortune estimated at £1.34bn after decades as an investor and deal-maker in businesses ranging from car auctions to cleaning services and offshore banking. Best known in the UK as the former Conservative party deputy chairman who fell out with David Cameron, the peer co-wrote last year a biography of the former prime minister notable for its allegations of debauched student years. Ashcroft was awarded a peerage in 2000 at the request of the party’s then leader William Hague. It later emerged, however, that a promise he had reportedly given at the time – to relinquish his controversial tax exile arrangements – had not been kept for many years. Ashcroft resigned from the House of Lords last year, but remains closely involved in British politics through his polling and publishing businesses. Ashcroft also owns the influential Tory website ConservativeHome, where he writes regularly. Contacted by the , Ashcroft’s offshore bank BBI denied it was in crisis and said it faced a short-term problem. There is no allegation that BBI evaded tax, or that the bank knowingly helped customers to do so. However, tough US anti-evasion laws have increased compliance costs for BBI’s partners, prompting Bank of America and Commerzbank to terminate relationships with the bank. The departure of these partner banks has in many instances left BBI struggling to maintain basic services for account holders. Adding to BBI’s woes, US tax inspectors revealed last September that they are investigating suspected evasion by some of the bank’s customers. The inquiry comes at an especially unhelpful time for BBI as it attempts to find replacement partner banks. BBI confirmed that “certain deposits have been returned to customersâ€\x9d, and that the loss of partner banks was “an important developmentâ€\x9d. “BBI is strong and very well-capitalised,â€\x9d a spokesman said, adding that deposit withdrawals had in fact strengthened the balance sheet. Asked about long delays on withdrawal requests, he said: “The bank is satisfied that it has fulfilled its obligations with expedition, and has done so effectively.â€\x9d However, according to documents seen by the , some customers have had to wait months for their money to be returned. One was told last June that his account was being terminated and that he should provide final wire transfer instructions within eight days. Four months later, BBI told the customer there were still “considerable delaysâ€\x9d with money transfers because of the loss of partner banks. In March, he was told: “We are currently unable to complete or execute wire transfers … You are … welcome to visit us here in Belize to withdraw the funds in person.â€\x9d More recently, BBI has suggested a customer could alternatively reapply for a Visa credit card, which he could then use to withdraw funds in batches from a cash machine. Another BBI account-holder to have complained of problems with money transfers was the Belizean arm of Mossack Fonseca, the offshore law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal. The Panama Papers, obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, were shared through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with the and other media. Leaked emails show Mossack Fonseca sought advice from a local law firm in Belize last August about its BBI bank account. The law firm replied: “BBI is closing all offshore accounts … It is a shock to us as well especially with the very short time line provided. It is the first time we are experiencing this type of situation …â€\x9d A spokesman for BBI said only selected accounts had been closed and this was part of a long-planned strategy. “Of its own volition, and in common with many other financial institutions, BBI has been engaged in a de-risking programme for several years,â€\x9d he said. “This has meant that … [certain] depositors’ funds have been repaid.â€\x9d In April, BBI bosses told the supreme court of Belize it had received unprecedented withdrawal requests. Its chairman, Lyndon Guiseppi, explained that, while the bank was financially robust, there was a short-term squeeze on cash meaning it would struggle to pay a $3.3m court judgment. He said: “If [the bank] has to make payments due under the order this will have serious consequences for the bank, the wider financial sector and the broader economy of Belize.â€\x9d Such a payment, Guiseppi added, would “stymie the bank’s ability to make payments to depositors, which the bank … is coming under increasing pressure to do so [sic].â€\x9d The crisis is blamed on big overseas banks terminating partnership arrangements, known as “correspondent banking relationshipsâ€\x9d, with BBI and other banks in Belize. These relationships provide the means by which Belize’s offshore banks can provide services to its customers around the world. According to credit ratings agency Moody’s, Bank of America and Commerzbank accounted for 80% of correspondent banking services in Belize until late last year. Belize’s prime minister, Dean Barrow, has blamed the exodus of correspondent banks on draconian regulations and unsubstantiated smears from Washington. “Current US policy is proving existentially damaging … to the [Caribbean] sub-region of which Belize is a member,â€\x9d he has said. “There are ... continuing statements classifying our jurisdictions as harmful tax havens. This is designed to put our offshore sector out of business. “It is a kind of damnation by innuendo since no bill of indictment listing any specific instances of violation is ever offered. But the implication that doing business with us is fraught with risk is crippling our jurisdictions.â€\x9d Ashcroft, Belize and BBI Ashcroft’s bank is one of the oldest in Central America, established in 1902 in what was then British Honduras. For 75 years the bank traded as a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, which – despite its name – had extensive operations around the Caribbean. In 1987, the branch was bought by Michael Ashcroft, the son of a British colonial administrator who had attended school in Belize before being sent to boarding school in Norwich. In 1990, in part after advice from Ashcroft, Belize passed laws creating an offshore financial centre. Modelled on legislation in the British Virgin Islands, this was a bold move to attract investment into the country, newly independent but economically weak. At the same time, the government granted Ashcroft’s bank a 30-year special tax break, paving the way for BBI to prosper, catering to customers outside the country. Since then, Ashcroft’s banking and related Belizean interests have become a mainstay of the tiny economy, in particular its financial services. Belize has a population of 350,000, more than 40% of whom live in poverty. Ashcroft, who owns a colonial style home on the Caribbean seafront in Belize City, was made the country’s ambassador to the UN, and in 2000 was knighted by the Queen – who remains Belize’s head of state – for services to the local community. While he is well known for his political donations in the UK, Ashcroft has also taken an active interest in Belizean politics, reportedly contributing financially to both main parties. As in the UK, he has on occasion fallen out with some Belizean politicians on specific issues, including the prime minister. Together, Ashcroft’s main Belizean business interests are listed on the London stock exchange as Caribbean Investment Holdings (CIH), though three-quarters of shares remain under Ashcroft’s ownership. In its latest annual report, CIH told investors that at the end of March last year its balance sheet was part-funded by $249m of customer deposits that could be withdrawn on demand. Of that sum, central bank data suggests, $102m was deposited by businesses and individuals with accounts at BBI. Since then, however, BBI deposits have dropped to £31m. BBI does not disclose how many deposit accounts it provides, or where its overseas customers are based. The vast majority of deposits are thought to have been made in US dollars, with a much smaller amount in sterling and lesser sums in euros and Canadian dollars. The CIH annual report, published last September, reassured shareholders that past experience suggested that customer deposits would remain “a long-term and stable source of fundingâ€\x9d.",
 'Ad watchdog cracks down on misleading broadband ads The advertising watchdog is to crack down on the way broadband packages are marketed after research showed that four in five people were not able to work out how much they are supposed to pay. The Advertising Standards Authority is to start a crackdown on the way companies including Sky, BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE, 3 and O2 advertise after finding that the public are confused and misled by broadband deals. The ASA is to introduce new advertising rules from 30 May following research, conducted with media regulator Ofcom, that found widespread confusion, with 81% of those surveyed not able to correctly work out the total cost across the lifetime of a broadband contract when asked to do so. Currently, broadband ads feature an array of prices including the monthly cost of the broadband itself, separate line rental and frequently a raft of additional pricing options such as installation fees, introductory offers and contract length. The research found that just 23% of survey participants were able to correctly work out the total cost per month of a broadband package and all extras in the first viewing of an ad. And 22% of participants were still not able to get it right at a second viewing of a broadband deal ad. The ASA says that if this proportion were extrapolated to the whole of the UK it means that about 4.3m households have no idea how much they are actually paying for their broadband packages. “It’s essential we make sure people aren’t misled by pricing claims in broadband ads,â€\x9d said Guy Parker, chief executive of the ASA. “We’ll be moving quickly, working alongside broadband providers to clarify the presentation of price information.â€\x9d From 30 May, the ASA is going to crack down on ads that have complicated pricing, and will rule that they break the UK advertising code. While companies can continue to choose how they want to market broadband deals after that date, the ASA is “suggestingâ€\x9d a series of guidelines. These include using an all-inclusive price on all costs, including line rental, and greater prominence of up-front costs and contract lengths. “Ofcom wants to see clear and accurate broadband prices for consumers,â€\x9d said Sharon White, chief executive of Ofcom. “Our research shows many people are confused by complicated ads and offers. We welcome the ASA’s plans to simplify broadband advertising.â€\x9d The ASA said that last year it received 730 complaints about a total of 555 broadband ads. It ruled that 56 of the broadband ads were in breach of the UK advertising code, a relatively high 10% of all cases “Simplifying how broadband prices are advertised is a step in the right direction, but the advertising of broadband speeds must also be tackled,â€\x9d said Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer watchdog Which? “Broadband is an essential part of life and millions of homes are not getting the speed they expect. We want the advertising authorities and the regulator to change the rules and ensure consumers get the speeds they are promised by their provider.â€\x9d TalkTalk said that it fully supported the ASA’s move, pointing out that it had already called for “all-inâ€\x9d pricing in a response to Ofcom’s digital communications review. “It’s obvious that a single headline price is much clearer and better for customers, and we’re actually already doing it on a pilot project up in York,â€\x9d said a spokeswoman for TalkTalk. “But until the whole market moves to single prices, any company that advertises its products like this will struggle to compete with what look like better deals from other providers. We want Ofcom to be bold and tackle this problem in their strategic review and we would absolutely support them in doing so.â€\x9d Sky said that it follows all advertising rules and that it has the best customer satisfaction levels in the industry. “We work hard to ensure customers are fully informed when we’re marketing Sky’s products and services and our advertising adheres to all industry guidelines,â€\x9d said a spokeswoman. “Ofcom’s recent customer service report showed our customer satisfaction levels are the highest in the industry. We will review the new research and work with the ASA to ensure our advertising is in line with any new guidance it introduces.â€\x9d',
 "Bank's warning of a Brexit double whammy is very handy for Osborne Britain will make up its mind whether it wants to remain in the European Union in six weeks time, so it was inevitable that the last Bank of England inflation report before 23 June was dominated by the referendum. And make no mistake, the warning from Threadneedle Street about the likely short-term consequences of a Brexit vote – including a sharp fall in the value of the pound – is mightily handy for George Osborne. The Bank assumes that there will be a double whammy of weaker growth and higher inflation in the event of a vote to leave. For the first time Mark Carney was even prepared to use the R word: there would be a chance of technical recession - two successive quarters of negative growth - if the decision is to leave. The Bank’s inflation report says Brexit could lead to lower consumer spending, mothballed investment plans, higher unemployment and problems funding the UK’s record current account deficit – which has reached 7% of GDP. It believes there is a risk that foreign investors will shun the UK and strain the banking system. Carney summed up the Bank’s view in his letter to the chancellor [PDF] explaining why inflation remains more than a percentage point below the government’s 2% target. The combined effect of leaving would, the governor said, be to “lower growth materially and raise the rate of inflation materiallyâ€\x9d over the next couple of years. Osborne’s reply to Carney’s letter showed that he intends to milk the Bank’s warning for all it is worth. The Leave camp noted that despite the Bank’s warnings about sterling, the pound is currently at a higher level than it was when the referendum was called, and that Carney should be careful that his words did not become self-fulfilling prophecies. Nor is it the case, as Osborne has been asserting, that interest rates would inevitably rise after a Brexit vote. The forecasts contained in the Inflation Report assume that the bookies have got it right and that Britain will vote to remain in the European Union. These show that the uncertainty caused by the referendum is temporary, with growth slightly lower in 2016 but picking up in 2017. But by 2018, when everything has come out in the wash, growth is 0.2 points lower than expected at the time of the February inflation report at 2.3%. That’s despite the financial markets taking the view that interest rates will stay lower for longer, and the 9% drop in the value of sterling since November – both of which should boost growth. But, as the Bank noted, only half the pound’s fall has been the result of uncertainty caused by the referendum. The other half is caused by a realisation that the UK suffers from poor productivity, low levels of investment and a chronically weak trade performance. Those problems are not going to magically disappear whatever the vote on 23 June.",
 'Opera adds built-in adblocker to its browser Opera is introducing a new version of its desktop browser with built-in adblocking, removing the need for a third-party extension. The Norwegian software company has a history of innovations that later become common in other browsers, such as tabbed browsing. It was also an early pioneer of pop-up blocking, which targeted an earlier generation of in-your-face ads. Opera says the move can reduce page-loading times by as much as 90% by preventing the browser having to make requests to ad networks, which slows page loading. Because it is building the feature directly into its browser, page-load times are 40% faster than with existing adblocker plugins or browser extensions, the company claims. More than 9 million (22%) of the UK’s internet users have an adblocker installed, a recent report found, and the proportion is considerably higher among 18- to 24-year-olds, with almost half using some form of adblocker. Opera’s built-in adblocker will initially only be in the desktop version of its browser but it intends to add it to its mobile version in future. An Opera spokeswoman said: “Adblocking technology is an opportunity and a wake-up call to the advertising industry to pay attention to what consumers are actually saying.â€\x9d Faster loading, increased privacy and security and a desire for fewer distractions are behind the growing demand for adblockers, but their use is causing concern for publishers who rely on display advertising for revenue. Earlier this month the culture secretary John Whittingdale, called adblocking a ‘modern-day protection racket’. A study by PageFair and Adobe (PDF) estimated online ad revenue lost to blockers in 2015 would amount to $21.8bn (£15.4bn) and those losses could almost double to $41.4bn in 2016. Ad-placement firm Carat forecasts global digital and mobile advertising will near $150bn this year. Opera, which has agreed to a takeover by a group of Chinese firms led by Beijing Kunlun Tech in a cash deal valued at $1.23bn, introduced its first computer web browser in 1995. With the rise of the smartphone, it shifted to focus on the mobile browser and advertising market, where it now derives most of its revenue, and has 281 million users. The Oslo-based firm ranks a distant fifth behind mainstream desktop computers browsers from Microsoft, Google, Firefox and Apple. The company counts 60 million active monthly desktop users worldwide. It relies on advertising in its browser for a big chunk of its own revenue but says it sees no contradiction with introducing adblocking controls that affect pages. An Opera spokeswoman said demand for adblocking should abate when messages became less disruptive and more relevant.',
 'Emma Barnett joins the big league on BBC Radio 5 Live When Emma Barnett goes on air for her first mid-morning show on BBC Radio 5 Live this Wednesday, she’ll be taking on one of a handful of big talk-radio gigs broadcasting to the nation. Her excitement is palpable. “This is a huge project. I’ve thought about nothing else for four months,â€\x9d she says with a big smile. “I am desperate to start. The best way to do radio is to do it. Radio gigs like this don’t come along very often.â€\x9d Barnett, a former digital media and then women’s editor at the Telegraph, got her break in radio on LBC and currently has a Sunday night show on 5 Live where she dissects the stories making an impact online. But swapping it for three-hour shows from Wednesdays to Fridays is a big step up for which she has been planning enthusiastically . On Wednesdays she will broadcast from Millbank in London, timed to coincide with prime minister’s questions and pulling in a revolving panel of MPs including Labour’s Chuka Umunna, the former Conservative education secretary Nicky Morgan and the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. She says the quality of guests is partly due to the “unprecedented momentâ€\x9d Labour and the Conservatives find themselves in that means “we’ve never had so many A-list MPs out of frontline politicsâ€\x9d. Thursday’s show moves back to the BBC’s base in Salford and Barnett plans to bring the audience into the usually-behind-the-scenes process of choosing the news agenda, setting up interviews and shaping the day’s programme. “I think some of the most interesting conversations we have are off-air are [those in which] we are deciding the news, [discussing] the angles, what we are going to try to find out, all of that,â€\x9d she says. “We are there to do breaking news but also allow the listeners to come in a bit on our morning news meeting and deconstruct that for them. I think it’s really interesting to show a bit of leg on radio.â€\x9d Then on Friday, with the nation getting the #Fridayfeeling vibe, Barnett will try to explore ambition, talking to people who have done well but with one eye on the dissatisfaction with life that she says drove some of the British public to vote for Brexit. The show’s pattern has been developed since Barnett left the Telegraph at the end of April. Since then she has since taken a holiday and been appearing on a Sky News debate show, The Pledge, but she isn’t giving up newspapers. Last month she joined the Sunday Times as an advice columnist, using her first piece to open up about the impact of her father going to prison a decade ago, in a bid to gain her readers’ confidence. Broadcasting from her home town – Manchester – is especially pleasing for Barnett because it underlines how the BBC’s relocation to Salford has revitalised a place she once felt she had to leave to get a start in media. “I was born in Hope hospital literally two seconds away from the studio. For me, sitting there, I look around and think, ‘wow’. I mean in the space of 12 years what was effectively a wasteland with a war museum is now a media centre. “If there had been Media City when I was doing my A-levels and looking at degrees … and then I went off to do the Cardiff [journalism] course, I could have come back to Manchester, I wouldn’t have had to leave to go to London. And I really hope that for the next generation that could be the case.â€\x9d Barnett’s debut will boost the number of hours of talk radio fronted by women in an industry that is dominated by male voices. She defends 5 Live’s track record in the area, saying it has a “tradition of ambitious brilliant female broadcastersâ€\x9d and citing former presenters including Anita Anand and Kelly Cates as well as current colleagues including Eleanor Oldroyd. However she concedes that there is still an imbalance across radio that needs addressing, partly to do with “legacy issuesâ€\x9d and those men in the industry who quite understandably want to remain in enjoyable jobs. “There is something important about getting women to host programmes, regardless of it looking good,â€\x9d she says. “It actually affects, first of all, the lens sometimes of what you are looking at, but also it affects who calls. I have noticed that if I also put a woman caller on air first … then more women ring.â€\x9d With her credentials in feminism (she launched the Telegraph women’s section, called Wonder Women) and technology, Barnett is exceptionally well-placed to talk about the culture of abuse on social media. Add in the fact she has publicly talked about her Jewish faith and it is perhaps not surprising she has been on the receiving end. In 2013 she was one of a number of journalists and other prominent women on Twitter who received a tweeted bomb threat. “I went to the pub but I think a few of them rang the police. And the next thing I knew, the Today programme [was] saying these 15 journalists have all had this. I thought, ‘Oh God, I’m probably so immune now to some of this stuff. ’ When you put your head above the parapet, you get stuff. I try to have a bit of a sense of humour if I can. I have a routine: if I get off air and there is something there, I just mute it or block it. And that’s the way I deal with it. I don’t ever engage.â€\x9d She says there is more that tech companies could do to tackle the issue but thinks at its root it’s a reflection of social ills for which the technology industry can’t be held completely accountable. She adds that abuse isn’t just a problem for those who get it but also for those who are put off speaking out by it and the public who miss out on what they have to say. “I think women are socialised from birth to be liked and very likable, be a sweet girl, be a nice girl, be a lady. And because women tend to get most of the abuse … I worry that we are all putting out very bland things online just to get a thumbs up, just to get hearts, just to get likes … and you really want debate.â€\x9d In a somewhat ironic twist, it was her role as a tech editor that led her to where she is now. “The reason I got into radio was because, when I got the first British interview with the Twitter founders, Ev [Williams] and Biz Stone before they ever got a PR, I got them slightly squiffy in a bar in San Francisco. I listened back to my tape that night in my hotel room and thought ‘God, that was a really good conversation. They were really funny, and now I’ve got to write it up. I wish someone could have heard that.’ And then I’m like, ‘hang on a minute, that exists. It’s called radio’. “It’s not like any other [medium] to me. You can go deeper, you can go further and you can also speak directly to people: that’s what makes it incredible. Your audience can interrupt you. And I hope they do.â€\x9d',
 'Manchester City will not give up title fight, says Manuel Pellegrini Manuel Pellegrini insists that Manchester City will not give up their Premier League title challenge despite Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat at Liverpool leaving the club 10 points behind Leicester City. The loss at Anfield was a third consecutive league reverse for City, Pellegrini’s side last claiming three points four weeks ago when Sunderland were beaten. Yet City have 11 games remaining – including a match in hand – and with bottom-place Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday the manager believes they can still claim the championship. “Remember the first season I was here, we needed to win the three games in hand and we won the three games,â€\x9d he said. “Everyone said we were out of it but we won the games and won the title. This group of players will never give up while we have the option to do it. We have one game in hand but it’s more important not to think about that but just to improve our Premier League performance. “We are not going to give up – it’s a lot of points to the leaders. You never know when you are going to lose points. We must continue as far as we can and add the most amount of points we can, then we can see where we end up. We try to win every time we play – we just had a bad moment but we have another 33 points to try and arrange it.â€\x9d City have 47 points and are separated from fifth-placed Manchester United only on goal difference. Asked how many points might be need to be crowned champions, Pellegrini said: “It’s impossible to guess the future. I said before the end of first round of leagues maybe the winner has less than 80 points. It’s impossible to know – I am sure the champions [will have] around 75 points or more.â€\x9d Yaya Touré missed the loss at Liverpool but is fit return on Saturday. “Yaya has an important kick on his heel,â€\x9d he said. That’s why he couldn’t play Wednesday but he’s OK.â€\x9d This week the top-ranking executives of the so-called big five clubs – City, United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool – met organisers of the International Champions Cup, a pre-season tournament, and discussed potential changes to the Champions League. Pellegrini said: “In this moment the Champions League is very important and the Premier League is the best in the world so to make changes is not easy. Maybe they can be improved [a little]. I don’t think you can talk about any of this in just a few words.â€\x9d',
 'Acne and exam stress among factors leading young people to suicide, study finds Exam stress, acne and asthma are among the anxieties affecting children and young people who kill themselves, according to the first ever detailed national investigation of these cases. Between January 2014 and April 2015, there were 145 suicides in England by children and young people aged 10 to 19. An inquiry looking at 130 of the cases has found some common factors, or “antecedentsâ€\x9d, which the researchers hope may help families, friends, teachers or others to become aware that a child is struggling. More than half (54%) of the 130 had self-harmed and 27% had expressed suicidal ideas in the week before they died, while in 16 cases (12%), they had searched online for information on it. But 43% had not been in contact with the health service or any other agency. More than a third (36%) had sought help for some sort of medical condition, the most common being acne and asthma, while 27% were dealing with academic pressures, says the report. Of the 20 young people facing current or pending exams or awaiting results, 11 were known to be stressed by their exams and four died on the day of an exam or the day after. More than a quarter of the young people (28%) had recently experienced the death of somebody close to them, and six had lost more than one. Nine had lost a parent, while 17 (13%) had experienced the suicide of either somebody in their family or a friend. More than a fifth (22%) had been bullied in previous months, mostly face to face (93%). Eight had been targeted by online bullying – as well as face to face or instead of it. Mostly the bullying had occurred more than three months before the person died, but in eight cases it was more recent. The findings come from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, a collaboration of academics and other experts, who have collected data from Coroners’ inquests, official investigations and other case reviews. The report, summarised in a paper in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, is the first of its kind. “There haven’t been very systematic studies of a very young group,â€\x9d said Prof Louis Appleby, director of the inquiry at the University of Manchester. “Suicide is one of the main causes of death but it is not at all common. What is happening in their lives? That is the question we started with.â€\x9d The suicide rate is very low among the youngest children – there were 11 cases under the age of 15 in the year. But Appleby said: “Something happens to them in that five-year period from 15 to 20.â€\x9d At each age after 15, there is a significant jump in the numbers, reaching 49 at the age of 19. Most – 70% – are male. The reasons for the rise are complex, he said. “There are often family problems such as drug misuse or domestic violence and more recent stresses such as bullying or bereavement, leading to a ‘final straw’ factor such as an exam or relationship breakdown.â€\x9d The adolescent years are a turbulent time, he added. “The emotional resilience required to get you through is pretty strong,â€\x9d said Appleby. “They are having to cope with quite a lot of changes in key parts of their lives.â€\x9d Alcohol, drugs and mental health played a part in some of the older age group, but there were some more unexpected findings, such as the numbers who went to the GP for help over acne or asthma. “We were slightly surprised that these physical health conditions were quite prominent,â€\x9d said Appleby. He thinks there is a link between the two conditions. “It is the impact on your social life – the social withdrawal when acne becomes an embarrassment or with asthma, the physical restriction which limits your contact with other people,â€\x9d he said. Coroners’ reports had found these conditions significant enough to be mentioned. The finding that the majority of children and young people who killed themselves had self-harmed was important, said Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity YoungMinds. “This report provides a stark reminder that self-harm should never be dismissed as ‘attention-seeking’ or ‘just a phase’,â€\x9d she said. “Although only a small proportion of young people who self-harm go on to feel suicidal, the fact that they are injuring themselves is a clear sign that they are experiencing terrible internal pain. “The good news is that there are things that parents and professionals can do to help: above all, stay calm, avoid being judgemental and reassure them that they can talk to you openly about how they are feeling.â€\x9d She said it was “deeply alarmingâ€\x9d that exam stress was a factor in many suicides. “It’s absolutely crucial that schools give as much focus to wellbeing as they do to academic achievement,â€\x9d she said. Prof Nav Kapur, the inquiry’s head of suicide research said: “Self-harm is strongly associated with increased future risk of suicide and is one of the main warning signs. It is crucial that there is improved help for self-harm and access to mental health care. “However, with the variety of factors we found with this study, it is clear that schools, primary care, social services and youth justice all have a role to play.â€\x9d A larger study looking at suicides up to the age of 25, with recommendations for further action, will be published next year. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Helplines in other countries can be found here',
 'Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action 1) Long-term Matip injury would be significant Hands have been wrung and doom predicted about Philippe Coutinho’s injury, likely to keep him out of the Liverpool team until next month. And to an extent, rightly so: he has been their most impressive attacking threat this season, and the sight of that front four dovetailing has perhaps been the most pleasing in the division. However, the 4-3 defeat to Bournemouth on Sunday suggested that another injury absence might be more significant, namely Joël Matip. The Cameroonian centre-half has been a quiet, calm example of consistency, exactly the sort of thing that Liverpool missed against Bournemouth. The simple scoreline, plus a cursory viewing of the game, indicated Jürgen Klopp’s men will be okay scoring goals without Coutinho, but preventing them without Matip who has a minor ankle injury, could be more problematic. Nick Miller • Match report: Bournemouth 4-3 Liverpool • Klopp defends Karius after late collapse • Barney Ronay: Fraser inspires madcap turnaround 2) Ledley and Puncheon do the damage The mood at Selhurst Park after this result was of a corner turned. That, it seems fair to say, is a tad premature. Six defeats in a row do not happen by chance and Alan Pardew faces Manchester United and Chelsea after the crucial fixture at Hull City next weekend. But one distinct positive for Crystal Palace’s fans will have been the resilience shown by Pardew’s players in a disciplined win against Southampton. Key to the performance were three players who starred in Tony Pulis’s Palace incarnation: Damien Delaney, Joe Ledley and Jason Puncheon. Their play was characterised by hard work, physicality, and taking the right decisions at the right times. Delaney kept Charlie Austin shackled, Ledley unsettled Saints’ passing rhythm and it was a typically smart piece of anticipation from Puncheon that led to their third goal. It all added up to Palace never truly being threatened by Claude Puel’s misfiring side, who lost concentration at crucial moments. Paul MacInnes • Match report: Crystal Palace 3-0 Southampton • Pardew eases the pressure, then criticises owners 3) Mourinho losing his touch and United losing points The troubling thing about José Mourinho in the past 18 months or so is that new weaknesses keep emerging in his teams. His apparent ability to get players to do anything for him went west, as did defensive solidity, and now there is apparently a lack of mental fortitude. The late penalty conceded fairly clownishly by Marouane Fellaini, then converted by Leighton Baines, was the fifth goal Manchester United have conceded in the last 10 minutes of games this season, costing them eight points. Those points would have put them just one behind Manchester City and snapping around the Champions League places: as it is they are a fairly distant sixth. Mourinho protested after the game that in all his team’s six draws they have been the better side, but it’s not much use if they continually throw results and points away at the last. NM • Mourinho sticks to script after draw • Mkhitaryan finally makes case as a United player 4) Cleverley fails to impose himself on Everton team It was interesting that, in response to a series of lacklustre performances, Ross Barkley was the man dropped from the Everton side by Ronald Koeman against Manchester United. Yet whether you think his demotion was harsh or not, not many could defend the identity of his replacement. It was tricky not to feel sorry for Tom Cleverley, removed after 65 insipid minutes to the sound of cheers from his own fans, but you can also understand why those fans were happy to see him go. It’s seven years since he made his senior debut and, in that time, he hasn’t really made clear exactly what sort of player he is, and the question that poses itself is: what’s he for? The moment that seemed to irk the Goodison crowd most came when he played a backwards pass near the edge of the United area as an attack built, thus removing all momentum from it, and seemed to sum him up neatly. Perhaps Barkley does need a spell out of the team, but replacing him with Cleverley, a player for whom a sideways pass seems to represent the height of ambition, is not the way to go. NM • Match report: Everton 1-1 Manchester United 5) City have no excuse despite referee mistake Leaving aside the touchline fracas when the game was won, the major debate at the Etihad Stadium was over whether David Luiz should have stayed on the pitch long enough to be fouled by Sergio Agüero in the final minute. The fact that he was the last defender when he illegally blocked Agüero’s run on goal in the first half is not really the point. The rulebook makes no mention of last defender, despite the term’s common usage, focusing instead on whether a clear goalscoring opportunity has been denied. That is of course harder to judge, and it seemed to everyone present that Anthony Taylor bottled out of making a judgment by pretending nothing had happened. Doubtless the referee would have been criticised too had he dismissed David Luiz, because he was still a long way from goal, and there would have been even greater outrage had he booked the defender, which is the least the offence deserved, and let him stay on the field. Yet some sympathy for the official is possible. There is no room for compromise in these situations, referees must choose between all or nothing. Taylor chose nothing, perhaps wrongly. Manchester City still had an hour of football and the useful gift of an own goal to try to get over it. Paul Wilson • Match report: Manchester City 1-3 Chelsea • How Conte beat Guardiola in the battle of three-man defences 6) Burnley need to find goals fast The last time Burnley were in the Premier League, they won three games away from home, two of which were too little, too late efforts, with relegation already confirmed. They had a similar problem when they were in the top flight in 2009–10 too, that time winning just one, drawing one and losing the rest. The pattern seems to be repeating itself this season: the 2-0 defeat at Stoke on Saturday was their fifth reverse in six games on the road, and the only time they have avoided a loss was a goalless draw at Old Trafford at the end of October. Maybe even more troubling is that they have scored only once away from Turf Moor, a penalty consolation in a 3-1 defeat at Southampton. Sean Dyche was quick to criticise Stoke’s apparent gamesmanship and the refereeing on Saturday, but that is not the reason they’re falling down the table. NM • Match report: Stoke City 2-0 Burnley 7) More wins could lead to more Short money Sunderland’s manager smiled at the suggestion his players were starting to resemble a “David Moyes teamâ€\x9d. It has taken time but Moyes is showing his ability by somehow making the Wearside team look much more than the sum of their parts. If specialist defensive tutorials with Lamine Koné and Papy Djilobodji have helped, his attacking work on Victor Anichebe has been transformative. Three vindicating wins in four games have bred optimism but, to maintain the upward trajectory, Moyes wants victory in a trio of key games this month against Swansea City, Watford and Burnley. Such success would represent more than the collection of nine crucial points; it might persuade Ellis Short, the club’s owner, to invest in much needed playing reinforcements next month. Short would welcome a takeover but securing one might involve a little speculating to accumulate, preferably starting with Yann M’Vila’s long awaited importation from Rubin Kazan. Louise Taylor • Match report: Sunderland 2-1 Leicester City • Koné’s return to form a factor in Sunderland’s renaissance 8) Past performance could be guide to Spurs’ gain Are Tottenham Hotspur ready to make their move again? When Spurs lost at Chelsea on the Saturday before last, their Premier League record stood at W6 D6 L1 and they sat fifth in the table, which was a mirror image of their numbers from the corresponding point of last season. Last time out they then drew at home against Chelsea, whereas on Saturday they hammered Swansea City. In other words, Spurs are statistically better off now than when compared with their superb season of 2015‑16. What happened last season was they went on an extraordinary run at around this time. Can Mauricio Pochettino’s team fashion a repeat? Their elimination from the Champions League was a blow but they could benefit from a clarity of domestic focus. Harry Kane is back from injury and firing and there were signs of greater collective fluency against Swansea. Pochettino’s players have tended to enjoy a physical dividend from his conditioning programme. He senses a turning point. David Hytner • Match report: Tottenham Hotspur 5-0 Swansea City 9) Evans and McAuley will give Costa a true test When Chelsea try to extend their Premier League winning sequence to nine matches on Sunday, they will be confronted by better defenders than they found at Manchester City on Saturday. Few teams have a central defence as strong as West Bromwich Albion’s Northern Irish-axis. Jonny Evans is a consummate defender whom John Stones, for instance, might have benefited from studying if Evans had not been deployed in midfield when City won at West Bromwich in October. And Gareth McAuley, who turns 37 on Monday, has played every minute of every league match for Albion this season and been superb for most of them: strong, savvy and like Evans, always liable to contribute a goal from set pieces. Watching Diego Costa – on excellent form himself – take on that pair at Stamford Bridge should be one of the highlights of next weekend. Paul Doyle • Match report: West Brom 3-1 Watford • West Brom’s ascent offers Pulis chance for added value 10) Wenger looks for consistency after difficult November Even if he famously banned Arsenal’s players from eating chocolate, Arsène Wenger must have been relieved to crack open his advent calendar on Thursday after another disappointing November. Their return of 1.7 points per game in the Premier League was a slight increase on previous years, but a costly Champions League draw against Paris Saint-Germain and the tame defeat of Wenger’s second string by Southampton in the EFL Cup last week showed his side remain vulnerable. The dismantling of a West Ham side in disarray was the perfect response, even if Arsenal’s manager knows there will be much stiffer tests ahead with trips to Everton and Manchester City to come this month. “Recently, we lost a little bit the quality of our game, and we started [to lose] a little bit with results,â€\x9d he said. “A draw here, a draw there, a draw against PSG that was not completely convincing, and today we found the flow again. So I think we just have to concentrate on the quality of our game and try to repeat that week in, week out.â€\x9d Ed Aarons • Match report: West Ham 1-5 Arsenal • Bilic bears burden of expectation as bubble bursts',
 'Here’s the Donald Trump bandwagon, and Rupert Murdoch nimbly leaping aboard Son James back in the saddle at Sky; Rebekah back running the greater Bun empire. Plus ça change in Murdoch land – including the boss’s proclivity for backing winners (when he knows who they are). Thus he backed Blair when Tony was up and coming. Thus his McBun lauds Scot Nats north of the border, while doing something quite different south of it. It’s a simple ploy. Find a bandwagon then clamber aboard, claiming alleged influence as you do so. Last September, the tweeting Rupert loved Ben Carson, not The Donald. He called it a choice “between a land of hope and a land of fearâ€\x9d. Back at the ranch, his Wall Street Journal editorialists faithfully roasted Trump’s candidacy: Trump-loving conservative media were “hurting the causeâ€\x9d, they said. “If Donald Trump becomes the voice of conservatives, conservatism will implode along with him.â€\x9d But now the Journal’s editorials sing a strangely different tune. “Mr Trump is a better politician than we ever imagined, and he is becoming a better candidate… He might possibly be able to appeal to a larger set of voters than he has so far.â€\x9d And so on and oleaginously forth, while the greater tweeting Murdoch sings descant. “Trump appeals across party lines – surely the winning strategy.â€\x9d The Donald, in short, looks more like a winner. Better fall into line fast (unless the row over Fox debates gets really out of hand). Mr M – risibly joining in the tax campaign against Google – likes to play global power broker in the world of short-term memory.',
 'Evolution director Lucile Hadžihalilović: ‘The starfish was the one worry’ “I seem to have a bit of a problem with reality,â€\x9d says Lucile Hadžihalilović. Or perhaps the French film-maker is just committed to a reality of her own. Her new film, Evolution, set on a mysterious island, is itself an enigmatic outcrop, far off cinema’s well-mapped charts. It depicts an uncanny world inhabited by young boys and their eerie mothers; curious medical procedures are carried out at the island’s hospital, placing the boys in uncomfortably close proximity with starfish. Part horror story, part visual poem, it shows why Hadžihalilović is one of the few authentic visionaries in cinema today. It also makes it clear why hers has not been the easiest career to pursue. Evolution comes a full 12 years after her first film, Innocence – itself a wistful nightmare, set in a girls’ school situated deep in a dark forest. Both films showcase an approach to sexuality and the corporeal that is, if not perverse, certainly nonconformist. They are films you would struggle to imagine on paper – which is why it took so long to get Evolution funded, she says. “People didn’t understand what the script was about. It’s a film about sensations, emotions – not storytelling – so people had to bring their imagination to the table. We really tried to explain it, but it’s the sort of film where, if you start, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.â€\x9d On one level, Evolution seems quite clear: part of the meaning is in the title, which alludes to humanity’s marine origins. Among other things, the film is a set of variations on every possible resonance of the French wordplay on la mer (sea) and la mère (mother). “I don’t approach any of that in a conscious way,â€\x9d says Hadžihalilović, “but the film is full of archetypes and motifs that are there in our collective consciousness. The starfish isn’t a symbol of something, but it does have several meanings. They’re simple images, but complex ones.â€\x9d Implicitly a parable of male puberty, Evolution seems a counterpart to Innocence, which evoked female coming of age in a similarly elusive manner. But Hadžihalilović never had a diptych in mind. “I’m not sure that Evolution really is about boys. I just wanted to tell a story about maternity and pregnancy, and I thought those things would seem a lot more strange and unsettling if it all happened to a boy. When I was 10, I couldn’t see much difference between being a boy and a girl, anyway.â€\x9d In the decade after Innocence, Hadžihalilović struggled to finance Evolution, with another feature project falling apart in the meantime. She did, however, manage to make a characteristically intense 17-minute short called Nectar, a dialogue-free erotic reverie about bees, massage and the colour yellow: “Innocence was about puberty; Nectar is more about the menopause,â€\x9d she laughs, leaving me to puzzle over exactly how. Evolution was eventually shot on Lanzarote, its rocky coasts giving the film a lunar visual tone. One reason for shooting there, Hadžihalilović says, was because French child protection agencies would never have accepted the film’s horror dimension, with children placed in terrible situations. Not that anything realistically grisly happens to the lead, 13-year old Max Brebant – but still, the story’s traumatic aspects must surely have been hard for the director’s child actors to accept. Not really, she says. “For them, it was just a fantasy world with monsters and all that – at that age, you feel totally at ease with that kind of thing. They never asked me anything about the story; maybe they were protecting themselves. The one thing that worried Max was when he had starfish placed on his body. When I first saw that image for real, even I found myself thinking: ‘OK, that’s actually a bit much.’ But he seemed quite at ease.â€\x9d However, Hadžihalilović admits there was another scene that worried Max, in which an adult woman gives him the kiss of life. The film’s themes of puberty and (at least implicit) child sexuality may make Evolution a stumbling block for some viewers. Hadžihalilović has ventured on such risky ground before: Innocence played with storybook images of prepubescent girls. But Hadžihalilović always insisted that she was drawing on her own fantasies of idealised girlhood; she’s surely the only French film-maker ever to be influenced by Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers. For her, Innocence was entirely true to its title. “I was really surprised that people read any kind of perversity into it. I started to worry that that might contaminate Evolution too – but the real difficulty people had with that film was more to do with horror. Strangely, boys’ bodies seem to be less taboo in cinema than girls’. If we’d put little girls on the operating table instead, perhaps that would have been more shocking.â€\x9d The word “shockingâ€\x9d isn’t really the operative one when it comes to Hadžihalilović’s work. She has a very different sensibility to that of her partner, French cinema’s arch-provocateur, Gaspar Noé. The pair started making films as a duo: he shot her debut mini-feature, La Bouche de Jean-Pierre, AKA Mimi (1996), and she edited and produced his early works Carne and I Stand Alone. They work separately these days, but Hadžihalilović was involved in the development of Noé’s trippy afterlife drama Enter the Void – “a script that took a really long time to write, even though people think it didn’t have a script at allâ€\x9d. Hadžihalilović, 54, grew up in Morocco, where her father – the surname is Bosnian – had moved from Yugoslavia. Aged 12, she started reading a lot of science fiction, notably Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon and then discovered horror writer HP Lovecraft, whose fascination with all things tentacular and aquatic is unmistakably imprinted on Evolution. Moving to France at 17, she studied art history, before graduating from the Paris film school La Fémis. “Perhaps 80% of my year was girls,â€\x9d she says, “but very few went on to make films, I don’t know why.â€\x9d Yet despite her difficulties in finding finance, her gender has never been the problem, she says. “It’s not because I’m a woman; it’s because I’m me. In France, the whole thing of imagination and metaphor really isn’t in the culture. People don’t mind if it comes from elsewhere, but if it’s from our country, that’s difficult.â€\x9d In current French cinema, Hadžihalilović is pretty much out on her own limb with her commitment to the textures of the imagination. “Sometimes when you dream, the images are neutral, but they have a real emotional charge that doesn’t seem to fit,â€\x9d she says. “That’s what I’m trying to capture. When I start a film, I never really know what it’s about, and I want to find out – to explore that zone of mystery.â€\x9d This has left her feeling somewhat isolated as a film-maker, but she has found kindred spirits. Among them are Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, the duo behind febrile neo-giallo oddity Amer. “For a long time, I never had a cinema family in France, apart from Gaspar. If I have cousins, it’s them, and people like [British director] Peter Strickland. I’ve never met him, but when I saw his last film [The Duke of Burgundy], it was as if someone had personally written me a letter.â€\x9d She’s also passionate about Thai maestro Apichatpong Weerasethakul: “His films are always about very simple, concrete things, yet he turns them into something mythological.â€\x9d Right now, Hadžihalilović is intrigued by the idea of telling a story rooted in a recognisable everyday environment. “I’d love to make a film that wasn’t set somewhere abstract like an island or a forest, but in Paris. But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be entirely realistic. My way of thinking just has a whole element of imagination that I can’t get rid of. And I don’t want to get rid of it, either.â€\x9d Evolution is released in the UK on 6 May.',
 "New Yorker deletes 'insensitive' Hillsborough tweet after online outrage The New Yorker has provoked fury by republishing a picture showing people being crushed against a fence at Hillsborough on the day an inquest into the 1989 tragedy found that 96 people were unlawfully killed. The black and white picture, which was used to illustrate a 2011 article about crowd control, was posted to the New Yorker’s Twitter account – which has more than 6.3 million followers – on Tuesday. It came just hours after the jury delivered the verdict in which they listed a catalogue of errors by police and ambulance services that led to the disaster. The New Yorker was condemned by Twitter users, with some describing the tweet as “insensitiveâ€\x9d and calling for it to be removed. Others lambasted the New Yorker for apparently trying to cash in on the end of the two-year inquest. The tweet has since been removed. The New Yorker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.",
 'Swansea City’s owners to make huge profit with sale to US investors The owners of Swansea City, whose partnership with the supporters trust has long been hailed as ideal for a British football club, are set to make millions by selling their shares to American investors. The deal, signed in principle by the chairman, Huw Jenkins, values Swansea at around £100m, exactly 100 times more than the £1m paid for the club by the nine shareholders, including the trust, during and after a financial crisis in 2002. The agreement proposes the eight shareholders apart from the trust – which owns 21.1% of the club and whose elected director, Huw Cooze, was furious at being kept unaware of the negotiations – sell most of their shares to a consortium led by the US sports team investors Stephen Kaplan and Jason Levien. Intense discussions since have led to suggestions not all the shareholders will sell, and Levien and Kaplan may buy only a 60% stake, but their valuation, for a Premier League club awaiting the next tranche of vast TV fortunes starting next season, remains around £100m. So Jenkins’ 13.2% stake, which cost him £125,000 to buy, is valued at £13.2m. He is understood not to be planning to sell all his shares and is likely to remain the chairman if the takeover completes, because he is widely credited with having run the club with great acumen, alongside the other directors. The local hotelier Martin Morgan and his wife, Louisa, are the largest shareholders with a 23.7% stake, which cost £225,000 to buy; it is now valued by Kaplan and Levien at around £23.7m. Martin Morgan is said not to be intending to sell, and Levien may try to have separate discussions with Louisa Morgan, who controls more than half of their stake. One of the original 2002 investors, the South African businessman Brian Katzen, owns 10.5% of the club, as does his business partner, Jeffrey Crevoiserat; the stakes cost each man £100,000 when Swansea were floundering near the bottom of the Football League at a rundown Vetch Field, and are now valued at £10.5m each. Robert Davies, another original investor, also a financial backer of Swansea’s Ospreys rugby union region which shares the Liberty Stadium, also has a 10.5% stake. The Dutch investor John van Zweden, and Leigh Dineen, formerly the trust’s elected director who bought his own shares for £50,000, both have stakes of just over 5%, now valued at £5m. The millions to be made by the shareholders who do sell follow £4m already paid to them all in dividends over the past four years – £1m, in effect their original stakes repaid, each year from 2012-15 since Swansea have been in the Premier League. Paid proportionately according to their stakes, Jenkins has received more than £500,000; Martin and Louisa Morgan £900,000; Katzen, Crevoiserat and Davies £400,000 each, and Van Zweden and Dineen around £200,000 each. The trust, for its 21.1%, has been paid more than £800,000, which it has used to buy new shares and for a “rainy dayâ€\x9d fund. Established as a mutual, democratic, not-for-profit body during Swansea’s 2001 financial crisis, with the help of the fan-ownership initiative Supporters Direct, the trust’s members who have provided contributions for the £200,000 investment cannot cash in personally if the trust ever sells. Cooze, who has told a trust forum he was “pretty damned hurtâ€\x9d at the secrecy of the negotiations, is now seeking to rebuild bridges with his co-directors and safeguard the trust’s position. Levien’s revised suggestion to buy 60% is intended to show the trust a preparedness to work with them, after supporters’ hostile reaction to the proposed acquisition of 75.1% control. Cooze and the trust’s chairman, Phil Sumbler, say they knew the other shareholders would sell at some point and are sanguine about them making so much money. They mostly want to know whether the sale to Levien and Kaplan, which Jenkins in his official statement said he believed “will help the club progress on and off the fieldâ€\x9d, will bring actual investment into the club itself. “There is no point in a deal without money for the club; that would just be a sale for the shareholders’ personal gain,â€\x9d Sumbler said. He pointed out that supporters’ unpaid work and donations have contributed to Swansea’s remarkable revival over the past 15 years and massive increase in financial value. “The shareholders are mostly lifelong fans, and we have always believed throughout our partnership with them that they have the best interests of the club at heart.â€\x9d Levien, a lawyer, is the managing general partner of Washington’s Major League Soccer team, DC United, having previously been involved at three NBA basketball franchises, including the Memphis Grizzlies, to which he introduced Kaplan as an investor. Kaplan, the principal of Oaktree Capital investment fund, is thought to be the largest proposed investor in the acquisition, with several others so far not named. Levien has been assuring people they have substantial money and are not financing the deal with debt. In meetings with the shareholders in Swansea last week, Levien is understood to have emphasised their plan is to develop the club but has not made firm promises that the consortium will invest new money of their own for signing players or expanding the stadium. Like other US investors increasingly taking over clubs, Levien and Kaplan are attracted by the Premier League’s success, the huge TV income, expected to be £8bn across the league for the three years from next season, and the prospect of growth in popularity and earnings, particularly in America, over the next 10-15 years. The US culture of sports team ownership is much more avowedly commercial than British football’s traditional local “benefactorâ€\x9d shareholders, who have mostly sold out in the Premier League years. Investors in American sports seek to make money by growing their franchises commercially and therefore increasing their value, and that of their own stakes. Levien and Kaplan’s plan is to do the same at Swansea, and promoting the club in the US is thought to be a key feature of the proposed deal. All of which is a world away from the crumbling, loss-making club the shareholders, galvanised by the trust and wider supporter efforts, bought for £20,000 in January 2002, putting the rest of the money in to pay off debt. Chroniclers of Swansea’s spectacular upward flight since occasionally miss out two key boosts: a company voluntary arrangement, by which creditors settled for only 5p in every pound, and the great gift of the £27m Liberty Stadium, which is still owned by the local council. Now, as thousands of jobs locally are threatened in the Port Talbot steelworks, the Swansea City shareholders’ proposed gains highlight again modern football’s stand-out riches, in increasingly post-industrial cities where the clubs evolved more than a century ago. Jenkins and Dineen declined to comment on the proposed sale, citing confidentiality agreements. Katzen said of his original motivation that he was keen on football and the challenge, and said they were all determined to make progress and run the club as a business, but never envisaged the success they have had, and these exponential profits. “It has been 15 years, a lot of work; it’s not a quick buck,â€\x9d Katzen said. “Nobody expected to get anything out of the club at the beginning.â€\x9d',
 "Bob Diamond's interest in Barclays Africa confirmed Former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond is part of a consortium that is preparing to bid for the bank’s African operations, it has been confirmed. “The consortium has committed long-term strategic investors. The funding is in place. There is support for this potential transaction,â€\x9d Diamond told investors in the London-listed African based bank, Atlas Mara, which he formed after being forced out of Barclays in the wake of the Libor-rigging crisis in 2012. Diamond’s involvement in the consortium, which includes the private equity firm Carlyle, was revealed in a stock market announcement by Atlas Mara after days of speculation about his interest in trying to buy shares in Barclays’ African business. Barclays will face questions about its plans to reduce its 62.3% stake in Barclays Africa - which is listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange and has interests in banks across the African continent - when it publishes its first quarter results on Wednesday. Diamond did not provide details about the size of any offer for the Barclays African operations, but he is expected to need to raise around $5bn (£3.5bn). Barclays’ new boss Jes Staley announced last month he wanted to cut the 62.3% stake in the African business to reduce the complexity of its operations and to save capital. Atlas Mara, which has operations in seven African countries, indicated that it expected to be taken over by the the consortium if a deal was struck. “In the event that the consortium reaches a definitive agreement with Barclays in relation to Barclays Africa, it is expected that Atlas Mara will enter into substantive discussions about the potential combination with the consortium,â€\x9d Atlas Mara said. “Given the significant complexity and early stage of the discussions with the consortium, there can be no assurance that the transactions discussed above, including the potential combination, will be completed.â€\x9d Diamond is working on the consortium with Ashish Thakkar, whose Mara conglomerate also backed the creation of Atlas Mara. Atlas Mara is worth a third of what it was when it was floated in December 2013.",
 'The Simpsons imagines the terrors of Trump as president in fake election ad America’s first family has finally weighed in on the upcoming presidential election. No, not the Obamas, who made their feelings plain at the Democratic convention last week – the Simpsons. The long-running Fox comedy show released a short clip on YouTube late on Sunday night, showing Homer and Marge Simpson watching a political advertisement on late-night television in order to settle who they plan to vote for. The ad in question follows the format of Hillary Clinton’s famous “3amâ€\x9d spot from the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, with a severe voiceover asking the animated couple “who [they] want answering the callâ€\x9d. In one version, the proverbial 3am call is answered by former president Bill Clinton, who is ruefully forced to admit that the call is for his wife. “From now on, it’s always for me,â€\x9d the former secretary of state snaps at her husband. But the most scathing humor of the spot is saved for Donald Trump, portrayed as a pasty, bald autocrat reading a book of Adolf Hitler’s speeches when the call comes in. “Not now – I’m on Twitter!â€\x9d Trump says, before mocking Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, whom he apparently has exiled from the United States. After instructing his lackeys to put his name on the Lincoln Memorial, disband Nato and “make Chris Christie eat a worm just for laughsâ€\x9d, Trump finally answers the phone call requesting his immediate presence in the Situation Room, but requires a pit crew of beauticians to attend to his appearance before he leaves. Eight and a half hours later, after a spray tan, collagen injections, the application of large prosthetic hands and the placement of a small dog on his head, Trump is finally ready – but too late to stop the advance of Chinese military vessels. “Just build another wall!â€\x9d Trump commands. “Yes, in the ocean – loser.â€\x9d Following the ad, paid for by “Americans Who Are Really Starting to Miss Obama,â€\x9d Homer and Marge both decide to vote for Clinton – although oafish Homer still has his doubts.',
 "Captain Britain would fight to remain in EU, says superhero's creator He’s the champion of the United Kingdom, the country’s first Marvel superhero, resplendent in union flag costume – but how would Captain Britain vote in the EU referendum? He is firmly in the remain camp, according to the writer who helped create him 40 years ago, Chris Claremont, amid unconfirmed reports that the superhero could be revived by Marvel in a new TV programme. “He would definitely vote for the UK to stay in Europe,â€\x9d the veteran comics scribe said. “From his perspective, we don’t move ahead by building a wall around our bit of the global village.â€\x9d Captain Britain was created by Claremont and the artist Herb Trimpe at the behest of Marvel Comics’ founder, Stan Lee, who wanted to test the water in the 1970s with a British answer to Captain America. Britain had a strong tradition of reprinting old Marvel strips such as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four in black-and-white weekly editions, but this was the first original character created for Marvel UK. In the comics, Captain Britain’s alter ego is Brian Braddock, the son of an aristocratic family living in Maldon, Essex, who had fallen somewhat on hard times – though Braddock was still educated at the private Fettes College in Edinburgh. He gets his new identity when he is confronted by a vision of Merlyn (a Marvel character claiming to be the Merlin of British legend), who grants him the abilities to become Britain’s super-powered champion. And that means being the champion for all Brits - including immigrants, says Claremont. “He would see it as the point being not to lock people out of the country, but finding a way to make everyone feel welcome whoever they are.â€\x9d Captain Britain was rebooted in the 1980s by the British writer Alan Moore and the artist Alan Davies, giving him a new costume that was reminiscent of classic British military pomp, and sent on an epic adventure across multiple parallel Earths. In 1988 Claremont returned to the character, teaming up with Davies for the US Marvel title Excalibur, which involved Captain Britain leading a super-team based in London comprising members of the X-Men and his sister Betsy. Claremont believes Captain Britain’s experiences across the parallel universes – where he encountered multiple alternate versions of himself – would make him realise the value of being in the European Union. He said: “From Captain Britain’s point of view we live in a great, heavily populated omniverse and our reality is just one part of that. In each of the parallel worlds there is a lighthouse on every shore of every England where the champion has his base. “His role is to see the bigger picture and to stand up as an exemplar of things worth fighting for, to foster a sense of commonwealth. Captain Britain is not about representing an empire, he’s about standing up for everyone and fighting for the betterment of all. That’s not such a bad ethos for a super-hero.â€\x9d",
 "Manchester Building Society's future in doubt after it reports loss The long-term future of Manchester Building Society has been thrown into doubt after it reported a loss for 2015 and warned of “material uncertaintyâ€\x9d. David Harding, its chairman, said the board was doing all it could to save the building society. “Although there is uncertainty regarding the long-term future of the society, we continue to put the best interests of our members first,â€\x9d he said. “The board is developing a number of options which, individually or in combination, are reasonably expected to secure the future of the society, to enable it to continue to meet capital requirements and to improve the quality of its regulatory capital.â€\x9d The building society swung to a £4.9m loss in 2015, following a £4.5m profit in 2014. It is in the process of winding down its mortgage book, offering no new loans. Its loan book fell to £331m last year from £387m a year earlier. A spokesman for Manchester Building Society said it still had about 4,000 mortgage borrowers, as well as about 18,000 savings accounts. Last year, the mutual wrote to savers with more than £75,000 in their accounts, warning them that the maximum amount protected under a national compensation scheme would fall in 2016 to £75,000 from £85,000. The amount was cut because of changes in the exchange rate, and all banks and building societies were required to write to those customers with more than £75,000. Savers are protected by the financial services compensation scheme (FSCS), which pays out if a bank or building society fails and is unable to refund deposits. Recent building society troubles have not resulted in the FSCS having to step in as larger building societies have taken on customers. In 2008, Nationwide rescued the Derbyshire and Cheshire building societies, while Yorkshire has taken on the accounts of Norwich & Peterborough, Barnsley and Chelsea. Manchester Building Society was founded in 1922 and has one branch, on Manchester’s Queen Street. Problems at the mutual date back to 2013, when it was required by new accounting standards to change the treatment of its long-term mortgage book and related interest-rate hedges. The changes had a negative impact on its financial position. The society said it was exploring a number of possible options to secure its future, including a capital injection from other parties or a merger. “The board expects to develop these plans over the next few months. These plans may involve third parties and as such carry execution risk. “Whilst an assessment of the different options has not yet been completed the board is satisfied that it is reasonable to expect a successful outcome.â€\x9d",
 'Philip Hammond presents the 2016 autumn statement – as it happened For six years George Osborne, as chancellor, David Cameron and all their ministerial colleagues were able to bulldoze through opposition to their policies by asserting that they had a “long-term economic planâ€\x9d. It passed the test of all good soundbites by becoming so familiar as to be groan-inducing. In some respects the term was misleading, because Osborne missed his targets and had to rejig his plans, but the claim that the Conservatives were on a path towards eliminating the deficit seemed to impress the public and this strategy helped Osborne and Cameron to win the 2015 general election. Today Philip Hammond consigned the LTEP to the dustbin. In truth, it collapsed the day the UK voted for Brexit but Hammond had to tell MPs that the EU referendum result has blasted a huge hole in the national finances and he has all but abandoned any hope of getting the budget into surplus on his watch. Osborne’s targets have been abandoned, the government plans to carry on borrowing and spending (the autumn statement envisages a fiscal loosening of almost £9bn by 2021-22) and, although the Treasury hopes to balance the budget in the 2020s, it won’t say when this might happen. All of this is quite sensible, but it is not the economic prudence that won the Tories the 2015 election. In the past governing parties have been consigned to opposition for a decade or more for economic mismanagement on this scale. But there is no sign of this happening to the Conservatives. Cameron did not ask the country to vote for Brexit, and nor did Hammond, or Theresa May. Hammond’s political authority remains intact. Yet the autumn statement will have disappointed those who expected May’s “Jamâ€\x9d-focused government to be quite different from Cameron’s. When she became prime minister in July May said she would focus her attention on those just about managing (the Jams). Today was her first big chance to strike out in a new direction but, although the statement contained some progressive measures (eg universal credit and letting agents’ fees), what was striking was the continuity with Osborne, not the contrast. How much difference has she made? Just 7%, according to a Resolution Foundation analysis. (See 5.33pm.) That’s all from us for tonight. Thanks for the comments. Philip Hammond buried the government’s goal of balancing the nation’s budget in this parliament today -- and the financial markets didn’t bat an eyelid. The pound has jumped by one percent against the euro today, to €1.18 -- a ten-week high. It’s also higher against the dollar tonight too, up half a cent at $1.245. That’s might surprise you -- surely the news that Britain needs to borrow an extra £122bn to rise out the Brexit storm should spark a sterling crisis? But no. The City is welcoming Hammond’s new spending plans. OK, today’s figures are small potatoes compared to Donald Trump’s $1trn infrastructure plan -- but they should mean growth isn’t as weak over the next few years as feared. Hammond took some pleasure in pointing out that Britain is still expected to grow as fast as its eurozone rivals next year, even after today’s downgrade to 1.4%. The £122bn of extra borrowing announced today may take some swallowing, though. UK borrowing costs have risen today, as traders anticipate more UK gilts hitting the market (bond yields rise when prices fall). We’ve also seen that almost half that fiscal black hole is directly due to Brexit, with the OBR saying leaving the EU will cost £58.7bn over the next five years. That includes a £16bn hit from lower migration (see earlier chart). Something to consider when policymakers weigh up the cost of a hard Brexit, vs one that gives better access to the single market. The public face an earnings squeeze over the next two years, when inflation is likely to rise nearly as fast as earnings. But the FT’s Sarah O’Connor points out that we might avoid falling real wages, if the OBR isn’t too optimistic... And the big picture hasn’t really changed; Britain’s economy is still suffering from low productivity and a debt hangover from the 2008 crisis, with Brexit casting another shadow. Richard Buxton, head of UK Equities at Old Mutual Global Investors, warns that we should remain cautious: In my view, substantial risks to the UK’s economy remain, bringing into question an implicit suggestion that animal spirits will suddenly rise in the years ahead. As it stands, the country continues to face the same uncertainties that triggered such a sharp decline in the value of sterling in the aftermath of the EU referendum vote. This is from the BBC’s Andrew Neil. Leave Means Leave has, curiously, chosen not to challenge the OBR analysis of the impact of Brexit in its autumn statement reaction (see 5.44pm), but Patrick Minford, co-chair of Economists for Brexit, has taken it on. He has put out this statement. The OBR’s report issued today contains a number of assumptions around the impact of Brexit which simply follows the path of countless other establishment bodies, which have assumed a pessimistic outlook for the UK economy outside the EU, based on bad economic policy-making . Whilst it acknowledges the fact that the decision of the government’s chosen path is uncertain, it then applies what amounts to an arbitrary Brexit penalty on the UK economy without any proper justification. Why does it assume lower productivity, a spending slowdown due to uncertainty and lower immigration? The work of Economists for Brexit has shown in each of these cases the reverse to be true. Our forecasts show that there is a positive impact of being outside of the single market and embracing free trade under WTO rules, creating an additional 4% GDP over the long term; recent outturns for the second and third quarters have shown clearly that there is no uncertainty effect; and on immigration our estimates are that unskilled migrants cost a total of £6.6 billion a year. Clearly, better control of unskilled workers, whilst continuing to encourage skilled migration can only have a positive economic impact. . These bodies tried to forecast economic disaster based on uncertainty before, in the months leading up to and just after the referendum, when uncertainty was at its highest. Yet there is no sign that there was any economic effect. So it is illogical in the extreme to forecast further disaster owing to uncertainty, just as the picture is becoming clearer. Of course it is true that if bodies like the OBR push out continual gloomy statements, if Downing Street gives no direction and if, when it does take a lead, takes Britain down the worst possible economic path then all this could come true. But, just as they did in the spring and the summer, they are mistaking the very worst outcome for a sensible forecast. Ashwin Kumar, chief economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, says poor households faces a tough 2017, with inflation likely to devour wage rises. Previously announced benefit cuts will wipe out the benefits announced today, Kumar explains: “Many families will gain by modest amounts of a few pounds a week from the reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate and the rise in the income tax personal allowance. However these gains will be dwarfed by much bigger cuts to work allowances imposed by George Osborne in April this year. A couple with two children each earning £25,000 a year will see a benefit of £588 a year from the income tax and universal credit taper changes, but will lose £1,308 from the benefit freeze and the cut in Universal Credit work allowances. John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, fears that charities will face an increased burden as economic growth slows.... “We know that during uncertain times charities are increasingly relied upon to support those in most need. In recent years charities have experienced rising demand for their services while resources have been increasingly stretched. More here: Here is some reaction to the autumn statement from thinktanks. From Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation The big picture today is the new chancellor accepting a major increase in borrowing, partly off the back of the Brexit vote, and choosing to increase it further with an expensive but welcome increase in capital spending. The result is £122bn additional borrowing, with national debt reaching 90 per cent of GDP next year. The outlook for family finances that lies behind the big growth and borrowing figures is also bleak, with average earnings set to be £830 lower by the end of the parliament than previously forecast. Despite increasing borrowing elsewhere, the chancellor has left the big welfare cuts intact and chosen not to provide significant support for the just managing families that Theresa May has rightly said she is focused on. The double whammy of lower earnings and benefit cuts mean that the poorest third of households are now set to face a parliament of falling living standards. In the months and years ahead the key task facing the government is to turn that situation around. From Ashwin Kumar, chief economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2017 is going to be a tough year as wages will barely grow faster than prices. Whilst there will be modest gains for some people from today’s Autumn Statement, for most people on below-average incomes, these will be dwarfed by previously announced cuts to benefits. With average wage growth predicted to be 2.4% and prices forecast to go up by 2.3%, most families will not feel much better off. The increase in the minimum wage will bring some relief to those on the lowest earnings, although even this is lower than predicted last March. Many families will gain by modest amounts of a few pounds a week from the reduction in the universal credit taper rate and the rise in the income tax personal allowance. However these gains will be dwarfed by much bigger cuts to work allowances imposed by George Osborne in April this year. A couple with two children each earning £25,000 a year will see a benefit of £588 a year from the income tax and universal credit taper changes, but will lose £1,308 from the benefit freeze and the cut in Universal Credit work allowances. The majority of the benefit from the income tax changes will go to better-off families, and the Treasury’s own documents say that it will cost £2bn in 2017/18. Spent otherwise, these funds could have made a significant difference to families who are just about managing. From the Institute of Economic Affairs This was a thin and fiddly statement, so it’s a relief that the chancellor has found one area of government activity to cut in abolishing the autumn statement. Sadly though, he has abandoned any attempt to balance the books. Over the next five years the government will be adding over £233bn to the national debt, as much as the entire annual welfare bill. Fiscal rules to this government sadly seem to be no more than vague aspirations which are abandoned with impunity. On the upside, the chancellor does seem to realise, however, that there’s no need to implement policy for the sake of it. A boring budget statement is better than a gimmicky one. From Emran Mian, director of the Social Market Foundation This was a continuity autumn statement - deficit reduction while delivering the manifesto and a productivity plan. It’s essentially Osbornomics plus £100n of extra borrowing. We must wait for the major policy changes - for instance, the new industrial strategy - as well as the government’s plans for Brexit. There is a risk that driving immigration down to ‘tens of thousands’ could cause the public finances to deteriorate even further than the OBR’s new forecasts predict. From Catherine Colebrook, chief economist at the IPPR At the beginning of his speech the chancellor made the now familiar claim that the British economy is in a strong condition. But the rest of his speech gave the lie to this. As he then admitted, UK investment and productivity are far below our major competitors, we have a record trade deficit, an unsustainable fiscal gap between projected tax receipts and public expenditure, and a regionally deeply unbalanced economy between London and the Southeast and the rest of the country. What he did not say, but was made clear during the EU referendum campaign, is how unequal the distribution of income and wealth has become. It is time that the national debate about the economy reflected these fundamental weaknesses. Tackling them will require a far more profound change to policy than the measures the Chancellor announced today. From Claudia Wood, chief executive at Demos No one is in any doubt that the government has a sizeable challenge trying to boost economic growth against a backdrop of ongoing instability caused by Brexit. At the same time, the government’s commitment to the JAMs - perhaps in part recognising many voted to leave the EU as an expression of their frustration with the statue quo - necessitates spending in areas that matter most to them. This seems to be the approach Hammond is taking - popular giveaways such as the fuel duty freeze mixed with investment for growth. It seems incongruous, however, that we should be raising 40% tax bracket at all, helping as it does those at the upper end of the income scale while reducing the government’s tax take. Here is the comment on the autumn statement sent out by Leave Means Leave, the successor to Leave.EU. It is from John Longworth, Leave Means Leave’s co-chair. We’re quoting it in full. It does not mention the OBR analysis of the impact of Brexit at all. The chancellor has made a good start on the road to making the British economy the best in the world. Investing in infrastructure and research and development, improving access to finance – particularly for tech companies which ensures they do not have to sell out to foreign competitors, and funding for the Oxford – Cambridge expressway are all very positive announcements. This is a solid base on which to build and crystalise the huge benefits Brexit brings to our country. Through signature ready trade deals, tariff reduction and removal, deregulation that will feel like a tax cut for UK businesses and real tax cuts - Brexit will enable the UK economy to thrive. The fringe benefit of Brexit is that the chancellor will have to make the UK the best country in the world to do business. His task now is to build confidence in the UK economy. He has a golden opportunity to improve further the strong economic forecasts and make Britain thrive, thanks to Brexit. Further OBR detail shows that the 80,000 a year reduction in net migration expected to follow the Brexit vote will cost Britain £16bn over the next five years. The OBR tables show that the reduction in net migration will come as a result of a tighter net migration policy and the UK becoming a less attractive place for migrants will cost the UK economy. It estimates that cut in migration will cost the UK economy £0.8bn in 2016/17 rising to £5.9bn a year by 2020/21. This is a total of £16bn over the next five years. Buried on page 160 of its report, the OBR makes the surprising prediction that Britain will be paying more to the EU in 2018-19 and beyond, despite Brexit. The watchdog has calculated that the fall in the pound will push up the UK’s contributions to the EU budget (which are paid in euros), by £800m in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and £900m in 2020-21. But shouldn’t Britain have stopped paying into the EU from March 2019? Not according to the OBR; it believes payments will continue, if Britain wants to keep access to, say, the single market. The Government has said it wishes to negotiate a bespoke arrangement with the EU. That may or may not include agreeing to contribute to the EU budget to retain some of the benefits that it has enjoyed from membership. Britain could also have to contribute to Brussels’ pension pot, and the European Investment Bank. And if British universities lose EU grants, the government may have to step in instead, the OBR adds. David Finch from the Resolution Foundation says the autumn statement reverses only 7% of the losses affecting the poorest half of households during this parliament. As Sky’s Faisal Islam points out, the autumn statement document shows that the government’s “welfare capâ€\x9d (a spending limit for certain welfare payments) is being relaxed. Why? Because, as the OBR report says, the government is on course to miss the current limit by 7% by the end of this parliament. And the ‘welfare cap’ requires a subset of welfare spending to be held below a cash limit set in July 2015, but we now expect this to overshoot by more than 7 per cent by 2020-21. Caroline Lucas, the Green party’s co-leader, criticised Philip Hammond for not mentioning climate change in the autumn statement. She said: With Trump’s election this could have been a moment for Britain to become a world-leader in the fight against catastrophic climate change but, instead, we see little evidence of a commitment to facing up to the greatest challenge of our times. Indeed, it is shameful that the chancellor failed to even mention climate change in his speech. By caving into the motor lobby and freezing fuel duty again for the seventh year in a row the government has made a mockery of the fact that it is the hottest year on record and condemned us to more carbon emissions and deadly pollution. And here is Mark Reckless, a member of the Welsh assembly, responding to the autumn statement on behalf of Ukip. Despite the fearsome predictions of remain supporters, the overall prognosis for the economy is good, as we knew it would be. The official forecast is that unemployment in 2020 after we have left the EU will be just 860,000. This administers the last rites to the infamous claim that 3m jobs would be lost if we left the EU. We are borrowing too much, £68bn this year, £59bn next, and £122bn more than planned across the forecast period. The government has talked tough on austerity but failed to match its words with deeds. Every month the government delays Brexit costs the exchequer over a billion pounds. UKIP says just get on with it. Here is Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, on the autumn statement. This is a government that is just about managing. The official figures have revealed a £220bn Brexit black hole- hundreds of billions taken out our economy when we need it most. Given how bad the outlook is, it’s no wonder the chancellor doesn’t want to have to do another autumn statement. The OBR figures forecast a rise a unemployment and a fall in living standards. We are seeing a drop in tax receipts of £8.2bn over the next two years alone. That’s enough to fund over 330,000 nurses. In response the chancellor offered nothing but reheated headlines and recycled announcements. The autumn statement was greeted with dismay within the education sector, which has been vociferously complaining about severe and worsening funding pressures in schools, with courses being cut, jobs lost and some sixth forms forced to close. In contrast to George Osborne’s budget in March where education was at the forefront of his announcements, education was barely mentioned in the statement, bar the chancellor’s confirmation of new capital funding to support the expansion of existing grammar schools - first announced in September. Treasury documents released after the statement said the government was committed to spending £50m in each year from 2017-18 on its grammar school expansion plan as part of its promise to ensure every child had access to a good school place. School leaders were unimpressed. Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the chancellor had failed to address the cash crisis in schools. The situation is so serious that some are struggling to deliver a full curriculum, courses are having to be cut and some sixth forms are closing. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, expressed similar disappointment. We know that school budgets are being pushed beyond breaking point. Almost nine out of ten school leaders are telling us that a rise in national insurance employer contributions and pension contributions are the key reasons behind financial pressures in their school. Freezing budgets at a time of rising costs is no protection at all. Capital investment in grammar schools is the wrong priority, and a distraction from the most important issues in education. Our economics editor Larry Elliott says that the autumn statement contained some important self truths about the UK economy: Philip Hammond’s message was stark and clear. The result of the EU referendum in June means the economy has arrived at a reality checkpoint. Deep-seated weaknesses will be exposed as the government negotiates a Brexit divorce between now and 2019. The chancellor was candid about Britain’s woefully poor productivity record. He admitted that infrastructure was deficient. There was no attempt to disguise the fact that there is a prosperity gap between London and other major cities. He used his autumn statement to address some of these long-term issues rather than to provide immediate help to the “just about managingâ€\x9d households, the so-called Jams, championed by the prime minister. To be sure, there was the pre-announced increase in the national living wage, the inevitable freezing of fuel duties for a seventh straight year and a change to universal credit to make the cuts announced by his predecessor less severe. Most of George Osborne’s welfare savings will go ahead, however, with Hammond deciding the best way to help the Jams is through an economy that generates higher-paid jobs. He has also left money in the bank in case he needs it during what are certain to be tricky times for the economy during the two-year article 50 process.... More here: The Welsh government’s finance secretary, Mark Drakeford, said the extra funding for Wales promised by the chancellor went some way to restoring cuts to its capital budget over recent years. The autumn statement included more than £400m of additional capital funding for Wales between 2016-17 and 2020-21 and £35.8m of revenue funding between over the same period. Drakeford said: As a government, we have been clear about the importance of investing in Wales’ infrastructure – in these uncertain times this is more important than ever. This is why we called on the UK government to boost investment to support economic growth. Although today’s announcement doesn’t go as far as we had hoped, this extra investment goes some way to restoring the cuts we have seen to our capital budget over recent years. Last month the Labour-led government published its investment priorities for the next four years. This included delivering an M4 relief road in south Wales and create Metro systems in the south and north. Big decisions on energy have been bumped to a future budget. The fate of a future cap on subsidies for green energy such as offshore windfarms is now due in the spring budget next year, the autumn statement says. The chancellor said a carbon tax which is driving coal power plants to close would be kept at current levels until 2020, but failed to set out its long term plan (something George Osborne promised in the spring that this budget would do). As some commentators pointed out, today offered no clarity for the energy sector beyond the short term. Any promise of a crackdown on energy companies, as teased by Theresa May in her conference speech and recently by business secretary Greg Clark, will also wait for another day. “We will look carefully over the coming monthsâ€\x9d at the retail energy market, Hammond said. And there’s no news of the government’s long-awaited plan on how it’ll meet its carbon targets - all we hear from the autumn statement is that officials will keep on chatting to “stakeholdersâ€\x9d to develop the blueprint. The plot thickens.... the Department for Business is now briefing that there’s NO new contingent liability with Nissan. So why wouldn’t the Treasury tell the OBR that?! The TUC says the autumn statement shows working people will lose £1,000 a year by 2020. TUC economist Geoff Tilly explains in a blog: Overall real earnings are now expected to rise by only £23 a week between 2015 and 2020; at the budget they were expected to rise by £41. This difference of £18 a week amounts to nearly £1000 a year (£955). And here is a statement from the TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. Today’s OBR forecast shows that the average annual wage will be £1,000 lower in 2020 than predicted at the Budget. And this is on top of wages still having not recovered to their 2007 levels. This is yet another blow to ordinary working people’s standard of living. And far from being focussed on ‘just about managing’ families, this shows up the government’s plans as inadequate. In his statement Philip Hammond announced various measures to increase housebuilding, including a £2.3bn housing infrastructure fund to build infrastructure to new homes. But, according to the OBR, the autumn statement measures will cut residential investment. The autumn statement includes a number of policies that are likely to affect housebuilding and residential investment. Dropping the requirement for housing associations to move to a shared ownership model and abandoning plans to force higher rents on some tenants will both reduce the cash inflows available for housebuilding. Partly offsetting that, additional grant funding and other smaller measures will increase cash inflows and boost housebuilding. The net effect is to reduce cumulative housebuilding by housing associations by around 13,000 over the forecast period, with a boost next year becoming a drag by 2019-20. The government’s refusal to disclose what, if anything, it has promised Nissan about Brexit is causing quite a row. The Independent’s Rob Merrick has asked the OBR whether the government has actually broken the law; the watchdog thinks not, but is keen that everyone knows about the Treasury’s reticence: Economist Alastair Smith, the former vice-chancellor of Sussex University, suspects Nissan has indeed been promised some sort of secret financial help (in case it suffers from Brexit, perhaps through new tariffs on exports to Europe) Tax specialist lawyer Jolyon Maugham is also rather surprised by the government’s stance: The OBR says that if it hadn’t been for the Brexit vote their projection for annual net migration to Britain would have been 80,000 a year higher at 312,000 in 2017 falling to 265,000 by 2021 and contributed around 0.2 percentage points each year to potential growth in the economy. They estimate that this net migration factor alone accounts for 0.9 percentage points of their judgement that the EU referendum has reduced potential output by 2.4 percentage points. Instead they assume that annual net migration, currently running at 330,000, will fall to 232,000 in 2017 and 185,000 by 2021. This is still far higher than Theresa May’s declared object of getting net migration down below 100,000 a year. The OBR asked the government to detail how its post-Brexit migration policy will operate but unsurprisingly ministers did not feel able to share any further detail and so the OBR felt unable to make any lower assumption for net migration: “In the absence of more policy detail and evidence of how much weaker the ‘pull’ effect (of Britain becoming a less attractive destination) we do not think it would sensible to move to a lower assumption now.â€\x9d Drive, baby, drive - that was the message from chancellor Philip Hammond’s autumn budget statement, with more money paving the way to new roads and a freeze on fuel tax. These steamroller the funds offered for electric cars. That’s a problem, as the UK already has an air pollution crisis that causes tens of thousands of early deaths - more traffic will only make it worse. Furthermore, rising transport emissions are one of the biggest obstacles to the nation meeting its legal targets for cutting carbon emissions. But then neither climate change or the environment merited a single mention in Hammond’s speech. Nor did green energy, support for which is set to fall off a cliff in 2021, or energy efficiency measures for the UK’s many leaky homes. The chancellor extolled the benefits of certainty to business and Britain’s expertise in “disruptive technologiesâ€\x9d, but these claims will feel very hollow to those trying to build a clean, green economy fit for the 21st century. They were almost entirely ignored. More here: British workers face a sharp earnings squeeze next year, says the OBR, as the weaker pound drives up inflation. The watchdog predicts that inflation will wipe out almost all pay rises in 2017. The fall in the pound will squeeze households’ real incomes by pushing up import prices. We expect the pound’s fall to add almost 2 per cent to the level of consumer prices over the next two years, relative to our March assumption. Real earnings growth will consequently fall close to zero next year. That squeeze is expected to hold back real private consumption growth in 2017 and 2018. Wages are currently rising by around 2.4% per year; and the OBR expects inflation to hit 2.5% in 2018 (corrected) This chart, from Torsten Bell of Resolution Foundation, shows how workers will take home £16 per week less than expected in 2020-21 (due to higher inflation and weaker pay growth). That’s £830 per year. And in the Commons George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, told his successor that he was right to “keep his powder dryâ€\x9d (ie, not increase spending too much now) because of the risk that he might need to revive the economy in the future. He said: Can I warmly congratulate my friend and successor on a strong statement and an assured delivery. The independent OBR has given us a very sober assessment of the economic and borrowing challenges that Britain faces and the chancellor is right to keep his powder dry. In the Commons Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, told Philip Hammond that, although Hammond told the Tory conference that people did not vote for Brexit to become poorer, the OBR is saying that is exactly what they did vote for. Miliband said: [Hammond] said at the Tory party conference that the British people did not vote to become poorer. The OBR tells us on p19 that £58bn of the worsening in the public finances is due to the Brexit decision. Isn’t it a salutary warning to us about the decisions we take in the coming months and isn’t it a very strong argument for us to remain as close as possible to our largest trading area the single market and inside not outside the customs union? Hammond responded by saying that Britain would try to get the “closest possible trading arrangementâ€\x9d with the EU. One of George Osborne’s most peculiar policies was his decision to give a tax break to workers who agreed to forfeit some of their employment rights. Many commentators thought it was barmy idea, but Osborne liked it because it allowed him to show Tory rightwingers that he had not completely ignored the regulation-slashing proposals in the infamous Beecroft report. Anyway, it turns out Philip Hammond thinks it’s a duff idea too. It has been scrapped. This is what the autumn statement document says: The tax advantages linked to shares awarded under ESS [employee shareholder status] will be abolished for arrangements entered into on, or after, 1 December 2016. The status itself will be closed to new arrangements at the next legislative opportunity. This is in response to evidence suggesting that the status is primarily being used for tax planning instead of supporting a more flexible workforce. The OBR are now briefing economics journalists about today’s autumn statement. The watchdog is warning that Britain’s economy is dogged by uncertainty, and is particularly concerned that Brexit could hurt productivity. Our colleague Katie Allen is there, and tweeting the key points: At PMQs Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated quite effectively how health spending is likely to be one of the key issues over coming years. (See 12.22pm.) But the autumn statement had more or less nothing to say on health. In his speech Philip Hammond had one sentence about the NHS, confirming that the government will back the NHS five-year forward plan. The autumn statement document does not mention the NHS at all. The word health does appear five times, but three of those are references to the health of the economy. The secretary of state for health gets one mention, and there is a single reference to the devolution of the work and health programme to city regions. The Office for Budget Responsibility will probably be accused by Brexiteers of being overly pessimistic about the economic impact of Brexit. But in its report (pdf) it says that things could get even worse than it is forecasting, because is it not assuming mass lay-offs and consumer spending drying up, even though these are both possibilities. (We’ve put the key sentence in bold.) Given the uncertainty surrounding the choices and trade-offs that the Government may have to make, and the consequences of different outcomes, we have not attempted to predict the precise end result of the negotiations. Instead we have made a judgement – consistent with most external studies – that over the time horizon of our forecast any likely Brexit outcome would lead to lower trade flows, lower investment and lower net inward migration than we would otherwise have seen, and hence lower potential output. In time the performance of the economy will also be affected by future choices that the Government makes about regulatory and other policies that are currently determined at the European level. These could move in either a growth-enhancing or a growth-impeding direction. In the near term, as the negotiations get under way, we assume that GDP growth will continue to slow into next year as uncertainty leads firms to delay investment and as consumers are squeezed by higher import prices, thanks to the fall in the pound. But we do not assume that firms shed jobs more aggressively or that consumers increase precautionary saving, both of which are downside risks if the path to Brexit is bumpy. The government has refused to reveal if it has made any promises to Japanese carmaker Nissan over Brexit, the Office for Budget Responsibility reveals. Today’s report shows that the OBR asked the Treasury if it had created any new ‘contingent liabilities’ related to Nissan. That’s an important issue, as Nissan announced last month that it will build two new vehicles in Sunderland despite uncertainty over Britain’s future with Europe. The Treasury “declined to sayâ€\x9d, admits the OBR, even though this might threaten the accuracy of its forecasts. This means we still don’t know what, if anything, has been promised to Nissan - or have any new insight into the government’s Brexit plan. Instead of providing the OBR with useful information, the Treasury directed the OBR to one of Theresa May’s speeches, which basically said “we’d make a success of Brexitâ€\x9d. This meant the OBR had to make “broad-brushâ€\x9d assumptions: Here is the Treasury paper (pdf) with the charts showing the distributional impact of the autumn statement measures. This chart, which shows the impact of autumn statement decisions in 2019-20, shows that it has been progressive, because the poor are gaining more than the rich. The Treasury says the gains are “modestâ€\x9d but those in the second decile from the bottom gain most in proportional terms. That is probably to a large extent because of the universal credit changes, which will help the working poor. But these changes are not enough to stop the government’s overall record since 2015 being more regressive. This chart shows the distributional impact in 2019-20 of all tax, welfare and public spending changes implemented since May 2015. The richest lose most. But people in the poorest three deciles are the next biggest losers, and most gains go to the wealthiest half of the population. The Office for Budget Responsibility has done a really good job of trying to calculate the impact of the EU referendum. There’s a whole appendix, called Annex B (p239 onwards), in which the OBR tries to construct a ‘counterfactual’ world in which Britain voted to stay in the European Union (alas, unhappy Remain voters can’t migrate to it). Ands this counterfactual shows that the vote will cost £58bn over the next five years. That’s because lower migration, and weaker productivity, will hit government revenues: This graph also shows that Brexit changes are the biggest contribution to the £122bn in extra borrowing announced today: Here are verdicts on the autumn statement from the ’s panel, Matthew d’Ancona, Martin Kettle, and Gaby Hinsliff. And here is an extract from Martin’s article. Paradoxically, however, today was just about the one day when something like a budgetary statement was in order from the chancellor. That’s because of one thing alone – Brexit. Hammond’s statement was a chance to make a first big assessment of the impact of Brexit on the UK economy. The verdict is, without question, bleak. Growth is down, borrowing has to rise, and the dream of a surplus has been deferred to “as soon as practicableâ€\x9d, ie never. Hammond’s other big problem is that tax take is falling. All those references in his speech to sustaining the tax base are Treasury code for the fact that Britain has continued to become a low wage, tax avoiding and increasingly unequal economy since 2010, in which there’s not enough public money to pay for public spending. That demands either more taxes or less spending, or both. Hammond has allowed himself to be boxed in on both options. But he gave a very important signal that pensions – and, less importantly in budgetary terms, the aid budget – will be cut after 2020, and the pension triple lock will be broken. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, responded to the autumn statement for Labour. Here are the key points from his speech. McDonnell said the autumn statement showed that George Osborne’s “long-term economic planâ€\x9d was a failure. Today’s statement places on record the abject failure of the last six wasted years and offers no hope for the future. We’ve heard today there’ll be more taxes, more debt and more borrowing. The verdict could not be clearer - the so-called long-term economic plan has failed. As the Treasury’s own leaked paper revealed, the government knew it had failed before the referendum result was announced. He said the government was not equipped to face Brexit. We now face Brexit, the greatest economic challenge of a generation, and we face it unprepared and ill-equipped. He said the “national living wageâ€\x9d increase was less than expected under Osborne. He urged Hammond to face up to the “extreme Brexit fanaticsâ€\x9d in the cabinet and insist on Britain keeping tariff-free access to the single market. The chancellor must now do the right thing for British workers and businesses. He must insist on full, tariff-free access to the single market. He and the Treasury know that’s what will give the best deal for jobs and prosperity here. It may not be in the chancellor’s nature, but in the national interest I urge him to stand up to the prime minister and the extreme Brexit fanatics in her cabinet. He claimed that Labour cared more about the “Jamsâ€\x9d, those just about managing, than the Tories. We have had a month of briefings from the party opposite on those people who are called just about managing - the Jams. To the party opposite these people are just an electoral demographic. To us they are our friends, our neighbours and the people we represent. He called for the reintroduction of the 50p top rate of tax. He said the cuts to universal credit should be abandoned altogether. He called for more spending on social care. Many elderly people will remain trapped in their homes, isolated and lonely, lacking the care they need because of these continuing cuts to social care. You can’t cut social care without also hitting the NHS. He claimed the govenrment had no new ideas. There are just no new ideas here, just a promise to deliver what they previously failed to deliver on. This is press release policy-making and not provision. All we need now is the return of the hi-vis jacket. The fourth industrial revolution will not be delivered on delays, on old news and re-announcements. Iain Wright MP has spotted that the OBR fears UK economic productivity could be weaker after Brexit: Brexit may mean Brexit, but for the OBR it also means a major headache when it has tried to assess the likely path of the UK economy. Like the rest of us, it doesn’t know what deal Britain will get - hard, soft, smooth, or something else entirely. So it has had to guess what the post-Brexit world will mean, and concluded that: ...any likely Brexit outcome would lead to lower trade flows, lower investment and lower net inward migration than we would otherwise have seen, and hence lower potential output. And here are the central assumptions underpinning the OBR’s forecasts: that the UK leaves the EU in April 2019 – two years after the date by which the Prime Minister has stated that Article 50 will be invoked; that the negotiation of new trading arrangements with the EU and others slows the pace of import and export growth for the next 10 years. that the UK adopts a tighter migration regime than that currently in place, but not sufficiently tight to reduce net inward migration to the desired ‘tens of thousands’ Philip Hammond is setting aside almost £0.5bn to help the civil service prepare for Brexit, the autumn statement document reveals. Here is the key paragraph, 3.34. We’ve highlighted the key sentence in bold. Additional resource will be provided to strengthen trade policy capability in the Department for International Trade (DIT) and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, totalling £26 million a year by 2019-20. There will also be additional resource of up to £51 million in 2016-17 for the Department for Exiting the European Union to support the re-negotiation of the UK’s relationship with the European Union. Up to £94 million a year of additional resource will be allocated from 2017-18 until the UK’s exit is complete. In total this will mean up to £412 million of additional funding over the course of this Parliament. The next time a Conservative politician talks about getting the debt under control, direct them to page 14 of the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook. It shows that Britain’s national debt is expected to hit £1.945trn by 2019-20, the end of the current parliament, and continue climbing to £1.952trn by 2021-22. And here is the key table from the autumn statement document (pdf) - the scorecard, saying what the various measures in the statement cost, or raise in revenue. Here’s that OBR scorecard in full: You can find all the autumn statement documents here, on the Treasury website. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility has just released its verdict. And it rules that Philip Hammond has delivered a ‘modest giveaway’, alongside a decidedly weaker economic landscape. The ONS says: The Chancellor has relaxed his fiscal targets to make space for a modest infrastructure spending giveaway over the next five years. A weaker outlook for the economy and tax revenues – and these new spending commitments – mean that the budget is no longer expected to return to surplus in this Parliament, with a £21 billion deficit remaining in 2020-21. The OBR also pins some of the blame on the uncertainty created by Brexit: Public sector net borrowing is now expected to fall more slowly than we forecast in March, primarily reflecting weak tax receipts so far this year and a more subdued outlook for economic growth as the UK negotiates a new relationship with the European Union. The OBR also reports that Hammond has failed to hit any of George Osborne’s old targets, but is now on track to meet his new fiscal targets (a budget surplus in the next parliament, the debt/GDP ratio falling by the end of this parliament, and a welfare cap). More here: Autumn Statement 2016: fiscal targets relaxed to allow modest giveaway We were promised a sober, gimmick-free autumn statement from Philip Hammond and, appropriately enough, the main surprise at the end of Hammond’s speech was an announcement that he is abolishing the Treasury’s biannual tax-and-spend bonanza. It was Gordon Brown who created the autumn statement in its modern form, a budget in all but name, and most economists and governance experts will agree with Hammond about these being unnecessary, because governments do not need to re-write the tax code every six months. MPs laughed, though, when Hammond announced this because it is clear that next year we will get two budgets, and after that we will a “spring statementâ€\x9d that may over time morph into an alternative budget. Most of the positive announcements in the statement had been flagged up well in advance, but it sounded as if some of his revenue-raising measures will be more significant than MPs realised. Graeme and I will be delving into the small print shortly. And there was also an intriguing reference to the ageing population, and the need to review budgets after 2020, which sounded like the death knell to the triple lock. We’re collecting all the key points from Hammond’s statement here: Hammond says this autumn statement responds to the challenges the country faces. It responds to the challenge of the country living beyond its means. And it provides helps to those who need it. And that’s it. Hammond has finished. Hammond says this is his first autumn statement - and his last. He is abolishing the autumn statement. No other major economy makes hundreds of changes every year. Next year’s spring budget will be the final spring budget. After that there will be an autumn budget, well before the new financial year starts. And then there will be a spring statement, responding to the forecasts from the OBR, but no major fiscal event. He says he will not make significant changes twice a year just for the sake of it. This brings the UK into line with best practice, recommended by the IMF and others. Hammond says he is cancelling the proposed fuel duty rise for the seventh successive year. This will save the average driver £130 a year, and the average van driver £350 a year. Hammond says the government will consider measures to help savers. It is proposing a savers bond for them. It will pay 2.2% interest. Hammond turns to letting agents. Their fees have spiralled, despite attempts to regulate them. This is wrong, he says. The government will ban fees for tenants. And it will ban pension cold-calling, he says. Hammond says he can go further to help families on low wages. Universal credit is an important reform, he says. He says, having considered arguments from Iain Duncan-Smith, David Burrowes and others, he has decided to cut the taper rate. That is effectively a tax cut worth £700m by 2022. Philip Hammond managed a rare trick in his first autumn statement -- he made the UK economy look even worse than we feared. Britain’s Brexit black hole is at least £122bn -- even larger than the £100bn that the City was expecting. That’s the difference between the deficit forecasts announced in March, and the new, higher, borrowing numbers unveiled today. It means the Office for Budget Responsibilities is expecting the economy to weaken as the Brexit negotiations intensify. It also reflects the cost of the infrastructure pledges which Hammond has made -- and explains why he couldn’t produce more rabbits from the Treasury hat. The goal of a surplus in 2020 has been kicked deep into the long grass. Hammond is now saying it won’t happen until sometime in the NEXT parliament. That could be 2024-2025 -- a whole decade later than George Osborne’s original plan. Here’s the grisly details of how much Britain now has to borrow. 2016-2017: £68.2bn deficit, up from £55.5bn in the Budget in March 2017-2018: £59bn, up from £38.8bn 2018-2019: £46.5bn up from £21.4bn 2019-2020: £21.9bn compared with a surplus of £10.4bn 2020-2021: £20.7bn compared with a surplus of £11bn Surprisingly, the growth figures weren’t quite as bad as we feared. There’s a sharp slowdown in 2017, but not a recession. And then we’re back to trend growth in a few year. However, that is all dependent on how the economy copes with the Brexit negotiations. 2016: 2.1% growth, up from 2.0% forecast in the Budget in March 2017: 1.4%, down from 2.2% 2018: 1.7%, down from 2.1% 2019: 2.1%, matching the 2.1% forecast in March 2020: 2.0%, down from 2.1% That’s why Britain’s economy will be 2.4% smaller than if we’d voted to stay in the European Union. Labour area already calling it Tory economic failure: Hammond says the government has given a pay rise to low-paid workers through the “national living wageâ€\x9d. He says he is making capital available for new grammar schools. But more needs to be done, he says. The “national living wageâ€\x9d will increase from £7.20 per hour to £7.50 in April next year. Hammond turns to the personal allowance. It will rise to £11,500 in April, he says. Since 2010 28m people have had their income tax cut, and 4m people have been taken out of income tax altogether. He says the government is still committed to taking the allowance up to £12,500 by the end of this parliament. And the 40p threshold will rise to £50,000 over the same period. Hammond says the government has done more than any other to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. The tax gap is one of the lowest in the world, he says. He says there will be a new penalty for people who use a tax avoidance scheme HMRC closes down. All these tax avoidance measures will save £2bn over the forecast period, he says. Hammond says from April 2017 employers and employees who use benefits in kind schemes will pay the same tax as everyone else. But there will be exceptions, including for childcare and cycling. Hammond says insurance premium tax will rise from 10% to 12% And he says the government will change the rules on whiplash compensation, saving drivers £40 a year on average. Hammond says he wants Britain to remain the number one destination for business. He knows how much business values certainty. So the government will stick to the business tax plans set out in the March budget. He says the communities secretary will lower the transitional relief cap. That’s complicated, but it’s good news, he says. And rural rate relief will be increase to 100%, giving businesses in rural areas a boost. He says the government will keep its commitments to protect budgets it said it would protect. But in the next parliament it will have to tackle the challenges of an ageing population. So budgets will be reviewed at the next spending review. Hammond says, having run two big spending departments, he came to this job with fixed views on departmental spending. He wants £1bn from savings to be refocused in priority areas. Hammond says public spending has a proportion of GDP has fallen to 40%. He says the government has demonstrated that controlling spending is compatible with having world-class services. Departmental spending limits will remain in place. And in 2021-22 they will rise with inflation. But the Ministry of Justice will get extra funding for another 2,500 prison officers. Hammond says £102 money from Libor fines will be distribute to service charities. And money from the Tampon tax fund will go to women’s charities. Hammond says he has deliberately avoided making this statement a list of specific projects. But he can announce a plan to protect Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham, a model for the house in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The government will provide a £7.5m grant to help preserve this piece of northern heritage, he says. Hammond says devolution remains at the government’s approach. A new city deal for Stirling is being negotiated. This means every city in Scotland will be on course to have one. City regions will get new borrowing powers, he says. London will get £3.15bn for 90,000 affordable homes. And the adult education budget will be devolved to London. Former Labour advisor Baron Wood tweets: Hammond says for too long investment has been focused on London. No other major economy has such a gap between the productivity of its capital, and its other cities. He says the government will publish a strategy to address this. An evaluation will allow the east Midlands rail hub to go ahead. Hammond says this investment will provide the backbone to the government’s industrial strategy. He will double UK Export’s financial capacity. He will take a step towards the problem of UK start-ups being snapped up by larger competitors by investing £400m, with a view to unlocking £1bn of investment. Hammond says he has written to the National Infrastructure Commission asking for proposals for spending in the next decade. The govenrment will commit to spending between 1% and 1.2% of GDP from 2020 on economic infrastructure. By comparison, it is spending 0.8% now, he says. The UK needs world-class digital infrastructure. He wants the UK to be a world-leader in 5G, he says. More than £1bn will be invested in digital infrastructure. From April there will be100% business rates relief on investment in new fibre. Hammond says the transport secretary will set out more details over the coming weeks. Hammond says there will be an extra £1.1bn invested in English transport networks, where small investments can often achieve big wins. Some of this will go on rail, which Jeremy Corbyn will welcome, he says. Hammond says for many the goal of home ownership remains out of reach. The challenge of delivering housing where it is not affordable is not a new one. But this is an urgent challenge. The government will soon publish a housing white paper. Often the local impact in infrastructure is an obstacle to new housing. So infrastructure spending will be focused where it can encourage new development. He says he can also announce new funding for housing. He wants a housing market that works for everyone, he says. Hammond says the government will form a new national productivity investment fund worth £23bn. It will focus on innovation and infrastructure. Investment in R&D will rise by £2bn a year by 2020. He says in the autumn statement he will prioritise high-value investment in infrastructure. He says the government’s hard-won credibility on spending means it can fund this from extra borrowing, while funding everything else in the statement from taxation and spending cuts. The UK lags the US and Germany by 30 points in productivity, he says. This means it takes a German worker four days to make what a British worker makes in five, he says. That means longer hours and lower pay for British workers. Here are three fiscal rules which Hammond has just proposed: Hammond jokes about the representations he has received from Labour. And he has received representations from other bodies, he says. Debt will peak at over 90% of GDP, he says. Hammond announces the borrowing figures. It will be £68.2bn this year, and £59bn next year, he says. Then the figures are: 2018-19 - £46bn 2019-20 - £21bn 2020-21 - £20.7bn 2021-22 - £17.2bn He says borrowing will be 3.5% this year, falling to 0.7% by 2021-22. Hammond says the govenrment does not expect to balance the budget by 2020. It is publishing new rules. There are three of them. 1 - To get the budget in surplus in the next parliament, and borrowing down to 2% by the end of this parliament. 2 - To get net debt falling by the end of this parliament. 3 - To keep welfare spending below a limit Hammond turns to the forecasts. Since 2010 the OBR has done forecasts. He says growth is forecast to be 2.1% this year, and 1.4% in 2017. That is due to lower investment and weaker demand, and those are caused by greater uncertainty and higher inflation. The other growth forecasts are: 2018 - 1.7% 2019 - 2.1% 2020 - 2.1% 2021 - 2% Hammond says, over the forecast period, growth is expected to be 2.4% lower than forecast as a result of Brexit. Hamond pays tribute to George Osborne. He says he will be no better at proving rabbits from hats (Osborne’s speciality) than Boris Johnson is at retrieve balls from the back of scrums (a joke about Johnson not becoming prime minister.) Hammond says the Brexit decision makes more urgent than ever the need to tackle the economy’s weaknesses. He says the government resolves to confront those challenges head on. It wants an economy that works for everyone, and where every part of the country is part of national success. Philip Hammond rises to make his statement. (John Bercow points out he is also first secretary of state, as well as chancellor.) Hammond says employment is at a record high. The economy has bounced back, and shown resilience since the EU referendum vote five months today. The Conservative Charlie Elphicke asks about fuel duty. Fuel prices go up like a rocket, when the oil price rises, but fall like a feather when it goes down, he says. May says Elphicke should wait for the autumn statement. Asked to rule out any more referendums this parliament, May ruled out a second referendum on the EU. But she did not rule out a second referendum on Scottish independence (although she has in the past said she is not in favour of one). May says austerity is about living within our means. When we talk about support for the homeless, we must remember that taxpayers pay for that support, she says. And many of them are struggling. John Whittingdale, the Conservative former culture secretary, welcomes the expected £1bn for superfast broadband in the autumn statement. May says investment in this field is crucial. At least three former chancellors are in the Commons to watch Philip Hammond’s debut fiscal statement: ITV’s Robert Peston can see the funny side of #AutumnStatement. From Sky’s Beth Rigby This is a sign that today’s autumn statement might be less dramatic than usual: PMQs - Snap verdict: That exchange will be overshadowed by the autumn statement coming soon, but that’s a shame for Jeremy Corbyn because that was one of his best ever PMQs performances. He sounded passionate and focused, and, although Theresa May sounded confident when defending measures to combat health tourism (in response to Corbyn’s fifth question) her answers on the topic of social care sounded bland and unsatisfactory. One problem was that she did not engage emotionally with Corbyn’s questions, and instead, sounding like an accountant, kept going on about government initiatives like the “Better Care Fundâ€\x9d which mean little to most listeners. Corbyn sounded a lot more authentic. Interestingly, he also at least twice defended the record of the Blair/Brown governments (on health spending, and on setting up the CQC), which is not something you always hear from Corbyn at PMQs. Doubtless some Labour MPs will assume that there is a link between that and the way this afternoon he scored a decisive win. Corbyn says the home in the Panorama programme was understaffed. He says poorly-paid staff should not be blamed. A warning from the CQC is not enough. Has the government considered the impact of getting patients to have to take their passports to hospitals to get care. Some 9.5m people do not have passports. May says over the course of this parliament the government will be spending £500bn. She says there has been a problem with people turning up to access services but not paying for them. Corbyn says Sir Simon Stevens said recently the next few years would be the toughest for NHS spending. At some point health spending per person will be cut for the first time. There are fewer mental health nurses. Waiting times are getting longer. And 1m people are not getting the social care they need. Shouldn’t social care be properly funded? May says billions of pounds extra are going into the NHS. There is a record level of money going into mental health. What Corbyn forgets to mention is that we can only afford to pay for the NHS if we have a strong economy creating wealth. That is what we will hear from the chancellor in a few moments. Corbyn say health spending trebled under Labour. And levels of satisfaction reached a record high. He says the number of people in hospital because of lack of care has gone up by one third. May repeats what the government has done. She asks which government put the triple lock in place for pensioners. Corbyn says the precept is a drop in the ocean compared to what is necessary. MPs will have been appalled by this week’s Panorama about a care scandal. He asks what the goverment will do to protect residents in the homes featured. May says everyone is appalled by terrible treatment like this. The CQC is able to step in, she says. But there is more that can be done, she says. The care minister will write to the CQC to see what more can be done. Jeremy Corbyn asks about the governments plans for the NHS, which he says hide cuts worth £22bn, according to the BMA. He says the BMA’s Mark Porter says this is a mess. Where is he wrong? Theresa May says savings will be reinvested within the NHS. The government is providing not just £8bn for the NHS, but £10bn. Corbyn points out that the health committee says the figure is £4.5bn, not £10bn. He says more than 1m people do not get the social care they need. There has been an increase in admissions from older patient. Margaret wrote to him about how her mother suffered two falls because of lack of care. What is the government doing to improve social care. May says the government has introduced the Better Care Fund and a social precept for local authorities. What did Labour do? They said they would deal with social care in the 1997 manifesto. There were various reviews, but by 2009 they were still on a green paper. Thirteen years and they did nothing. From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman PMQs has started. This is from the Evening Standard’s Kate Proctor. The devolved government in Belfast’s Finance Minister has called for a “Niagra Falls stimulusâ€\x9d of extra infrastructure spending for Northern Ireland in the region. MáirtÃ\xadn Ó Muilleoir, the Sinn Fein Minister, said the government needs to invest in infrastructure “to give the economy a jolt.â€\x9d The Minister also called today for “austerity to be binned.â€\x9d Northern Ireland expects to gain an extra £40 million from the Chancellor’s autumn statement, which will be invested in improved road, rail and other local infrastructure. This is from the Sun’s Steve Hawkes. PMQs will be starting shortly. We will be covering the Theresa May/Jeremy Corbyn exchanges, and any autumn statement related questions, but not the whole thing. As the former Labour adviser Theo Bertram says, PMQs before the autumn statement is normally a bit of a non-event. One of the City’s leading fund managers, Toby Nangle of Columbia Threadneedle, hopes that Philip Hammond will produce new measures to boost investment. He tells Sky News that: The real issue of concern for us is the investment side. With Brexit looming over, the surveys have been pointing down. So anything he can do on that side would be quite helpful. Nangle believes the government should exclude infrastructure spending from its budget surplus targets. This would allow it to invest in long-term projects that boost productivity (and growth) in the long term, without having to slash day-to-day spending. Labour have been pushing this idea for years - and Nangle says it makes sense: A shift away from targeting actual budget surpluses to primary surpluses is a very sensible thing that most people will support. It facilitates investment - and that investment is really what we need as a country. It stops you pitting your health budget against your HS2 budget out of the same pot. Here is ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, on the autumn statement. Theresa May has welcomed Philip Hammond’s “prudentâ€\x9d approach to running Britain’s economy as he prepares to deliver his first autumn statement, reviving a favourite catchphrase of Gordon Brown’s. Hammond set out his plans for his first set-piece parliamentary event as chancellor to his fellow ministers at Wednesday morning’s cabinet meeting. He is expected to announce sharply weaker economic forecasts and reveal the full extent of the deterioration in the public finances likely to be caused by Britain’s exit from the European Union. The Treasury has already announced a series of modest giveaways, including a partial reversal of deep cuts to in-work benefits. The chancellor is expected to confirm a ban on letting fees for millions of families who are being charged hundreds of pounds by agencies to cover the supposed administrative costs of renting. Hammond is also expected to announce an increase in the “national living wageâ€\x9d from £7.20 to £7.50 an hour from April 2017, although this is slightly below the £7.60 figure that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimates would be necessary for it to stay on course to match the pledge of £9 an hour by 2020. Hammond told colleagues his approach was “focused on preparing and supporting the economy as we write a new chapter in the country’s historyâ€\x9d, and on tackling the productivity shortfall which means Britain’s workers are “working longer hours, for less payâ€\x9d, compared to similar countries. Hammond’s colleagues, as is traditional, banged the table in approval of his plans, the spokeswoman said. Fiscal prudence, and tackling Britain’s long-term productivity shortfall, were key themes of the Treasury’s work during Brown’s stint as chancellor. May’s spokeswoman also highlighted the fact that Hammond’s colleagues had welcomed the way he and Treasury officials had worked constructively with other departments; and the renewed focus on the long-term weaknesses of the economy. Hammond has consciously sought to reject the meddling approach of former chancellors, and insiders say he will allow his colleagues more leeway over how they spend their budgets. He is also expected to deliver a slimmed-down statement, with few gimmicks. This is what Theresa May told the cabinet about the autumn statement, according to Number 10. This is an autumn statement which will deliver on the government’s commitment to build an economy which works for everyone and sets the economy on the right path for the long term. This is a balanced and prudent autumn statement which will make clear Britain is open for business and the government is on the side of ordinary working people struggling to make ends meet. That really was a muted appearance by Philip Hammond on Downing Street; he looked more like a man heading to the shops for some milk than a chancellor preparing to update the nation on its finances.... Sky News’ Faisal Islam hoped for a bit more... It may be a sign that Hammond isn’t planning any fireworks today, and may be keen to downplay the importance of the autumn statement. Here is another profile of Philip Hammond, from Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt. It’s very good, but it contains rather more information about the teenage Hammond than we need to know. Apparently he was a good kisser. It also contains this insight into what Hammond thinks of Boris Johnson and Liam Fox. Philip Hammond has just emerged from Number 11 Downing Street, clutching a copy of autumn statement. But he’s not hanging around for photos -- the chancellor heads straight to his ministerial limo for the short drive to the House of Commons. The chancellor tweets.... As well as reading your comments below the line we’d like to hear from readers who will be affected by the chancellor’s announcements today via a dedicated callout. Is your family “just managingâ€\x9d or are you a pensioner struggling to get by? Maybe you earn close to the government’s “national living wageâ€\x9d and have comments on its implications for you? Tell us what the autumn statement will do for you by clicking on the link – you can share your story anonymously if you prefer – and we’ll use a selection in our ongoing coverage. Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, has been tweeting about the Treasury’s decision to change the taper rates to ameliorate the impact of universal credit cuts. The Resolution Foundation is a thinktank set up to investigate the problems facing low and middle earners - or LMEs, as they used to be called. They are more or less exactly the same group now called “Jamsâ€\x9d by the government - people just about managing. The government’s decision to target the JAMs has sparked a spread of new acronyms to capture modern Britain’s tribes. Freelance journalist Jane Merrick is leading the charge, with a series of groups that every serious politician should be targeting: The Curds won’t be crying many tears for Foxtons’ shareholders today.... Still, it could be worse... Jeremy Corbyn has been tweeting about the autumn statement. Labour have just published some prebuttal of the autumn statement. They say that poorer families will still be worse off, even if Philip Hammond cut the taper rate on universal credit, from 65p to 63p in the pound (meaning families lose less benefits if they do more paid work). Shadow chancellor John McDonnell says: “Some working families, who will have lost as much as £2,500 a year, might only be getting back as little as £150 in this Statement. And here’s the maths: Following the changes to the UC taper rate, a working couple with two children, both working on the National Living Wage (NLW), could now be £800 worse off instead of around £1,100 worse off in 2017-18 as a result of cuts to UC work allowances. Following the changes to the UC taper rate, a lone parent with two children earning £25,000 per annum might be around £2,300 worse off instead of £2,500 worse off in 2017-18 as a result of cuts to UC work allowances. Roughly £50m has been wiped off the combined value of Foxtons and Countrywide this morning. Both company’s shares are still down sharply today, thanks to the looming clampdown on tenancy fees. This rather undermines the claim that these fees aren’t a lucrative source of easy income for estate agents. Here is another of the pictures that Philip Hammond posed for yesterday, for use in advance of today’s autumn statement. Like the one at 8.50am, it seems intended to convey a sense of calm poise. And it is no surprise to see that Hammond is a tidy desk man. This is what Kate Allen and George Parker say about him in a Financial Times profile (subscription). Mrs May is Mr Hammond’s most important cabinet ally, but their relationship is less close than the one shared by David Cameron and Mr Osborne. “They don’t meet three to four times a day, they meet three to four times a week,â€\x9d one Hammond staffer said. “It is a more formal relationship but they are both very formal kinds of people. He is not a casual feet-up-on-the-table kind of guy, he’s the type of man who wears suits on aeroplanes.â€\x9d The FT article also contains an interesting line about how Hammond has changed the way decisions are made in the Treasury. Political decision-making has long operated through the red box system: civil servants prepare briefing papers of a couple of pages or more in length that are packed up and sent home to be read overnight, with ministerial decisions handed down in the following day or two. But the new chancellor demanded much shorter briefings, delivered to him two or three times a day for rapid decisions. Although he still uses red boxes, it has made the Treasury’s operations “much quickerâ€\x9d says one senior civil servant who works closely with Mr Hammond “and the volume of decision making is higherâ€\x9d, while “the civil service has had to make its updates shorter and more succinctâ€\x9d. The pound has dropped this morning as the City braces for the government’s new growth and deficit forecasts. Sterling has lost half a cent against the US dollar to $1.237, its lowest level of the week. The pound has also dipped against the euro, at €1.165. Traders are nervous about the likely impact of leaving the EU on the public finances. So sterling could get a kicking if the growth figures are particularly bleak, or if the deterioration in the public finances is even more than the £100bn expected. FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga says: It has become evident that Sterling remains trapped by the ongoing Brexit uncertainty, with the future of the post-Brexit UK economy haunting investors. Among those welcoming the government’s decision to ban letting agent fees is Olly Grender, the Lib Dem peer who has been pushing a private member’s bill through the Lords proposing just this. Here is an extract from her second reading speech explaining the case for a ban. Unlike people in the owner-occupied market, one in four renters moved home in 2013-14. Just under a third of renters have moved three times or more in the past five years, and just under a quarter of them in London. Each time they move, the up-front costs are often the greatest barrier of all ... Costs vary from agent to agent and range from £40 to £780, with the average cost just under £400 per move. Many of those charges seem completely arbitrary. A credit check, for example, costs about £25 today, but some agencies charge a tenant £150 or more to carry one out. Marta, a lady who contacted the Debrief’s Make Renting Fair campaign, had asked to sign a three-year tenancy agreement. The agent said, “Fine, but you’ll have to pay three times the feeâ€\x9d: that was three times £360 just to re-sign. I spoke to a young woman this week who is in a two-bedroom flat. She is the main tenant and happily paid £150 for an inventory check and other things at the start of her tenancy, but every time her flatmate changes, the new tenant is charged a £150 for an inventory check which, of course, never happens—what a rip off! Citizens Advice, which in the past year has seen 80,000 people with a problem in the private rented sector, has seen an 8% increase in complaints about letting agents. One tenant described a fee of £180 to renew a tenancy agreement that is staying exactly the same, except for a change of dates. It requires a simple printing or photocopying job, and it is the renters who go into the office and sign the form, but they are charged almost £200 for it. And this is what she said about the argument that a ban would result in rents being increased. (See 9.37am.) Fees for tenants have already been successfully banned in Scotland following legislation in 1984, which was clarified in 2012. Research into its impact commissioned by Shelter shows that it has had only minimal side-effects for letting agents, landlords and renters, and the sector remains healthy. Only 17% of letting agents increased fees to landlords, and only 24% reported a small negative effect on their business. Not one agency manager interviewed said it had a large negative impact on their business, while 17% said they considered the change to be positive for their business. We’re expecting Philip Hammond to announce several billion pounds of infrastructure spending, including: Housebuilding: A £1.4bn “injectionâ€\x9d to support the building of 40,000 homes. Transport: A £1.3bn road improvement scheme will aim to tackle bottlenecks and fix potholes. Digital: A £1bn scheme will push ahead with trials for 5G mobile access and superfast one gigabit broadband. BHP Billiton economist Sukhdeep Dhillon says that Britain needs this injection of spending: But.... Sam Tombs of Pantheon Economics points out that the government had been planning to squeeze public sector investment over the next few years: Here’s our full list of what to watch out for today: Ed Miliband lost the 2015 general election but today he will have the pleasure of seeing one of his proposals becoming government policy. Labour’s manifesto called for a ban on letting agent fees, which it said would save renters more than £600. He has welcomed the fact that Philip Hammond has now adopted the idea, but wants the government to go further. At the time of the election the Conservatives said a ban on letting agent fees would “lead to higher rentsâ€\x9d and Gavin Barwell, the housing minister, was making exactly the same argument just two months ago. Iain Duncan Smith, who resigned as work and pensions secretary earlier this year after the budget because he objected to the way George Osborne, the then chancellor, was cutting universal credit while offering tax cuts to higher earners, has been urging ministers to scrap those cuts to universal credit, which are worth £3.4bn. On the Today programme this morning he gave a cautious welcome to the news that the Treasury will ameliorate the impact of those cuts, by reducing the taper rate. But he said he wanted the government to go further. I consider this really a down payment - this is not game over. This is really about the fact the chancellor has said, given the circumstances and given that we don’t know where we are going to be, necessarily, as we get into Brexit stuff over the next two years, he wants to give a strong indication that they want to help those who are struggling. Here’s a starter for this, let’s see where we go over the next two to three years. The news that Philip Hammond will announce a rise in the minimum wage to £7.50 per hour from April 2017 has received a subdued welcome. Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation, argues that workers need more help: “We welcome any pay rise for low-paid workers, especially now in these uncertain times with speculations about food and other prices set to rise. The reality, however, is that a fifth of UK workers aren’t paid enough to live on. There’s still a gap between the Government minimum and our real Living Wage of 8.45 in the UK and 9.75 in London, which is based on what families need to earn to meet everyday costs.â€\x9d And the FT’s Jim Pickard points out that the Low Pay Commission had expected a bigger rise, to keep pace with average earnings. However, wage growth this year has been more muted than expected. [The government’s target is to lift the living wage to 60% of median earnings by 2020]. Hammond may insist he’s trying to help those of us who are ‘Just about Managing’. But any new dollops of help for the Jams will be wiped away by the impact of the government’s existing austerity measures. Today’s Editorial explains: Before leaving No 11 this summer, George Osborne planned £13bn in benefit cuts and a further £16bn taken out of the budgets of “unprotectedâ€\x9d Whitehall departments. He also slashed spending for local councils. Given his ambition to balance the budget (by some as yet unspecified date), Mr Hammond is unlikely to drop any of those plans. So a working family that will earn a slightly higher minimum wage and a bit more next year on their universal credit will still have their tax credits frozen for the rest of this decade; their Sure Start centres will face the threat of closure and many of their children’s clubs and libraries could go to the wall. If Theresa May considers this helping, her version of hurting doesn’t bear thinking about. We’ve pulled together some key charts to get you up to speed ahead of the autumn statement: Last night, the Treasury released a series of picture of Philip Hammond perusing the autumn statement in a comfy armchair - and curiously perched by a window. It reminded Baron Wood of Anfield, former advisor to Gordon Brown, of happier days: George Osborne has tweeted Hammond his support from the back benches: Philip Hammond’s plan to clamp down on letting fees has sent shares in Britain’s property sector tumbling. Foxtons shares plunged by 10% at the start of trading, with Countrywide (Britain’s biggest estate agent) shedding 5% and LSL Property down 6%. Traders are calculating that these companies will lose out once Hammond bans agencies from charging large fees, typically hundreds of pounds, to cover the ‘administrative costs’ of renting properties. Hammond’s plan, which will be announced in the autumn statement, follows pressure from campaigners who say tenants are simply being ripped off. But it’s been damned as “draconianâ€\x9d by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), who argue that estate agents will charge landlords more, and they’ll pass those costs onto tenants... Exactly five months after the EU referendum, we’re finally going to get the first official estimate of the impact of the Brexit vote on the UK economy. And it may be a worrying picture. Economists are certain that Philip Hammond will tear up the forecasts announced by George Osborne in March’s budget. Growth in 2017 could be revised to just 1.4% (or lower), down from 2.2%, which would be the biggest downgrade since the eurozone crisis. Lower growth means a higher deficit -- City number-crunchers believe Hammond could announce one hundred billion pounds of extra borrowing over the next few years. It could even be more, depending what the independent Office for Budget Responsibility makes of the uncertainty facing the UK economy. And that means one of the planks of Osbornomics, a surplus by the end of the parliament, will be consigned to history. Instead of a surplus in 2019-20, Britain could find itself looking to borrow £30bn to balance the books in three year’s time. This chart, from Bloomberg, shows the current City forecasts for borrowing (in blue), versus the Budget predictions: This year’s goal of cutting the deficit to £55bn is almost certainly toast. Yesterday’s public finance figures showed that Britain has already borrowed £48bn since April, with five months until the end of the financial year This likely deterioration in the public finances means that Hammond won’t have the option of big fiscal giveaways to boost growth. Instead, he’ll probably favour smaller-scale projects which should deliver obvious, and quick, economic gains - such as new road and rail infrastructure. But there’s no doubt that Hammond has a tough job today. Something odd happened in Westminster yesterday. At around 1pm political journalists started getting an email from the Treasury with a press release headed “Chancellor delivers on government pledge to support ordinary working class familiesâ€\x9d. There is nothing unusual about the government briefing out selected titbits from the autumn statement and the budget in advance. But this read like The Full Monty: a £1.4bn affordable housing announcement, a (modest) increase in the “national minimum wageâ€\x9d, a measure to reduce the impact of planned cuts to universal credit (but only slightly), a ban on letting agents’ fees, tighter whiplash compensation rules intended to reduce the cost of car insurance by £40 a year, and investment in research and development. It was so comprehensive that we spent the rest of the day wondering - what on earth is left for Philip Hammond to announce this afternoon? We’ve been told that Hammond doesn’t approve of the meretricious showmanship that his predecessors George Osborne and Gordon Brown used to display on these occasions and so it seems very unlikely that he will unveil a surprise “rabbit out of the hatâ€\x9d in the final sentence of his statement. Instead many of us assume that the Treasury released all the good news last night because they know today’s statement will be dominated by the forecasts for growth and government tax receipts, which are expected to show that Brexit will blast a massive hole in the government’s finances. The economy has been performing reasonably well in the five months since the EU referendum. But, for the first time since that vote, the government will have to make a formal assessment of the longterm impact of Brexit and there are suspicions that the figures will be so gloomy that they will read as if they have been drafted by Remoaner HQ. Hammond does not have a lot of room for manoeuvre. But Theresa May replaced David Cameron in the summer promising a renewed focus on those who are “just about managingâ€\x9d and today’s autumn statement is her government’s first big chance to show quite how serious it is about helping this group. How different will her government’s approach by from Cameron’s? The briefing we’ve had so far suggests the answer is ‘a bit, but not hugely’, but we’ll know more by the end of the day. I’m Andrew Sparrow and I will be blogging today with my colleague Graeme Wearden. We will be covering the statement in full and then bringing you reaction and analysis, focusing in particular on what’s hidden in the small print of the government’s announcements.',
 'Boris Johnson urged to disinvest from bank linked to Saudi regime The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been pressed not to put profit before principle after it was revealed that the Greater London Authority has £100m of public money invested in a bank backed by Saudi Arabia. The GLA treasury has a £2.5bn portfolio of investments in a range of foreign banks, including £100m in the Riyad Bank, which is 51% owned by the Saudi state. Opposition parties have called on the government to distance itself from the Saudi regime in response to the execution of 47 people on Saturday, including the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. UK government ties to Saudi Arabia have frequently been criticised because of the country’s poor record on human rights, including extensive use of the death penalty. The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called on Johnson to pledge never to invest public money in such regimes, saying “words are not enoughâ€\x9d.. “Investing Londoners’ funds into Saudi government-backed banks seems to suggest Boris and his administration condone the horrific and systematic human rights abuses committed in the kingdom,â€\x9d said Farron. “Investing in such places goes against everything London stands for. Profit should never come before principle.â€\x9d The investments are managed by the Group Investment Syndicate (GIS), which includes the GLA, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, the mayor’s office for policing and crime, London Pensions Fund Authority and London Legacy Development Corporation. The GIS’s overall investment strategy is personally approved by Johnson. The group has another £100m invested in the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, which is majority owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE government has also come under fire for human rights abuses. There is no suggestion that either bank is mismanaged. A spokesperson for the GLA said the authority “has a duty to ensure its short-term cash balances are invested with an aim of minimising the risks of any loss to the taxpayer. Those investments are made by officials in the group treasury team, without political involvement and targeting high-quality and creditworthy institutions.â€\x9d Speaking to the BBC’s World at One programme, Farron said that the UK government’s attitude towards the Saudi regime was “almost sycophanticâ€\x9d. It should be “pragmatic, but not subservientâ€\x9d, he said. “I think what’s important … is that as a country, being much clearer in our condemnation of the executions the other day would not only be right on a human rights aspect but also would send the right signals to Iran and to others in the Shia Muslim world that – as we try to make the Vienna process work – this is not the kind of action that we will tolerate.â€\x9d',
 'Slow Club: One Day All of This Won’t Matter Any More review – a musical and artistic stop-gap Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor relocated to Matthew E White’s Spacebomb Studios in Virginia to make their fourth album. While escaping familiar locations has served to align their sound with world-weary Americana – enhanced here by White’s in-house band – there is something amiss: the friction that once made their music blossom has gone. After their last album set out some lofty ambitions, this one feels like a creative plateau. Album closers Let the Blade Do the Work and One Day All of This Won’t Matter Anymore provide the right balance of pop romance and crooked storytelling; while heartache and an endearing comedic narrative still shape their lyrics, sometimes the country crooning leans into boozy bar karaoke – or floats, coasts and billows past without making any real connection. Warm and nourishing, but bereft of an artistic statement, In Waves feels like a musical stop gap – a temporary vacation rather than a home.',
 "Barack Obama's workout playlist proves he's master of the eclectic mixtape The US Democratic party have championed Barack Obama’s hip and eclectic music taste since sharing the nominee’s iPod playlist during the 2008 campaign. Now, as the president winds down his final term, he’s revealed his curatorial powers extend to a particularly 21st century obsession: the well-crafted workout playlist. For his guest editorship of November’s Wired magazine, Obama’s team released his exercise soundtrack on Tuesday: a mixture of funk, pop, rock and hip-hop, with a few curveballs (and cheeseballs) thrown in. The playlist shares a few commonalities with his 2016 summer soundtrack: there’s a celebration of black artists, a few crowdpleasers (last year’s Good Vibrations is this year’s Let’s Get It Started), and even a couple of double-ups – independent Australian artist Courtney Barnett’s Elevator Operator features on both playlists, as does Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. Jay Z gets another look-in, this time with Drake in 2009’s Off That. It’s preceded by Get Me Bodied by Beyoncé – who featured twice on Michelle Obama’s workout playlist, released in 2012. Also featured is Emergency by Swedish electropop duo Icona Pop – a more original choice than 2012’s I Love It, which remains unavoidable in gyms around the world; the Isley Brothers’ funk-filled ode to free love, Live It Up; and, from slightly out of left field, there’s Perro Loco by Forro in the Dark – a collective of Brazilian musicians who rework the rural forro music for the club scene of New York. Obama – who hosted his first ever music festival, South by South Lawn (SXSL), earlier this month – proved himself a master of the mixtape when he released the White House’s summer playlists in August to broad acclaim. Speaking with Pitchfork at SXSL, the White House’s first chief digital officer Jason Goldman said the choices are all the president’s: “I swear it is him who makes the playlists. He has personally selected all of those songs and writes them out by hand. He really loves a diverse range of music.â€\x9d In 2015, Obama became the first sitting president to visit Jamaica in more than 30 years. Dropping in at the Bob Marley Museum, he told press he’d been “a big fanâ€\x9d since high school. This might explain the gym playlist inclusion of Could You Be Loved which, much like Sting’s If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, is perhaps more befitting of a dawdle than a gym drill. But perhaps it’s one for the warm-down. The playlist does, however, not include Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper, who were recently invited to his Final State Dinner. Have a listen to his picks below.",
 'Brexit would be political arson, says David Miliband Leaving the EU would be an act of political arson that risks the destruction of international order, the former foreign secretary David Miliband has said. In one of the starkest warnings of the referendum debate so far, Miliband argued that the impact of Brexit could extend far beyond the UK and that it could have a disastrous effect on the rest of the world. Writing for the before delivering a key speech in Westminster on Tuesday, he said it would amount to “giving up on our alliancesâ€\x9d with the rest of the world. “It means forsaking our position at the negotiating table and abandoning our international responsibilities – unilateral political disarmament. No nation in human peacetime history has voluntarily given up as much political power as we are being invited to throw away on 23 June.â€\x9d The former politician, who lost the Labour leadership race to his brother Ed in 2010, said leaving the EU could set off a domino effect across the world. “The British question is not only one of what we get out of Europe. It is also one of whether we want to shore up the international order, or contribute to its dilution and perhaps even destruction,â€\x9d said Miliband, who now heads the International Rescue Committee in New York. “Britain cannot solve these problems alone. But we do more in and for the world than our modest size would suggest. At our best, we lead in defending the values, building the structures and defining the substance of international cooperation. “If the world is increasingly divided between firefighters and arsonists, then Britain has for centuries been a firefighter. This is no time for Britain to join the ranks of arsonists and there should be no doubt that Brexit would be an act of arson on the international order.â€\x9d The EU referendum debate was further inflamed on Monday by a row over the government’s decision to spend £9m on sending a leaflet making the case for the remain camp to every household in Britain. David Lidington, the Europe minister, defended the leaflet in the House of Commons by claiming the government would be “abrogating its responsibilityâ€\x9d if it neglected to make its case to citizens. He was backed by Pat Glass, the shadow Europe minister, who said it was “perfectly reasonableâ€\x9d for the government to make its case to people. However, Lidington was criticised by a raft of backbench Eurosceptics, including former cabinet ministers Liam Fox and John Redwood. Fox said it was a piece of “Juncker mailâ€\x9d – referring to the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – and branded it a “dodgy dossier: the sequelâ€\x9d. Redwood said: “Isn’t it an abuse of public money, an insult to electors, and do you realise it’s going to drive many more people to vote to leave?â€\x9d Several called for similar funds to be available to make the case for Brexit and pointed out ministers had promised the government would be “restrained in their use of public moneyâ€\x9d so that they did not compete with the campaigns on each side. Crispin Blunt, Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said the mail-shot was both a waste of public money and caused “damage to the government’s reputation for straight-dealing on this issueâ€\x9d. Nigel Evans, a Tory backbencher, accused the government of “spiv Robert Mugabe anticsâ€\x9d that he would condemn in his role as an international election observer. Lidington said Evans should reflect on the fact that Zimbabwe elections have involved the “murder, maiming and intimidation of votersâ€\x9d and realise it was not his finest moment in the Commons. Milband’s dire warning echoed those of David Cameron, Alan Johnson and other campaigners for the UK to stay in who have claimed Brexit would lead to years of uncertainty and danger. Brexit campaigners have accused their opponents of exaggerating the consequences of leaving the EU and claimed the remain activists are running a “Project Fearâ€\x9d intent on scaring voters into staying in the EU. Last month Boris Johnson, the London mayor and Conservative MP, urged people thinking of voting to leave to hold their nerve and “not be cowed by the gloomadon poppersâ€\x9d who thought the UK would not prosper on its own. He went on to issue a plea for voters to “ignore the pessimists and the merchants of doomâ€\x9d who were arguing that the UK should fear being outside the EU – an argument made by Cameron on the grounds of economic uncertainty and national security.',
 "AC/DC's Brian Johnson: hearing loss diagnosis was darkest day of my career AC/DC’s Brian Johnson has revealed further details about why he had to stop playing live with the band. His statement comes in the same week that it was announced that Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose will take over Johnson’s duties during AC/DC’s forthcoming live shows. Johnson made it clear that he wasn’t retiring from recording with the band, but that his health had made playing live shows impossible. In a statement he said: “On March 7th, after a series of examinations by leading physicians in the field of hearing loss, I was advised that if I continued to perform at large venues I risked total deafness. While I was horrified at the reality of the news that day, I had for a time become aware that my partial hearing loss was beginning to interfere with my performance on stage … and because I was not able to hear the other musicians clearly, I feared the quality of my performance could be compromised. This was something I could not, in good conscience, allow. Our fans deserve my performance to be at the highest level, and if for any reason I can’t deliver that level of performance I will not disappoint our fans or embarrass the other members of AC/DC.â€\x9d Johnson was at pains to point out that he wasn’t a “quitterâ€\x9d and that there is nothing he’d like more than to be able to continue playing live with the group. “I like to finish what I start. Nevertheless, the doctors made it clear that I had no choice but to stop performing on stage for the remaining shows and possibly beyond. That was the darkest day of my professional life.â€\x9d He added that it was possible he could continue at some point in the future: “Since that day, I have had several consultations with my doctors and it appears that, for the near future, I will be unable to perform on stage at arena and stadium-size venues where the sound levels are beyond my current tolerance without the risk of substantial hearing loss and possibly total deafness. I tried as best as I could to continue despite the pain and hearing loss, but it became too much to bear and too much to risk.â€\x9d Johnson said doctors had confirmed he could continue to record in the studio with the band: “And I intend to do that. For the moment, my entire focus is to continue medical treatment to improve my hearing. I am hoping that in time my hearing will improve and allow me to return to live concert performances. While the outcome is uncertain, my attitude is optimistic. Only time will tell.â€\x9d Axl Rose, 54, will fulfil his current commitments to Guns N’ Roses before replacing Johnson on AC/DC’s remaining tour dates. The last couple of years have been difficult for AC/DC. In July 2015, they parted company with drummer Phil Rudd after he was convicted of threatening to kill and possession of drugs. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young left in September 2014 after announcing he had dementia.",
 "One family's nightmare as fraudsters ransack Barclays account by phone Fraudsters can contact Barclays bank, pose as a customer, ask for that person’s account address to be changed, then take out huge loans against their name – as one Nottingham teacher has found to her deep distress. Jude Grundy was just days away from moving home when the nightmare began, with her debit card being refused at a supermarket checkout. It later emerged that two weeks previously fraudsters had called Barclays, claimed to be her, and changed her address. They were then able to open a second linked account and apply for a new debit card. With that card the crooks were then able to obtain a £24,000 loan from Barclays and a £750 overdraft, as well as topping it off by stealing £4,000 in savings from Grundy and her husband, Andrew. She only found out about the linked account when, curiously, £2,000 was transferred into her account. It was this which the bank’s systems blocked as suspicious. The fact that Grundy kept failing the security questions, on the account she had not herself opened, might have alerted Barclays staff to the fact that bigger problems were afoot. Only after Money intervened was her account unfrozen, which was when Grundy discovered that the £24,000 loan had been taken out and her savings were gone. “When I was finally able to log on I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had been told the account was up and running again, but no one appears to have noticed it had been ransacked,â€\x9d she says, describing her treatment by Barclays as shockingly bad. Not only did it hand control over her account to fraudsters, it then closed it, leaving all her usual direct debits unpaid. The timing could not have been worse. The mother of two should have spent the week packing, as the family completed on their first house purchase the following Friday. “The staff who decided to freeze the account in the first place had not noticed any of this suspicious activity, it seems. They were happy to just pass it back to me,â€\x9d Grundy says. She says staff at Barclays were sympathetic, but helpless to stop colleagues from closing the accounts without warning – a week before they were due to move house. Only the next day did a letter arrive telling the couple that the bank had decided to shut their account, and that they must withdraw any funds held – which was impossible because the account had already been closed. “Buying a house was stressful enough without having to go through this as well, and you don’t know how many hours I have spent trying to get it all resolved,â€\x9d she says. “I still don’t know how the fraudsters were able to call up Barclays, change my address and get a loan. I’ve been told they had lots of information on me, but I have two passwords on the account which I don’t think the fraudsters were asked for, and I’ve certainly never divulged them to anyone else. “The whole thing has been unbelievable, shockingly bad, and I never want to hear their ‘on-hold’ music ever again.â€\x9d A Barclays spokesman accepted that the episode had not been the bank’s finest hour and it has now agreed to pay the couple £1,000 in compensation for the two failures. It has also paid for the couple to tax their car, which was one of the failed direct debits. All the other direct debits have now been reinstated, the loan has been cancelled, the savings restored, and the couple’s accounts are now running correctly again. • Barclays, which has been at the centre of several frauds reported by Money in recent years, has just started offering customers the option to use voice recognition software as a way to establish their identity when they call the bank. The technology recognises a customer’s unique formation of words, cancelling the need for security questions or passwords. All Barclays’ personal telephone banking customers are eligible to use the system, though they can opt out. This could have saved the Grundys had it been introduced sooner. Several other banks are at various stages of introducing similar technology.",
 "Junior doctors' strike day two - as it happened As the second day of the all-out strike draws to a close, NHS England says 78% of junior doctors (21,608) who were expected to be working did not report for duty today. The figures were the same yesterday. Last week trusts said they expected there would be 12, 711 postponed elective operations over the period of 18 April to 2 May. Dr Anne Rainsberry, national incident director for NHS England, said: “We’re not going to pretend the last two days have been easy but the NHS has remained open to business for patients. The health service has coped admirably to date thanks to extensive planning and the exhaustive efforts of other staff. However the strike has undoubtedly increased pressure on a service already facing increasing demand and has led to the highly regrettable cancellation of needed care for well over 100,000 patients.â€\x9d Several junior doctors rejected suggestions that the government and the British Medical Association (BMA) are quite close on the new contract. One doctor said: “We need to talk to them about exactly what their plan is for the seven-day NHS, how they are funding it, how they are going to staff it. Just changing Saturday pay is not going to solve the issue. It’s so complex, it can’t be just about one thing.â€\x9d Around 80% of all junior doctors (45,000 out of 54,000) across England) are members of the BMA. Helen Nightingale, 31, a junior doctor at St Mary’s hospital, tells Alessio Perrone the imposition of a contract by the government is as crucial as to its contents. There hasn’t had a BMA representative for a few months since the last one stepped aside yet the junior doctors have taken part in the strike. “Regardless of what Hunt said, they haven’t been willing to sit down and discuss at any point. Not just with the BMA, with any junior doctor. The process has been misleading and we feel it’s all been predetermined and imposed on us. It’s disrespectful to us as professionals. A lot of people are disillusioned regardless of the contract because it’s been imposed, they are frustrated and powerless. Also, we are frustrated because the strikes haven’t brought back the expected results, they haven’t made any negotiations happen. Enthusiasm is picking up a bit in this strike, but we haven’t seen the response we wanted.â€\x9d Damien Gayle has moved on to Lewisham hospital where a packed picket line has massed around a table heaving with cake, which strikers were selling to raise money for a campaign to save the hospital. “The NHS runs on cake and goodwill,â€\x9d said Shruti Patel, a trainee paediatric doctor. “This is a good way for the community, for NHS staff and junior doctors to do something positive with the strike, to raise money for a community campaign that has been instrumental in saving this hospital and getting our message out to the public.â€\x9d Patel branded as “ridiculousâ€\x9d claims that the government and BMA positions were close: “If the positions were close do you think we would go to all this dramatic effort? Do you think we would manage to get this many junior doctors out if really all that was left was Saturday pay? We feel that the contract is completely unsustainable. “I don’t think there’s a question of the BMA leading anyone anywhere. The BMA is made up of junior doctors. This is absolutely a grass roots course of action. As to whether it’s a dead end or not, that completely lies in the hands of the government. The power to end this dispute is in the government’s hands.â€\x9d Peter Latham, an NHS-trained doctor in Australia, says he is unsure of returning to the UK. “I’m saddened and upset for my former colleagues who are having to go against their deepest morals and walk away from patient care to ensure the long-term safety of an open access and safe NHS.â€\x9d When asked whether he would return to the NHS, he admitted that, at first, his intention was to leave to experience life in another country and then come back. Now, he’s not so sure. “I have always pictured my career in the NHS,â€\x9d he said. “I believe in what it traditionally stood for and I believe it is the best model of healthcare. Now I have no idea what I’m going back to. I fear doctors will flee from such a poorly led system and leave those in it stranded. Then it will be left open for private takeover. I don’t want to work in a dangerously understaffed NHS or a privately-run one. That leaves my options limited. I can’t see a resolution under Jeremy Hunt.â€\x9d Junior doctors have been telling Damien Gayle that suggestions that the BMA and government are actually quite close are off the mark. Claims that the BMA and government positions were actually quite close were government spin, said Benjamin Robinson, a psychiatry registrar at Maudsley, just over the road from Kings College Hospital. “The reason they are saying that is they want to say that this is based on reasons that are selfish,â€\x9d he said. “What the government really doesn’t understand is that the contracts are going to disrupt our relationships with patients, because the new contracts have rotas - times when we work - which mean that you won’t as a patient get to see the same doctor on anything like a regular basis. We won’t be able to form the relationships that especially in mental health you have got to have with a doctor. Cate Manning, also a psychiatry registrar, said this was already a problem that patients cared about, and the government’s plans would only make it worse. “It’s just not actually workable. There are not enough of us to staff a seven-day NHS as if it was five days,â€\x9d she said. Robinson added up: “Do [you] understand the distinction between Jeremy Hunt’s spin on the seven-day NHS? The reality is that if Jeremy Hunt has a heart attack on Christmas day we will be there to help him. For him to claim he’s creating a seven-day NHS is just ridiculous. If he’s saying that people can get their toenails removed at 8pm on a Saturday night, the way to do that is not mess around with junior doctors contracts.â€\x9d Many will be wondering at how the impasse over the new contract for junior doctors will be broken. Damien Gayle has been asking the “what nextâ€\x9d question of strikers at King’s College hospital in south London. Striking junior doctors were collecting ideas for a debate on how they can take their fight forward, with little sign that the government is prepared to back down. Maryann Noronha, who works in emergency medicine at Kings, said she and her colleagues had until now been focused on these two days of all out strike action. “The government doesn’t look like it’s going to soften, so we really need to plan how we can rack up the pressure, but at the same time still not put patients at risk. It’s a tough line to follow,â€\x9d she said. “I was just speaking to a lady here and she was saying ‘you are not going to win, you should just give up, they are going to privatise the NHS.’ We were saying we (doctors) will be better off in a private system; we are here because we are fighting for the morality of it - we believe in the system.â€\x9d Noronha denied suggestions that the government’s and BMA’s positions were actually by now quite close - a criticism levelled at the junior doctors by some. “The media has made it very close in the sense that they are focusing in on the Saturday pay. That’s pretty much what they are saying: that if the Saturday pay issue is resolved we would be fine. But I think if today the government said ‘We are still going to impose but we will align with the Saturday pay issue’, we wouldn’t agree with that. “We need to talk to them about exactly what their plan is for the seven-day NHS, how they are funding it, how they are going to staff it. Just changing Saturday pay is not going to solve the issue. It’s so complex, it can’t be just about one thing.â€\x9d Despite accusations from some commentators that the BMA had led junior doctors into a dead end, Noronha was staunchly behind her union. “The BMA are trying their best to negotiate with this government. It’s a difficult job, it’s not easy to sit between everything, to represent every single junior doctor in the country. I don’t think they they have taken us down a dead end, I think they are trying their best to bring then government plans back down to reality and get some concrete answers.â€\x9d A junior doctor currently on a break from medicine in the US has contacted the ’s Sarah Johnson about the strike. Namrata Turaga who worked only three as a junior doctor is studying for an MBA degree at Harvard Business school and has been keeping track of events as they unfold. She has been following developments with increasing frustration. She said: “I needed a break from a system that I felt was not adequately providing the vital clinical training I need to be the best doctor I can be and from a world where I had no choice but to agree to a work schedule that included only 12 day shifts in six months – the rest were evening or night shifts.â€\x9d She has been watching colleagues and friends in the UK become “increasingly frustrated with their concerns being ignored or belittledâ€\x9d and was inspired to take classes on negotiations and complex deal making. She wrote a simulation based on the current junior doctors’ contract dispute, the result of which was students with a non-medical background reaching a deal by trading and compromising on issues. “It has left me wondering, if the Department of Health in the UK is simply choosing not to compromise with the junior doctors,â€\x9d she said. “I hope that the strike is called off early because the government sees sense and listens to all the Royal Medical Colleges and patient safety organisations that are asking them to get back to the negotiating table. I hope people choose to work with one another, for the sake of fairness and for patients.â€\x9d Damien Gayle has more on the money striking doctors have collected for a food bank. Striking junior doctors at Kings College hospital have collected £300 and a pile on non-perishable food to donate to a local food bank. Lucy Carter, an acute medicine doctor, said: “In the run up to the strike we had a food bank drive on the wards and among the junior doctors to bring in foods or cash donations, and yesterday during the industrial action we had another collection. We are taking it to Southwark food bank because we are all quite aware that this hospital serves some of the most underprivileged boroughs in London - Southwark and Lambeth - and it’s time we did something positive with industrial action. Lots of people on the street have come by to bring us tea or coffee and we are not the people who need it the most.â€\x9d Hannah Orrell, a trainee surgeon at Kings who had just come off a night shift, tells Damien Gayle that Jeremy Hunt’s new contract would spell the death knell for the health service. The implications of the contract for me are quite far reaching. I’m hoping that I will be in the NHS for 30 to 40 years and, from what we can see on the NHS frontline, services are already overstretched as it is. When the new contract is imposed it means that five days worth of services will be stretched to seven days, with the same number of staff. We think that not only will this be unfair for us but it will be unsafe for patients. Orrell said that when she arrived at work at 5pm last night, she found that her department had been well covered. “We had a consultant for each surgical specialism ... I was in work from 5pm to 8am and heard from the consultants that everything ran smoothly. There were not any concerns over safety. All that was left for me to do was paperwork. I will be in again today from 5pm to 8am. I’m safe in the knowledge that the consultants know where we are, they know our numbers. If anything was to go wrong we are willing to go in. But we are confident that it will be safe and we encourage people to use services if they need to.â€\x9d Will it take a change of health secretary to break the deadlock and finally settle the junior doctors’ dispute? Bill Morgan - who was a special adviser to Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt’s predecessor - thinks it might. “The situation is at a complete stalemate. Jeremy Hunt has the support of Number 10 and the juniors have the support of their consultants. The public have been pretty steadfast in their support of juniors, but that’s been the same since the start – public opinion is neither rallying to their cause nor draining away. In short, neither the BMA nor the government is weak enough to lose. “Unless and until something happens to decisively shift the balance the strikes are going to continue. It’s impossible to predict how this might play out. On the one hand, juniors might lose the support of their consultants if a local hospital declares an emergency during strike action and the juniors don’t come in off the picket line. “On the other hand, NHS performance might deteriorate so far as a result of strike action that Number 10 pulls the plug. But at the moment neither is on the cards and both side are holding firm. The only other possible route to resolution is a change in the personalities. “There’s an element of the ‘Jeremy and Johann’ show about this, and if either or both move on their replacements might be more dovish and more willing to compromiseâ€\x9d, says Morgan, who is now a partner in Incisive Health, a specialist health public affairs firm. Steven Morris has interviewed a couple of the older junior doctors - doctors below consultant level - on the picket line at the RUH in Bath. James Leggett, 38, re-trained after a career as an academic, dong research in neuroscience and is now an F1 doctor (between medical school and specialist training) currently doing general surgery at the RUH in Bath. “I’ve always voted, I’ve always read party manifestos but I’ve never felt at the sharp end of a government campaign like this. I think the government has backed itself into a corner. They’ve made promises they can’t fulfil but rather than backing down are intent on pushing through. They need to have a bit less ego and a bit more honesty as well as more compassion for patients and doctors. I think they’d get a lot of credit if they backed down and apologised. I don’t regret re-training. I love medicine. But it’s hard to deal with the day-to-day pummelling were getting. We’re being berated and belittled.â€\x9d Rebecca Fallaize, 36, has spent longer than most as a junior doctor because she has had two children over the last five years. She believes the “weird structureâ€\x9d of the shift system the government wants to impose will harm patient safety. Fallaize is a specialist bowel cancer surgeon. “It’s continuity of care that improves patient safety. The fragmented nature of the proposed contract means that the continuity will be lost. It’s important to see your patient regularly. If you don’t see the patient every day, it’s hard to get that continuity, to build that rapport and have that understanding of how the patient is doing.â€\x9d The strikers at King’s College have been raising money for a food bank in the London borough of Southwark. Alex Gates, 29, organiser of the picket line at the RUH in Bath, says the striking doctors are as motivated on day two as they were on day one. He thinks the next move should be for more pressure to be placed on hospital bosses to challenge the government. “If 20 chief executives signed a letter calling for the government to think again, I think that would sort it,â€\x9d he said. Lucy Rose Jefferson, 26, who works in the geriatrics department at the RUH in Bath, is in what she calls the “Doomsday camp.â€\x9d “If the government wins this, they’ll go after the nurses, the physiotherapists, everyone else. It will be the beginning of the end for the NHS.â€\x9d Aisha Gani has been talking to Dolin Bhagawati, a registrar at the national hospital for neurology at Queen Square (central London) who has been a doctor for nine years. He says the specialist hospital he is at has probably 40 junior doctors and about 20 consultants, and at any one time 30 junior doctors. “The majority were on strike yesterday - we had four junior doctors working and all consultants were working.â€\x9d He said he’s on strike as “this contact is unsafe and discriminatory and if imposed will worsen staff conditions. It’s not trialled and not evidence based.â€\x9d He added: “Nine years as a junior doctor I have worked in three continents - US, India and here. I found here it’s very rare to have worked in a full rota and doctors have gone above and beyond to cover and fill gaps. People have worked illegal shifts. I myself am considering my future here. My wife is Indian and her first thought when she saw my working pattern was that I am being paid less and working harder than I would in India. As a consultant neurosurgeon, the average pay here would be £70,000 in U.S it Would be $700,000 (£479,994). In Seattle, my boss was on $4m - so it’s not about money. These are qualified intelligent people who have chosen a vocation. So rather than seeing the effect of this contract we want to negotiate and work with the government and get back to what we want to do and treat patients. Prevention is better than cure.â€\x9d It’s not all support for junior doctors, reports Alessio Perrone at St Mary’s in west London. Some passers-by shout their disapproval. “Get back to work now. People could die!â€\x9d one person said. Then a runner: “Shame on you!â€\x9d And again: “Shame on you!â€\x9d Junior doctor Ali Yazdi, who works in the geriatrics department, shouted back that their bosses supported them and are covering for them. He says it’s frustrating when this happens. “I understand some people don’t agree with us, but I wish they stopped to talk to us,â€\x9d he said. “Instead many just shout and run away. We can’t explain our position.â€\x9d The numbers of pickets at Royal University hospital in Bath are picking up considerably. Juniors on the picket line at King’s College say official figures on the number of their colleagues who went to work yesterday are misleading, writes Damien Gayle. According to the hospital press office, six junior doctors turned up to work in emergency departments across the trust - which also includes Princess Royal University hospital. However, despite being asked to do so by the , the trust did not indicate how many of these were juniors on staff grade contracts. These doctors are not covered by the strike as they are not on training contracts. Chris James, a trainee anaesthetist, said he had spoken to consultants in A&E who told him no trainee doctors had gone to work. “Yesterday at Kings A&E there were zero junior doctors. At the Pru (Princess Royal) there were five staff grade doctors. They are specialists who are not on these contracts, they are not involved in this dispute. So overall, across both sites, there were zero junior doctors,â€\x9d he said. “Today we have got three non-training doctors - not on training contracts - at King’s, and I think it’s the same at the Pru again. That’s come from the consultant body. They were happy that they staffed it safely [yesterday], they had full cover and they had no problems at all.â€\x9d Maddy Wells has just finished night shift in intensive care last night at University College hospital and has joined the picket line. She tells Aisha Gani there are eight junior doctors per shift on an average day and two consultants. No junior doctors worked yesterday from 8-5pm and there were six consultants covering. “My main reason for striking is despite multiple attempts at negotiation from people in prominent positions with Jeremy Hunt he has failed to listen,â€\x9d said Wells. An assortment of signs from St Mary’s in Paddington, were numbers are picking up, writes Alessio Perrone. About 20-25 doctors have joined the picket, but they expect it to get much busier after 9.30am, when most surgeries start. Aisha Gani is at University College hospital in central London, where about two dozen junior doctors are on the picket line on a chilly April morning. Lina Carmona was on call as urology registrar last night, while she is also doing her PhD in prostrate cancer at UCL. She trained as a doctor in Colombia and came to the UK to work as a registrar. She has been a doctor for eight years and has a small child. “We’re supposed to be encouraging people, and women to be doing research. My wages doing a PhD is much lower than being registrar. I used to earn £3,000 a month and now I earn £1,600 and paying for my PhD. So who’s going to want to go into research when your salary is frozen. “My mentor is a consultant urologist and publishes research and has four children. She is my role model but I was talking to her and she said if I was in your position I wouldn’t know what I’d do. “So if I continue to do this job I’ll just be treated as a junior junior doctor again. I came here as I love research. I come from a country where we have to work dangerous hours and wouldn’t have any rest.â€\x9d Striking junior doctors are just setting up their pickets at the entrance to the King’s College hospital compound in Camberwell, south London, writes Damien Gayle. Progress is slower than yesterday, some of those helping put of banners admitted to being hoarse from last night’s demo march through central London. Yesterday had seen hundreds of striking doctors join the picket at its height in the afternoon. As many are expected today, but the atmosphere is muted for now. Chris James, a trainee anaesthetist, said that yesterday’s strike had really impressed on them the power of the media, and how much most outlets were happy to back the government’s line. James said: â€\x9dYesterday was about where are we, where’s everyone’s support base, are we doing the right thing, are we not. This whole thing is very emotionally charged. Today is a lot more about taking stock.â€\x9d Despite warnings from the government, James and his colleagues said they believed there had been adequate cover in critical departments of the hospital. “I had a chat with our clinical director here saying we are staffing one to one in A&E. That’s where they were talking about the big risk, whereas yesterday was the safest day to go to A&E.â€\x9d King’s strikers had hired an open top bus yesterday, which they used to tour south west London neighbourhoods before travelling to St Thomas for last night’s march. People they met had been mostly supportive, he said. “We had the odd person who would argue with us but if you actually engage with them and tell them [they say] they didn’t realise about the inequality issues, about stretching a five-day service over seven.â€\x9d King’s - and the wider NHS - have problems, James admitted, but management and the government were attempting to solve them without consulting those at the sharp end. “The people who are doing it day in day out, who have got the most experience, they are not engaging with them. It just feels like that’s systematic of the whole problem. If you had an open discussion about what’s happening in the NHS then you can change.â€\x9d As well as reading your reaction to today’s strikes in the comments, we’d like to hear from those of you who are involved and see your pictures of where you are. Are you a junior doctor on the picket lines today? Maybe you are there in solidarity, or perhaps you have gone to work as a covering senior medic? If you are not a medical worker but are at one of the hospitals up and down the country that is affected, we’d also like to hear from you. You can share any photos you have by clicking on the blue Witness buttons on this article and we’ll use some of them as part of our ongoing coverage. My colleague Steven Morris is at the Royal United hospital, a major acute-care hospital in the Weston suburb of Bath. It seems the Department of Health has been reaching out to lobby correspondents, including Sam Coates of the Times, to be its new director of communications. The Spectator has this nugget on its so far fruitless search. With the junior doctors’ strike now in full swing, it’s fair to say that these aren’t the most harmonious days staff at the Department of Health have ever seen. Perhaps that’s why they are looking for a new director of communications to take charge of the department’s ‘external and internal communication activities across a complex and high profile agenda’. Alas, so far they don’t appear to have had much luck enticing candidates to the public relations role. Despite enlisting the help of ‘executive search firm’ Veredus, the search is still on and recruiters appear to be spending their time sending unsolicited messages to members of the lobby. Sam Coates, the Times‘s deputy political editor, has shared a message online that he received asking if he would be interested in the role — which carries a starting salary of £120,000. Alas, Coates was left unimpressed after two of his friends were approached about the same role just last week. Junior doctors on the picket line at St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, west London. The Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was out yesterday showing his support for striking junior doctors. David Cameron took the opposite tack saying it was “not rightâ€\x9d for junior doctors to withdraw emergency care. Denis Campbell, the ’s health policy editor, writes: Yesterday the highly-respected NHS blogger and health policy analyst, Roy Lilley, wrote, in effect, “a plague on both your housesâ€\x9d about the BMA and Jeremy Hunt for their tactics during the dispute. Today Lilley renews his criticism of the doctors’ union - both its leadership and its junior doctors committee headed by Dr Johann Malawana. “I’m thinking about the great NHS strike of 2016 when the junior doctors took on the mighty machinery of government and... and... and what? Lost, I suspect. What is there to win? The union have led their members into a cul-de-sac. More strikes, more disruption? More risk to reputation, careers, public patience? Let’s be honest, the contract is not the draconian settlement it is billed as. The gap between the BMA and the DH is easily bridgeable. The BMA walked away from David Dalton and the DH threw their toys out of the pram. The JDs have let themselves become a lightning rod for every complaint and disaffection there is in the NHS work place. Their strategic communications woeful.â€\x9d But Lilley is also worried about the lingering impact of the whole sorry saga on morale at the NHS frontline. NHS hospital trusts will have to make big efforts to try and engage with their junior doctors to keep them motivated -- not an easy task, he believes. “There are plenty of studies about behaviour in post-strike work places. Smouldering resentment. Strikes are industrial warfare. Employees lose money, somebody will have lost face. Emotions run hot.â€\x9d Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, last night called on Jeremy Hunt to name an “honest brokerâ€\x9d to help bring people back to the table and has put forward its health spokesman, Norman Lamb. Negotiations are at a standstill, with no end in sight. Something must be done before there is serious risk to the public... Our health spokesperson and former care minister, Norman Lamb would be an ideal honest broker, with experience in the department, credibility among health professionals and a record of delivering improvements in services. If the government and the BMA are willing to bring a third, independent, party to the table, Norman is prepared to work with both sides to find a way out of this dispute. It’s day two of the first all-out strike in NHS history. Junior doctors – all those below the level of consultant - will again stay away from hospitals from 8am and 5pm. On the first day, four out of five junior doctors walked out as David Cameron criticised their withdrawal of emergency care. At some hospitals, almost 90% of junior doctors refused to work in an escalation of their campaign against the new contract that the health secretary Jeremy Hunt intends to impose on them. However, most hospitals coped well and did not experience any problems. Senior medics took on duties usually undertaken by their junior colleagues. A&E units were quieter than usual as patients with minor ailments heeded NHS warnings to stay away. Figures released by NHS England showed that 21,608 junior doctors – 78% of those due to work – participated in the industrial action. It claimed that this was down from the 88% who did so on each day during the previous strike on 6-8 April. However, the 88% figure raised questions as NHS England had previously said that almost half of doctors had worked on those days. Turnout was highest at Barts Health, the largest trust in the NHS. The London trust said that 88.4% of its 1,000 junior doctors had joined the walkout. Unlike four previous strikes, this stoppage is the first one to affect areas of life-or-death treatment, such as A&E, maternity and intensive care. More than 125,000 appointments and operations have been cancelled and will need to be rearranged as a result of the latest strike.",
 'US border control could start asking for your social media accounts The US government is proposing making social media accounts part of the visa screening process for entry into the country. US Customs and Border Protection’s proposed change would add a line on both the online and paper forms of the visa application form that visitors to the US must fill out if they do not have a visa and are planning on staying for up to 90 days. The following question would be added to both the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) and I-94W forms: “Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier.â€\x9d The information will be optional, for now, but the proposed change published by the US Federal Register states that “collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide Department of Homeland Security (DHS) greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case.â€\x9d The proposal is currently under consultation, with US government taking comments until 22 August. The change forms part of the plan by the US DHS to scrutinise social media activity of visa applicants and those wishing to enter the country, following the San Bernardino killings in California, in which social media profiles formed part of the investigations along with an iPhone 5C. Current DHS pilot programmes are being kept under wraps but are said to scan a limited amount of social media posts. The pilot programmes currently used by DHS do not sweep up all social media posts, though government officials have kept details of the programmes closely held, as they do not want to reveal the precise process they use to try and identify potential threats. It’s unclear if or how the DHS would verify information written on a form before hitting border control, leaving the possibility of false information being put down, and while the information may be optional, it will likely be difficult to discern what is and isn’t required on the form. The US government approves around 10m visa applications a year and had 77.5 million foreign visitors in 2015. Collecting social media accounts for all visitors could produce one of the largest government-controlled databases of its kind almost overnight. Silicon Valley appears open to helping US spy agencies after terrorism summit',
 'Churchill would have been a committed voter to remain in EU Winston Churchill still stands at the centre of the modern Conservative party’s view of Britain and of itself. So it was inevitable that sooner or later the two Tory sides in the argument about Britain’s place in Europe would begin to battle it out for the ownership of Churchill’s view of Europe and as arbiters of which way he might vote in the forthcoming referendum. On Monday, the two sides went head-to-head as David Cameron laid explicit claim to the wartime prime minister’s support for the remain camp in the cause of European peace stability. Boris Johnson insisted that Churchill wanted no part in the European Union. Cameron’s speech stressed that Churchill was never by choice an isolationist from Europe in either war or peace. “Churchill never wanted that,â€\x9d he said at the British Museum. After the war Churchill had argued passionately for western Europe to come together. A few hours later, Johnson – who is also, in his own solipsistic fashion, a biographer of Churchill – accused the EU of becoming ever more anti-democratic and a force for instability not security. Johnson didn’t actually mention Churchill in his speech. But he did in questions afterwards, when he said that although the European project had kept the postwar peace, Churchill had wanted Britain to play no part in it. So which of them is right? Which way might Churchill have voted if he was still alive and was, at the age of 141, still on the electoral register? This is, of course, an unhistorical question. Churchill died in January 1965 so he can’t know what the issue feels like in May and June 2016, more than half a century later. But there are plenty of clues in his long career that suggest where his heart might lie. One of those is Churchill’s enthusiastic attempt, at the height of the battle for France in 1940, to create political union between Britain and France in a plan which would have made every British citizen a citizen of France and vice versa, with a single government and single armed forces. By any standards, this was a radical sharing of sovereignty that would be difficult for a Brexiteer to swallow at any time. Cameron is also right that the postwar Churchill was not an isolationist either. He might have, but didn’t, quote from a speech to the 1948 European congress at The Hague in which, then the leader of the opposition, Churchill said this about economic and political cooperation in Europe: It is said with truth that this involves some sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty and characteristics, but it is also possible to regard it as the gradual assumption by all nations concerned of that larger sovereignty which can also protect their diverse and distinctive customs, and their national traditions.â€\x9d There’s not much there for Nigel Farage there, either. But Johnson is right in one respect. Although Churchill made a speech in Zurich in 1946 in which he called for the creation of a United States of Europe, he did not seem to envisage Britain being part of it. Churchill was a British imperialist. He always saw Britain at the centre of the imperial network, later the Commonwealth. And he was an Atlanticist, not least by birth (his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, was born in Brooklyn), with a profound loyalty to the notion of the Anglosphere, which continues to attract many on the isolationist right today. Nevertheless, Churchill did not share today’s Brexiteer obsession with pushing these issues to defining choices. He said in a Tory conference speech in 1948 that Britain was part of three “majestic circlesâ€\x9d – the empire and Commonwealth, the English-speaking world and a “united Europeâ€\x9d. He called these circles “co-existentâ€\x9d and “linked togetherâ€\x9d. A year later, speaking to the European Movement, he said also it was essential to persuade the Commonwealth that its “interests as well as ours lie in a United Europeâ€\x9d. Tellingly, whenever Churchill talked about Europe he almost always talked about “weâ€\x9d not “theyâ€\x9d. And he wasn’t just a romantic visionary, he was also a pragmatist. According to his solicitor general Sir John Foster, Churchill became a convert to the European convention on human rights when a woman in the Channel Islands was arrested on a charge of bestiality, for which local medieval law prescribed the mandatory punishment of being burned at the stake. Churchill sent the Royal Navy to spring the woman from custody and drop her on the French coast. As a result of that case, it was said by one of his ministers, Churchill was a firm supporter of Europe’s overriding written code of rights and principles, which his ministers helped to draw up. Which way would Churchill vote on 23 June? We cannot know. But everything we know about Churchill’s sense of vision and his pragmatic approach to issues of the day suggests to me that he would be a committed voter to remain.',
 '500,000 Britons a year will be diagnosed with cancer by 2035, study shows More than half a million Britons a year will be diagnosed with cancer by 2035, making it hard for NHS services to cope with the extra demand for testing and treatment, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has warned. The number of people across the UK found to have cancer every year is expected to rise from 352,000 to an estimated 514,000 in less than 20 years – more than 160,000 extra cases annually – according to research in the British Journal of Cancer. The vast majority of the expected 162,000 additional cases – 141,000 – will be caused by the ageing and growing population. However, another 12,600 will be the result of a combination of lifestyle factors, such as smoking, alcohol or poor diet, and also improved screening for the disease. In 1993, 127,000 men and 128,000 women were diagnosed with the disease. By 2014, the numbers had risen to 173,000 and 179,000 respectively. This future trends analysis, based on examining cancer data going back to 1979, predicts that 244,000 women and more than 270,000 men will be diagnosed in 2035. Those big rises mean there is an “urgent need to plan for the future of NHS cancer services, which are already stretched to the limit as they struggle to cope with a growing and ageing populationâ€\x9d, CRUK said. “The number of people getting cancer in the UK will incerease sharply in the next two decades. This is mostly the result of an ageing and growing population but, for women, lifestyle factors are playing an increasingly important roleâ€\x9d, said Dr Rebecca Smittenaar, the study’s lead author and CRUK’s statistics manager. People’s risk of developing cancer will also rise in actual terms, separate to the growing numbers diagnosed, due to increased life expectancy and population expansion. Cancer incidence rates have risen for both sexes in an almost unbroken way since records began in 1979, though they have recently begun edging downwards for men. Men have always been more likely than women to be diagnosed. In 1993, 783 f every 100,000 men aged 15 or over were diagnosed with cancer. That rose to 808 per 100,000 in 2014 and is predicted to increase again, albeit slightly, to 812 per 100,000 in 2035. The number of women in that age group who developed cancer rose from 564 per 100,000 people in 1993 to 664 per 100,000 in 2014. It is due to hit 685 by 2035, according to the study. CRUK last year revised its prediction for the number of people who would develop cancer at some point in their lives from one in three to one in two. Sir Harpal Kumar, the charity’s chief executive, said the expected increases in cancer cases were “shockingâ€\x9d. However, four in 10 cancers could be prevented if people drank less, did not smoke, ate a healthy diet and took more exercise, he said.',
 'HSBC starts laying off 840 IT staff in UK HSBC has prompted union anger after it began laying off 840 IT workers as part of a £5bn cost-cutting move that will shift UK computer services operations to Poland, China and India. The outsourcing deal, which will shed 595 jobs in Sheffield and a further 245 posts lost in London, Leeds and Birmingham, is the first big tranche of redundancies under a restructuring plan that will eliminate 8,000 British jobs by the end of next year. HSBC said the relocation of IT jobs was part of its “large and ongoing IT investment to build a global world-class IT infrastructureâ€\x9d that would still leave the UK playing a central role in HSBC’s global IT and “employing several thousand highly skilled professionalsâ€\x9d. Last year HSBC said the reshaping of the bank, which is Europe’s largest, was necessary to improve profitability and increase the annual dividend. However, unions said it was devastating for experienced IT staff to be told they must train overseas recruits before their jobs were transferred abroad and workers were made redundant. Most of the staff affected were being informed about the cuts on Monday with all the UK jobs to disappear by the end of this year. Dominic Hook, Unite’s national officer for finance, accused HSBC of fostering a “cynical race to the bottomâ€\x9d after its decision to offshore IT jobs. He said: “HSBC’s decision to axe so many IT jobs is as ruthless as it is reckless. For almost a year staff have been left in the dark about their futures, only to be told that before being shown the door they’re expected to train someone in India or China who will do their job for less money. It’s a deeply cynical move by a bank which wants to be an ‘employer of choice’. “Offshoring IT jobs to so-called ‘low-cost economies’ is extremely short-sighted. As IT glitches across the banks continue to prove, it is ultimately the customers who will suffer the consequences.â€\x9d HSBC has had a torrid time since the 2008 banking crash, with a series of scandals leading to millions of pounds in fines and prompted it to consider shifting its HQ from London for Hong Kong. Profits have recovered, though regulatory demands for the bank to maintain higher reserves combined with volatile markets have restricted its ability to maintain a solid recovery. Profits at HSBC fell in the first three months of 2016, raising questions among investors about its promise to raise the value of the dividend. Pretax profits fell in the first three months of the year by 14% to $6.1bn (£4.2bn), which the bank described as “a resilient performance despite challenging market conditionsâ€\x9d. If currency movements and other one-off items were excluded, profits tumbled by 18% to $5.4bn. The bank announced its three-year restructuring plan last year, designed to pare back its sprawling global network by shutting underperforming businesses to improve earnings hurt by high compliance costs, fines and low interest rates. The restructuring will eventually eliminate one job in five around the world and around one-sixth of jobs in Britain. As part of the cost cutting, a hiring and pay freeze across the bank’s global operations was also imposed until the end of the year, although it has continued to pay hundreds of staff more than £1m a year. When the restructuring plan was announced, the chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, said most of the job losses in Britain would come from staff leaving on their own accord. HSBC has 47,000 workers in the UK at the end of December 2015, according to its most recent annual report. John Hackett, chief operating officer of HSBC UK, sought to reassure staff that the bank was “committed to supporting employees through this processâ€\x9d. However, he said it was clear for the last year the bank was aiming to achieve significant cost reductions by the end of 2017. “As part of a global relocation exercise, around 840 non-customer-facing IT roles will transfer from the UK to other sites around the world by the end of March 2017. The UK will continue to play an important role in HSBC’s global IT infrastructure, employing several thousand IT professionals,â€\x9d he said.',
 'The shelter that gives wine to alcoholics On a grey January morning at 9.15, residents of the Oaks shelter for the homeless started lining up, coffee mugs in hand, at a yellow linoleum counter. At half past the hour, the pour began. The Oaks’ residents are hard-core alcoholics. They line up to get what most people would consider the very last thing they need: an hourly mug of alcohol. Dorothy Young, the Oaks’ activities coordinator – a stocky, always-smiling middle-aged woman who is part cheerleader, part event planner, part warden, part bartender – stood behind the counter at a tap that dispenses cold white wine. She poured a measured amount of wine into each cup: maximum seven ounces at 7.30am for the first pour of the day, and five ounces each hour after that. Last call is 9.30pm. The pour is calculated for each resident to be just enough to stave off the shakes and sweats of detox, which for alcohol is particularly unpleasant – seizures from alcohol deprivation can be fatal. The pour is strictly regulated: Young cuts off anyone who comes in intoxicated. They won’t be given another drink until they sober up. The Oaks is a converted hotel next to a pawnshop, in Carlington, a working-class neighbourhood on the west side of Ottawa, Canada. When residents first arrive, they tend to drink the maximum, every hour, every day. Many also drink whatever they can buy or shoplift outside the building. For most, this gradually changes. They stop drinking outside, begin to ask for fewer ounces, skip pours or have a “special pourâ€\x9d of watered-down wine. Two residents get several hours’ worth at a time to take up to their rooms and ration out themselves. One man gave up alcohol but gets an hourly pour of grape juice, to stay part of the group. Ten of the Oaks’ residents are mental health patients and don’t get the pour – just fewer than 50 others do. A few are women or younger men, but the majority are men in their 50s; it often takes several decades of drinking before people seek a different life and land here. Standard clothing in January was flannel pyjama bottoms and slippers with a down jacket. Many have long beards, dishevelled hair, and no front teeth – alcohol will do that. Most are sick. Years or decades of drinking have left them with liver, heart and brain damage that will never be reversed. A nurse is on site 40 hours a week. At least once a week and whenever necessary, a doctor and specialist nurses come to see patients. Young leads physical stretching groups, a book club, shopping trips and outings; Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo was a recent hit. The pour is what makes the Oaks different from every other well-run facility of its kind. It solves the residents’ most urgent problem: where can I get a drink? Virtually all the clients have tried to quit, over and over, and failed. They have spent decades drinking themselves into a stupor each day. One man was taken to A&E 109 times in six months. Another was picked up by the police or paramedics 314 times in one year. They have caused enough chaos and disorder that they have been kicked out of, or barred from Ottawa’s other shelters. Before being accepted at the Oaks, if they could not beg or collect enough empty bottles to recycle to buy booze, many shoplifted rubbing alcohol or Listerine. Some shelters started filling their hand-sanitiser dispensers with soap, because residents drank the rub for the alcohol it contains. “We have guys with wounds with worms in them,â€\x9d said Kim van Herk, a psychiatric nurse with Ottawa Inner City Health, an organisation formed 15 years ago to address the needs of the city’s hardest-to-reach homeless people, many of whom are alcoholics. “And that’s our priority, but it’s not their priority,â€\x9d added Amanda MacNaughtan, a nurse coordinator. “They are so dependent on alcohol that it’s their most basic need,â€\x9d said Van Herk. “If that need is not being met, nothing else matters for them. It’s hard for other people to get their minds around how severe their addiction is – they feel like they’re going to die. But once that need is met for them, they can start looking at other parts of their life.â€\x9d The pour creates trust: here is a system that understands residents’ needs. This system loosens them from their drinking friends. It keeps them away from Listerine. Without the pour, they would stay outdoors, begging or stealing, in danger of losing their feet to frostbite. Indoors, they take their medicine, see their doctors and mental health workers, eat actual food, re-establish contact with their families. Giving free booze to homeless alcoholics sounds crazy. But it may be the key to helping them live a stable life. * * * Irwin Windsor, 39, has a broad, smiling face and short brown bristle-cut hair. Ten years ago he still had a normal life: a family and steady work with a moving company. Although there had been drinking in his own family, he remembers his childhood in British Columbia fondly. He lived for a few years with his beloved maternal grandmother, who was an occasional drinker. He has happy memories of just sitting with her and watching soap operas or The Price is Right, her favourite gameshow. She taught him to knit, crochet and cook. His stepfather, whom he adored, would get drunk two or three times a week when Irwin was little. But he was not abusive. When Windsor was in his 20s and had a job, he would take $100 Canadian (£55) from his paycheque and the two would drink. “We would send my mother off to bingo and we’d play cards and listen to music. We had a great time.â€\x9d Windsor kept his drinking under control until 10 years ago. Then his stepfather died and his grandmother committed suicide. His weekly binges became daily binges, and then all‑day binges. He lost his job, lost his apartment, and lost contact with his sons, who live in Vancouver. “I haven’t seen them for almost 11 years,â€\x9d he told me. “I don’t want my sons to see me as an alcoholic.â€\x9d He had nowhere to live. He had always been an early riser, and would wake at 4 or 5am, with the shakes, dry heaves and sweats. His first thought of the day – virtually his only thought of the day – was to calm the symptoms with a drink. He would go out to beg and, when he got enough money, then head to the LCBO, Ontario’s official chain of liquor stores. His drink was pale dry sherry, a fortified wine that contains 20% alcohol – $7.99 for a 750ml bottle. On his worst days, Windsor was drinking eight to 10 bottles a day. He drank until he lost consciousness. The next day he would do it again. Three or four times a week, someone would come upon him passed out in the cashpoint lobby of a bank or in a downtown park, and call Ottawa’s emergency number. The police and paramedics would get him up and take him to A&E or the police drunk tank. Windsor’s lifestyle was not only self-destructive and devastating to his family, it was also costly to Canada’s taxpayers. A trip to the hospital cost $243 for the ambulance, and $250 for a doctor’s assessment. Going to the police station cost $256 for just one officer to talk to him and make notes. These figures do not include hospital admission or any medical treatment, nor the hours paramedics had to spend waiting in A&E until Windsor was seen. Nor do they include the cost of arrest or a night in a police cell, or the fact that officers work in pairs, so theirs is never the work of just one person. Nor the costs incurred by putting all these public servants to work chauffeuring alcoholics instead of doing their jobs. For Windsor to visit A&E or the police lock-up three times a week, the good citizens of Ottawa were paying at the very least $1,000 (£550) a week and perhaps double or triple that. And all for services that did nothing to help him solve his problems. * * * In the late 1990s, a tiny group of people was responsible for absorbing a huge proportion of Ottawa’s healthcare budget. Greater Ottawa had a population of about 750,000. About 1,000 of its residents were chronically homeless. Roughly half of those were alcoholics. Many were also drug users, and the majority had mental health problems. Health professionals struggled to handle them. Three of the four city shelters would not let drunk people in, and none permitted residents to drink while they were there. Some alcoholics would not go to a shelter if it meant suffering the shakes and sweats of detox, and those who did go in for the night made sure they got good and drunk before walking through the door, in order to stave off detox for as many hours as possible. One of the people grappling with this issue was Jeff Turnbull. One of the country’s most eminent physicians, he was at the time, president of the Medical Council of Canada. Very few doctors with Turnbull’s credentials see homeless patients, but he did. He would see the same people in the Ottawa hospital A&E day after day. “I’d give them antibiotics, and they’d show up the next day. I’d say, ‘Did you take your antibiotics?’ and they’d say: ‘What antibiotics?’â€\x9d He started to ask his patients about the cause of all this chaos. “Come and see how I live,â€\x9d said one. The man was startled when Turnbull showed up at the corner where he begged from passing motorists, then followed him into the shelter where he went for the night. Turnbull started to visit shelters regularly to treat their clients. In 1998, one man was causing increasing concern to those who cared for Ottawa’s homeless population. Eugene Aucoin would drink mouthwash and fall asleep in snowbanks. “He lost toes to frostbite, and he was a diabetic so his feet just would not heal,â€\x9d said Wendy Muckle, then the director of Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. Turnbull would get to the shelter before 6am to try to give Aucoin his antibiotic injection before he set out in search of alcohol. Once Turnbull chased Aucoin down the street, syringe in hand. Aucoin, with only stubs for feet, managed to get away. Sheila Burnett, the executive director of Shepherds of Good Hope, the Catholic social services organisation that ran Aucoin’s shelter, had an idea: she brought in a bottle of wine from home and gave Aucoin a drink when he woke up, to keep him there long enough to get his medicine. It worked. In the summer of 1998, Muckle, Turnbull, Burnett and others – including Ottawa’s police, the health department, leaders of the Business Improvement Areas – began meeting regularly to figure out how to help this small group of people who were constantly showing up in the city’s shelters, hospitals and jails. They sat down with their most difficult patients and asked: what would have to happen for you to get medical care? From these conversations, they established Ottawa Inner City Health, an association of agencies and organisations with the goal of bringing real help to homeless people. For many patients, the pursuit of alcohol consumed all their energy. But what if they could hand it out, like medicine, as Burnett had? “We looked around to see if anyone else was doing this,â€\x9d said Muckle, who became executive director of Inner City Health. Just a few months earlier, Seaton House shelter in Toronto had opened what was probably the world’s first scheme giving regular doses of alcohol to homeless alcoholics. The programme began after three intoxicated men had frozen to death in the winter of 1995. Muckle and her colleagues spent a lot of time on the phone with Seaton House staff. The men served by the Seaton House programme were staying indoors, and seemed to be stabilising their lives. There had also been no political backlash in Toronto. But Ottawa was a much more conservative city, as Turnbull and Muckle found when they took their idea to city officials. “The mayor looked at me like I had two heads,â€\x9d said Turnbull. The Managed Alcohol Programme was launched in 2001 without any noticeable political opposition, largely because nobody knew about it who didn’t have to know. It took some of the most complex patients out of other shelters, who were happy to see them go. The MAP, as it would become known, was opened by Inner City and Shepherds of Good Hope inside Shepherds’ large brick building downtown. “It took the strain off A&E, incarceration, and shelters that can’t deal with complex issues,â€\x9d said Stephen Bartolo, Shepherds’ operations director.. For Turnbull and Muckle, giving the residents alcohol was a means to an end – its purpose was to attract clients to a programme that also provided safe shelter, food, medical and mental health care. That meant the managed alcohol programme had to be part of an existing shelter system. That was not going to be the Salvation Army, which was founded in part to promote temperance. At first, they struggled to fill the MAP’s 10 beds. “We had to do a lot of convincing for people to try it,â€\x9d said Muckle. “Once they were in and saw how much better life was, they were converted. But it was not easy. We used to say that anyone who wanted to be in the programme did not need it and anyone who really needed the programme was hard to get in.â€\x9d Funding was a huge problem. “We wanted to avoid any situation where we could be criticised for using taxpayers’ money to buy alcohol for alcoholics,â€\x9d said Muckle. Inner City decided that most of the money for alcohol would have to come from their clients’ own benefit payments. “For a period of time we had no funding and were often not able to meet payroll. When an invoice came in I would look at it and decide which one of my friends should pay it, and I’d call them up. Board members brought in office supplies.â€\x9d Buying booze, even the cheapest rotgut, was also expensive. “When we first started our programme, with 10 residents, we were picking up cases of sherry every other day,â€\x9d said Bartolo. There were also legal hurdles. “To the Liquor Licensing Board, we looked like a drinking establishment – but we could never get a liquor licence,â€\x9d said Turnbull. For example, the cost of putting in a sprinkler system would have been prohibitive. A police sergeant, who was part of the group forming Inner City Health, came up with the solution. The law gave Ontario residents the right to make wine or beer in their own homes and gather to appreciate it – no licence necessary. The MAP was the residents’ home. They could make wine – with a little help from the staff. (More than a little, actually.) And gathering to appreciate it would not be a problem. * * * Today the wine for both the MAP and the Oaks – which opened a decade later to provide long-term housing for MAP graduates – is made at the Oaks. The winemaking room off the lobby is lined with 25 grey plastic barrels (and kept well-locked). The Oaks staff buy bags of ready-made white wine concentrate – the red turned out to be stronger and got people drunk – then add water and yeast. The residents help by cleaning the barrels and doing other jobs, always closely supervised. Overhead pipes take the wine to the pour counter tap, and staff members drive containers of wine across town to the MAP. The wine is just about drinkable – probably more so if you’re used to hand sanitiser. “A lot of our clients prefer quantity over quality,â€\x9d said Bartolo. One hallmark of all the programmes of Inner City Health and its partners, from the beginning, was the second chance. “In a lot of programmes, if you slip up, you’re out,â€\x9d said Ray MacQuatt, the earnest, endlessly patient Shepherds employee who runs the Oaks. “We’re about another chance tomorrow. If you have more good days than bad, we’re going to get you moving in the right direction.â€\x9d Initially, Muckle said, staff at the MAP took leniency too far. “They got their pour to start the day,â€\x9d she said, and then they went out to beg, coming back in time to sleep. “Half the time in the afternoon there were no clients. We continued to serve them when we shouldn’t have.â€\x9d There were daily dramas, scuffles and shouting. There was just one small room and two staff to cope with 10 drunk clients. Arguments inevitably broke out. In the end, it was the clients themselves who wanted drunk people banned. The chaos was making them anxious – and that made them want to drink. They needed to feel safe in their home. “They told me, ‘You have to stop letting drunk people into our programme,’â€\x9d she recalled. “I was astonished. I told them, ‘Well, that’s you.’ “They said, ‘Don’t let us in when we’re drunk.’â€\x9d New rules were brought in: clients needed to clock in 30 minutes before, in order to get the pour. Anyone intoxicated didn’t get a drink. Clients who were violent were asked to leave. “Either way, that does not mean they will not be welcomed back,â€\x9d said Muckle. “Some of the people who need the help the most have taken many tries before they settle in – that is the nature of addiction.â€\x9d * * * There is a name for the strategy that Inner City Health uses: harm reduction. It is a familiar concept for heroin addicts, first implemented in Liverpool in the 1980s. The approach gained currency amid an HIV epidemic involving injecting drug users who often shared needles. Under this system, health workers give injecting drug users clean needles, and a daily dose of the opioids methadone or buprenorphine, which quiets cravings and allows addicts to live a more normal life. In some countries, people who fail on those treatments can even be prescribed a regular, medically supervised dose of heroin, which is very successful at returning users to stability. Needle programmes also bring drug users into treatment that they would not otherwise know about or trust. Thus, harm reduction is often the first step to abstinence. But it also recognises that not everyone can quit. Those who cannot are helped to live as healthy and as stable a life as possible. While harm reduction is now the global standard for working with injecting drug users, with alcoholics, it is not even part of the debate. Some “wetâ€\x9d shelters – hostels that allow residents to drink – exist around the world, including at least three in London and two in Manchester. But regular provision of alcohol – the pour – exists in only a handful of Canadian cities; Ottawa’s is the second-oldest and the most-studied programme. Officials from other countries have visited, and Sydney, Australia, has done a feasibility study. But the programme is a tough sell. Someone always says: “My dad was an alcoholic and he quit. Why don’t these people quit?â€\x9d said Bartolo. When news of the programme finally appeared in the media, Turnbull received hate mail, much of it from the US. “A fair amount of people said we are killing alcoholics, and abstinence is the only way,â€\x9d said Turnbull. He shook his head. “We don’t walk away from cancer we can’t cure; we take a palliative approach. It hurts me to see guys drinking, but the alternative is not giving them any care.â€\x9d For Ottawa’s most serious alcoholics, the door to the managed alcohol system is in the city’s downtown area, on the ground floor of the Shepherds’ building, which used to be known as Hope Recovery. (“It’s hell’s asshole,â€\x9d said Muckle. “Nobody ever recovered there.â€\x9d) Inner City Health’s programme there is now known as TED, which stands for Targeted Engagement and Diversion. TED offers no alcohol, but anyone, no matter how drunk, can come and sleep there. Residents are also allowed to store a bottle for the morning after. It is safer than the street, but still loud and chaotic, and sometimes violent. Several people had died in the shelter – probably of drug overdoses or alcohol poisoning, although the causes of death were not determined – but none since nursing care was brought in. “I’d come inside to pass out, but I didn’t want to be that person living there,â€\x9d said Chris Mercredi, who is now at the Oaks. “I couldn’t picture myself there. I was ashamed of myself.â€\x9d The beds at TED have thin plastic mattresses and are arranged four to a room. There are also small lockers, even though many clients have no possessions. (I asked one man what he kept in his locker besides clothes, and his response was “Like what?â€\x9d) A Shepherds’ soup kitchen serves meals across the street. Inner City Health gives its regulars laminated wallet cards giving consent for police and paramedics to take them to TED instead of taking them to hospital or the police cells. (The clients get cards because when they are picked up, they are often in no condition to consent to anything.) But in 2014, the programme became one of the city’s official alternatives to A&E, and 3,480 people came to TED who would otherwise have ended up in hospital. People in serious medical danger still go to A&E, but these days they are comparatively few. Just the transport and initial assessment in hospital would have cost $1.74m; at TED, caring for them cost $300,000. When you wake up at TED, a staff member greets you. Do you need a nurse? Housing? Do you feel like trying to detox? Or how about trying the next step, managed alcohol? There’s a long waiting list for the MAP, but priority goes to the sickest: those whose drinking is out of control and puts them in danger, the people who have run out of options. * * * Canada’s Inuit and aboriginal people are over-represented in the ranks of alcoholics (although they are under-represented as drug addicts). One reason is poverty; another is the effect of a massive state-inflicted trauma. Tens of thousands of indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to church-run residential schools designed to westernise them by separating them from their families, language and culture. Ottawa has the highest proportion of Inuit of any major city outside Canada’s north. “They come here and might not have a plan, and end up on the street,â€\x9d said Bartolo. Simeonie Kunnuk, like many of the homeless alcoholics in Ottawa, has a history of horror. He was sent to a residential school, where he was raped for the first time at seven years old. Sexual and physical abuse continued for years. Kunnuk came to the Oaks in April 2015, and has drastically cut down on his drinking, but the memories still trigger the desire for alcohol. “It’s best not thinking too hard about it,â€\x9d he said. Kunnuk spent 20 years collecting recyclables, making enough to buy his Black Bull malt liquor (a 10% beer). His daily intake was four litre bottles for $15, plus a can of sardines and a loaf of bread. In November 2014, he woke up at TED after a binge and Ray MacQuatt asked if he felt ready for the managed alcohol programme. “What time do they start drinking?â€\x9d Kunnuk asked. He had no possessions; he simply walked upstairs. But it felt like a different world. MAP, by then, had increased its size only slightly, to 12 residents. He had his own bed. There was medical care and mental health care. There were activities and counselling and, of course, the hourly pour. Chris Mercredi, who came to the Oaks in October 2015, grew up in a trailer in rural Alberta with two severely alcoholic parents. The family ate bread made of flour fried with lard, and the rabbits his mother hunted. His sister was forced into prostitution – he remembers one day when she triumphantly came home with a bag of groceries, including white bread and hot dogs. Mercredi’s little brother, who used to climb into his bed for comfort, was separated from him when they both went into foster care. Mercredi was abused in the foster system, and started drinking at 18. He is 56, but perhaps the only person in the Oaks who looks younger than his age. He has a full head of hair dyed black, and a salt-and-pepper moustache. He is always neatly and colourfully dressed, with arms full of beaded and chain bracelets. He spoke softly and carefully, clicking his teeth repeatedly, his eye on the clock until it was time to get his pour. Although a heavy drinker, Mercredi had been employed in home renovation and furniture assembly until a work accident crushed his right arm. He had a steady boyfriend, Lee Crapeau, and worked as a dishwasher making $60 per day – which he immediately spent on drink. He and Lee slept in Ottawa’s parks. They had been together for 36 years when Lee died, of alcohol-related illness, in November 2014. Mercredi had got sober many times. “Once I went to detox and stayed 28 days, to collect my thoughts. As soon as I got out,â€\x9d he said, “I went straight to the booze store to buy beer.â€\x9d * * * Every week, the MAP’s residents gather in the common room for a meeting. They get their pour, then take their mugs and sit at round, black tables. When I visited, a few men rolled loose tobacco into cigarettes. It was overheated and stuffy. One of the residents had been aggressive over the weekend, but at midmorning, no one seemed intoxicated, and the meeting’s tone was perfectly civil. People sipped their drinks quietly. Steve Parker from Shepherds and Amanda MacNaughtan of Inner City Health led the meeting while Annabelle, MacNaughtan’s golden retriever, provided a consoling presence. “There’s been quite a few bottles of non-beverage alcohol found in your dorms,â€\x9d said MacNaughtan. “Listerine is only 99 cents,â€\x9d said a tall man. “Sometimes it’s our last resort.â€\x9d The discussion turned to comments from residents. “More alcohol!â€\x9d one man called. But residents also asked for milk. And movie night with popcorn. And a trip to an Ottawa Redblacks football game. And a visit to a museum exhibit of Inuit carvings. On a wall-list of requests for programmes or activities, someone wrote “documentary nightsâ€\x9d and “yoga/relaxation classesâ€\x9d. Next to it was an invitation to join an aboriginal carving empowerment circle. I was reminded that once upon a time, these patients had families, careers, talents. Muckle recalled driving some residents to visit a patient who was hospitalised, listening to them sing along heartily to an opera CD. One of Inner City Health’s first patients, Normee Ekoomiak, was a renowned Inuit artist, with work hanging in the Canadian Museum of History. Annie Iola, a resident of the Oaks, was a documentary film-maker and had studied to become a pilot. Kunnuk had worked for the National Inuit Organization, where he wrote a regular column answering questions about Inuit culture. Lots of people in Ottawa would appreciate free football tickets. And yoga classes. And a bed and free food. And, of course, wine served up every hour. And Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo does sound interesting. But many of these residents have alcohol-related brain damage, and other illnesses that were either a cause or result of alcoholism. They will never work. If this programme can help keep them out of crisis services, it is a bargain. And the studies say it works. A small, peer-reviewed study of the MAP, led by Tiina Podymow of Inner City Health and the University of Ottawa (Turnbull was a co-author) was published in 2006 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. “Then a media circus of nuclear proportions blew up,â€\x9d said Muckle. Most of the media treated the study straight, but comedians and commenters pounced, including Jay Leno, who talked about the crazy Canadians giving free booze to homeless alcoholics. One commenter compared it to giving little girls to paedophiles. “However, by that time we had been in operation for four-and-a-half years, and none of the problems people predicted had actually happened, so it was a bit hard to mount much opposition,â€\x9d said Muckle. “Even the Salvation Army – the anti-alcohol crusaders – said that while they could not offer that kind of programme themselves, they were a part of Inner City Health and strongly supported this programme because it had such good results.â€\x9d Bernie Pauly, a scientist at the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, at the University of Victoria, and Tim Stockwell, the centre’s director, are finishing a major study of five Canadian managed alcohol programmes. In-depth research on programmes in Vancouver and in Thunder Bay, a city of 100,000 in northwest Ontario, has found that they greatly reduced the harm of drinking. Participants drank more wine and less Listerine, and spread their drinking out over the day. They greatly improved their safety, stability, mental and physical health, housing, family relationships, life skills and self-esteem. Did they cut down on their drinking? That was not clear – and it is not the focus of the programmes, strange as that might seem. Podymow’s study of Ottawa’s MAP had found that clients in the MAP went from an average of 46 drinks per day down to eight – but that was only counting the pour; researchers were not counting how much people drank outside. Stockwell said that in the programmes he studied, people drank about as much outside as they got from the pour. Doubling the pour would still mean the Ottawa MAP was associated with a huge drop in drinking. In Thunder Bay, some participants reported that they had fewer no-drinking days than did people still on the street, probably because they had regular access to alcohol, which they would not have if they were broke or in prison. What seemed clear was that they were managing it better and suffering less. * * * Those who do well in the MAP can move on to the Oaks, living in one of the converted hotel rooms in the orange-and-cream four-storey building, with a small outdoor space in the back and, importantly, a gate, so staff know who is leaving and who is coming in. Residents are a self-selected group – “those who don’t want to be around this craziness any moreâ€\x9d, said Turnbull. “They want to reconnect with family, they want a dog, a garden, a Christmas party.â€\x9d Every year, residents pile into vans to drive outside the city to the farm where Turnbull lives. With chainsaws and tractors, the men cut down three trees to take back to the Oaks for the annual Christmas party, to which the Oaks invites city officials, and residents invite their once-estranged families. It is a huge event, a celebration of normality. Decorating starts just after Halloween. Everyone I talked to at the Oaks said they had drunk outside the programme when they first arrived. They would buy liquor and try to sneak it into their rooms. Oaks staff try to police them: they persuaded the nearby dollar store to take the Listerine and rubbing alcohol off the shelves and put them behind the counter. “We suspect everyone who goes out,â€\x9d said Young. “They’re searched to make sure they’re not carrying it in, but they hide bottles in the bushes. More recent admissions are battling these little demons, the call to go outside and drink. In a year we won’t see those behaviours.â€\x9d “I gave up on trying to outsmart them,â€\x9d said Kunnuk. “I didn’t realise they knew where we went. I’d put the wine on the gate at the corner, come in, and go around the back and take it. But they could tell,â€\x9d he said. Like users of all long-term shelters in Canada, people at the Oaks pay for their housing and food by signing over their disability cheques. Rooms are large and comfortable, but most people spend their time in the lobby. Bright orange walls display their art, photographs and poems. There are televisions, computers and a piano. When I visited, the Oaks was in the middle of a bedbug extermination campaign. Furniture was piled against the lobby walls and side rooms were stuffed with plastic bags of clean clothes. Residents do have some cash: about $40 each month from their personal benefits after paying for the pour, cable television and, if they smoke, tobacco. If someone is caught spending their allowance on booze, MacQuatt steps in to hold it. They then have to come to him during set banking hours to ask for their money, and tell him what they plan to buy. For some at the Oaks, the change of habits came too late to save their liver or heart. Stockwell said that people with this level of alcohol use tend to die 25 years younger than people who don’t have alcohol problems – but the death rate is much higher among those who continue their lives of rough sleeping and binge drinking. Turnbull talks about finding a way to bring younger people into the programme, before drink has caused irreparable damage. But younger people do not feel comfortable in the Oaks, which Muckle called “a nursing home of sorts, with alcoholâ€\x9d. Windsor is one of the youngest residents – not yet 40, and less marked by drink than many of the others. On Saturdays, he goes downtown to beg and buys two or three bottles of pale dry sherry. He’ll drink two at night and save one for the morning. He stays at TED. He’d like to get his old job at the moving company back and continue drinking on Saturday nights. He still cooks his grandmother’s recipes – cooking is a marker of normal life for many people. He makes spaghetti sauce for the Oaks and recently represented the Oaks in Shepherds’ annual chilli cook-off. He is mayor of the Oaks, responsible for representing residents in regular meetings with MacQuatt. Chris Mercredi left the MAP in October for the Oaks. He is the only Oaks resident who is actually non-resident; he lives in a cheap apartment nearby, but he still spends the day at the Oaks. When I first met him he told me he had been getting drunk whenever he had money, but not any more. “I can definitely say the apartment comes first,â€\x9d he said. He wants furniture. He wants to start cooking again – he always cooked for Lee. He wants a kitten. Through the programme, Mercredi had a bed, a roof, food, good medical care, a place to sit and listen to his music. With time, he might follow the pattern and reduce his consumption. He was still getting over Lee’s death. The first thing Mercredi did in his apartment was tape Lee’s photo to the refrigerator. He talks to it every day. “Every time I pass it, I say, ‘I love you, I miss you,’â€\x9d he said, kissing his fingers and dabbing the air. The next time I saw him, though, he was drunk at 11am. He had borrowed $20 from his landlord, saying he needed it for food. He bought two bottles of beer and two bottles of Imperial sherry. He drank the beer and one Imperial before he got home, and then half of the second Imperial. Then he passed out. “I was so happy to see that bottle beside my bed when I woke up,â€\x9d he said. “I woke up light-headed and had a drink, which really relieved me. The wine here – it helps. But it’s not as much as I want to drink. Alcohol is what I need in my system, my gasoline, my energy drink. I have to have that bottle in my hand.â€\x9d I told MacQuatt later that I had found the way Mercredi talked about drink – the raw need and longing in his voice – painful to hear. He paused for a long time. “We know alcohol is very important to our residents. It’s the number-one thing,â€\x9d he finally said; that’s why we need this programme. “We just want to see improvement. If they’re going out every day and getting intoxicated, we’d say they’re not ready. But for someone like Mercredi to go out and get intoxicated one day is par for the course. He’s doing great.â€\x9d Travel for this article was funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.',
 'NHS saves £600m in crackdown on agency fees The NHS has slashed more than £600m from the billions it pays every year for temporary doctors and nurses by cracking down on fees paid to “rip-offâ€\x9d staffing agencies, new figures reveal. Gaps in hospital rotas sent the bill for temporary staff soaring from £2.2bn in 2009-10 to £3.6bn last year. But hospitals have halted the relentless increase in recent years of the rates for stand-in personnel needed to ease chronic understaffing and ensure patient safety on wards. Data compiled by NHS Improvement, which regulates the health service in England, shows that hospitals spent £613m less since the blitz on agency staff began on 15 October last year, compared to the 12 months before caps on hourly rates were brought in. In August, for example, NHS trusts spent £252m on agency staff – £61m (19.5%) less than the £313m they paid out in the same month the year before. Similarly, in July they spent £256m compared to their £331m outlay in July 2015. If maintained, the NHS stands to meet its target of spending £1bn less a year on temporary staff, which would be key to its ambition to reduce hospitals’ collective overspend of £2.5bn last year to £580m. Hospitals are now paying 18% less on average for nurses whom they hire through agencies which NHS England boss Simon Stevens last year criticised for “ripping off the NHSâ€\x9d. The limits on fees for stand-ins have also succeeded in reducing the cost of locum doctors, but only by 13%. Jim Mackey, NHS Improvement’s chief executive, will cite the figures as proof that the NHS is making progress at controlling its costs when he, Stevens and health secretary Jeremy Hunt give evidence to MPs on the Commons health select committee on Tuesday. Medical organisations reacted with alarm to disclosures that Theresa May, the prime minister, has told Stevens that, despite mounting concern that the NHS is under dangerous strain, it would not receive any extra funding when Philip Hammond, the chancellor, presents his autumn statement on 23 November. “If these reports are true, the prime minister needs to explain how exactly the NHS will keep up with rising demand without the necessary investment. “Theresa May talks about injecting £10bn into the NHS, yet in reality the increase in health spending is less than half that,â€\x9d said Dr Anthea Mowat, a spokeswoman for the British Medical Association. “The NHS is already the most efficient healthcare system in the world. The notion that the funding crisis can be solved with further efficiency savings is a myth, and these are not savings, they are year-on-year cuts that have driven almost every acute trust in England into deficit, led to a crisis in general practice and a community and social care system on the brink of collapse,â€\x9d added Mowat. Two-thirds of the acute, mental health, community services and ambulance trusts covered by the new rules on agency staff had cut the amount of money they spend on them, NHS Improvement said. Since April trusts have only been allowed to pay 55% more than the usual rate for the job for temporary workers, though they are allowed to breach that supposed ceiling “on exceptional safety groundsâ€\x9d in order to ensure that patients do not come to harm because of staff shortages. However, Mackey recently told trusts that, despite the progress on agency fees, “across the sector we are falling short of what is needed and must do more to reduce over-reliance on agenciesâ€\x9d. The regulator will soon start to publish quarterly updates on how much each trust has spent on such staff in what some in the NHS see as a crude “naming and shamingâ€\x9d exercise designed to embarrass trusts into spending less and do not take account of high vacancy rates which force them to turn to agencies in the first place. It also plans to phase out altogether hospitals’ use of expensive interim senior executives, whose temporary costs can see them being paid over £1,000 a day. “Reducing spending on the agency bill is fundamentally important for NHS finances. But it’s not a panacea,â€\x9d said Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Health Foundation thinktank, Hospitals are still heading for an overspend of £580m this year despite receiving £1.8bn of “sustainability and transformationâ€\x9d funding, and NS England has made only “slow progressâ€\x9d at finding its promised £22bn of efficiency savings, she warned. “Reducing the agency bill will help but it’s not the solution. The NHS needs a comprehensive plan to improve efficiency,â€\x9d she added. “The NHS has saved over £600m since we introduced our agency price cap system. Most NHS trusts have responded well to the caps, using them to significantly reduce their agency spending and improve their workforce management,â€\x9d said Dr Kathy McLean, NHS Improvement’s executive medical director.',
 'PPI claims - all you need to know about the mis-selling scandal The City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, has announced a June 2019 deadline for customers to make claims for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI). Why is the deadline being imposed? The FCA says imposing a deadline would allow banks to draw a line under the PPI scandal, which has been dragging on for years. Estimates by New City Agenda puts the total bill for handling claims at more than £37bn while the FCA calculates that £24.2bn has been paid out to consumers since 2011, the rest being the cost of tackling claims plus provisions made in anticipation of more payouts. When did the mis-selling of PPI begin? PPI has been sold alongside mortgages, credit cards and other unsecured loans since the 1990s. It was supposed to cover payments on loans if customers fell ill or lost their jobs. In 2004, the reported how Barclays had been making profits from PPI and other examples quickly followed. It received new prominence in 2005 when Citizens Advice issued a so-called super-complaint to competition watchdogs about what it described as a “protection racketâ€\x9d, starting a series of events that led to the compensation payments to consumers and sales of some types of PPI being banned. How many customers are affected? The now defunct Financial Services Authority told parliament 53m PPI policies had been sold. Around 45m of those were sold by banks, worth around £44bn. It is not clear how many of these policies were mis-sold – initial estimates by the FCA were that 3m people were affected – but by January 2016 12m customers had received compensation, totalling £24.2bn. Selling PPI was very profitable for banks. In its evidence to parliament, the regulator highlighted one PPI policy sold alongside a mortgage which cost the customer £20,838 over the loan term even though the maximum they could reclaim was £31,000, an illustration of the scale of profits involved which led banks to risk mis-selling. Is the deadline the same for all customers? The consumer panel, which represents consumer interests at the FCA, questioned the deadline. In its submission to the FCA about a time bar, it pointed out that 5.5m customers may already face an earlier cut-off. This is because they have already been contacted by their banks and, if they are covered by existing rules, will already have the clock ticking on a three-year time limit for claims. How many more claims do the banks face? Given the cold-calling from claims management companies (CMCs) it might seem improbable that anyone who was mis-sold a policy has not already made a claim. However, according to the the Professional Financial Claims Association (PFCA), only about half of the sums paid out represent refunded payments. The rest is interest, with the banks obliged to pay 8% interest on the money being returned. This suggests an even higher bill for PPI . Guy Anker, managing editor at MoneySavingExpert.com, points out that the Financial Ombudsman is upholding 70% of complaints rejected by banks. “To go to the ombudsman you have to first complain to the bank, so it’s likely banks are still wrongly rejecting claims from over half of those who have been mis-sold,â€\x9d said Anker. Are there any new twists? A court ruling in the Plevin v Paragon Personal Finance case also looks likely to add to the PPI bill. The court concluded that if a PPI seller failed to disclose to a customer that it had received a large commission from the product provider, the sale was unfair under the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. The case involved Susan Plevin, who found that 72% of the £5,780 premium she paid was commission for the lender and the broker that sold her the loan, with the rest going to the PPI provider, Norwich Union. How much will I get if I claim? That will depend on your circumstances, but the average is £2,000. The BBC has reported one case of a businesswoman from Hertfordshire receiving £65,000 from her credit card company MBNA. Moneysavingexpert has one example of an £82,000 payout to a Barclaycard customer. What is happening to claims now? Lloyds Banking Group, which sold more PPI policies than any other bank, said claims in the last week had reached their lowest weekly level since the highpoint of 2011. It is still receiving 6,700 claims a week – down from 10,000 per week in the past. Over the past six weeks, PPI complaints fell to 7,500 per week from an average of 8,500 in the first half of 2016. What happens next? The FCA will run a consultation until 11 October before finalising the rules. Consumer experts reckon that CMCs – which the National Audit Office estimates have received up to £5bn in commission from PPI payments – will make extra efforts to generate claims for consumers. The banks will also have to agree to spend £40m on an awareness campaign to ensure customers make claims before the deadline. Anker said customers who had previous claims rejected should contact the Ombudsman if they have not already done so. “Banks have been fined for poor complaints handling – your bank rejection does not mean you weren’t mis-sold.â€\x9d',
 'Sadiq Khan and Anne Hidalgo rebuke Donald Trump over Muslim ban The mayor of Paris has joined with her newly elected London counterpart, Sadiq Khan, in voicing a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump over his call for a ban on Muslims entering the US and his suggestions that an “exceptionâ€\x9d could be made in the case of Khan. Standing alongside Khan at St Pancras railway station after arriving from Paris, Anne Hidalgo said on Tuesday that people of all religions, including Catholics and Muslims, did not agree with the US presidential candidate, adding: “Mr Trump is so stupid, my God, my God.â€\x9d Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, said he hoped that Trump looked at the lessons from last week’s London’s mayoral elections “and recognises that it’s possible to be western and Muslim and to be friends with a mayor of Paris as wellâ€\x9d. He added: “Our message to Donald Trump is: this is how you work together; this is the best of humanity; this is the best of the west. “What’s really important is the similarities Paris and London have; they are the most diverse cities in the world. This is an example of the best of our cities – men, women, Muslims, Christians, mayors working together to work for our cities, solving the housing crisis, fixing the air quality, addressing the challenges of integration and making sure our cities are safe.â€\x9d The two mayors held talks at the station on a number of issues which were thought to include security. Khan later tweeted images of what he said would be the first of many meetings between the two. Khan has previously said he would visit the US before this year’s presidential elections “in case Donald Trump winsâ€\x9d and Muslims were banned. The London mayor subsequently rebuffed a suggestion by Trump that he could be an exception to the proposed ban. He said the ban was something that directly affected those closest to him and making an exception was not the answer. Trump told the New York Times on Monday that he was happy to see Khan elected as mayor of London last week. “There will always be exceptions,â€\x9d he said of his proposed temporary ban on Muslims. Of Khan’s election, he said: “I think it’s a very good thing and I hope he does a very good job because, frankly. that would be very, very good. You lead by example, always lead by example. If he does a good job and, frankly, if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing.â€\x9d',
 'Jeremy Corbyn to urge Labour voters to focus ire on Tories, not the EU Jeremy Corbyn will use a speech in London to urge Labour voters to lay the blame for pressures on housing, jobs and the NHS at the door of the Conservatives, instead of seizing on the EU as a scapegoat. As the referendum campaign steps up a gear, with Britain Stronger in Europe saying it plans to hold 1,000 events over the weekend, the Labour leader, a long-time sceptic when it comes to the EU, will tell his audience at a rally on Saturday that voting to leave would not help tackle the UK’s problems. “People in this country face many problems, from insecure jobs, low pay and unaffordable housing to stagnating living standards, environmental degradation, and the responsibility for them lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels,â€\x9d he will say. “This country is being let down by a Conservative government that is failing on housing, failing our children, failing our NHS, failing to create good quality secure jobs and consistently failing even to meet its own economic targets.â€\x9d The main party leaders will be out pushing for a remain vote this weekend, with David Cameron unveiling a new campaign poster and the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, meeting voters in Kendal. Corbyn’s deputy, Tom Watson, will take the Labour in for Britain battlebus through the West Midlands, visiting Telford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Cameron said: “This is a day unlike any other: politicians of every stripe taking to the streets with the same message. Because we face a vote unlike any other, one which will shape our country for decades – even generations – to come.â€\x9d Robert Oxley, of Vote Leave, said the remain camp were “playing catch-upâ€\x9d. He claimed he had 20,000 activists signed up to get involved, and said Cameron, whose party is deeply split on the issue of Europe, was relying on Labour ground troops to win the referendum. “Most of the in campaign is based around Labour, but being told by No 10 what to do,â€\x9d he said. Labour voters, particularly younger ones, are regarded as crucial to achieving a remain vote on 23 June, and senior figures in Stronger In are concerned that Corbyn has been too reticent about making the case. However, his team are anxious about the possibility of being seen to ally themselves too closely with the Conservatives. The collapse of Labour’s support in Scotland followed its decision to mount a joint push against independence with the Conservatives, led by Alistair Darling, in the 2014 referendum. Labour was pushed into third place in the Holyrood parliament, behind the Conservatives, in last week’s elections. With polling out of the way in Scottish, Welsh and local elections, senior Labour figures have switched their focus to the referendum. The former party leaders Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband have made speeches, and Tony Blair is expected to make his own intervention in June. Corbyn will say that a Labour government would use Britain’s EU membership to press for different priorities across the continent, including improving workers’ rights. “When Labour comes into government we will work with our allies across the continent to reform the European Union to increase democratic accountability to strengthen workers’ rights and the scope for public enterprise ... and to work together to tackle issues like tax avoidance and climate change,â€\x9d he will say. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, became the latest policymaker to issue a warning about the consequences of a Brexit on Friday, saying they could range from “pretty bad to very, very badâ€\x9d. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said a vote to leave could trigger a recession.',
 'Iain Duncan Smith asks civil servants to ignore block on EU papers Iain Duncan Smith has asked civil servants in the welfare and pensions department to ignore a directive from the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, which stops pro-Brexit ministers seeing government papers related to the EU referendum. In a further escalation of the row at the heart of the cabinet, the work and pensions secretary also encouraged other senior ministers who are campaigning to leave the EU to do the same. The move will be seen as a direct challenge to David Cameron’s authority, with with senior civil servants warning the row threatens the government’s ability to function properly. It has emerged hours after Heywood told MPs that it was the civil service’s “constitutional dutyâ€\x9d to support the government’s position, even if this meant restricting access for ministers who planned to campaign to leave the EU. On the floor of the House of Commons, cabinet minister Matthew Hancock said it was an essential approach as it was the “duty of the civil service to support the governmentâ€\x9d, which is in favour of staying in the EU. A source close to Duncan Smith confirmed reports that he would ask civil servants in his department to show him all papers related to the EU. “He has asserted his constitutional right to see everything produced in his department – including things related to the EU,â€\x9d the source said. Earlier on Monday, Priti Patel, the employment minister, who sits in cabinet, was the first to accuse Heywood of an “unconstitutional actâ€\x9d that “threatens the reputation of the civil serviceâ€\x9d. “Secretaries of state are responsible for their departments. For an unelected official to prevent them being aware of the information they need for their duties is wrong,â€\x9d she said. Appearing before the public accounts committee, Heywood said that far from being unconstitutional, the civil service was upholding its primary role of carrying out government policy. “What my letter does is put flesh on the bones of the prime minister’s own letter of the 11 January saying the government would have a position on this subject. “The government having a position on it, it is the civil service’s constitutional duty to support the government’s position. The unusual part of this is that the prime minister is allowing several ministers in the cabinet and elsewhere to oppose that government policy,â€\x9d he said. “Civil servants won’t provide briefing and speech material for those who want to argue against the government’s position, but in every other respect they will get the full service that you would expect. It is not bypassing anybody.â€\x9d The government faced further scrutiny in an emergency Commons debate, where pro-Brexit Tory MPs claimed it could compromise the civil service’s duty of honesty. Bernard Jenkin, a leading Tory Eurosceptic, led the rebellion with an urgent question to the government, saying the limits went further than those imposed on ministers on 1975 and created a worse atmosphere. “Nobody objects to the government making its case in this referendum but most people expect the civil service to be impartial in carrying out its support for ministers,â€\x9d he said. “It is established in law that ministers are accountable for their departments and voters expect government facts and figures to be impartial and accurate whether they are used by ministers who support remain or leave. “So why does the cabinet secretary’s letter go far beyond the limits actually placed on dissenting ministers during the 1975 referendum?â€\x9d He was backed up by numerous colleagues campaigning for the UK to leave, including Julian Lewis, the Tory chair of the defence committee, who said the public would see “big battalionsâ€\x9d of civil servants and spin doctors lined up on one side of the argument. Gerald Howarth, the former defence minister, said it was a “constitutional outrageâ€\x9d and might give the impression that the government was “trying to rig the referendumâ€\x9d. Andrew Percy, the Tory MP for Brigg and Goole, also said it was “leading people to believe there is a stitch-up to keep us in the EUâ€\x9d. The criticism was not limited to those arguing for the UK to leave the EU, with a number of Labour MPs raising concerns that the decision would undermine trust in the referendum. Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, challenged the government to give its ministers free rein to run their departments or sack those campaigning against its policy. In response to the furore, Hancock, the paymaster general, said: “All ministers can ask for factual briefing and for facts to be checked in any matter. All ministers can see documents on EU issues not related to the referendum question, as normal. “So the guidance is clear, it’s published and the process was agreed at cabinet as the best way to manage the unusual situation of ministers who disagree with the government remaining in post.â€\x9d Ministers arguing over the role of mandarins in the run-up to the EU referendum have been warned by the union for senior civil servants that this could cause lasting damage to relationships across Whitehall. Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, the main union representing senior civil servants, said government splits over access to documents might have long-term repercussions for the way in which ministers and their officials interacted. In the short term, it could stop government functioning properly, he said. “Politicians’ continued wrangling over this issue will only serve to impact upon the smooth running of government and damage the essential relationship between civil servants and ministers.â€\x9d He appeared to dismiss criticism from pro-Brexit ministers who claimed that Heywood’s edict would leave civil servants facing a conflict of interest. “The FDA welcomes the clear guidance issued by Sir Jeremy Heywood, which clarifies the responsibilities of ministers and civil servants,â€\x9d Penman said.',
 'Aria awards 2016: Flume dominates with 11 nominations The Australian electronic producer Harley Streten, best known as Flume, has swept the nominations for the 2016 Aria awards, shortlisted for 11 categories in total – and already winning in three. Flume’s second album, Skin, which he is touring through the US and Europe, won in all three artisan categories on Wednesday: best producer, engineer and cover art of the year. Appearing over video message, he also announced that he will be performing at the November ceremony, where he will be competing for the night’s top awards – including album of the year, best male artist, best dance release and the Apple Music song of the year – a new category voted for by Apple Music subscribers. In 2013 the producer was nominated in seven categories for his debut self-titled record, and won in four. Speaking to Australia this year, Flume described the follow-up process as “incredibly stressfulâ€\x9d. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to have my music at a certain quality, and that wasn’t a positive thing,â€\x9d he said. “Skin was a totally different experience than the first record. It didn’t just come.â€\x9d The 2016 nominations were also dominated by YouTube star-turned-pop artist Troye Sivan, who was nominated for two artisan awards and will be competing with Flume in five categories on the night: artist of the year, male artist, pop release, Apple Music song of the year and best video. Released last year, Sivan’s debut album, Blue Neighbourhood, was awarded five stars by the Australian music critic Everett True. “Sivan and his equally youthful co-writer-producer, Alex Hope, have such a natural flair for capturing the sound of now that in a year’s time he could well be sharing the stratosphere with Taylor Swift,â€\x9d True wrote. The pop artist Sia, the hip-hop artist Illy and the long-awaited return of the Avalanches have brought in six nominations apiece, with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, RÃœFÃœS and Violent Soho each nominated in five categories. Courtney Barnett, who was nominated for eight Arias in 2015 and won four, is up for two public-voted categories in 2016: best video for Elevator Operator, and best live act. Awards announced at the nominations announcement also included best comedy album (Roy & HG, for This Sporting Life), best world music album (Melbourne Ska Orchestra for Sierra Kilo Alpha), best original soundtrack/cast/show album (Josh Pyke & The Sydney Symphony Orchestra for Live at the Sydney Opera House), best jazz album (Vince Jones & Paul Grabowsky for Provenance) and best classical album (Flight Facilities for Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra). Crowded House will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ceremony, which will be held on 23 November at the Star Casino in Sydney and broadcast on Channel Ten.',
 "Swipe magazine: will millennials read 'the best of the web' in print? If you live in one of London’s hipper areas or commute into its centre, you may have been approached this morning at the tube station by a young person in a blue T-shirt handing out yet another free magazine. Aimed at the almost mythical millennial the media is obsessed with, Swipe magazine aims to stand out from Time Out or Shortlistby offering “the best of the internet in printâ€\x9d. The premise makes sense, on paper at least. People like reading print, but there’s loads of good stuff on the internet. So much in fact, that it’s hard to keep track of it all and find the best bits. Swipe’s editors say they will sift through that morass of content, decide which bits its target audience will like, then shove it in their face on their commute. They are paying a not exactly generous 10p per word to writers, but the 70-odd contributing sites get promotion for their work. It has an initial distribution of 20,000 copies, 17,000 by hand and the rest placed in coffee shops and other millennial-friendly hubs. Publisher Tom Rendell insists that outside a media bubble of super-engaged web users, there is demand for a print roundup that filters social media. “The internet is 4.5bn pages,â€\x9d he said. “It’s completely dominated by huge sites high in Google search rankings. We’re not picking the most popular or the weirdest – we are looking at this with a journalistic background and thinking how we can give the best experience.â€\x9d That experience is a mixed bag of articles. A beautifully illustrated cover story on the “dangerous bromanceâ€\x9d between Trump and Putin from startup site the Malcontent (run by a former Telegraph journalist) that makes good use of graffiti depicting the odd couple kissing. News stories from Business Insider and its tech offshoot, a long read from “deep webâ€\x9d publisher Vocativ and, and weirdly, a Wikihow article about how to have a wolf as a pet. The ads are also revealing. A big sponsored content opener from Uber on the inside page, another sponsored article about a “developer bootcampâ€\x9d and on the back page, a mail order craft beer brewery. Ticking off each entry in the millennial lifestyle checklist. It’s all prefaced with a “Trendingâ€\x9d section covering social media such as the Phil from EastEnders meme making the rounds (Utter Philth), a reference to the Chewbacca mask video, and a roundup of Instagram and Twitter posts of the week. Some of the choices, however, suggest the publishers are aiming for the slightly older end of their millennial target market. News that a sequel to 1999 rave film Human Traffic is on the cards won’t mean much to anyone under 30. And the “Twitter of the weekâ€\x9d section includes an (admittedly hilarious) tweet from 2013. This clearly isn’t a magazine for the web-obsessed, head-in-their-smartphone twentysomething. And that may be the point. There are plenty of outlets that curate the best of the web online, and most of those who are swimming through the internet’s eddies regularly will almost certainly have already identified their favourite ones, or just use their social media feeds to find what will interest them. One colleague at the upper range of the millennial demographic put it, “It’s like an in-flight magazine for the internetâ€\x9d. Another at the other end of the age range said: “like anyone picking it up being I LIKE THIS, might, you know, go on the internetâ€\x9d. But then for those for whom the more distant reaches of the web beyond Facebook and Twitter (Tumblr anyone?) are more like a foreign country, Swipe can offer a way to ensure they aren’t completely out of touch with the kids.",
 'Is the leave campaign really telling six lies? David Cameron has accused the leave campaign of telling six “total untruthsâ€\x9d in the space of a few days. So who is right – the prime minister or those campaigning for Brexit? No eurozone bailouts Cameron: “They said we are liable to bail out eurozone countries. Not true. My renegotiation means we are categorically not liable for eurozone bailouts.â€\x9d He’s right on this one. The UK’s “special statusâ€\x9d deal secured by the prime minister in February includes a guarantee that countries outside the eurozone will not be required to fund bailouts within the currency zone. Even before February, the UK was off the hook for eurozone bailouts. After the Greek debt crisis, EU finance ministers rewrote an EU regulation to guarantee that non-euro countries would be repaid for any losses incurred if a bailed-out country defaulted on its loans. 2 The rebate Cameron: “They said that our rebate, the money that we get back from the EU, is at risk. Again, not true.â€\x9d The UK’s headline contribution to the EU budget is reduced because of the rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Leave campaigners, such as Michael Gove, have argued the UK rebate is at risk because it is not written into EU treaties. While it is true that it is not written in, however, leave campaigners ignore the fact that EU budgets are agreed by unanimity. Other EU countries have tried and failed to scrap the rebate in the face of opposition from the British government. The EU budget for 2014-20 is already decided, so the rebate will not be on the table for several years. 3. The veto Cameron: “They said we’ve given up our ability to veto EU treaties. Again, not true.â€\x9d EU treaties only enter into force when they are agreed and ratified by all member states. There is nothing in the UK reform deal that changes that. 4 The budget Cameron: “They said we had no ability to stop overall EU spending from going up. Again, not true.â€\x9d European leaders agreed to cut EU spending for the first time when they agreed the EU’s long-term budget in 2013. Cameron is correct to say he negotiated this cut, though he overlooks the role of key allies, especially the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Whether Britain could have managed this on its own is not clear. 5. The EU army Cameron: “They said we were powerless to stop Britain being forced in to an EU army. Again, not true.â€\x9d The prime minister is on safer territory here: there is no realistic or imminent prospect of an EU army. Some officials in Brussels might like to see one, but there is no appetite for this among member states. Cameron is also correct when he says the UK has a veto on defence and security policy. However, he ignores that EU member states can choose to work together on defence. The Lisbon treaty introduced the idea of “permanent structured cooperationâ€\x9d, allowing countries to pool research, defence spending and take part in multinational forces. The UK cannot stop other countries working together, but neither would it be compelled to take part. 6. The £8bn savings Cameron: “They [leave] said we’d save £8bn if we left the EU. Again, not true.â€\x9d This is another open goal for the prime minister. Michael Gove claimed a post-Brexit UK would have £8bn to spend on the NHS, as a result of no longer having to contribute to the EU budget. Now, even putting to one side the doubts over whether a Boris Johnson-Gove government would spend that money on the NHS – John Major for one wasn’t convinced – this is an improbable scenario. The money is unlikely to be there for spending. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that “even a small negative effectâ€\x9d on the British economy from leaving the EU “would damage the public finances by more than that £8bnâ€\x9d. In a statement on its website, the IFS writes: “Leaving the EU would not, as Michael Gove claims we said, leave more money to spend on the NHS. Rather it would leave us spending less on public services, or taxing more, or borrowing more.â€\x9d Verdict: EU truth-teller-come-lately Cameron may be guilty of exaggerating his own role, but his six statements are all true. He could even have gone further by taking on some of leave’s other misleading claims: the £2.4bn increase in UK contributions (not true); the £350m a week being sent to the EU (misleading, says the UK’s statistics watchdog); Turkey’s imminent EU membership (totally implausible) or Boris Johnson’s reckless comparison of the EU’s goals with those of Adolf Hitler. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Cameron has come late to challenging euro myths. In his Bloomberg speech, the prime minister complained about the EU’s “cumbersome rigidityâ€\x9d and “insistence on a one-size-fits-all approachâ€\x9d, glossing over the fact the UK has won numerous opt-outs, while the EU has been taking a more British approach to regulation for several years. The difficulty for the remain side is that no British prime minister has taken on eurosceptic claims for a long time. And now time is running out.',
 'Affordable housing crisis has engulfed all cities in southern England, says Lloyds There is no longer a city in the south of England where house prices are less than seven and a half times average local incomes, according to analysis by Lloyds Bank that reveals how the home affordability crisis now stretches far beyond London. “The housing affordability gap has widened to its worst level in eight years,â€\x9d said the Lloyds analysis, noting that the last time prices were so high was at the very top of the boom in 2008, just before the financial crisis struck. The Lloyds analysis is unique in that it compares local house prices with local earnings rather than national averages. On this measure, the worst house prices are not in London but in other parts of the south-east. Oxford is again identified as the least affordable city in the UK, with average prices at 10.68 times local earnings. Winchester is a close second at 10.54, with London third at 10.06. Cambridge, Brighton and Bath all have prices that are now nearly 10 times local earnings, while cities such as Bristol and Southampton have prices close to eight times earnings. Wage growth has fallen far behind the rise in house prices, said Lloyds, with affordability worsening for the third successive year. The average home in a city in the UK now costs 6.6 times average local earnings, up from 6.2 last year. In the 1950s and 1960s, buyers could typically find homes with mortgages of three to four times their income. But the Lloyds figures show that there is now just one city in the UK that fits that profile: Derry in Northern Ireland. House prices in the city currently fetch 3.81 times local incomes. While most of the “most affordableâ€\x9d cities in the Lloyds rankings are in the north, Scotland and Northern Ireland, buyers will still be stretched to afford a home from the local salaries on offer. Hull is widely regarded as a low house price area, yet local residents face having to pay 5.11 times average local incomes to buy a home. Meanwhile, York has joined the ranks of cities in the south in the unaffordability tables, with prices at 7.5 times incomes. Winchester in Hampshire emerges as Britain’s No 1 property hotspot, easily surpassing the capital in terms of house price rises and unaffordability. The local council says that soaring house prices have pushed locally born people out of the city, while finding workers to fill lower-paid jobs is proving extremely difficult. “It’s a very big challenge for the council,â€\x9d says Stephen Godfrey, leader of Winchester council, where the local unemployment rate is just 0.6%. “We have more jobs here than the local working age population. Many public services jobs are not the highest salary payers, and it is difficult to find people willing to take local jobs at these wages. Of the council’s 450 staff, only half live in the district.â€\x9d House prices have grown faster in Winchester than anywhere in the UK over the past decade, said Lloyds, jumping from an average of £249,703 in 2006 to £446,796. One eight-bed home is currently on the market for £6.5m, while new-build two-bed flats have asking prices of £595,000. The capital of Alfred the Great’s kingdom was recently named by the Sunday Times as the greatest place to live in Britain, and boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant, the country’s first Hotel du Vin and highly rated local schools. Seven direct trains to London Waterloo leave between 7am-8am each weekday morning – but finding a seat is another matter. Godfrey said that around 400-500 new homes a year are being built in the area, and that a new council house-building programme will provide another 120 units. But the developments will be unlikely to meet demand – or objections from existing residents, many angry at how the town is being swamped by Londoners selling up and using gains in the capital to snap up local homes. “Everyone knows that Winchester houses are very expensive, even ‘affordable’ ones. Londoners love our beautiful city, gorgeous countryside, great rail links and it so much cheaper than London even if they commute. They can afford expensive property when they sell up in London and move here,â€\x9d one resident told the Hampshire Chronicle.',
 "Shakin' Stevens: 'I'm like a skittle. If I get knocked down I get back up again' Hi Shaky! Should people be surprised that the biggest name in 80s chart-topping rockabilly pop has made an album of socially conscious, dark Americana? (1) People have been surprised. We’ve been playing it to them and not telling them who it is. I’m really pleased with it. Why is it so dark? I got to a certain age and realised I knew nothing about my family history, ’cos when you’re growing up it’s all hush hush. So I started digging around and it was shocking. One of my ancestors was blown up in the first world war. It took him eight days to die. My grandfather was a copper miner at the age of 10. They’d spend hours on these ladders going down the hole. They were working in prison, no toilets. A lot went on as well, which we won’t go into. Some of them were so tired at the end of the day that they’d fall off the ladders and never wake up. So the stories lent themselves to blues, gospel, Cajun and mandolins. Mind you, wasn’t the apparently cheery This Ole House (2) based on a similarly grim story? Stuart Hamblen wrote it [in 1954] about coming across the body of a prospector in a deserted shack. True story. Do you think the squillions who bought Green Door had any idea about the persistent urban myth that it was about a lesbian club (3)? I never knew that. Lovely. That’s quite subversive really. Nick Lowe recommended I cover the song after we bumped into him in the pub. I always wondered why he was smiling. You’ve got environmental songs on the new album. Are you a bit of a politico on the sly? There’s that infamous story about you being in the Communist party … In the very early days the guy that got us our gigs was in the Communist party. Or his parents were. So we ended up doing gigs for them. I’m not really political, but I am aware of what’s going on. How did young Michael Barratt, milkman, builder and upholsterer, turn into Shakin’ Stevens? A friend of mine called Steven Vanderwalker used to call himself Shakin’ Steven. I thought: “That’s something you wont forget.â€\x9d So my band became Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets. What was it like doing raw, raucous rock’n’roll in the era of prog rock, punk and disco? Wild. John Peel came to our gigs. We’d play places like the Hope and Anchor [in north London], turn up in the van, slide the gear down the chute, do the gig, all sweaty, then find a car park to sleep in the van. None of this X Factor nonsense. Your big career break came in the theatre, playing the young Elvis in the West End (4), didn’t it? I was starving. The Sunsets had set. It was time for me to move on. I loved every minute of it. I just took my stage act into Elvis, standing on the back of the seats and stuff. In those days, I’d arrive at gigs, look at the girders and think “I’ll be up there tonight.â€\x9d It wasn’t unknown for me to walk along the bar, with the microphone stuck down the sax player’s wotsit. How did you come across the song Marie Marie, which was previously released on a tiny indie label, performed by an underground band who played with the likes of Black Flag, X and Fear on the LA punk circuit? The Blasters! I was in America working. We had some time to kill, ended up at this guy’s flat while he played records and that was one. I thought: “That’s a great song. I’ll have that.â€\x9d The rest is history. And before long you were the biggest selling British singles artist of the 80s. (5) I was a 17-year overnight success really. I think I earned it. Is it a crazy existence when you’re that big? There was that infamous incident when you attacked Richard Madeley on live TV, wasn’t there? I’d been doing endless radio and TV stuff. I’d been there since early in the morning, all the interview questions were really badly researched and I just thought, “This is ludicrousâ€\x9d and leapt on him on the sofa. He was going: “Oh my watch, oh my hair!â€\x9d On the recording you can hear fellow guests Status Quo going “You’re mad, you are.â€\x9d There’s nothing wrong with being mad. I met Richard again years later and he said: “What a prat I was.â€\x9d When the hits eventually dried up, you made some unlikely records: disco, funk covers and such. I was trying to find my way really. It’s healthy for artists to move on. I didn’t have a manager that would come up with ideas, so I did stuff like [the Detroit Emeralds’] Feel the Need in Me and [the Supremes’] Come See About Me. I wasn’t really happy with a lot of them. The people who signed me at record companies kept leaving. It was like being a footballer when they change the manager. In 2002, you were banned for drink driving and had to attend the Gloucester drink and drug counselling service. I’d been working and staying in this hotel, which was just down the lane. Either the police were waiting or someone told on me. It was two or three minutes’ drive, but the wrong thing to do. Silly. Did the police recognise you? I’m sure they did, but they treated me like anyone else. They didn’t ask you to sing Green Door? Ha. I never thought of doing that, but I was out of it, so I wouldn’t have remembered the words. Was your 2010 heart attack really caused by “strenuous gardeningâ€\x9d? I’d been picking up bags of stones. I knew something was wrong. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Luckily my partner found me and called the ambulance. If I’d been alone I’d have been a goner. You’re the only person I’ve ever spoken to who’s had their body frozen. To slow my metabolism. I had an ice hat on, ice under my arms, wires everywhere. But here I am. And looking great. Did the brush with the reaper give you a new sense of urgency? Yeah and I realised you’ve got to look after your body. I’ve been drunk like anyone else. I just woke up one morning and thought: “That’s it, no more drinking.â€\x9d I just have a glass of wine. Or a couple of glasses of wine. What can people expect on your forthcoming tour (6)? I’d rather bang my head on the ceiling than do those rewind shows, reliving the 80s. I still do the hits – not all of them – but in a different way. There’s a lot more to come out of me. I feel like I’m a skittle. If I’m knocked down, I’ll get up and try again. I don’t want to ever stop. I still really enjoy singing. Now you’re an Americana artist, will you get a check shirt and beard? I never dressed like a teddy boy, and I don’t like shaving but you’ve got to do it. I don’t think a beard and moustache would suit me very much, do you? (1) Echoes of Our Times is released on 16 September. (2) Which spent three weeks at No 1 in 1981. (3) The myth is Bob Davie and Martin Moore’s 1956 song refers to Gateways, London’s first lesbian club, which had a green door. It’s almost certably not true. (4) Elvis! had a two-year run from 1977 to 1979. (5) Shaky has notched up 33 Top 40 hits in the UK. (6) Shakin’ Stevens tours next year.",
 'Football transfer rumours: Romelu Lukaku going back to Chelsea? What must Diego Costa think? Chelsea are fully within their rights to tell Atlético Madrid to do one with their approaches, but now that story appears to have reached a dead end, the cantankerous 27-year-old Spain striker is finding out that Antonio Conte has an eye on several other attacking options. First up, Romelu Lukaku is a target – but would the Belgian really want to come back to Stamford Bridge, and face a battle for a starting position when he is the undisputed first choice at Everton? That may just be a plan B if Chelsea’s move for Ã\x81lvaro Morata fails to come up trumps. Morata has only rejoined Real Madrid after they activated his buy-back clause at Juventus, but Chelsea have already made two bids and may go back for a third. Let’s not forget he was chosen in Spain’s Euro 2016 squad instead of Costa. That’s before mentioning Michy Batshuayi’s solid debut in Chelsea’s friendly win over Wolfsberger last night. Conte is in no mood to sell Andreas Christensen to Borussia Mönchengladbach, though. The 20-year-old is halfway through a two season loan at the Bundesliga club, who have been sufficiently impressed to offer almost £15m. That’s not enough in Chelsea’s books. After a 1-0 humbling against former club Bayern Munich, Pep Guardiola has decided he needs to bring craft to his Manchester City midfield and will table a bid for Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos. Reunification is in fashion. Guardiola is also reeling from the news that his first game will not be against The Big Sam , with Sunderland in talks with David Moyes about taking over at the Stadium of Light. Hull, worryingly, are not being linked with anybody, despite eight of the 14 senior players under contract being injured and just over three weeks to go before the season starts. At least Steve Bruce is staying, though. Oh Nacer, Nacer Chadli has caught the eye of Swansea, who may be willing to fork out £10m to purchase the Belgium midfielder from Tottenham. Daniel Levy would rather £15m, mind. Action is imminent at West Brom, where Saido Berahino might finally be sold 347 windows after a move from the Hawthorns was initially mooted and Jeffrey Schlupp could be on his way in to Tony Pulis’ squad after an offer was made to Leicester. And how could a Rumour Mill end without a mention of Manchester United? What a summer it has been at Old Trafford. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Eric Bailly, possibly Paul Pogba and now – perhaps the biggest one of all – Joshua Bohui is set to join from Brentford. Actually, that’s maybe even a tad too facetious for this column. Bohui is a promising 17-year-old winger who may end up being rather good, and will go into the academy.',
 'DNA-testing kit 23andme: patient-powered healthcare or just confusing? How do you fancy spitting into a tube and finding out about your genes? You can buy one online now and get details of your ancestry, carrier status of various inherited diseases, risk of common conditions and random wacky facts such as whether you’re likely to develop male-pattern baldness. Not bad for £124.99 from Superdrug. The kit is called 23andme and its co-founder and chief executive is Anne Wojcicki. While 23andme has been able to offer the tests in the UK and Canada, it had run-ins with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its concerns about the accuracy of data collected. In 2013 the FDA banned the company from selling tests directly to consumers. The company has since relaunched a scaled back version and is the first and only direct-to-consumer genetic test available to individuals in the US that includes reports that meet FDA standards. Its US tests give information on carrier status, ancestry, wellness and trait reports but don’t include the information on drug response and genetic risk factors that are included in the UK test, according to the company. Consumer-powered healthcare? “Direct-to-consumer healthcare is coming,â€\x9d said Wojcicki at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference last month . “Do you have to go to your physician for everything? Do you have to go for a blood test? Do you have to go for all your genetic information?â€\x9d The answer to these questions is clearly “noâ€\x9d. It was easier for me to go online and get a kit than to get an appointment with my local GP. I spat into the device, put the kit in the post and await my results with some curiosity, a pinch of scepticism and an unexpected degree of anxiety. 23andme doesn’t test the whole genome. It identifies genetic markers known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), or “snipsâ€\x9d. SNPs are positions along the DNA chain where genetic variations commonly occur. Fans of self-testing says it’s interesting to find out about your ancestry, useful to know if you’re at increased risk of certain conditions and reassuring to know if you’re not. If the test points to risk, you can take preventive action, for example by losing weight if you’re prone to diabetes. You may be more likely to take part in a national screening programme such as the NHS bowel cancer screening programme if the test shows an increased risk of bowel cancer. Erynn Gordon, director of clinical development at 23andme, says screening programmes that target specific communities (like sickle-cell anaemia among African-Caribbean people) may miss other individuals who are at risk. “The narrow approach to screening doesn’t take into account our diverse communities.â€\x9d She also points to a (very small) study that suggests that people who receive unexpected information about carrier status don’t suffer undue anxiety as well as research that concludes people understand the implications of testing very well. Limitations The test is controversial and the cons are important. Consultant genetics counsellor Christine Patch says she has several areas of concern about self-testing: people failing to understand the limitations of the test; what the data will be used for and who will have access to it; and the implications for cash-strapped health services in terms of inappropriate requests for follow-up testing. Once you have information about your genetic risk, for example, do you have to declare it to an insurance company? Do you have an ethical duty to tell other family members? Does the NHS have to pay for further testing? “You may find you’re at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease ... and there’s nothing [specific] you can do about it,â€\x9d says Patch. Most common diseases, like asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes, are a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors. And some inherited conditions like being a carrier of cystic fibrosis, may result from many different abnormalities not detected by the kit. The kit may offer false reassurance, she says. There are already various free online tools to estimate your individual risk of getting a condition like osteoporosis, a heart attack or stroke, or diabetes. And people with a family history of serious conditions like Huntington’s Chorea need expert genetic counselling to work out risk and reproductive options. Dr Katherine Leask, a medico-legal adviser with the Medical Defence Union, says doctors need to be aware of the challenges that increased use of kits like 23andme will pose. “Genomic medicine is going to become more mainstream and doctors need to know what tests are available. If someone needs genetic testing because of their family history ... then doctors need to consider whether tests need to be offered.â€\x9d Chances are this will involve referral to a specialist centre that can offer counselling and specific testing if appropriate rather than telling them to buy a kit. The Department of Health is running a hugely ambitious programme through its company Genomics England. It aims to sequence 100,000 whole genomes from 70,000 people who have either common cancers or rare inherited diseases, together with their families. Their claims are notably more modest than the direct-to-consumer marketing. “Doing this [genome sequencing] may help medical teams provide better diagnosis or treatment. But it may not because not enough is known yet about the meaning of all the genomic data.â€\x9d says communications manager Lisa Dinh. There are no plans to roll out genome testing on the NHS for the entire population, says Dinh. “However it is likely that our knowledge about the genome will expand in coming years, which should mean better and quicker diagnoses and treatments for more patients. We do not have an official view on 23andMe.â€\x9d. Patch says: “I’m not against the kits; if people want to spend their money on it, that’s fine. But personally, I wouldn’t do the test. I do my best to stay healthy, and if I become unwell I’ll get help. But I’m not going to go looking for problems.â€\x9d',
 'How do I … avoid using Amazon? Amazon has announced its leap into the UK’s fresh food market after a supply deal was agreed with Morrisons, the country’s fourth biggest supermarket. Britons spent £5.3bn on Amazon in 2014 and the online retail juggernaut was voted best customer service provider in January this year. Already renowned for its low prices, next-day delivery and online movie streaming, Amazon’s natural next step seems to be grocery deliveries. However, while customers may be fond of the convenience and speed of Amazon’s operations, it is a company that inspires more complicated feeling in its workers. Last year, a New York Times investigation revealed the extent of the pressure put on Amazon’s employees. Grown men seen sobbing in the office, frequent layoffs creating a climate of fear, people with cancer being overworked … the list goes on, though Amazon later denied these claims. These allegations, as well as the knowledge that Amazon has put smaller stores, especially bookshops, out of business, give some people misgivings about the company. And that is before we get to the fact that Amazon, like Google and Starbucks, has had a somewhat fraught relationship with HMRC. In 2014, the company paid just £11.9m in UK taxes, though last May it agreed to pay corporation tax on UK sales. This has led a number of people to try to live a life free from Amazon. Ethical Consumer magazine decided to boycott it, denouncing “cheaper shopping at the expense of our public servicesâ€\x9d after the tax avoidance row. writer Stuart Heritage said the revelation of the horrendous workplace culture at its headquarters was enough to push him to boycott, despite the “convenience of buying stuff in my pants on a laptop on my sofaâ€\x9d. For those who are worried by Amazonian overreach, here are a few ways to curb your dependence and get your goods elsewhere. Turn to other online shops Ebay celebrated 15 years of activity in the UK in 2014, when it sold 3bn items – not all of them kitsch memorabilia. The website has made the fortune of many an entrepreneur, and the range of items sold would bewilder even the most savvy of online shoppers. If it’s only a movie you’re after, there are alternatives: Hulu and Netflix vie with Amazon Prime in the web-streaming space. And those who particularly object to Amazon’s labour practices can feel especially good about signing up to Netflix, which offers its employees a year of paid maternity or paternity leave and regularly tops the list of best companies to work for. But because you can’t have it all, the latest news seem to suggest that it too is sometimes not overly keen on paying corporation tax in Britain. Hive.co.uk proudly boasts that it is a “British, tax-paying company.â€\x9d A network of 360 independent booksellers in the country, it will provide you with the latest books, audio and video you need. And to make your conscience even clearer, a percentage of every purchase goes back to local independent bookshops, helping them to survive in the scary era of all-online shopping. Alternatively, you could buy books while supporting your favourite news website by clicking here. Food-wise, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose already deliver, in exchange for a minimum spending and a small delivery fee. There are also a host of companies that offer food boxes delivered to your door, such as Abel & Cole, Hello Fresh and Gousto. Back to the high street According to the Office for National Statistics, food sellers have the lowest proportion of sales occurring online, at just 4%. Most of us still leave the house to go food shopping, be it at a big supermarket branch or at the corner shop. As well as being healthier – a wander through Asda isn’t exactly a spin class but does get the heart rate up much higher than sitting and clicking on the couch – a recent study by investment firm Charles Stanley showed that you are more likely to make bad decisions when shopping online shopping. The almost infinite range of products makes it harder to find the best deals, and the lack of assistance means that you might be missing some vital information – or simply buying the wrong product. And you could be saving jobs too. As online shopping has exploded in the past few years, high-street retailers have struggled to adapt to the changing needs of customers. Since the 2008 financial crash, Woolworths and Zavvi, among others, have closed down. Perhaps significantly, both these brands offered products that can now be ordered in one click from a plethora of online competitors. On Monday, the British Retail Consortium announced that 900,000 industry jobs were at risk in the next 10 years, on the same day Amazon announced its partnership with Morrisons. Resist the urge to splurge While we received the encouraging news this week that we are consuming far less than we were 10 years ago – with the average person in the UK using 10 tonnes of material in 2013, down from 15 tonnes in 2001 – we still use and buy too much. According to the National Employment Savings Trust, 85% of Britons spend money on stuff they seldom or never use. Taken as a whole, that is £6.2bn we could save every year. And with the nation’s top impulse buy being bananas, Amazon’s forthcoming delivery of fresh food could be bad news for our wallets. It’s worth resisting the allure of unnecessary online purchases, one banana at a time. This article was amended on 4 March 2016 to make it clear that Amazon later denied allegations of difficult working conditions at its headquarters.',
 'Why Pokémon Go really is a national health service If parenting is one long process of discovering that it doesn’t really happen like they say in the books, then school holidays are proof positive that Swallows and Amazons was fiction. Every July starts, at least in this house, with starry-eyed delusions about a summer spent messing about on rivers, climbing trees and having wholesome adventures. Or failing that, perhaps a summer of cheery educational play as per the more optimistic newspaper supplements, where the kids thrill to your kitchen science experiments and treasure hunts round National Trust properties. And every July ends with the realisation that actually it’s not going to be like that. We will not spend summer picnicking and playing beach cricket, because it is going to rain all August. We won’t be that family in the museum whose kids just beg to hear more about the ancient Egyptians, because we will be that family whose kid rolls its eyes sarcastically at the very idea of filling in the museum’s lovely quiz. There will be afternoons where nobody looks up from Minecraft. And yet a tiny flicker of hope remains, for this is the summer of the Pokémon Go app. The craze for this remarkably silly mobile phone game – which involves chasing cartoony little virtual monsters through the surrounding real world, as they pop into shot on your phone’s camera – is currently outstripped only by the craze for stories about stupid things people do while playing it. A holocaust museum in Washington was forced to remind visitors that it’s crassly inappropriate to catch imaginary gonks on your phone while wandering round a memorial to victims of genocide. Tragically, a teenager in Guatemala was shot while playing the game – although whether the game had anything to do with the death remains unclear. There are reports of drivers crashing cars while surreptitiously playing on their phones; and a woman rescued by emergency services after getting stuck up a tree while chasing Pokémon. Yet what makes Pokémon Go irresistible is that it’s basically a good old-fashioned treasure hunt crossed with a fairytale, adding up to that parenting holy grail: an excuse to go out in the fresh air and move. Friends with boys in the awkward tweens – too old and self-conscious for running round the garden, too young to hunker moodily in bedrooms – report a sudden revival of “playing outâ€\x9d in the park under the guise of Pokémon hunting. It’s as if the app gives them an excuse to be kids again. And those dry police reports about increased “foot trafficâ€\x9d in cities thanks to overgrown kidults playing the game? That’s code for what public health campaigns have struggled for decades to achieve, namely getting people out of the house and walking. If I were the NHS, I’d be pleading with Nintendo to cluster Pokémon characters along hiking routes and bike trails, up mountains and in woods. For every nine players who move through, not lifting their eyes off the phone, there will be one who looks up and sees something they might not otherwise have. Yet all new technology must seemingly pass through three stages before we can reach such acceptance, and Pokémon Go is no exception; first comes the fear that it’s somehow going to kill us (tick); second, the inevitable articles about how single women in New York are using it to meet men (tick); and finally a moral panic over what it supposedly reveals about human nature that actually we already knew (getting there). Yes, people have done dumb and risky things while playing Pokémon Go. But replace the words “playing Pokémon Goâ€\x9d with almost any activity and that sentence remains true. Why, it’s almost as if the fault lies with people, not with the tools we ingeniously devise to satisfy that most endearingly human of instincts: play. Talk of British creative industries, and people think of theatre, music or film. But gaming is a multibillion-pound player now, the point where arts meets tech, and as embedded in British culture as telly, without being quite so generously acknowledged. Having never got the bug myself, the sight of anyone hunched over a screen will never make my heart sing, but watching my son and his friends play dispels the fear that there’s something inherently antisocial about it. They don’t want to play alone, or with faceless strangers over the internet. What they crave is to be all in the same room, hooking up their individual devices to one Wi-Fi, building a sprawling collective Minecraft empire in which they share virtual adventures while chatting away in real life. They’re deep in an imaginary world, just as I was as a little girl playing shops, but it’s interleaved with the physical world around them, and they move quite naturally between the two. No wonder, then, that this summer’s hit isn’t some overhyped virtual reality game but an augmented reality one that takes game elements and overlays them on our shared real world. As all games do, it has the potential to get messy. There’s always someone who gets carried away, tips the Monopoly board over and ruins it for everyone. But humans will always want to play, and there’s something oddly moving about the lengths to which we will go to invent new games for each other. How touching that, after all this time, we still so badly want to play together.',
 'FA Cup must remain football’s hollow crown to maintain its magic Gary Lineker’s documentary on Leicester City’s title success the other night had an intentionally dreamlike quality. Even now, at a distance of just a few days from the end of a remarkable Premier League season, it is still tempting to wonder whether it all really happened. It did, of course, we can be sure of that. Otherwise Arsenal would now be champions, Tottenham kicking themselves even more than usual and Manchester United inviting Louis van Gaal to spend a bit more money in preparation for next season’s Champions League. There has been some debate in these pages over the last few days over whether United have improved this season, stood still or gone backwards. My conclusion was that they are ever so slowly getting better, based on the joint best defence in the division and some exciting discoveries up front in Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford. The league table suggests otherwise, and many were quick to point out that finishing fourth last season and fifth this time is a step back, not forward, though that can largely be explained by the Leicester effect. Take Leicester out of the equation, pretend for a moment that they did not confound bookies and pundits alike by coming from nowhere to finish on top, and United are pretty much where they were last season apart from having an FA Cup final to look forward to and a couple of new strikers to utilise. If some people had their way, the winners of Saturday’s showpiece at Wembley would be granted a place in next season’s Champions League as a reward. It has been suggested over and over again that the way to halt the decline of the FA Cup would be to make it a prize worth winning, and it is certainly true that were the competition to provide a route to the Champions League for the winners, in the way that the Europa League now does, then everyone would start taking it seriously again. Especially the big teams, or more specifically the big teams who might just finish fifth or sixth in the Premier League. Teams such as Manchester United in fact, who on several occasions in the past have been guilty of making the FA Cup the lowest of their priorities. Such a change, which would require Uefa to alter its rules, would probably fix the FA Cup, though it might not be the best idea in the long run for English success in the Champions League. Suppose Crystal Palace win on Saturday, for a start. Bearing in mind that the Premier League’s normal quota of four Champions League places is based on a coefficient that tracks English clubs’ record in Europe over the years, would it really be a good plan to send along a club that finished in 15th place and only managed a couple of league wins since the turn of the year? FA Cup winners in recent seasons have included Wigan and Portsmouth, while Aston Villa, Hull and Cardiff have appeared in finals in the last 10 years. Would it be entirely fair to send clubs like that into Europe’s premier competition, based on stringing four or five results together in the Cup, when the side that finish in fourth after the 38 games of the Premier League’s arduous season would then have to be content with a Europa League spot? Even Van Gaal thinks not, or at least he did a few weeks ago when the possibility was put to him. He might be more tempted to grab at the lifeline now, but last month he was of the opinion that a side with a lucky cup run should not win a bigger prize than those teams who have shown the most consistency over the course of a whole season. Though Leicester have given everyone pause for thought over what might be achieved by so-called lesser clubs, the fact they won the title by a clear 10 points is a sure indication of quality, consistency and durability. The Foxes have earned their shot at the big time next season and we are all fascinated to see how it will go. We might be equally fascinated were it to be Palace, Wigan or Villa lining up against Bayern Munich or Barcelona, though not for the same reasons. So, much as one would like to see the FA Cup receive a life-saving injection of importance, linking it to Champions League qualification seems fraught with risk. Except that the issue of small clubs taking the place of bigger clubs in Europe would possibly not arise so often once the big clubs got their act together and realised the FA Cup could be their golden ticket. Upsets would become much less frequent if everybody suddenly began to regard FA Cup progress as vital, and stopped switching goalkeepers, resting players or trying out a few youngsters. Over time the Cup would just become a top-four event again, as it was in the 11 years from 1996 to 2007, when everyone complained the romance had died. Funny thing though, romance. Everyone said it was back when Portsmouth broke the mould in 2008, and again when Wigan beat Manchester City in 2013, yet for both those clubs Wembley glory prefaced a sharp downturn in fortunes. What would probably happen, with Champions League qualification as a prize, is that lucky cup runs – the kind of thing that took Palace to Wembley this time – would become a thing of the past. Van Gaal’s reservations would become less relevant; if everyone was trying their best and putting out their strongest teams then winning the six games (for leading clubs) necessary to lift the trophy would be a feat deserving of reward. But no more so than holding on for fourth place in the table. Hoping to use the lure of the Champions League to return the glamour to the FA Cup would not restore the old magic, it would just turn the competition into an annexe of the Premier League. It is regrettable that Saturday’s Wembley winners will end up with little more than a hollow crown, but could anyone seriously argue that either side deserves to be in the Champions League next season?',
 'May the fourth be with you: United and City in final-day battle of Manchester The last day of the Premier League season confirms a power shift has finally taken place. The Midlands is now the centre of attention, something not many observers imagined they would live to see, with Tottenham and Arsenal well represented for a change as north London fills the next two automatic Champions League qualification slots. The two Manchester clubs, like bald men fighting over a comb, are now reduced to a tussle over who finishes in fourth place, the one with the extra qualifying round. Considering the financial resources at their disposal this is undeniable underachievement. Manuel Pellegrini can spout all the statistics he likes, just as Louis van Gaal can blame injuries and bad luck, but the two clubs have never been wealthier yet this season is going to be the first in Premier League history without either of them in the top three. City began to feature at the awards end of the table around five seasons ago, the proud Mancunian record is otherwise entirely down to United and the Sir Alex Ferguson years. Yet before United dominated the football landscape Liverpool did, and one has to go back 35 years, to the last time a Midlands team was crowned champions, to find a top three with no representation from the north-west. Aston Villa’s title-winning season in 1981 was something of a one-off too, even more than it must seem from the perspective of a side just relegated to the Championship. The previous occasion when north-west clubs were absent from the podium was 1961, when Sheffield Wednesday and Wolves finished second and third in Tottenham’s Double-winning season. With that historical context in mind, finishing in fourth should not really count for anything at all. If second is nowhere, as Bill Shankly always used to maintain, fourth might as well be in a different division. The Champions League has altered how we view these things: fourth place is now considered more important than winning one of the cups, but the Champions League is supposed to be an old pals’ act, a self-perpetuating, self-aggrandising elite whereby the same big, rich clubs just get bigger and richer and hoover up everyone else’s best players so that smaller clubs can do little more than stand on the pavement outside and look in through the window. That is why everyone enjoyed Leicester’s gatecrashing act so much. City very much want to be among the grandees of Europe; United used to be comfortable in that company until losing their way in the later stages of Ferguson’s reign, though by definition you cannot be a bona fide Champions League contender if you are still scrabbling around for qualification on the final day of the season. Even if City did reach the semi-final, the manner in which they ultimately slid out of view did nothing to suggest regular reachers of the last four will be hoping to avoid them next season. That is what Pep Guardiola is about to take over, regardless of whether City stay in fourth place. There will be much tittering from the red half of Manchester if their new luxury coach arrives to supervise a Europa League campaign, though apart from the initial indignity there is no real reason why City could not survive a season out of the Champions League. Most teams are in it for the money; City already have plenty of that. City have hired Guardiola to take them to the next level in Europe; fair enough, but does he have to do it in his first season? On the evidence of the domestic season now concluding Guardiola will have enough of a rebuilding job on his hands just turning City back into the strongest team in England. They have never managed to look really convincing in Europe and though Guardiola might be exactly the man to effect that transformation it is a big ask to expect him to do it straight away. United do not really need the Champions League either. They have just announced record profits for the latest financial quarter, their money-making machine could survive a short holiday from the hot spots and hot shots of Europe. Van Gaal’s job is supposed to be hanging on a fourth-place finish, but he managed that last season and United found themselves out of the Champions League before Christmas. Were he to take advantage of any City slip-up at Swansea and sneak into fourth with a United win against Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon he would probably be safe for another season, especially if he can bring home the FA Cup next Saturday, though it is a moot question whether that would be a cause for celebration in and around Old Trafford. What most people think United should do at this point is make a clear statement about who will be in charge next season, and possibly beyond. A team that could have been dumped out of the Europa League by Midtjylland had they not promoted Marcus Rashford in the nick of time really has no business waiting around to see if Champions League qualification can help them arrive at a decision. United appear to be adhering to the traditional view, as expressed by Pellegrini in his final press conference in Manchester. “For a big team, if you don’t qualify for the Champions League it is a disaster,â€\x9d he said. But Pellegrini went on to say something else. “I don’t think it matters for one year – as happened to United in 2014 and Chelsea this season – but it is not the best thing for it to happen over a number of years.â€\x9d Quite. With the money United offer players, and the prospect of working under Guardiola at City, it is probably not even true that transfer targets would turn their noses up because of non-Champions League status. What is true is that the very best players, Renato Sanches being a case in point, will always want to join the best clubs. Doubtless to Guardiola’s chagrin, Bayern Munich have reached only Champions League semi-finals in his three years in Germany, though they do boast three successive league titles. That is consistency of a sort and even if the German model is not to be preferred to the unpredictability of the Premier League it starts at home. The plain, unvarnished truth is that the pride of Manchester, whichever side finishes highest, has some catching up to do on the domestic front before entertaining dreams of conquering Europe.',
 'Director of Cannes civil rights drama Loving: ‘Society can take longer than the law to get it right’ There are two marriages behind Loving, a new historical biopic which on Monday threw its hat into the race for this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes. The first is that which the film shows: between Mildred and Richard Loving, whose interracial union was deemed unlawful in their home state in 1958. The couple were banned from Virginia for 25 years, moving with their children to Washington DC. Almost a decade later, their case reached the supreme court; the subsequent victory overturned miscegenation laws. The second is that of director Jeff Nichols and his wife, Missy. Weighing up whether or not to take on the project, he emailed her the trailer for an HBO documentary about the Lovings, which had moved him to tears. As Nichols recalled at a press conference in Cannes, she wrote back to say: “Listen, I really love you, but if you don’t make this film, I’m going to divorce you.â€\x9d Duly motivated, Nichols first started working on the screenplay in 2013, as the supreme court began ruling on the same-sex marriage ban in the US; some of the constitutional changes were informed by by Loving v Virginia in 1967. Nichols hoped the film might be released in time to influence the debate; happily, this wasn’t required, and same-sex marriage was ratified in 2015. But the director cautioned against the presumption such rulings lay to rest centuries-old prejudice that has been vindicated by legislation. “Soon you get religious liberty laws added and other things, and you realise the supreme court can only do so much. The law sometimes gets it right, but it takes a long time for society to get it right. That’s always been surprising to me. People are afraid of certain things and they feel it’s necessary to legislate that fear.â€\x9d Both the film’s stars reiterated their surprise at learning that the state of Alabama only amended their constitution to allow mixed-race marriage as late as 2000; both also related the Lovings’ case to contemporary struggles. Ruth Negga said she’d been “very proudâ€\x9d that her home country, Ireland, last year leant “overwhelming supportâ€\x9d for gay marriage in a referendum. “Having a very, very Catholic history [it shows] it’s possible to evolve, having discussions about equality.â€\x9d “What happens between two individuals is sort of nobody else’s business,â€\x9d said the Australian actor Joel Egerton. “If people are doing things out of the spirit of kindness or goodness, if they’re not damaging or affecting other people negatively, then what’s wrong with the bond between two people – whatever they look like, whatever gender they are?â€\x9d In Australia, although same-sex unions are recognised, all attempts to legalise same-sex marriage have so far been unsuccessful. Egerton said he hoped the film would help illuminate people’s thinking about the damage that can be inflicted by their own judgements. “It’s quite astounding, the sort of latent, under-the-surface racism and negative opinion [in Australia]. To me, that’s something that we really need to talk about. Let people sit and quietly watch an example of two people who really affected by the opinions of others.â€\x9d The film is due for release in the autumn, giving it a prime position ahead of awards season, and while Nichols, Egerton and Negga were modest about its prospects, the former called it “one of the most pure love stories in American historyâ€\x9d while the latter hailed it as “one of the most important films in historyâ€\x9d. Yet unlike, say, Ava Duverney’s Martin Luther King biopic, Selma, Loving is a consciously understated film, which focuses on the domestic fallout rather than the courtroom and soapbox fireworks. This was the intention, said the director, who described it as “the quiet film of the yearâ€\x9d. “When we talk about politics and social issues such as race and racial equality we tend to join our platform of thinking – conservative, liberal; you go to your corners and spar, based on these political ideas. I think what people forget when they’re so heated in their debates is the people at the centre.â€\x9d Egerton agreed, and said he hoped the film’s lack of flashy spectacle and impassioned speeches wouldn’t hobble its odds. “I suspect sometimes things go unnoticed when they don’t involve bloodshed or massive acts of violence. There’s something so gentle about this, and yet, at the same time, there’s such a hidden violence to the oppression of situations like this, where people are put into exile or forced into making choices that are inhuman.â€\x9d',
 'The Force Awakens rings in new year with $88.3m at US box office Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit the $1.5bn (£1.01bn) mark at the global box office this weekend after earning $88.3m in North America during its third week of release. JJ Abrams’ sequel has now made $740.3m at the US and Canadian box office, putting it in second place on the chart of highest-grossing films in North America, behind Avatar’s $760.8m from 2009/2010. Disney’s film is expected to take the No 1 spot by midweek. The third-highest weekend haul ever in the US means that The Force Awakens could challenge Avatar’s $2.78bn all-time global box office record. The latest instalment of Star Wars opens in China, the world’s second-largest box office, on 9 January amid huge expectations. Elsewhere at the US box office, it was a good weekend for Oscar contenders. Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight climbed to No 3 after a successful limited release on Christmas Day in the 70mm screening format. The blood-spattered western took $16.2m on its wide-release debut. It is considerably less than the opening weekend results of Tarantino’s two most recent films, Inglourious Basterds ($38m) and Django Unchained ($30.1m). Expectations for The Hateful Eight, however, have been dampened by the ongoing success of The Force Awakens. Tarantino’s new movie has made $29.6m so far. David O Russell’s Joy dropped three places to sixth with $10.4m, for a two-week total of $38.7m, while the financial crisis-themed comedy drama The Big Short held seventh place with $9m in its fourth week ($33m total). The Will Smith-led sports drama Concussion dipped to eighth spot with $8m, for a two-week total of $25.4m. North American box office, 31 December-3 January 1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: $88.3m. Total: $740.3m 2. Daddy’s Home: $29m. Total: $93.7m 3. The Hateful Eight: $16.2m. Total: $29.6m 4. Sisters: $12.6m. Total: $61.7m 5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip: $11.8m. Total: $67.4m 6. Joy: $10.4m. Total: $38.7m 7. The Big Short: $9m. Total: $33m 8. Concussion: $8m. Total: $25.4m 9. Point Break: $6.8m. Total: $22.4m 10. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2: $4.6m. Total: $274.2m',
 "Andrea Arnold: I find my adaptation of Wuthering Heights 'hard to look at' Oscar-winning British director Andrea Arnold has said that she finds her acclaimed 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights a difficult film to enjoy. The film-maker, who won the Academy award for best live-action short in 2005 for Wasp, spoke about Wuthering Heights during a discussion at this year’s Tribeca film festival. “People keep saying one day I will come to like it,â€\x9d she said. “It was a difficult experience making it, for various reasons. I find it hard to look at it.â€\x9d Arnold, who has also directed acclaimed dramas Red Road and Fish Tank, claims that her “pure and beautifulâ€\x9d vision of the novel was not what ultimately made it to the screen. She described “a misty moor on a day when the earth and sky are merging, and there’s a big animal climbing inside of the moor. But you went in and saw that it was a man, carrying rabbits on his back.â€\x9d But, she said, “When we got to film it, we had half an hour to get it before the day was over. It was bright sunshine and blue sky, and we had about three rabbits.â€\x9d Arnold was unhappy but still used the shot. “What can you do at that point?â€\x9d she said. “You can’t because you’re working with a whole team of people and there’s money.â€\x9d She also added that it was a tough period for her off-screen as well. “It was a very difficult time for me, that film,â€\x9d she said. “I was in a dark place. When I think about how it was, it’s associated with some personal stuff.â€\x9d Her take on Wuthering Heights was met with mostly positive reviews on release, with the ’s Peter Bradshaw calling it “exhilaratingâ€\x9d. The director also spoke about her new film American Honey, her first to be shot in the US. The drama, which stars Shia LaBeouf as part of a group of travelling magazine salespeople, will premiere in competition at this year’s Cannes film festival. “I really do think I pushed it,â€\x9d she said. “It was very tough, there were scenes when I had loads of non-actors and we were running out of time, and I thought, ‘I really don’t know how I’m going to get this done.’â€\x9d She was also surprised at what she discovered while filming in the US. “Some of the poverty in some of the places really shocked me,â€\x9d she said. “It seemed more intense than Britain. There was a town I went through in the south – I did a lot of driving in the south, I loved the south – and I was quite upset by what I saw: closed factories and shops, huge poverty. I guess I didn’t know that, to the degree that I saw it. And drugs ... loads of drugs.â€\x9d",
 "Danny Willett's brother steals spotlight on Twitter after Masters 2016 victory Danny Willett might have come from nowhere to take the Masters. But it was his brother, PJ, tweeting the final hours of the tournament from his home in Birmingham, who stole the spotlight. PJ Willett, who describes himself as “Author. Teacher. Inexperienced Fatherâ€\x9d on his Twitter profile, swore, drank and joked his way through the tense close to the four-day contest that saw his brother become only the second Englishman to wear the famous green jacket. His tweets included digs at Willett’s rival, Jordan Spieth, as well untempered emotion as his brother edged closer to the win. At times, his tweets veered into the profane. But they also demonstrated his unrivalled joy at his brother’s outstanding performance. And were often totally hilarious. When it became clear that his younger brother had beaten Spieth to take the US Masters title he was overcome. His outpouring won him fans from across the golfing world, and beyond. Willett’s tweets were so popular that he started trending in the UK. And he seemed rather pleased with his handiwork. At the same time, sporting greats were paying tribute to Willett’s victory, including former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, who shares his hometown, Sheffield, with Willett. In a reference to the tradition where the Masters winner chooses the menu for the following year’s champions’ dinner, the 2008 winner, South Africa’s Trevor Immelman, tweeted: “Bangers and mash this time next year....â€\x9d",
 'Readers recommend playlist: your songs about religion Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments below in last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the format of the weekly Readers recommend series at the end of the piece. According to former Daily Show host Jon Stewart, “reason has been a part of organised religion ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snakeâ€\x9d. You may or may not agree with this, but it’s certainly true religion has inspired artists and musicians for centuries, and – trying, perhaps, to disprove the old maxim that “the Devil has the best tunesâ€\x9d – below is a playlist of my favourites from your suggestions this week. Firstly, one that some listeners might wish to fast forward through is Decree 10.05 by Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc. feat Elizabeth Clare Prophet. It’s 20-plus minutes of invocation about Heaven knows what. An extraordinary track, if a little disturbing. More traditional is Tennessee Ernie Ford’s call for a dose of That Old Time Religion, so, ever ready to oblige, we follow on with some old-time religion in the shape of Wardruna’s Rotlaust Tre Fell, a piece of Scandinavian folk music that draws upon Norse mythology for inspiration. Iron Maiden, restrained as ever, remind us that the Number of the Beast is 666. There are complex explanations as to why this particular number was chosen as beastly, but personally I think it was selected because it looks nice ... People can get “religiousâ€\x9d about all sorts of things. For OPM it’s skateboarding, leading to Heaven Is a Halfpipe. Each to their own and all that. Jello Biafra’s Lard offer us some Hellfudge, next. I think I had some of that once – it was kind of chewy ... And then we have hippy favourites Quintessence, who hedge their bets, perhaps wisely, with Jesus Buddha Moses Gauranga. Sensible chaps. God makes many things – all things, in fact, according to some – so it’s no surprise that he made Philou Louzolo funky. His Phunky Coogi is a delightful piece of praise in musical form. Withered Hand (Scottish indie rock musician Dan Wilson) earns his place thanks to the wonderful line “Knocking on Kevin’s doorâ€\x9d in Religious Songs, I am a sucker for a good (or bad?) pun. Bringing up the rear this week, it has to be Kana Uemura with Toilet no Kamisama (“God of Toiletâ€\x9d). It’s a song about both “godâ€\x9d and toilets and yet so much more (for more on the lyrics see a translation provided in the comments by HoshinoSakura). There really is a lesson in “Zenâ€\x9d here: how the mundane daily task can, if carried out in the right spirit, bring us closer to the divine. It’s a lovely, toilety, tune too ... Note: not all songs appear on this Spotify playlist as some are unavailable on the service. New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on 6 October. You have until 11pm on 10 October to submit nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There is a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zeddedâ€\x9d, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zeddedâ€\x9d, “dondsâ€\x9d and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.',
 'Marillion – 10 of the best 1. Forgotten Sons Marillion were still defining their sound when they recorded their first album, 1983’s Script for a Jester’s Tear. While they’d already got crude pastiches of Supper’s Ready out of their system, the dramatic album closer still displays strong echoes of Genesis’s The Knife and Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. The tale of a young soldier caught up in the Troubles in Northern Ireland remains an intense and moving piece that transcends its rather obvious influences. In archetypal neo-progressive fashion, it builds through multiple sections, with a Psalm 23/Lords’ Prayer spoken-word part backed by a staccato riff stolen from Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War, and a powerful closing section demonstrating Fish’s growing powers as a lyricist. A high water mark of early 80s neo-prog, it’s a song that’s far more than the sum of its parts. 2. Incubus Marillion’s second album, Fugazi, saw them leaving behind the notion that they were merely a pastiche of Gabriel-era Genesis, with a dense, layered sound that was far more their own. Driven by a propulsive riff, Incubus is a highlight, a song about revenge porn written three decades before it became a regular news item. While the lyrics are perhaps a little overblown, Fish’s half-sung, half-ranted vocal gets disturbingly into the role of the jealous ex-lover of a celebrity. It still features regularly in Fish’s live sets as a solo artist. 3. Warm Wet Circles/That Time of the Night Marillion hit the big time with the intense and personal-concept album Misplaced Childhood, which spawned their big hit single, Kayleigh. When it came to the follow-up, Clutching at Straws, they took a sharp left turn. Gone were the sprawling, serpentine song structures and opaque, overcooked lyrics, in favour of a more focused songwriting approach that would set the template for Fish’s later solo career. I know treating these two as one song is cheating a bit, but they work as one continuous piece, with Steve Rothery’s sublime solo forming the bridge between. When performed live, either by Fish or by the current incarnation of Marillion, they’re almost always played together. 4. Seasons End Just when Marillion seemed poised to conquer the world, the unthinkable happened. Burned out by constant touring without downtime and with divisions over musical direction beginning to surface, Fish left the band. Rather than trying to find a soundalike, they recruited the relatively unknown Steve Hogarth and used his very different vocal approach as an opportunity to reinvent themselves. Seasons End was the result. The title track is both soaring and anthemic, yet it is one of the saddest in their songbook. It is one of those songs that never fails to bring a lump to the throat. A perfect marriage of Hogarth’s vocals and Rothery’s lyrical lead guitar. 5. The Great Escape After the singles from 1991’s pop-oriented Holidays in Eden failed to make the charts, the band launched a follow-up in 1994 with Brave, a dark and intense concept album with no obvious single, which remains a firm fan-favourite. Inspired by a news report of a girl with amnesia found wandering on the Severn Bridge, the narrative imagines a life story that might have bought someone to that place. The emotional climax of the album is the penultimate song, with musical motifs repeated from earlier in the album. The point when it changes gears is one of those moments. When they played the album in full at the 2013 fan convention, The Great Escape prompted a five-minute standing ovation. 6. Out of This World Marillion have a thing about death and water. It’s a recurring theme that goes right back to Chelsea Monday, from their debut. Out of This World comes from the album Afraid of Sunlight, whose songs reflect the flipside of fame. It tells the story of Donald Campbell’s fatal attempt at the world water speed record in Bluebird in 1967, and the song itself was to inspire the recovery of the wreck of Bluebird from the depths of Coniston Water. This one’s a showcase for Steve Hogarth’s vocals, and aside from Steve Rothery’s magnificent solo the song owes far more to Talk Talk than it does to Pink Floyd or Genesis. 7. Man of a Thousand Faces While latter-day Marillion are known for their atmospheric epics, sometimes they do write straightforward pop songs, and this one, from 1997’s This Strange Engine is one of their best, a semi-acoustic song with 12-string guitar and a delightful piano solo from Mark Kelly. By this point in their career they’d been dropped by EMI, and though Man of a Thousand Faces was released as a single, it got no radio airplay and didn’t chart. 8. This Is the 21st Century Marillion go trip-hop. The 2001 album Anoraknophobia comes from the period when Marillion were experimenting with many different musical ideas and directions in an attempt to avoid repeating their own past, and drew comparisons with the more contemporary sounds of Radiohead and Massive Attack. The album was also hugely significant for the wider music business as the first successfully crowdfunded record, something for which Marillion don’t always get the credit they deserve. This lengthy number was a high spot of the album, with a lyric serving a powerful rebuttal to the reductionist worldview of Richard Dawkins, who allowed no space for the spiritual. 9. Neverland The late 90s and early years of the new century saw a tension between the more contemporary side of their music and the classic Marillion sound centred on Steve Rothery’s distinctive, overdriven guitar. The sprawling double album version of 2004’s Marbles kept a foot in both camps, balancing lighter reflective songs with the 18-minute epic Ocean Cloud. The album comes to close with the anthemic Neverland, which begins as plaintive piano ballad and ends in a glorious wall of sound, monstrous waves of molten guitar as Steve Rothery duels with Steve Hogarth using his voice as a lead instrument. It’s been a live favourite ever since, with good reason. 10. The New Kings Most bands who have been around for almost four decades have long since burned out creatively, and if they still tour they’ve largely turned into their own tribute acts. It’s possible that the change of singer just at the point where they reached their creative peak is the secret to their longevity, but whatever the reason, Marillion still have something to say. From the elegiac opening chords onwards, the five-part epic that closes their 16th album, Fear, demonstrates this in spades, a lament for a world screwed over by corrupt self-serving elites. “Do you remember a country that cared for you? / A national anthem you could sing without feeling used or ashamed? / Now we’re living for the new kingsâ€\x9d, sings Hogarth as the musical twists and turns show all the strengths of Marillion’s music from the 21st century.',
 "Hillary Clinton retains edge over Donald Trump in election's final sprint Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are sprinting towards the finish line of the most bitter, divisive and fear-tainted US presidential election of modern times, with polls showing Clinton has the edge. Seeking to become the first female president, the Democrat will end her campaign with a rally in the battleground state of North Carolina at midnight on Monday. Republican candidate Trump will close his at 11pm that night with an event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a state where he is hoping to pull off a huge surprise. Around a third of ballots – at least 41m across 48 states – have been cast in early voting, according to the Associated Press, and the election still appears to be Clinton’s to lose. On Sunday, she led Trump 48%-43% in a Washington Post/ABC tracking poll, 44%-40% in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and 45%-42% in a Politico/Morning Consult poll. Clinton received a boost on Sunday afternoon, with the release of a letter to Congress from FBI director James Comey that said the bureau had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton in its review of emails discovered during an investigation into charges against Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of key aide Huma Abedin. The FBI review related to Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, an issue over which the bureau had previously decided not to recommend an indictment. Nonetheless, data suggest Clinton is not as strongly placed in electoral college projections as Barack Obama was at the same stage in 2012. Clinton is not “in a terribly safe positionâ€\x9d, leading pollster Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “The electoral map is actually less solid for Clinton than it was for Obama four years ago.â€\x9d The two candidates have fought an ugly battle to become the 45th president, dogged by controversies ranging from FBI investigation into Clinton’s email use to sexual assault allegations against Trump. Clinton would be the first spouse of a president to reach the White House. Trump, at 70, would be the oldest person to assume the office. As both candidates and their surrogates set out on a whirlwind final 48 hours on the trail, the wild card nature of Trump’s candidacy made the map harder to read than usual. Among 10 rallies planned over the last two days were stops in Minnesota, which has not supported a Republican presidential nominee since 1972, and Michigan, which has not gone to the GOP since 1988. Clinton, however, lost both states to Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. Van Jones, a former adviser to Obama, told CNN’s State of the Union: “Beds are damp. There is a crack in the blue wall and it has to do with trade. This is the ghost of Bernie Sanders.â€\x9d The Trump campaign claimed “an enormous surge in momentum and enthusiasmâ€\x9d in recent days, citing Minnesota, where the campaign said that in less than 24 hours it had 18,000 RSVPs for a event that could hold 5,000 people. It now sees “at least six different pathsâ€\x9d to victory, aides said. Dave Bossie, deputy campaign manager, told reporters: “We have expanded the map. We are on offence. We are going to places no one thought we would. It’s an incredibly exciting time for our campaign. Hillary Clinton is on defence and her map is shrinking. We feel we are peaking at the right time as a campaign.â€\x9d Clinton has led every poll in Michigan but she, Obama and Bill Clinton were all due to appear there before the vote. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said such major political figures were now playing “follow your leaderâ€\x9d in traditional Democratic states. “We feel very good about the fact that we’re actually setting the landscape here and they’re chasing us around in these blue states,â€\x9d she said. “We have seen our prospects improving in Michigan for quite a while now internally and we do see that now reflected in some of the public polling. We also like what we hear on the ground in Michigan ... and we trust the savviness and brilliance of the Clinton campaign. “If they thought Michigan was in the bag, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would not be returning there today or tomorrow.â€\x9d Democrats insisted that was because there is no early voting in the state, so they want to fire up the base. Clinton campaign chair John Podesta told NBC’s Meet the Press: “If we hold on to Nevada, if we hold on to Michigan, then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president of America. “Most people vote on election day in Michigan, so our schedule has been oriented toward being in the early vote states in the earlier period of time. We feel like we’ve got a lead in Michigan. We want to hold on to it, and we think we can do that.â€\x9d Trump has been widely condemned as a demagogue after calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US and promising to build a wall on the Mexican border, branding immigrants as rapists and criminals. A 2005 video recording emerged in which he bragged about groping women, after which a dozen women came forward with claims of sexual assault and harassment. He has been ostracised by key members of his own party. The final days of his campaign were marked by a raucous incident in a rally in Reno on Saturday night, as Secret Service agents rushed the candidate from the stage. A protester named Austyn Crites who was holding a “Republicans against Trumpâ€\x9d sign apparently sparked the confused scene. Crites told the Trump supporters attacked him after he walked to the front of the rally and held up the sign. Eventually, someone shouted “gunâ€\x9d, which led to law enforcement rushing Trump from the stage and briefly detaining Crites. Conway said on Sunday: “We’re told that he is a ‘Republican’ who has canvassed for Hillary Clinton and donated money to her campaign.â€\x9d Crites told the he was a Republican and fiscal conservative but had canvassed “for a few hoursâ€\x9d with the Clinton campaign in Nevada, because he wanted to do all he could to prevent a Trump presidency. He described Trump as “a textbook version of a dictator and a fascistâ€\x9d. Trump’s son, Donald Jr, and Dan Scavino, who runs his social media operation, retweeted a message that read: “Hillary ran away from rain today. Trump is back on stage minutes after assassination attemptâ€\x9d. No weapon was found. Although Trump rallies have long been marked by violence and unrest, they had been comparatively peaceful in recent months as the candidate has become increasingly scripted. Rhetorically, Trump has turned his ire on celebrity Clinton supporters Jay Z and Beyoncé. “I don’t need Beyoncé and I don’t need Jay Z,â€\x9d he declared in a Denver rodeo barn. He also criticised Jay Z for lyrics in some of the songs performed at his Friday night concert for Clinton in Cleveland in the battleground state of Ohio. “My language is nothing to compared to what Jay Z was doing last night and Beyoncé,â€\x9d Trump said, adding: “My language is like baby talk.â€\x9d Clinton has appeared with other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Jon Bon Jovi. At a get-out-the-vote concert on Saturday night, Perry told roughly 10,000 fans in Philadelphia her parents were lifelong Republicans. “But it’s not about where you come from, it’s about what you grow into,â€\x9d she said. Trump also made his first explicit accusations of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Only minutes before the incident that caused Secret Service agents to rush him from the stage in Reno, he claimed: “It’s being reported certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County were kept open hours and hours beyond closing time to bus and bring Democratic voters in. “Folks, it’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system,â€\x9d he added, to loud boos, before insisting: “We’re going to beat it.â€\x9d He was apparently referring to a Las Vegas supermarket where voters, most of whom were Hispanic, stood in line for hours to vote on Friday night. The length of lines meant that the early voting site did not close until 10pm. Trump’s words echoed allegations by Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, who claimed before Trump took the stage: “Last night in Clark County, they kept a poll open until 10 o’clock at night so a certain group can vote … You feel free right now? You think this is a free and easy election?â€\x9d The Republican nominee has long made broad, baseless and vague accusations of “large-scale voter fraudâ€\x9d. At the final presidential debate, he declined to say whether he would accept the result of the election. On Sunday, his vice-presidential candidate, Mike Pence, told Fox News Sunday: “The campaign has made it very clear that a clear outcome, obviously, both sides will accept. But I think both campaigns have also been very clear that in the event of disputed results, they reserve all rights and remedies.â€\x9d After the frantic final 48 hours on the trail, both Clinton and Trump will be in New York City on election night, with the Democrats having reportedly booked a firework display and the tycoon billing his planned event at a hotel as a “victory partyâ€\x9d. Conway said: “We did not purchase fireworks because we’re planning for a victory but we’re working really hard toward it and not just assuming it.â€\x9d Additional reporting by Dan Roberts",
 'The digested referendum campaign: Immigration! Economy! Immigration! Where did it all start? With rows over Maastricht back in the 1990s? With the rise of first the BNP and then Ukip in the 2000s? History is an endlessly rewriteable feast. But for the sake of convenience, let’s say this referendum took shape as David Cameron’s sop to the Eurosceptics in his own party. Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless – remember him? – had defected to Ukip and the prime minister was desperate to make sure no one else jumped ship before the 2015 general election. Open civil war is never a good look, so Dave promised a referendum sometime before the end of 2017 just to shut them up. What Dave hadn’t counted on was having to go through with it. Like everyone else, he had assumed he would either be in opposition or part of another coalition government. Either way, he would have someone else to blame for his inability to deliver on his promises. But within weeks of the Conservative election victory the Tory Eurosceptics demanded their referendum payback, so Dave started visiting the 27 other EU member states frantically trying to renegotiate a better deal for the UK while insisting he was playing hardball. By February he had concluded his negotiations. Having spent the previous six months claiming the EU was urgently need in reform, Dave was now convinced the concessions he had achieved – an emergency brake on in-work welfare benefits for migrants and a general promise for Germany and France to be a bit nicer to us – were a major breakthrough and announced he was going to campaign vigorously for Britain to remain. Others were not so quick to come forward. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who had previously always spoken out against the EU, found himself at odds with the vast majority of his party and initially tried to pretend the referendum wasn’t really happening before being forced to half-heartedly mumble pro-remain speeches from time to time. Theresa May was rather more successful in her Trappist vows and after whispering “I’m backing remainâ€\x9d so quietly that no one heard her, she retreated into a convent for the duration. She will go down in history as the most silent home secretary in British history. Anyone might think she was hedging her bets. As, it seemed, was Boris Johnson. Over the years, the former London mayor has contradicted himself on so many issues he’s not an easy man to second guess, but Dave was fairly confident Boris would come out on his side. How wrong he was. After agonising for at least an hour during a game of tennis with his sister, Rachel, Boris decided the best way for him to advance his political career was to back Brexit. If Brexit were to win, Boris could be prime minister inside 18 months. “This is the most difficult decision I have ever had to make,â€\x9d he sobbed. Though you wouldn’t have guessed that from his behaviour, as from then on he wasted no time in rubbishing the EU at every opportunity. With Boris coming out for Boris, the referendum campaign could begin in earnest. Oxford-educated Boris and Michael Gove v Oxford-educated Dave and George Osborne. Or in Boris’s delusional mind, the little people v the establishment. Dave and George because it was hard to get any other high-profile politicians to campaign with them; and Boris and Michael because they had already fallen out with Nigel Farage and the Grassroots Out Ukip faction and because the public either didn’t like their other supporters, such as Iain Duncan Smith, or had no idea who they were. Gisela Who? Initially the economy dominated the debate, with Osborne claiming every family would lose £4,300 a year and Boris insisting the UK gave the EU £350m a week. The Treasury select committee investigated both claims and found them both to be false, though Boris’s were the work of greater fantasy. Boris dismissed this as Project Fear. Then every independent economic thinktank in the universe said Britain would be worse off if it left the EU, and Gove insisted we shouldn’t trust experts and, besides, they were all just Nazi sympathisers. Every country in the universe – apart from North Korea – said Britain would be better off in the EU. Boris declared that Kim Jong-un might have a point. Having lost the economic argument, Boris and Gove shifted the debate to immigration. The way to reduce the number of immigrants, they insisted, was to stop people from the EU coming in and let in loads more migrants from outside the EU instead. That way, even if we had exactly the same number of immigrants we could take back control and prove the UK wasn’t racist. Or something. Farage wasn’t at all happy about this and launched a poster campaign suggesting that Britain was about to be over-run by the Syrian refugees who were actually in Slovenia. Within hours, the Labour MP Jo Cox had been murdered and the rest of Ukip’s poster campaign was binned. Punctuating all this were a series of televised debates between the leaders of the campaigns in which everyone said exactly the same thing they had been saying for the four months. At some point, Corbyn might even have joined in to say something about workers’ rights. The leave supporters cheered everything Boris said, the remain supporters cheered everything Dave said, and the polls remained neck and neck.',
 'Eric Black’s optimism for Aston Villa fails to address pressing issues The depth of the crisis at Aston Villa is summed up by Doug Ellis urging the current owner Randy Lerner to take a “more hands-on approachâ€\x9d. Ellis was not the most popular proprietor of the club before he sold Villa to the American in 2006. The buck for Villa’s first relegation of the Premier League era, though, stops with Lerner and Ellis’s message to him resonates. “I only wish he could spend a little more time in the UK supporting Aston Villa rather than following them on his phone or on his television,â€\x9d Ellis told the BBC. “He made a promise to put in £200m and he has kept that promise, and I made my promise not to interfere and I have not broken my word.â€\x9d The first thing Lerner should do is reverse a culture of excuses. After this defeat to Manchester United confirmed Villa’s drop into the Championship, Eric Black was twice offered the chance to describe their campaign as a shambles yet the caretaker-manager hid behind platitudes. He was speaking as Joleon Lescott claimed that going down was a “weight offâ€\x9d the team’s shoulders; the latest disconnect between club and fans in a season studded with miserable displays and unprofessional conduct. Villa have been bottom of the table since 25 October after 10 games, when they had four points, two fewer than Newcastle United and Sunderland. In the 24 games since, the 1982 European Cup winners have taken a barely credible 12 points. Yet when asked if shambolic was a fair description of this, Black refused to send a message to the Villa players and, just as importantly, their fans, which is simply not good enough. “Everyone has their own adjectives they like to use,â€\x9d said the Scot. “It has been a difficult season for everybody involved with Aston Villa. Having spoken to a lot of people at Villa the only thing that is in their mind is taking this big club back and, hopefully, the supporters will get a feeling for that. “There is no point standing here and criticising. That’s done, it’s over; we should be looking to rebuild and if that can start on Monday morning then great, because this is a fantastic football club. There is nobody who would deny that.â€\x9d Perhaps Black could explain to travelling Villa fans why there is no point criticising. Especially after witnessing Marcus Rashford’s seventh goal for United consign Villa to a 24th league defeat. Or after he appeared hard-pressed to convince all of his players to applaud their loyal support, who had lent Old Trafford the sort of atmosphere one might expect from the home fans. Admittedly Black has only been in charge since 31 March, but given he is not responsible for the shambles, there was more freedom for him to speak clearly. Who might take over permanently is a crucial decision for Lerner and a new executive board, which includes the chairman Steve Hollis, former player and manager Brian Little and Adrian Bevington, once a high-ranking Football Association executive. David Moyes, Nigel Pearson, and Brendan Rodgers are all being mentioned. Each would be sure to try to establish the fierce work ethic, focus and stability required. But would they take the job? Black believes there will be a queue to do so. “I am sure there will be a thousand people who will want to sit in that seat,â€\x9d he said. “The infrastructure of the club is set, there are fantastic facilities and the stadium and supporters are second to none. “I don’t know how many clubs would have 30,000-35,000 coming to games when they have hardly seen a victory. They deserve enormous credit for that. The stadium is in place. We need to rebuild the team into something the supporters can be proud of.â€\x9d The big challenge now is for Villa to bounce straight back up. If they do not, and remain outside the Premier League for the next three years, they could lose £200m in broadcast revenue alone. Black said: “It is going to be very difficult but I don’t think anybody is under any illusions. There are an extra eight games to start with. The physicality is different to the Premier League and we are a big, big fish in [the Championship]. These are all elements you have to consider. I don’t think anybody is under any illusion this is going to be plain sailing. It is a fantastic challenge and one people at this club will be trying their utmost to meet. “I am sure whoever takes over will ensure that work ethic carries on and if we can get the right squad together then we can bounce straight back, but it will be no easy task.â€\x9d The challenge starts now. Man of the match Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)',
 'The Attention Merchants review – how the web is being debased for profit Tim Wu is an expert on concentrations of power. An author, activist and lawyer, he is most famous for coining the phrase “net neutralityâ€\x9d – the idea that the oligopoly that owns our internet infrastructure shouldn’t charge differently for different kinds of data. In his new book, he targets another kind of corporate domination: the industry that monopolises our attention. According to Wu, this industry emerged from the first world war. In 1914 Germany could mobilise 4.5 million men; the best Britain could do was 700,000. To build a bigger army, the British government embarked on the first systematic propaganda campaign in history. It printed 50 million big, colourful recruitment posters and plastered them on shops, houses, buses and trams throughout the country. It staged rallies and parades. It filled vans with film projectors and screened patriotic films in towns across Britain. And it worked: stirred by this unprecedented experiment in state-sponsored persuasion, millions of young men marched off to gruesome, pointless deaths in a gruesome, pointless war. Wu identifies this moment as a major turning point in what he calls the “industrialisation of human attention captureâ€\x9d. The overwhelming success of the British propaganda effort proved “the power of mass attentionâ€\x9d, he writes, and taught corporations everywhere a valuable lesson. If governments could convince their citizens to choke to death on poison gas in a foreign country, surely the private sector could apply the same techniques to persuade people to buy things. Thus the modern advertising industry was born. Like many lucrative industries then and since, advertising took a publicly financed innovation and repurposed it for profit. Over the course of the 1920s, a powerful class of commercial propagandists emerged, particularly in the US. In addition to enriching themselves and their corporate clients, these “attention merchantsâ€\x9d performed a critical economic function. Many decades of rapid industrial expansion in the capitalist west had produced an excess of productive capacity. One way to deal with this problem had been to conquer parts of Asia and Africa and make new markets by force – imperialism. Another was to boost demand at home, by creating new desires for consumer goods and allowing wage levels to rise to the point where people could act on them. The first involved literal colonisation; the latter, the colonisation of everyday life. Wu’s book tells the story of this conquest, recording the extraordinarily successful attempts by advertisers to occupy more and more of our attention over the past 100 years. It is less a history of advertising than of how this enclosure happened: the technologies, platforms and formats that have made it possible for media to penetrate an ever-growing portion of our waking lives. Wu is no technological determinist. While he acknowledges that the invention of radio, television and the internet created enormous new potential for attention capture, he’s careful to point out that there was nothing inevitable about that potential being fulfilled. Just because new tools made it easier to reach more people didn’t guarantee people would pay attention. To use Wu’s metaphor, companies had to cultivate attention before they could harvest it. Sometimes this involved creating an entirely new cultural form, such as the radio serial or reality TV. Sometimes it involved improving an existing one, like Oprah’s elevation of the tabloid talkshow format into respectable middlebrow fare. Wu’s book crams many case studies into its pages, but the basic recipe remains remarkably consistent over the years. Companies come up with new ways to get our attention, and then sell that attention to other companies. And as mass media mediates more of our time – as the average American’s media consumption goes from an hour spent huddled around the family radio to endless hours on Google or Twitter or Facebook – the amount of attention available for resale grows. Occasionally, however, people revolt. In the 1930s, a rising consumer movement forced the US federal government to start policing ads for factual inaccuracies. In the 1950s, the invention of the remote control gave television watchers the power to press mute – thus “arming a new popular resistance against the industrialised harvest of attentionâ€\x9d, Wu writes. Yet these small rebellions did little to halt advertising’s ascent. If anything, they probably accelerated it. One of the most interesting observations from Wu’s history is that advertising adapts to resistance extremely well. Like a mutant strain of bacteria that nurses on antibiotics to become invincible, advertising uses its enemies to grow stronger – not only by co-opting any and all countercultures, from hippiedom to punk rock to hip-hop, but by recruiting its greatest haters into its ranks. As Wu observes, both Google and Facebook were founded by engineers who despised online ads. So they created better ones: ads that slip more easily into your field of view and speak more specifically to your searches and likes and clicks. They ended up with the world’s most sophisticated machinery for converting attention into cash, the basis of a business model that makes Madison Avenue at the height of the Don Draper era look poor and unimaginative by comparison. Wu’s book isn’t just a history. It’s a polemic. The reason we need to understand where the attention industry comes from, he believes, is because it poses a mortal threat to human happiness and flourishing. It does this by inhibiting good attention, and encouraging bad attention. Good attention is “deep, long-lasting and voluntaryâ€\x9d – the kind we get from reading a book. Bad attention is “quick, superficial and often involuntarily provokedâ€\x9d – the kind we get from checking our Twitter mentions. Good attention is the spiritual space needed for self-realisation. Bad attention makes us stupider, more susceptible to advertising and “less ourselvesâ€\x9d. This is an ancient complaint, and a rather silly one. Every media innovation since the invention of writing has triggered a moral panic about whether the human experience would be hopelessly corrupted as a result. Socrates agonised about wax tablets; the monks of the late middle ages railed against the printing press. In Wu’s case, however, the impulse is particularly unfortunate because it derails his discussion of the subject where he has the most expertise: the internet. There are few people more qualified than him to perform a nuanced analysis of online attention capture. Instead, he devotes the last 50 pages of his book to denouncing Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and BuzzFeed for destroying the internet. In their hunger for advertising revenue, Wu declares, these companies have degraded the digital sphere into a “cesspoolâ€\x9d of selfies, images of celebrities, listicles – anything that might cultivate clicks by catering to the “very basest human impulses of voyeurism and titillationâ€\x9d. There’s no doubt Silicon Valley’s appetite for attention has debased public discourse. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory, many commentators have blamed Facebook for spreading fake news stories that played a role in the result. And even the most cursory user of social media knows that Nazis love Twitter. Under the cynical pretext of “free speechâ€\x9d, the tech giants have long since decided that capital accumulation trumps any civic or ethical considerations. After all, Nazi eyeballs pay just as well as non-Nazi ones. Yet even amid post-election pessimism, this characterisation feels far too harsh. Wu sees contemporary digital life as wholly, irredeemably corrupt. As a result, it’s nearly impossible to recognise the actual internet in his cartoonish portrait. Absent is Twitter’s contribution to political organising, for instance, or BuzzFeed’s valuable reporting on sexual assault. These oversights would be more forgivable coming from someone with less expertise, or a smaller soapbox. But Wu enjoys a reputation as one of the US’s foremost thinkers on technology, and his opinions influence people. When he condemns the contemporary internet as an exercise in mass idiocy, he risks doing real damage to public debate. His outlook also forecloses the possibility of forming an adequate political response. Wu is right to sound the alarm about advertising’s total takeover of our “attentional environmentâ€\x9d. Corporate domination of the internet is an urgent political problem, as the US election has starkly demonstrated. But when it comes to potential solutions, Wu’s moralism leads him to a dead end. Our best hope, he believes, is a personal improvement project: he asks us to spend less time on the internet, and more time doing things that demand a “serious level of concentrationâ€\x9d. This will empower us to “make our attention our own againâ€\x9d, he says, “and so reclaim ownership of the very experience of livingâ€\x9d. Even if you accept the dubious premise that our wholeness as human beings depends on whether we read books or BuzzFeed, this proposal is incapable of producing actual change. The attention industry can easily absorb individual gestures of defiance. A stronger approach requires collective solutions. As Wu points out, the attention merchants of Silicon Valley earn billions of dollars a year from our data. By posting, searching and liking, we perform the free labour that powers one of the most profitable sectors of the economy. It’s not unreasonable to expect that our contributions should entitle us to a say over how these platforms are governed – including how and when they sell our attention to advertisers. This means democratising the digital sphere, not abandoning it. • The Attention Merchants: From the Daily Newspaper to Social Media, How Our Time and Attention Is Harvested and Sold is published by Atlantic. To order a copy for £16.40 (RRP £20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.',
 "Jay Z shades Phil Jackson's 'posse' remark at Sports Illustrated LeBron fete Jay Z took a shot at New York Knicks president Phil Jackson’s use of the term “posseâ€\x9d in reference to LeBron James’ business partners during his speech to introduce the Cleveland Cavaliers star as Sports Illustrated’s Sportperson of the Year on Monday night. The musician’s remarks praised James as “the son who honors and worships his mother, Gloria. The friend who put his posse in position.â€\x9d The audience at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn laughed at the reference to Jackson’s comment as James appeared to playfully mouth “shut upâ€\x9d from his table. “We do understand where we come from, and the only difference between us and someone who has their MBA from Wharton or Sloan or Berkeley or Stanford is opportunity. LeBron James has provided his friends with that opportunity. And as we witness their development, and if we’re looking up at the scoreboard, very few, very few businessmen are better than Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mims and all the rest of the ‘posse’ behind the scenes that make it look like they’re just hanging out. “LeBron James has made all of those around him better on and off the court. We acknowledge and recognize all he has done for the game. But tonight, LeBron, we say thank you. Not just for your commitment to basketball. We say thank you for all you have done in the community. And thank you for how you’ve enriched the lives of everyone around you. You messed around and got a triple-double in real life.â€\x9d Jackson, twice an NBA champion as a Knicks player and the winner of a league-record 11 titles as a coach with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, had used the term in an interview with ESPN last month. “It had to hurt when [the Miami Heat] lost LeBron,â€\x9d Jackson said. “That was definitely a slap in the face. But there were a lot of little things that came out of that. When LeBron was playing with the Heat, they went to Cleveland, and he wanted to spend the night. They don’t do overnights. Teams just don’t. So now [coach Erik] Spoelstra has to text [Pat] Riley and say, ‘What do I do in this situation?’ And Pat, who has iron-fist rules, answers: ‘You are on the plane. You are with this team.’ You can’t hold up the whole team because you and your mom and your posse want to spend an extra night in Cleveland. “I always thought Pat had this really nice vibe with his guys. But something happened there where it broke down. I do know LeBron likes special treatment. He needs things his way.â€\x9d James responded harshly to the use of the term, saying it carries a connotation that underscores the difficulties young African-Americans have in gaining respect, especially in the business world. The four-times NBA Most Valuable Player drew further attention on Monday when the cover of the Sportsperson of the Year issue was unveiled featuring a portrait of James wearing a safety pin on his lapel. Since last month’s presidential election, the safety pin has become a symbol of solidarity with those Americans who fear they will be disenfranchised by a Donald Trump presidency. The pin is intended to show that the wearer is a safe person to turn to. James campaigned for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the days before the vote. During a recent road trip, James opted to stay elsewhere than the team’s official Trump-branded hotel in New York. He called the decision a personal preference.",
 "The bigger they come: how to film an 'unfilmable' book The common wisdom in screenwriting is that bad novels make great movies and great novels turn into duds. I can think of plenty of arguments to disprove the theory, though – from The English Patient to Apocalypse Now (adapted from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness), from LA Confidential to The Age of Innocence, from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to The Lord of the Rings. What all these adaptations inherit from their source material is ambition: like the novels that came before them, they aspire to greatness, in terms of either scale or emotion. If you set out to adapt a classic, you’d better pray it’s going to be a great film because you’ll be held to a very high standard. An adaptation of a bad book may face other criticisms, but at least it won’t constantly be compared to a famous parent. Taking the family analogy further, the most successful adaptations are often like wayward children who break away from the shadow of their famous parents to forge an identity of their own. They want to match their parents’ success but in their own way. Anthony Minghella, when describing his adaptation of The English Patient, said he read the book numerous times before he started his screenplay but then never looked at it again. In effect, he was raised by his parents, then left home. He let the memory and emotional impact of the novel guide him rather than the text. Later this year, Ewan McGregor will make his directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, the winner of a Pulitzer prize and one of Time magazine’s top 100 books of the 20th century. It is the story of Seymour “Swedeâ€\x9d Levov as told by his former classmate, Nathan Zuckerman. It’s the investigation of a life, a family saga, an exploration of American society in the 60s and 70s, and takes in momentous events such as the Vietnam war and Watergate. On top of that, its themes deal with the “unknowabilityâ€\x9d of people, a tricky proposition for a medium such as film. Even more challenging is Tom Ford’s forthcoming adaptation of the novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright, renamed Nocturnal Animals for the big screen and about to receive its premiere at the Venice film festival. In the book, twin narratives run side by side. A university professor, Susan, reads a crime thriller called Nocturnal Animals written by her ex-husband, Edward. It’s fast-paced and terrifying while Susan’s reflections on her ex-husband’s manuscript are deliberately slow-paced and contemplative. The novel is half revenge thriller, half internal drama: a complex work of metafiction that explores the idea that all texts are fluid and that the meaning of a book depends on the person reading it. Daunting perhaps, but also potentially liberating. The biggest advantage of adapting an impossible book is that no one expects you to be entirely slavish to the source material. They’re not expecting a filmic replica. As a screenwriter, I’ve had two experiences of adapting “impossible booksâ€\x9d: Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove and James Sallis’s Drive. Although they’re very different novels, they’re both told largely through internal narratives – they describe the character’s thoughts and emotions rather than depicting actual scenes or events. So where does one start? The advantage of adapting great novels is that they provide you with great characters. The Wings of the Dove and Drive may not have had many set pieces or long dialogue scenes I could lift, but they had whole chapters describing a character’s life history or thought processes. The characters were so intimately drawn, I felt I could imagine exactly how they’d behave or react in any given circumstance. I felt confident I could invent scenes that were not in the books and still stay true to the integrity of the characters – and the intentions of their authors. The pleasure in adapting these books was that they allowed me to bring some of my own experiences and emotions to the process. As a student, I’d spent some time in Venice with university friends and many of our experiences and the locations we visited found their way into the Wings of the Dove script. Around the same time, I also spent several months living on my own in Rome and some of the loneliness of that informed the Drive screenplay. I flatter myself when I say they felt halfway between adaptations and original screenplays, but that’s really a testament to the greatness of the novels. They not only allow you to see something of yourself in them, they allow you to project. Just as, in Tony and Susan, the reader’s experience of the book becomes as important as the words on the page. Similarly, every adaptation will be different depending on who’s writing it. An Aaron Sorkin adaptation of Wuthering Heights will bear no resemblance to the Quentin Tarantino version, even though they come from the same source. The least successful adaptations I’ve done are those without personality. When there are no spaces to fill in, the process becomes mechanical. The adaptation simply becomes a choice of which scenes to retain from the book and which ones to leave out. The inevitable result is a filleting of the novel. It becomes a hollow replica, the basic plot without its heart and soul. If I could describe my ideal approach to an adaptation it would go something like this. I lie down on a sofa, which is where I like to read, and open a book. Gradually, I get lost in it. I flick over certain sections that lose my attention and re-read others that move or intrigue me. I pause occasionally and think that something like that happened to me, or drift off to imagine myself in the character’s shoes. Sometimes I’ll put the book down to take a rest or reflect on a shocking moment, then return to it because I can’t put it down for long. I read faster and faster as I approach the end, probably skipping the odd paragraph because I can’t wait to find out what happens. When I finally finish, I collapse – and think nobody else in the world understood or experienced that book exactly like I did. The challenge of any adaptation is capturing that first, unique, individual reading experience – and bottling it over the months and years it takes to make a film.",
 'Democrats seek injunction against Trump allies over voter intimidation concerns Democratic party officials in four swing states have sought federal court injunctions against the Trump campaign and its affiliates, alleging they plan to intimidate minority voters on election day. The lawsuits argue that the Trump campaign, along with the nominee’s close confidant Roger Stone and state Republican party officials, is “conspiring to threaten, intimidate, and thereby prevent minority voters in urban neighborhoods from votingâ€\x9d, citing Trump’s continuing efforts to recruit “election observersâ€\x9d and Stone’s plans, as revealed by the , to conduct unorthodox “exit pollingâ€\x9d on election day, as evidence of potentially “virulent harassmentâ€\x9d. The lawsuits follow another legal action taken in federal court in New Jersey last week by the Democratic National Committee, which argues that the Republican National Committee is in violation of a 1982 consent decree that forbids the organisation from monitoring polls on election day. Stone told the last week his group “Stop The Stealâ€\x9d planned to conduct exit polling in nine major cities in swing states, ostensibly to counter “election theftâ€\x9d and gauge the accuracy of electronic voting machines. But a number of polling and election law experts cast doubts on the methodology and suggested the process could be a smokescreen for voter intimidation. For months, Donald Trump has warned supporters of a “rigged electionâ€\x9d and encouraged them to monitor polling areas in cities such as St Louis, Chicago and Philadelphia. The lawsuits, filed by state Democratic parties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, would cover many of the cities Stone said he intended to target. The filings argue that such efforts, along with Trump’s rhetoric, could violate both the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices in the American south, and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which outlawed intimidation against African American voters. Election law experts said it was unclear whether courts would issue a broad order, as requested in the filings, to simply prevent voter intimidation, but they could look in more detail at the temporary restraining order requested against Stone’s exit polling. “It could be useful in getting the word out about these activities, and secondly getting the [Republican state] parties and [Trump] campaign on record saying they will not engage in these activities,â€\x9d said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California whose Election Law blog first reported the lawsuits on Monday. The Republican National Committee has been under a consent decree since the 1981 gubernatorial election in New Jersey, when the group sent armed off-duty law enforcement officers to patrol polls in minority neighborhoods. These volunteers wore armbands that identified them as an unofficial “Ballot Security Task Forceâ€\x9d and erected posters warning against voter fraud. The RNC last week said claims it was now in violation of the consent decree, set to expire at the start of 2017, were “completely meritlessâ€\x9d. Stone’s exit pollers, self-titled “vote protectorsâ€\x9d, had originally planned to use similar non-official identification badges, until these were removed from the organisation’s website late last week. The organisation is still encouraging its volunteers to livestream video from polling stations. In an emailed statement, Stone dismissed the lawsuits as “without meritâ€\x9d and argued the lawyers who filed them “could face sanctionsâ€\x9d. The former Richard Nixon adviser said the polling was not being coordinated with the Trump campaign or the RNC. “We seek only to determine if the election is honestly and fairly conducted and to provide an evidentiary basis for a challenge to the election if that’s not the case,â€\x9d Stone said. “I assume the purpose of this bogus lawsuit is to distract from the voter fraud the Democrats have traditionally engaged in.â€\x9d The contacted the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign’s general legal counsel for a response to the recent lawsuits and is awaiting a response.',
 "Gay men can't donate blood to victims of the Orlando shooting. That's absurd Last night at Pulse, an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, 50 of our LGBT brothers and sisters were taken from us. Today, like so many others in my community, I am overcome with a sense of helplessness. I am overcome with the urge to do something, anything, to help the victims and their families. Many in Orlando feel a similar urge. People are lining up to give blood in the wake of the massacre. But gay and bisexual men who want to give today are encountering an obstacle: the FDA requires a year of celibacy before men who have sex with men can donate blood. These new rules were put into practice in late 2015. They were presented as an end to the ban on gay men’s blood – but they still mean even gay men who have been in a completely monogamous relationship for a year are barred from donating. Regulations against gay blood arrived in 1983 in response to the panic surrounding the HIV/Aids epidemic. The American Medical Association called for an end to the ban in 2013, saying it was discriminatory and without a sound scientific basis. HIV-positive donors can be screened out and only one in 2m transfusions result in an HIV infection. In short, the ban on gay blood is unjustified. Other countries, such as Argentina, have already done away with it. Misinformation spread on social media Sunday, saying that the ban on gay blood has been temporarily lifted in Orlando because of high need. This is actually false, as local donor service OneBlood confirms. It is an outrage that our blood can be spilled but not donated. It is an outrage that, despite the facts and despite calls to lift the ban from experts across the country, homophobia and gay panic keeps it in place. Thank God for groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one Muslim group mobilizing support to keep blood supplies up. As we celebrate Pride – and yes, we will celebrate even in the wake of tragedy, as we always have – let us remember our radical roots. Above all, Pride is a celebration of resistance. It is a celebration of our audacity to exist. And so, in the spirit of Pride, in the spirit of Stonewall, in the spirit of our LGBT family members who have been stolen from us too soon, let us continue to resist. Today is a painful reminder that there are still so many battles left for us to fight. The oppressive, outdated policy on queer blood is one, and it must come to an end. I look forward to a future where we can express our solidarity with those who are harmed or in need through our needed donations. This article was amended on 13 June 2016. An earlier version stated that one in 2m HIV infections are caused by transfusions. In fact, one in 2m transfusions result in an HIV infection.",
 'Scientist Mary Somerville to appear on Scottish £10 note The scientist Mary Somerville will be the first woman other than a royal to appear on a Royal Bank of Scotland banknote – but only after a steward’s inquiry over an apparent attempt to rig the vote. Some 4,100 people voted via Facebook for Somerville, whose academic writing played a pivotal role in the discovery of the planet Neptune, to appear on a new £10 note. A groundswell of support, including a Facebook campaign by students at the Oxford University college bearing her name, put Somerville way out in front on Sunday, the last day of voting. Rival candidate Thomas Telford, the civil engineer known affectionately as the “Colossus of Roadsâ€\x9d, could only muster a meagre 500 votes with just hours to spare. But a last-minute surge of voting, much of it from India but also from other countries, saw Telford accelerate past Somerville to reach 5,100 votes by the deadline. James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist whose study of electromagnetism inspired Albert Einstein, limped home a distant third. But after discussions between Facebook and RBS, the late influx of votes was deemed suspicious. RBS later declared the result null and void, meaning Somerville’s face will adorn the bank’s new polymer £10 notes from 2017. “It looks as if something dodgy has gone on. Mary Somerville was clearly the public’s choice,â€\x9d said the source. The decision to overturn the result means Somerville will become the first woman other than the Queen to appear on a mainstream RBS banknote issue since they were first printed in 1727. “Having the opportunity to choose the face of our new £10 notes obviously meant a great deal to a great number of people,â€\x9d said the RBS Scotland chair, Malcolm Buchanan. “Mary Somerville’s immense contribution to science and her determination to succeed against all the odds clearly resonate as much today as they did during her lifetime.â€\x9d Born in 1780, Somerville’s relative wealth allowed her access to education in astronomy and geography, despite living in an age when women were discouraged from studying science. She is credited with an instrumental role in the discovery of Neptune, thanks to her writing on a hypothetical planet perturbing the orbit of Uranus. Somerville, who died in 1872, is also indelibly linked to the advancement of women in academia, having given her name to the Oxford college that initially only admitted women. Alumni of Somerville College, founded in 1879, include the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the TV presenter Esther Rantzen and the former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi. RBS’s decision to include a woman on its shortlist follows a high-profile row in 2013, when the Bank of England faced criticism for replacing the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry with Winston Churchill on the £5 note from 2016. The decision left no women on English banknotes at all, prompting a successful campaign led by the journalist Caroline Criado-Perez to put the face of Jane Austen on the £10 note.',
 'How memory apps can help people with dementia tap into their past More than 650,000 people in England have dementia and that figure is expected to double by 2040. With wildly differing standards of care across the country, there is growing interest in the role technology could play. When Robert Armstrong was admitted to The Uplands care home in Shrewsbury, he had a habit of waking up in the middle of night and wandering about. At first staff thought he was just a poor sleeper, but the 68-year-old would become very aggressive when care workers tried to guide him back to bed. He would often need medication to calm him down. It wasn’t until care workers started working more closely with the family to map his life history that they discovered Armstrong had been a milkman for 40 years and thought he was getting up to go to his job. “So when he woke up at 3am, the night staff gave him a cup of tea and biscuits and then he did his ‘rounds’,â€\x9d says Mandy Thorn, managing director at Uplands. “Robert had a milk crate in his room and he went round leaving milk bottles outside all the residents’ doors. At 6am he had breakfast and went back to bed, while staff picked up the bottles and put them back in his crate, ready for the next day.â€\x9d Thorn says the effect was instant and transformed Armstrong’s quality of life until his death in early 2015. “We had no more aggression and no need for medication to calm him down. And he was really happy until the day he died.â€\x9d Thorn hopes the delay in finding out such crucial information will soon be a thing of the past. From September, Uplands will be using RemindMeCare, an app that uses reminiscence therapy to get people with dementia talking about their memories. Its software automatically creates content that matches the person with dementia’s life story. In addition to photos, the system pulls images of events, favourites places, films and music from the web to create a detailed multimedia profile of the person. This is then used to help stimulate conversation and memories enabling carers to build a better relationship with the individual. For group activities, the software can work out shared interests and help several residents to take part. And family members can upload relevant information to their relative’s profile and be actively involved in their care. “The more that you know about an individual, the easier it is to care for them,â€\x9d says Thorn. “It will transform our business, make us more efficient, so staff spend more time with our residents, not on paperwork. With ReMindMeCare you have a digital record [of activities and interventions], you don’t have to worry about writing it all down.â€\x9d RemindMeCare is the brainchild of Simon Hooper and Etienne Abrahams, who both had family members with dementia. When his mother got dementia, Hooper started to put her life story on to a tablet for her carers to use. “I realised that early memories were the key to communicating with those with dementia and to improving person-centred care, and that it needed tech to record them, so that the memories would not be lost and would be available to each carer in turn,â€\x9d he says. On meeting Abrahams at a party and discovering that he was building software to store his grandmother’s memories, photos and favourite music, they both realised there was a gap in the market and decided to develop a business. After a year’s planning, they raised money from care experts and crowdfunding and RemindMeCare was born in November 2015. Samir Patel, owner of Oaklands Rest Home in the New Forest, Hampshire, which has been using the system since May, says: “It’s had a huge impact on our residents. It’s a nice way to engage with your loved one. You can still contribute to their life in a really positive way.â€\x9d Not all dementia apps are designed for use in care settings. This month saw the launch of two new apps that people with dementia can use independently (as well as with a carer, if they choose). Book of You and Playlist for Life use photos, words and music to enable those with dementia to reminisce with carers, family and friends, about things that were important in their lives. These apps are part of a dementia citizens project run by the innovation charity Nesta. Both apps also aim to foster in-depth research on how technology can empower people with dementia to lead more fulfilling lives. Academics at Bangor and Glasgow Caledonian universities, who developed Book of You and Playlist for Life respectively, will conduct regular surveys with 500 users of the apps. “We want to show that technology improves the lives of those with dementia,â€\x9d says John Loder, head of strategy at Nesta’s health lab. “Who do these apps really work for and how?â€\x9d The data may also challenge stereotypes. Early testing for Playlist for Life found that dementia patients did not necessarily want to listen to West End musical hits or the Beatles. “It is very easy to make assumptions about people with dementia and what they are going to like. The only thing they really wanted to listen to was Adele,â€\x9d says Loder. “They liked the fact that they are listening to the same music as their children and grandchildren.â€\x9d Some names have been changed',
 'Anthony Mackie to play Johnnie Cochran in police brutality drama Anthony Mackie is set to follow in the recent footsteps of Courtney B Vance by playing Johnnie Cochran, in a new film about a landmark police brutality case. According to Deadline, the Captain America: Civil War star will play the lawyer during a 1981 case that preceded his defence of OJ Simpson in 1995, a trial that was recently dramatised for the small screen. The role of Cochran in the TV series, The People v OJ Simpson, was played by Vance in a widely-praised performance. The as yet untitled big-screen drama focuses on the story of American football player Ron Settles, who was arrested for speeding and later found dead in his cell. It was initially deemed a suicide, but an autopsy showed that Settles had been choked to death. The family were awarded $760,000 in a civil suit and the police chief resigned. The film is written by David McMillan, who has worked on TV drama Lucifer, with a director yet to be announced. Mackie is currently starring in Captain America: Civil War, after roles in Triple 9 and The Night Before and will next be seen on television, playing Martin Luther King Jr in the HBO drama All the Way. He’s also set to star in thriller Wetlands and is developing a film about Olympian sprinter Jesse Owens. As well as OJ Simpson, Cochran’s celebrity clients included Michael Jackson, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. He died in 2005.',
 "Aleksandar Hemon defends Donald Trump's right to electoral ‘job interview’ After hundreds of authors signed an open letter last week opposing Donald Trump’s candidacy for US president, the acclaimed Bosnian author Aleksandar Hemon, based in the US since 1992, has spoken out about why he decided not to join them. The authors, who numbered more than 450 and have since been joined by more than 20,000 fellow signatories, include some of US literature’s biggest names, from Stephen King to Lydia Davis. In their “open letter to the American peopleâ€\x9d, they say that they “oppose, unequivocally, the candidacy of Donald J Trump for the presidency of the United Statesâ€\x9d, and that “any democracy worthy of the name rests on pluralism, welcomes principled disagreement, and achieves consensus through reasoned debateâ€\x9d. But Hemon, who was awarded a so-called “genius grantâ€\x9d from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004, writes in a piece for the Literary Hub that while he too “deplore[s] Trump and everything he and his squirrel-pelt hair stand forâ€\x9d, he won’t sign. If the writers want to oppose Trump’s candidacy, he says, the way to do this is to vote against him. “It’s true, as the writers assert, that ‘the history of dictatorship is the history of manipulation and division, demagoguery and lies’,â€\x9d Hemon continues, “but Trump is presently abiding by the rules of democratic election, as are his followers, rabid as they may beâ€\x9d. “It’s also true,â€\x9d Hemon adds, “that neither wealth nor celebrity qualifies anyone to speak for the US, to lead its military, to maintain its alliances, or to represent its people. But what would qualify Trump to speak for the US is his being elected in the fall. Horrifying as that may seem, that’s how the system works – the election is the job interview.â€\x9d Hemon’s comments follow a speech from JK Rowling last month, in which the Harry Potter author said that while Trump is “objectionable … offensive and bigotedâ€\x9d, he still has the right to visit the UK, despite a petition last year calling for him to be banned. “If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justifications,â€\x9d said Rowling. Hemon goes on in his essay to ask if the authors would have written a letter opposing the candidacy of Ted Cruz, “who is just as hateful as Trumpâ€\x9d, or Ben Carson, or George W Bush. “What is the threshold of acceptability? Being a professional politician? Being a Democrat? Not having short fingers? Not being Trump?â€\x9d he asks. The author, whose novels include The Lazarus Project and The Book of My Lives, goes on to point out the lack of a novel “that has forcefully addressed the iniquities of the post 9/11 eraâ€\x9d. If the rise of Trump “is what it takes to get American writers back into politics, let us welcome the development,â€\x9d he says, adding that “perhaps there is an author among the Open Letter signatories eager to develop a narrative in which Trump – or his hairier, more narratively compelling avatar - wouldn’t be the false cause of our discontent but a symbol of an America struggling to forestall its precipitous intellectual and political decline, to which the absence of its literature from its politics must have contributedâ€\x9d. Trump, meanwhile, when quizzed for the Hollywood Reporter by the author and journalist Michael Wolff on what he is currently reading, has revealed a political bent to his own literary forays. Wolff writes: “He knows he’s caught (it’s a question that all politicians are prepped on, but who among his not-bookish coterie would have prepped him even with the standard GOP politician answer: the Bible?). But he goes for it.â€\x9d Trump tells Wolff he is reading “the Ed Klein book on Hillary Clintonâ€\x9d and “the book on Richard Nixon that was, well, I’ll get you the exact information on itâ€\x9d, as well as “a book that I’ve read before, it’s one of my favourite books, All Quiet on the Western Front, which is one of the greatest books of all time.â€\x9d It is, Wolff writes, “one I suspect he’s suddenly remembering from high school. But what the hell.â€\x9d",
 'Vote Leave forced to remove phone tycoons from supporters list The anti-EU Vote Leave campaign group has been forced to revise a list of more than 250 business supporters after it emerged that the names of two leading figures were wrongly included. Supporters of Britain’s membership of the EU said that the Vote Leave letter published on Saturday, which was designed to show that credible business leaders support an EU exit and to which the list of names was attached, had fallen apart. Vote Leave amended its list after David Ross, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, and John Caudwell, the co-founder of Phones 4U, said their names had been wrongly included. A spokesman for Ross told the Sunday Times: “Mr Ross has not made any commitment at all. We have no idea where this has come from. Mr Ross will make a decision one way or the other when he gets back from his Easter break in a couple of weeks.â€\x9d A spokesman for Caudwell said he had not added his name to the list although he has supported a UK exit from the EU. “You have to question how this list has been compiled,â€\x9d the spokesman told the newspaper. The row is a setback to Vote Leave, which is working hard to overcome the perception that the pro-EU camp has the overwhelming support of British businesses. The letter was published on Saturday in conjunction with a YouGov poll which found that only 14% of more than 1,000 small or medium-sized businesses felt that the EU made it easier for businesses to employ people. The pro-EU Britain Stronger in Europe group said that the list did not include a single leader of a FTSE 100 company. It had earlier highlighted a survey which found that 82% of UK businesses favoured membership of the EU. The mix-up over the names is an echo of the embarrassing row when Downing Street was forced to apologise after wrongly including the retired SAS commander General Sir Michael Rose in a list of retired military figures who supported EU membership. Vote Leave seized on the mistake to accuse No 10 of “trying to bully people into backing the EUâ€\x9d. Nick Herbert, chairman of Conservatives In, said that Vote Leave’s claim that it has the support of business leaders had fallen apart. Herbert told the Sunday Times: “Less than 24 hours after its launch, the Vote Leave business letter is falling apart. Some of those named on the letter say they never signed it, many are not business ‘leaders’ at all – there isn’t a single FTSE 100 [chief executive] among them – and others have publicly admitted Brexit would cause severe damage to Britain’s economy.â€\x9d A Vote Leave spokesman said: “Mr Ross’s name was included on our supporters list in error. We apologise for any confusion that has been caused. John Caudwell has been listed as a supporter of the campaign since he signed up in October last year. He has now been removed.â€\x9d',
 'Turned off by Trump: Republican mega-donors focus on congressional races Several leading Republican donors and groups that spent large sums in the 2012 presidential campaign are either wavering or opting outright not to back Donald Trump this year. Instead, they are spending tens of millions of dollars on congressional races as fears mount that the candidate’s poor poll numbers and incendiary gaffes are placing majorities in the House and Senate in danger. “I believe there’s an emerging consensus in the party that Trump isn’t going to win,â€\x9d Vin Weber, a former Minnesota representative turned lobbyist who helps raise money for House candidates, told the . “We need to shift resources as much as we can to help down-ticket candidates including members of Congress.â€\x9d Should Hillary Clinton defeat Trump, Democrats would need only four more Senate seats to take control through the vote wielded by the Senate president, Clinton vice-president Tim Kaine. The Republicans’ House majority is stronger, but not safe. The can reveal that the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is said by well-placed sources to be worried about losing control of Congress, met Trump in New York last week. The donor, who one friend said has been “irked by a lot of thingsâ€\x9d, had already met Trump privately at least twice this year. He has pushed for the candidate to visit Israel, which has not happened, and supported former House speaker Newt Gingrich for vice-president. Trump chose the governor of Indiana, Mike Pence. Earlier this summer, Adelson endorsed Trump, reportedly signaling that he was willing to spend up to $100m on the presidential contest. To date, however, he has not given money to any Super Pac. Three fundraising sources with good ties to Adelson said he is focused on trying to keep control of Congress, though he could donate to Trump if his gaffes are eliminated and his poll numbers improve. “I’m shocked that Adelson has not done anything yet for Trump,â€\x9d a senior GOP operative told the . “Sheldon knows that late money is wasted.â€\x9d While in New York, Adelson also met the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham. The two men, who share a sharply pro-Israel stance, discussed the financial needs of senators in tough races. Two other GOP operatives familiar with Adelson told the he had given $10m to One Nation, a group run by Steven Law, once a top aide to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. A “dark moneyâ€\x9d group, legally able to keep its donors secret, One Nation was launched in May 2015. This year it has spent at least $16m on ads in several Senate races. Asked if Adelson had given $10m, Law said “we don’t commentâ€\x9d on donors. Asked if the group or two others of which he is president – American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS – would get involved in the presidential election at all, he said: “We’re keeping our options open.â€\x9d In 2012, groups backed by the Koch brothers and American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, both of which were co-founded by former Bush adviser Karl Rove, focused heavily on the presidential race, spending more than $200m. Adelson and his wife gave $23m to American Crossroads. In 2016, Koch network leaders have said they do not intend to get involved and Rove has been sharply critical of Trump, writing in the Wall Street Journal that he has been “graceless and divisiveâ€\x9d. Several groups are pouring millions into TV spots and get-out-the-vote drives in Senate races in states including Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada and North Carolina. The US Chamber of Commerce has run ads in eight states as part of “Save the Senateâ€\x9d, a drive it launched in May, its earliest ad foray in a presidential year. “I think the most productive way of using our money right now is for the Senate and House elections,â€\x9d said Michael Epstein, a Maryland executive who has helped raise money for the Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. “Winning the Senate would be a terrific victory and help rebuild the GOP brand. But it’s going to be a tough struggle.â€\x9d Many donors and fundraisers worry that a heavy Trump defeat could wreak havoc on Republican representatives and senators. “If the guy at the top of the ticket is going to lose by double digits it’s a cause of concern,â€\x9d said former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman, who helps steer the American Action Network, a dark money group, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super Pac that must disclose its donors. Coleman’s fears seemed to increase after the Trump campaign shake-up that led to Steve Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News, becoming chief executive. In response, Coleman tweeted that Trump was “really dialing in his 38%â€\x9d – a reference to his base support among Republican voters – “and saying to heck with down ballot Rsâ€\x9d. This week, the Congressional Leadership Fund unveiled a $10m ad buy to support House members in a dozen key races. Even some old friends of Trump seem to have soured. In May, the casino tycoon Steve Wynn, arranged a meeting for Trump and Rove at his own New York residence. According to a GOP operative briefed on the meeting, Wynn was disappointed Trump “didn’t listen to Rove’s adviceâ€\x9d. Earlier this month, Wynn said he would stay out of the presidential race.',
 "Calls for UK to rejoin EU 'should be treason', urges Tory petition A Conservative councillor from Surrey has been suspended after launched a petition calling for Victorian-era legislation to be amended to make supporting UK membership of the EU a treasonable offence. Christian Holliday added the petition to the UK Government and Parliament website, and it calls for: The Treason Felony Act be amended to include the following offences: ‘To imagine, devise, promote, work, or encourage others, to support UK becoming a member of the European Union; To conspire with foreign powers to make the UK, or part of the UK, become a member of the EU.’ The petition appears more designed to get a reaction from “remoanersâ€\x9d than actually force a change in the law, and when this article was originally posted had only attracted 98 signatures, although media exposure had driven this up to more than 2,500 by Monday evening. Intended to come into force on the day of the UK’s exit from the EU, it would outlaw any campaigning for a return. At 10,000 signatures, the government promises to respond to petitions on the site, and at 100,000 signatures, petitions are considered for debate in parliament. The petition goes on to say: It is becoming clear that many politicians and others are unwilling to accept the democratic decision of the British people to leave the EU. Brexit must not be put at risk in the years and decades ahead. For this reason we the undersigned request that the Treason Felony Act be amended as set out in this petition. The petition is among several on the site from leave campaigners. A call for “All European Union flags, emblems and logos to be removed from all public buildingsâ€\x9d attracted nearly 20,000 signatures, as has an appeal “Not to allow freedom of movement as part of any deal with the EU after Brexit.â€\x9d The most signed petition about the EU though was a call for “HM government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based on a turnout of less than 75% there should be another referendumâ€\x9d. Even if Holliday’s changes were to be made, the chances of a successful prosecution seem thin. The act dates from 1848, but has not been used in a prosecution since 1879. It became law during the reign of Queen Victoria, and made it an offence to even “imagineâ€\x9d deposing the monarchy. Asked to comment about the petition today, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “Different people will chose their words differently. The prime minister is very clear that the British people have made their decision.â€\x9d Holliday has today deleted previous tweets he made linking to his petition, and Guildford Borough Council leader Paul Spooner has tweeted that he has been suspended.",
 'Tory MPs call for shift in farming subsidies to green protections Dozens of Conservative MPs have written to the prime minister, Theresa May, urging her to shift billions of pounds of post-Brexit farm subsidies towards protecting and improving the environment. The 36 MPs, including former environment ministers, also urge May to maintain the strong protection for wildlife and water provided by EU directives. During the EU referendum campaign, farming minister George Eustice campaigned for the leave camp and said the directives were “spirit-crushingâ€\x9d and “would goâ€\x9d. UK farmers receive about £3bn a year via the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), much of it for simply owning land. The Tory MPs want May to “take advantage of the repatriation of CAP by shifting subsidies in favour of paying farmers for delivering services for the environment and public goodâ€\x9d. The development of a new subsidy scheme is seen as one of the most difficult post-Brexit challenges and is now the responsibility of the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, a prominent leave campaigner. In August, the National Trust, a major landowner, called for complete reform of the British farm subsidy system to only reward farmers who improve the environment and help wildlife. The National Farmers Union criticised the plan, saying food production is vital. In July, a large group of 84 political and civil society organisations said post-Brexit subsidies paid to farmers must be linked closely to environmental responsibilities. The Tory MPs who signed the letter include former environment ministers Caroline Spelman and Richard Benyon, the current chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, Neil Parish, and Zac Goldsmith, member of the environmental audit select committee. “Done properly, Brexit is a massive opportunity for our environment,â€\x9d said Goldsmith. “We are urging the PM to put existing EU environmental protections into British law and to honour the green manifesto commitments we made before the election in full. But more than that, Brexit allows us to repatriate and reform the environmentally disastrous CAP to make sure farm subsidies are there to pay for environmental and public services. The upside is enormous.â€\x9d An overwhelming majority of the British public wants new post-Brexit laws protecting wildlife and the countryside to be at least as strong as the EU rules currently in place, according to a national opinion poll published in August. Since she became prime minister, May’s government has banned polluting plastic microbeads from some personal hygiene products but also expanded the controversial badger cull, which leading experts say “flies in the face of scientific evidenceâ€\x9d. It has also backed direct compensation to people in areas affected by fracking and abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change, with its responsibilities taken up by an enlarged business department. On Monday, Labour offered to work across party lines to enable the UK to rapidly follow the lead of the US and China in agreeing to ratify the Paris agreement on climate change. The Tory MPs’ letter emphasises the green achievements of previous Conservative governments, including the Clean Air Act in 1956, the creation of the environment department in 1970 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981. “Integral to Conservative philosophy is a deep cultural commitment to handing on a better world to our children,â€\x9d it says. “Lady Margaret Thatcher was always clear that we hold the earth on a full repairing lease,â€\x9d said Sam Barker, director of the Conservative Environment Network, which co-ordinated the letter. “Theresa May will have a similarly bold vision for how Britain will fulfil the terms of that lease, at home and around the world. We look forward to her setting it out in due course.â€\x9d The Tory MPs also urge May to “reaffirm our manifesto commitment to creating a blue belt of protected waters around the UK’s 14 Overseas Territories, including as a first step around the Pitcairn Islands and Ascension Islandâ€\x9d. The letter says this would “amount to the single biggest conservation measure of any government, everâ€\x9d. The Conservative MPs who signed the letter are: Zac Goldsmith, Richard Benyon, Alex Chalk, Andrew Mitchell, Anne Main, Ben Howlett, Bernard Jenkin, Caroline Spelman, Charlotte Leslie, Cheryl Gillan, David Warburton, Derek Thomas, Flick Drummond, Heidi Allen, James Gray, Jason McCartney, Jeremy Lefroy, Jo Churchill, Kevin Hollinrake, Kit Malthouse, Marcus Fysh, Maria Caulfield, Matthew Offord, Neil Carmichael, Neil Parish, Nicolas Soames, Oliver Colvile, Paul Scully, Peter Bottomley, Richard Graham, Sarah Wollaston, Scott Mann, Stephen Hammond, Tania Mathias, Victoria Borwick, Will Quince.',
 'The Fall review – a long-running feud in every sense This somewhat thin documentary revisits a story of athletic rivalry that marked the careers of two runners and in some ways overshadowed their other achievements. The reigning queen of the track, the American Mary Decker had yet to win an Olympic medal. Her main challenger was Zola Budd, a teenage South African who ran barefoot and was raised on a farm. The press scented a story and, after Budd was controversially granted British citizenship in order to compete in the 1984 Olympic Games, did everything it could to stir up tension between them. Disaster struck when the pair collided and Decker fell, later blaming Budd for the incident. In fact, the film argues, the media had most cause to feel guilty. A belated reunion between the two athletes reveals little about either.',
 'More babies face health risks due to obese parents, experts warn A growing number of babies worldwide are at risk of brain damage or having a stroke, heart attack or asthma in adulthood because their mother was obese, health experts have warned. Leading doctors said dangerously overweight mothers were passing on obesity to their children as the result of “a vicious cycleâ€\x9d in which excess weight can seriously affect the health of parents and their offspring. Four studies published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology make clear that the risks of maternal obesity include stillbirth, dangerously high blood pressure in pregnant women, diabetes in the mother or child, and complications during childbirth. The scale of obesity in women of childbearing age and the consequent dangers to health were so great that urgent action was needed to ensure women were a normal weight before they conceived, the authors say. Mothers being very heavily overweight could lead to their children having autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or developing cancer in later life, the researchers say. British women have the highest rates of obesity in Europe. One in five women in the UK who became pregnant were already obese, while in England, 26% of 35- to 44-year-old women were obese in 2013, as were 18% of those aged 24-35. Rates are even higher elsewhere. In the United States, 32% of women of peak childbearing age, between 20 and 39, were obese in 2011-12, and 60% of American women were either overweight or obese when they conceived, according to one study. Prof Lesley Regan, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which represents 14,000 doctors working in Britain and worldwide who specialise in childbirth and women’s health, said: “Obesity has reached pandemic proportions globally and its origins start in the womb. In the UK, the prevalence of obesity is over 25% in both women and men. Around one in five pregnant women are obese, increasing their risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death as well as gestational diabetes, blood clots, pre-eclampsia, more complicated labours and severe bleeding after the birth.â€\x9d The international team of experts behind the studies said they feared that the problem, which is worst in developed countries, would escalate further because one in five (21%) women in the world are projected to be dangerously overweight by 2025. One of the research papers, which have reviewed hundreds of previous obesity studies, warned: “The long-term effects of maternal obesity could have profound public health implications.â€\x9d Another concluded that maternal obesity was spreading so fast, especially in western countries, that governments should start treating it as a global public health priority. One of the research reviews, led by Prof Keith Godfrey of Southampton University, detailed the range of serious health problems that excess maternal weight could have on a child and pointed out that fathers’ weight could also increase the risks. “Increasing evidence implicates maternal obesity as a major determinant of offspring health during childhood and later adult life,â€\x9d the review states, adding that it heightened the child’s risk of obesity, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and asthma. Maternal obesity could also lead to poorer cognitive performance and increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including cerebral palsy. An unborn child’s brain could be damaged because “obesity in pregnancy is associated with complex neuroendocrine, metabolic, immune and inflammatory changes, which probably affect foetal hormonal exposure and nutrient supply,â€\x9d Godfrey’s paper explains. The key lies in “epigenetic processes by which aspects of parental (both mother’s and father’s) lifestyle can affect the way the baby’s genes operate during development. These can change the person’s responses to the challenges of, for example, living in an ‘obesogenic’ environment,â€\x9d it adds. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence advises women who may become pregnant to eat healthily, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and try to maintain a healthy weight. Each obese woman who gave birth in Britain cost the NHS £500 to £1,000 more than a mother of a normal weight, said Prof Rebecca Reynolds, of Edinburgh University. However, the authors drew few firm conclusions in their search for ways to address and prevent maternal obesity and found limited evidence that specific interventions were effective. “We know that there are going to be more and more obese people in years to come, so there will be passage of obesity from one generation to the next, even though no parent who is obese wants their child to suffer from it too,â€\x9d said Prof Mark Hanson, of Southampton University, another co-author. He recommended that overweight women be given more information and guidance from health professionals before they conceived or after they had given birth to help them lose weight, especially before they had any more children. Bariatric surgery undertaken before an obese woman conceived could benefit both her and her baby’s health, the authors found, though anyone who has the operation should wait for up to 18 months afterwards before giving birth. “Women who are overweight when entering pregnancy or who gain excess weight during pregnancy may well establish an inter-generational amplification of the obesity epidemic,â€\x9d said Dr Tim Lobstein, director of policy at the World Obesity Federation. “There is international agreement at United Nations level to halt the rising prevalence of obesity and diabetes across the globe. However, turning an ambitious target into practical action is proving elusive. “There are well-recognised but well-embedded systemic problems to resolve, such as the increasingly commercialised food supply, the dominance of motorised transport, the development of dense and hazardous urban environments, or the enticements of sedentary screen-watching,â€\x9d he said.',
 'MP calls for Green Investment Bank safeguards before privatisation The head of a parliamentary committee is to demand ministers introduce tougher safeguards to ensure the Green Investment Bank continues with its low-carbon mandate following a controversial privatisation. Mary Creagh MP, who chairs the environmental audit committee (EAC), also expressed concern that the bank could in future put more effort into overseas projects than in supporting the domestic sector for which it was set up. The government has said it will retain a special share in the lending institution. It insists this will prevent new owners deviating from the core task of funding renewable energy projects that are deemed at risk by traditional lenders. But in a letter to the before the debate on the sale of the bank in the House of Commons, Creagh writes: “I welcome the secretary of state’s pledge to protect the bank’s green status with a special share, as my committee recommended, but I am concerned that without locking this in legislation it may not be secure. “I will be supporting amendments to that effect when the sale is debated in the Commons this week. If the government cannot guarantee that the Green Investment Bank will continue to invest in smart, energy-efficient, low-carbon projects, then the sale should not go ahead.â€\x9d The Labour MP added that she would also be demanding that the government write in a requirement to the sale document that the senior executives continue to give details of their pay and conditions to parliament. “Too often in the past we have seen privatised companies bumping up executive bonuses and incentives on the back of better financial results produced by stripping out the head count,â€\x9d she writes. Concern has been raised by the green lender admitting it has already been approached by potential buyers from the private equity, sovereign wealth and private investment bank sectors. Creagh also said she was alarmed that Shaun Kingsbury, the chief executive of the bank, had already indicated he wanted to expand into places such as Germany, the Netherlands and India. This would take the bank away from its original purpose, to accelerate a move towards a low carbon economy, she added. The bank has so far put £2.6bn of public money into British low-carbon projects, although it is involved in £200m international joint venture with the Department of Energy & Climate Change. Lord Smith of Kelvin, who chairs the bank, has argued that privatising the group would allow it to raise money from other investors and widen the scope of its investments in the UK.',
 'Premier League fans’ verdicts – the run-in, part 1: Arsenal to Manchester United ARSENAL What is the mood among fans? An abiding mood of frustration, knowing that our competitors are unlikely EVER to offer us a better opportunity to bring home the Premier League bacon. We’re torn between the faint hope of the very worthy Foxes faltering and the possibility of them leaving the door open, only for the unthinkable consequence of Spurs charging through it. How is the manager doing? Although it’s hard to envisage a last-ditch title tilt, at long last Arsène appears to have chanced upon a more balanced looking side and if we should finally produce the consistency to finish above Spurs, I wonder if this will be sufficient to get so many of those who have lost faith in him back on side? Which players have been shining lights? For their unsung consistency, Monreal, Koscielny and BellerÃ\xadn. Yet of late it’s been the homegrown Iwobi and the bargain buy Elneny creating a spark of optimism. Which players have left you unimpressed? Theo Walcott is an extremely likeable lad but most Gooners have lost patience. There’s also great disappointment that Ramsey and Sánchez have failed to reproduce their feats from last term. Where do you think your team will finish? Second looks to be the most feasible limit of our ambitions, but all that really matters now is finishing above our increasingly noisy neighbours. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Arsenal, Spurs, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Watford H 9 Apr West Ham A 17 Apr C Palace H 21 Apr West Brom H 24 Apr Sunderland A 30 Apr Norwich H 7 May Man City A 15 May Aston Villa H Bernard Azulay, goonersdiary.co.uk, @GoonersDiary ASTON VILLA Mood among fans? It has switched from fury to apathy to mild optimism about what a new, promotion-specialist manager could do over the next two years. The new boardroom broom has started well (only Garde to go), but the choice of new boss is the biggest test. My sense is that Moyes is the preferred choice with Pearson, Pulis and Rodgers in the “they’ll doâ€\x9d camp. The alleged deep football thinkers will doubtless baulk at the unoriginality, but pragmatism is required. Manager? Hopefully it will be a caretaker by the time this is printed … Sadly, Garde never gave any sign of possessing the coaching ability, the tactical nous or the mental toughness required. Goodbye rather than au revoir. Shining lights? Gueye has improved since it became clear he needed a new club. That the rest haven’t shows they were hopeless in the first place and not simply shirking. Ayew is our best player by far. Unimpressed? Guzan is an easy target and has lost his confidence. If Richards was as good as he thinks he is, we’d have stayed up. His inane, self-publicising social media ramblings are nearly in Lescott’s class. That Garde picks the same team every week suggests that the Under-21s are useless as well. Finish? Adrift at the bottom Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Newcastle, Norwich, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Chelsea H 9 Apr Bournemouth H 16 Apr Man Utd A 23 Apr Southampton H 30 Apr Watford A 7 May Newcastle H 15 May Arsenal A Jonathan Pritchard, reader BOURNEMOUTH Mood among fans? It’s been thrilling. AFC Bournemouth fans are already celebrating and starting to wonder just how high the team can finish now. Manager? Eddie Howe is becoming one of the most talked about managers. I hope Roy Hodgson has a good Euro 2016 as we don’t want to lose Eddie. I can’t see Eddie Howe leaving AFC Bournemouth for another Premier League club. It would just not sit easy with him. Shining lights? They are all stars, to be honest, but the return of Max Gradel was significant and the most consistent player has been Charlie Daniels. Unimpressed? I suppose I find Glenn Murray’s signing a strange one. While he has scored a few goals he does not really fit into the way the team plays. I can’t knock his effort, though. Finish? Pre-season I said 14th, so I guess I should stick with that. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Man City H 9 Apr Aston Villa A 17 Apr Liverpool H 23 Apr Chelsea H 30 Apr Everton A 7 May West Brom H 15 May Man Utd A Peter Bell, AFCBchimes.blogspot.co.uk CHELSEA Mood among fans? The mood has been one of resignation for most of the season. There was a mild flirtation with anger, but to be honest May just can’t come quick enough for us. Manager? Hiddink Mk 2 isn’t half as effective as Hiddink Mk 1. He seems to set up teams to not lose rather than win. The football is dull and the points haul isn’t much better than the beginning of the season under Mourinho. The players know that he’s not the one they need to impress. Shining lights? No “sâ€\x9d required. It’s singular. Willian is the only player who can hold his head up high – the rest of them have tipped the scale anywhere between “averageâ€\x9d to “are you actually a professional footballer?â€\x9d Unimpressed? How much space is there? Courtois – from most sought-after young keeper in the world to a shadow of his former self. Oscar – with so many body-parts missing I’m not sure how he even takes to the field: no heart, no spine, no guts, no left leg, need I go on? Hazard – call Mulder and Scully, there appears to have been an invasion of the body snatchers. Matic – where to start? From a ruthless machine (José called him a “monsterâ€\x9d) to midfield dead-weight. Need I go on? Finish? About 11th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester (please), Tottenham, Man City, Arsenal Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Aston Villa A 9 Apr Swansea City A 16 Apr Man City H 23 Apr Bournemouth A 2 May Tottenham H 7 May Sunderland A 11 May Liverpool A 15 May Leicester H Trizia Fiorellino, ChelseaSupportersGroup.net CRYSTAL PALACE Mood among fans? We are in the fourth FA Cup semi-final in our history and seven points clear of relegation with eight games left. And yet, we have not won in the league since 19 December, have the worst league record in the top four divisions in 2016 and have equalled our worst run of home defeats in our history (six). The fans are looking forward to Wembley, but opinions on Alan Pardew are becoming split. A win against Norwich on 9 April is a must to put any fears of relegation to bed. Manager? You can see that the pressure is getting to Pardew now and his outburst against Jamie Carragher in his recent programme notes was telling. He has no excuse with injuries now as Wickham and McArthur apart we have a fully fit squad. There seems to be no plan B to stop this disastrous run. Even if we stay up the fear is we will tailspin straight into the next campaign. Shining lights? Wilfried Zaha continues to deliver and Bolasie is starting to get back towards his pre-injury form. Wickham had a hit a brilliant level of form but then got injured, which sums up Palace’s season. Unimpressed? Pape Souaré’s form has taken an alarming dip. Adebayor has impressed in fits and starts, but is not getting much service. Cabaye’s early-season pomp has vanished. Finish? 15th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr West Ham A 9 Apr Norwich H 13 Apr Everton H 17 Apr Arsenal A 20 Apr Man United A 30 Apr Newcastle A 7 May Stoke H 15 May Southampton A Chris Waters, PalaceTrust.org.uk, @clapham_grand EVERTON Mood among fans? It’s divided with most Everton fans. Absolutely delighted to be going to Wembley for the semi-final of the FA Cup, especially after a great result against Chelsea. But disappointed to be below mid-table with only five wins at Goodison. Too many games have been lost from winning positions. Manager? I’m still with Roberto, but I’ll give him until the end of the season. He needs to learn how to hold on to winning positions. We’ve dropped too many points, especially at home. Some bad substitute decisions have lost us games. Shining lights? Without a doubt Lukaku has been outstanding, breaking records with his goalscoring. Ross Barkley has matured and added goals to his game and Aaron Lennon has surprised me with his constantly good performances, taking over from Gerard Deulofeu who was outstanding at the beginning of the season. Unimpressed? Unfortunately time has caught up with Tim Howard, but he’s been a great servant to Everton for 10 years. I’m still not convinced about Tom Cleverley, but hope he comes good. Finish? Mid-table. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Man United A 9 Apr Watford A 13 Apr C Palace A 16 Apr Southampton H 20 Apr Liverpool A 30 Apr Bournemouth H 7 May Leicester A 11 May Sunderland A 15 May Norwich H Steve Jones, BlueKipper.com, @bluekippercom LEICESTER CITY Mood among fans? Unadulterated jubilation, unsurprisingly. Perhaps, the nerves are starting to set in now we’re in the home straight but nothing can dampen our spirits at the moment. Manager? He’s the league’s best on current form. We were mocked for appointing Ranieri off the back of his tenure as Greece’s boss, but he’s done a sterling job for us and deserves every bit of praise going. Shining lights? Obviously Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy are the stand-out players but I’m vehement in my belief that N’Golo Kanté has been the club’s best player this term. His consistency defies belief. However, the whole squad has virtually been at the top of their game all season; Morgan and Drinkwater deserve plaudits for their marked improvements this year. Unimpressed? It’s hard to single any one player out. Ulloa has not played as well as he did last season but he’s still contributing with crucial goals here and there. Gökhan Inler has come in for some criticism too but given his lack of opportunity to break in to such an imperious midfield, I wouldn’t say I’m “unimpressedâ€\x9d by him. Finish? I have resisted the urge to predict our final position for a long, long time but last Saturday’s win at Crystal Palace felt pivotal. Champions. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Norwich, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Southampton H 10 Apr Sunderland A 17 Apr West Ham H 24 Apr Swansea H 1 May Man Utd A 7 May Everton H 15 May Chelsea A Chris Whiting, @ChrisRWhiting LIVERPOOL Mood among fans? We got to a final and lost but that didn’t ruin the day. We make the Europa League quarter-finals then three days later throw away a 2-0 lead against Southampton to lose 3-2. We could win the Europa League, we could win every game to the end of the season and just as easily lose them all and get no further in Europe. We’re kind of all over the place, but that’s OK as there’s a real feeling of optimism. Also still reeling over the success of Spirit of Shankly and other fan groups in getting our owners to capitulate and the Premier League fat cats to agree a £30 cap for next season’s away games. Manager? Klopp is a good fit for us and has united the fans. A big personality, he takes the heat off the team, doesn’t deflect from defeat and takes no personal praise from a victory. Never ingratiating, often entertaining and no fake tan. Shining lights? Firmino. Can has improved dramatically the past couple of months, and Coutinho. Lucas has been immense. Unimpressed? Those who hide, those who think they’re better than they are, those who mess up time and again. Finish? 6th Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Sunderland, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Tottenham H 10 Apr Stoke H 17 Apr Bournemouth A 20 Apr Everton H 23 Apr Newcastle H 30 Apr Swansea A 7 May Watford H 11 May Chelsea H 15 May West Brom A Steph Jones, reader MANCHESTER CITY Mood among fans? Despondent. Despite our good form in the cups, our league form has been woeful – we haven’t won back-to-back matches since October and have managed 36 points from our past 25 league games. The club should be embarrassed given its resources. The mood took a further hit with the decision to charge up to £60 a ticket for the Champions League quarter-final with PSG. Ticket-pricing is, rightly, coming in for a lot of criticism. Manager? Struggled this season. Despite the successes of his first campaign, ultimately, the team has regressed. I like Pellegrini as a man but it’s stale football under stale management. The decision to announce Pep Guardiola’s arrival on 1 February has evidently backfired too, as there’s a real possibility of the Europa League next season. Shining lights? Bacary Sagna, Fernandinho and Joe Hart have been excellent. Coincidentally, they’re also our top three appearance-makers this season. Kelechi Iheanacho is an absolute star in the making. Unimpressed? MartÃ\xadn Demichelis has been excruciatingly bad at times, but he’s not really to blame, the club should have let him go in the summer and retained Jason Denayer. Wilfried Bony has been dreadful. Finish? 4th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Norwich, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Bournemouth A 9 Apr West Brom H 16 Apr Chelsea A 19 Apr Newcastle A 24 Apr Stoke H 1 May Southampton A 7 May Arsenal H 15 May Swansea A Lloyd Scragg, mcfcwatch.com, @Lloyd_Scragg MANCHESTER UNITED Mood among fans? It’s been a poor season, we haven’t created enough chances, not scored enough goals and the football has been turgid. The facts on this are undeniable. We expected improvement but instead we’re worse this season than we were last. However, Louis van Gaal can still lead us to a top-four position and a trip to Wembley - though both are far from a given. Manager? He has an immense pedigree and is well-liked but unfortunately has failed to meet expectations. He has been handicapped by a dreadful run of injuries but poor performances, particularly mid-season, the awful exit from the Champions League, the inability to beat a poor Liverpool side over two legs in the Europa League and the continuing erratic results in the league probably mean he won’t be in charge come August. Shining lights? David de Gea continues to perform to the highest standards. Anthony Martial is a wonderful talent and hopefully will become a United legend, and the introduction of Marcus Rashford has given us something to look forward to. Unimpressed? Memphis Depay has been a constant source of disappointment. Matteo Darmian is erratic and unreliable. The appearance of Marouane Fellaini in a United shirt continues to baffle. Finish? We’ll just squeeze fourth. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Everton H 10 Apr Tottenham A 16 Apr Aston Villa H 20 Apr Crystal Palace H 1 May Leicester H 7 May Norwich A 10 May West Ham A 15 May Bournemouth H Shaun O’Donnell, reader',
 'Bank of Cyprus to list on London Stock Exchange Bank of Cyprus is to list on the London Stock Exchange and expand in the UK, in the latest sign of its path towards rehabilitation since savers were forced to take losses to pump billions of euros into its bailout three years ago. Under John Hourican, a former senior executive at Royal Bank of Scotland who left during the Libor rigging crisis, Bank of Cyprus has undergone a radical restructuring and repaid all but €800m (£690m) of €11.4bn emergency liquidity assistance used to keep it afloat at the peak of the island’s economic meltdown. The Mediterranean island was at the heart of the eurozone crisis in 2013 when a rescue deal for Bank of Cyprus – its biggest lender – was a key part of measures need to keep the country inside the single currency area. Laiki, or Cyprus Popular Bank, was closed and its smaller depositors placed in Bank of Cyprus, which in turn imposed losses on savers holding deposits more than €100,000, many of whom were said to be Russian. It was first bank in the eurozone to take a slice of customers’ savings as part of the international €10bn bailout of the island to avoid recourse to taxpayers. Hourican, who is Irish, tried to leave last year but was convinced to stay on by veteran banker Josef Ackermann, who became chairman of Bank of Cyprus in 2014 when it received a capital injection from a group international investors led by private equity billionaire Wilbur Ross. Ackermann is a former chief executive of Deutsche Bank, itself mired in financial difficulties. An attempt at a London listing is a high-profile move for Hourican, who told parliamentarians after the RBS £290m Libor fine that he had told colleagues “they should not waste my deathâ€\x9d and clean up the culture of the bank. He was described by Andrew Tyrie MP as a “human shieldâ€\x9d for others at RBS. Hourican has sold off Bank of Cyprus’s Russian arm and scaled back its other international operations but intends to expand in the UK, where there already four branches. The aim is to target the professional buy-to-let market and small business customers, entrepreneurs and Cypriots living in the UK. The London-based arm is covered by the UK deposit scheme, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which covers the first £75,000 of savings. To facilitate the listing in London – through which Bank of Cyprus does not intend to raise fresh funds – a holding company will be set up in Ireland so that it meets the standards to allow it to be included in the FTSE series of stock market indices. It will remain listed in Cyprus but delist from Athens. At the time of the bank’s half-year results in August, Hourican described in a Bloomberg interview how the bank and the country had experienced a “significant cardiac arrestâ€\x9d when he took over. As the bank reported €120m on pre-tax profits for the first nine months of 2016, Hourican said customer deposits had increased 10%. “We remain focused on operating as an accelerator for growth in the real Cypriot economy,â€\x9d he said.',
 'Too many tweets during work hours make my boss a twit – but how to tell him? Twice a week we publish problems that will feature in a forthcoming Dear Jeremy advice column in the Saturday so that readers can offer their own advice and suggestions. We then print the best of your comments alongside Jeremy’s own insights. Here is the latest dilemma – what are your thoughts? I work as part of a five-strong close-knit design team for a large media/graphic design company. We have some well-known, high-profile clients. As part of what we do – essentially coming up with bright ideas – we have to bounce those ideas off one another on a daily basis and it is a joint effort. Any change in that dynamic would make our work virtually impossible. The problem is … our team leader. We regard him as management in that he sorts rotas and is in charge, so we don’t engage that personally with him. But he is very much part of the team when it comes to thinking up those bright ideas. All we know of his personal life is from social media. He details every tick and comma on Facebook and Twitter (although he has made it plain to us that going on to social media at work is a no-no!). We know when he’s been for a coffee, had the painters in, what the patio is looking like, how the grass is growing, if his football team has scored and if the cat’s had a funny turn. OK over a pint in the pub: but it is all getting too close to work for comfort. First we’ve had the Twitter digs obviously aimed at us. He seems oblivious that we’re reading them but most crucially we fear some of our clients might be, too. It could reflect very badly that a member of staff is dissing the company in public. To rub salt into our wounds, we see from the timings of the tweets that he sent them in office hours. It’s become so worrying we’re on edge day to day, wondering what’s going to be tweeted next. But we just don’t know how to approach it. Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.',
 'Harry Rabinowitz obituary For half a century the orchestral conductor and composer Harry Rabinowitz, who has died aged 100, played a key role in the British broadcasting and film industries. He was in charge of popular and light music for both the BBC and London Weekend Television and conducted the music for more than 60 films. Rabinowitz often said that he never wished to “waste his colleagues’ timeâ€\x9d and was opposed to over-rehearsing. Although he was highly professional, he was not a dictatorial conductor, telling an interviewer that “in almost all the sessions I’ve conducted, the musicians have left smilingâ€\x9d. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Israel and Eva, he went to Athlone high school and the University of the Witwatersrand, where he studied the piano and composition. He was fired from his first job, as a jewellery salesman, after only one day and next found work demonstrating new songs to customers in the sheet music department of a Johannesburg store. Following a period in the South African army during the second world war, he conducted the orchestra for the musical Strike a New Note before travelling to London in 1946 to take up a place on the conducting course at the Guildhall School of Music. With the help of the actor and comedian Sid James, a fellow South African, Rabinowitz found his feet in the British music business. He played the piano for the popular BBC radio show Variety Band- box and was a session musician at EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios. His conducting career began in earnest when he was hired to work on the musical Golden City in 1950. Written by Philip Tore, the show was set in the South African gold rush of 1886. This led to work at seasonal ice shows at the Empress Hall in Earl’s Court, London, and, in 1953, as musical director of the London production of Lerner and Loewe’s Broadway hit Paint Your Wagon. Next, Rabinowitz was offered a contract to conduct the BBC Revue Orchestra. This was a house band of the Light Programme and could be heard on such shows as Variety Playhouse, Henry Hall’s Guest Night and the Jimmy Edwards comedy series Take It From Here. He could also be heard as a pianist on Midday Music Hall and Piano Playtime. In 1960, Rabinowitz was appointed music director of BBC TV light entertainment, at a time when variety and comedy shows requiring orchestral accompaniment dominated the schedules. In addition to conducting the orchestra for the Val Doonican Show, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Not Only... But Also and many others, he composed music for The Frost Report (1966). Rabinowitz then moved to a similar post at the newly established London Weekend Television (1968-77). There he worked on Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and Black Beauty (1972). His theme music for Love for Lydia (1977) was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. By now, his reputation as a conductor and arranger of popular and light music was sufficiently high for him to pursue a freelance career in theatre, films and broadcasting, where he went on to compose music for the TV series the Agatha Christie Hour (1982) and Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983). In the theatre, Rabinowitz conducted the orchestra at the premiere of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and TS Eliot musical Cats (1981) and Don Black and Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance the following year. He was in even greater demand to work in films, in one year (1991) recording music for nine movies. His cinema credits included Chariots of Fire (1981), The Remains of the Day (1993), Howards End (1992), The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). His final film score assignment, at the age of 87, was Cold Mountain (2003). Rabinowitz’s renown as a conductor of film and light music spread to the US and led to seven seasons’ work as guest conductor with the Boston Pops Orchestra, beginning in 1985. He also appeared at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1980s, as well as occasional concerts with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. In 1996, he conducted a concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, of music from the films of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. He was appointed MBE in 1977 and in 1985 received the Gold Badge of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Last year Rabinowitz became one of the oldest guests on Desert Island Discs at the age of 99, choosing a pitch pipe as his luxury item. In recent years, Rabinowitz divided his time between Provence and Portland, Oregon, the home town of his second wife, Mitzi Scott, whom he married in 2001. She survives him, as do three children, Karen, Simon and Lisa, from his first marriage, to Lorna Anderson, which ended in divorce, and four grandchildren. • Harry Rabinowitz, conductor and composer, born 26 March 1916; died 22 June 2016 • This article was amended on 24 June 2016. Harry Rabinowitz died on 22 June, not 21 June, as originally stated. His children are Karen, Simon and Lisa, rather than Karen, Simon and Oliver.',
 "The Comedian's Guide to Survival review – heard the one about the unfunny standup? This British effort about men’s magazine journalist James Mullinger (James Buckley from The Inbetweeners) who wants to be a standup comic at least deserves some credit for daring to make it hard for itself. After all, how does one make a comedy with a protagonist whose defining feature is that he’s not very funny? Director Mark Murphy, working with a semi-autobiographical script by him and journo-turned-joker James Mullinger, tries to solve the problem by surrounding his lead with proper comedians whom James meets or interviews about the secrets of standup. Omid Djalili, Jimmy Carr, and Gilbert Gottfried consequently all play either themselves or variations thereof, while Paul Kaye and Vas Blackwood take on more substantial roles as the lead character’s magazine-editor boss and a famous success story, respectively. Unfortunately, the gambit only works up to a certain point, since clearly no one is using their best material, and Lord knows the lead character’s patter, about standup sex toys at garage sales and how horrible his boss is, represents an embarrassment. Please, don’t stand up on our account.",
 'Louis van Gaal: Manchester United fans were right to boo at Southampton loss Louis van Gaal admitted Manchester United’s fans were right to boo him during Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat to Southampton in the first sign of open revolt since the Dutchman arrived as manager at Old Trafford but refused to say whether he fears for his job. Charlie Austin’s 87th-minute header on his debut for the visitors consigned United to a first defeat in six games. It widened the gap to Tottenham Hotspur in fourth place to five points after the London club’s 3-1 win at Crystal Palace. It also posed questions about Van Gaal’s position. “I cannot answer. It is not for me to answer these kinds of questions,â€\x9d said Van Gaal. Supporters jeered the side during another insipid United display. At the final whistle they booed Van Gaal loudly as he walked to the tunnel. “You cannot say that they [fans] are not right,â€\x9d he said. “They are right and of course they are disappointed and they have the right to boo me. You know it was not good today. It was a poor game and we could not create chances and our opponent also had a few chances. So it’s more or less a 0-0 game. But at the end we have lost.â€\x9d Asked if this was the poorest display of a tenure that began in summer 2014, Van Gaal said: “I don’t know but it was a poor performance because football is not only defending but also creating chances and we didn’t create any chances. Our opponent denied that so it was a poor game for the fans. I can imagine that.I am disappointed but I have to think and already I put the question how I can change this because we have to change this. That is my job and it is not an easy job at the moment. Nevertheless we have won three times in 2016 and a draw so very good results in January – but we could not show it in this game. I did not see that confidence today.â€\x9d Van Gaal does not believe the transfer window can change things. “One player cannot change everything. Sometimes it looks like it but it is always the process of team-building what makes a team stronger but sometimes one individual can give the first stimulus for that process but it is not so easy as you say or ask.â€\x9d Matteo Darmian became the latest defender to be ruled out when suffering a suspected injured rib in the second half. Van Gaal said: “He was spitting blood on the pitch so he has already gone to the hospital and we have to wait and see what happens. That is the fifth full-back who has been injured so that is what I have to do also to make solutions to solve the problems. Probably one rib and also the chest is something wrong but we have to wait and see.â€\x9d',
 'I’m getting over my post-Brexit meltdown For me, the first sign of recovery from post-Brexit shock was the sudden and unexpected return of my sense of humour and perspective. It started when I progressed to not feeling quite such an urge to plead with people to sign endless online petitions, which, at any rate, were becoming so numerous that they were in grave danger of outnumbering the 48% of Remainers who were signing them. My petition Tourette’s under control, it was time to slap my own face several times to get rid of any lingering “dual nationalityâ€\x9d fantasies. My insomnia has improved too – I only wake to see Boris Johnson’s face appearing in the pattern on the bedroom curtains a few times a night now. Sadly, the nocturnal visions of a tiny, capering Nigel Farage are still going strong… Some of the above – endless petitions, insomnia– you might have experienced yourself, while other parts – visions of Farage and Johnson – with luck, you haven’t. Fact is, I crumbled post-Brexit. While others got to work (a magazine called the New European was created and published within a week), I came to typify the archetypal, foot-stamping, ineffectual Remain casualty, a veritable Violet Elizabeth Bott of the handwringing liberal echo chamber. I have no excuse for this. I suppose it was just the shock of feeling that I’d gone to sleep in one country and woken up in another. All those signifiers, big and small, that something important had been broken and something ugly was gaining strength got to me. Marine Le Pen gloating at the result. The 3,000 new hate crimes in England and Wales. The pound plummeting like a reckless tombstoner – you’ve all seen the news. Now that the “liberal panicâ€\x9d is settling, the Leave camp has some explaining to do – if we could find any of them. They’ve been vanishing one by one, as though in some surreal Agatha Christie whodunnit (from what I can make out, Liz Hurley is in charge now). Has anyone concocted a Leave plan yet or is it still: “We’re taking our country back – and fingers crossed we can be Norwayâ€\x9d? The only point I’ve seen Leavers make with any fervour is that Remainers should stop being “sore losersâ€\x9d and accept democracy. Would that be the same kind of “sore loserâ€\x9d that Farage said he’d be if Leave lost by a similar minuscule margin? Is democracy now defined by the many Leave voters regretting their “protest voteâ€\x9d, realising that they were lied to by squabbling politicians? Despite everything, I refuse to believe that the provincial working class, the kind of people I grew up among, are either stupid or racist. Not only were Leave voters brazenly (unlawfully) lied to, they were also abandoned to their fate by an opposition party that should have been robustly campaigning and informing, rather than what amounted to strategic ineffectiveness. The same Labour party that is led by a man who at best comes across as a sparkly eyed competition winner who can’t quite believe all the attention he’s getting (and doesn’t look like volunteering to return to backbench obscurity just yet). Shame on Jeremy Corbyn for enabling this shoddy, contaminated Brexit – for me, this amounts to yet another last straw. Indeed, embarrassed though I am by my post-Brexit meltdown, I feel positively chipper now, so much so that, like many others I’ve spoken to, I’m considering giving my vote, perhaps even membership fees, to the party (Liberal Democrats?) most committed to finding a way out of this mess. Looking back on this tumultuous fortnight, I can’t help but feel that people like me might not have felt so “lostâ€\x9d had we believed that our views were being politically represented. Less bull about Pamplona’s bull run, please Five people were gored during the yearly running of the bulls at Pamplona’s San Fermin festival. Please forgive me, but, just for a split second, a part of me thought: “Good.â€\x9d Of course it isn’t good (may the injured make swift recoveries). However, the Pamplona bull run is a cruel, disgusting custom that deeply shames its host nation every year. Popularised by Ernest Hemingway, it’s become a test of machismo for men who ironically seem too dumb to have read The Sun Also Rises. Others blather about tradition, but who has the patience for tradition where animal cruelty is concerned? Britain used to have bearbaiting and cockfighting. Anyone fancy getting those charming, folksy pastimes back? A good rule of thumb with such matters is to ask: if a particular custom had completely died out, would a revival be permitted? If the answer is no, then why in any humane world should it continue? At a time when it’s rumoured that foxhunting may be about to make a reappearance on the British political agenda, it seems important to know exactly where you stand on bloodsports and the “traditionsâ€\x9d that excuse them. Three-fifths of Girl Power? No thanks Emboldened by their 20th anniversary, the Spice Girls are planning another reunion jaunt. However, it looks as though they might be missing Mel Chisholm (undecided) and Victoria Beckham (very decided… against). Hence they’re said to be toying with the new name Gem, representing the initials of the remaining trio, Geri (Halliwell), Emma (Bunton) and Melanie (Brown). I would strongly advise against this. First, a change of moniker is unnecessary as many acts have re-formed with key personnel missing, as evidenced by the myriad ugly squabbles over rights to band names. Out of friendship, loyalty and decency (and perhaps just a teeny weeny bit of sheer boredom, laced with icy contempt), neither Beckham nor Chisholm seems interested in fighting the trio over the use of the name, so what’s the point of changing it? As the depleted Spice Girls (possible tagline for posters: “At least one less with her microphone turned off by a discreet roadie!â€\x9d), the band could at least hope to make a packet on the thriving retro-music circuit, and good luck to them. As Gem, with the same personnel, I’m not so sure. I even feel slightly afraid for them. As the Spice Girls, there’s exciting talk of a huge show in Hyde Park; as Gem, I’m envisioning tragic, increasingly desperate personal appearances, say, outside branches of Morrisons, with staff handing around paper plates of pork pies with union jack skewers in them (to echo Geri’s famous dress) or, worse, some microwaved congealing Pop-Tarts (geddit?). This is the sort of thing that happens when a strong brand doesn’t recognise its own value and inevitability. If the remaining Spices aren’t careful, they could end up being wannabes to their own legacy.',
 'An NHS tax? Osborne won’t like it, but the public will The NHS is one of our most cherished institutions. The Commonwealth Fund, a private American foundation that supports independent research on health, judged it to be overall the best, and easily the best value for money, of any national system of healthcare. Yet today it faces an existential crisis. Hospitals are running up huge deficits and their financial situation is deteriorating rapidly. A shortage of doctors has forced over a hundred GP surgeries to apply for the right to stop accepting patients. Morale among junior doctors is so low that they not only went on strike but many now feel they have to emigrate. As Polly Toynbee demonstrated in Tuesday’s , the NHS will need a large injection of new cash to make up for the gross neglect of mental health. Lack of cash lies at the heart of the NHS crisis, and the fundamental reason is that its costs rise much faster than the growth of GDP (or national income). We live longer, and the older we get the more medical care we need. New expensive drugs and surgical procedures cure diseases that were incurable before. And, making things worse, these extra costs have to be met at a time when George Osborne’s declared strategy is to shrink the state and eliminate the national deficit by 2020. Social services, which play an essential role in providing healthcare, have already suffered grievously from cuts and are facing more. In fact instead of increasing as a proportion of GDP, the share of expenditure on health and social care is actually declining. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, it will decline from 6.1% in 2014/2025 to 5.4% in 2020/2021, as revealed by the Treasury’s own autumn spending review. What can we do to save the NHS? Either spending will have to be drastically increased, or costs drastically cut, or there will have to be further reorganisation, perhaps a mixture of all three. Norman Lamb MP, the former Liberal Democrat health minister, recently introduced a 10-minute rule motion in the House of Commons to set up an independent commission on the future of health and social care – a kind of modern Beveridge commission. He is supported by two former secretaries of state for health – the Conservative Stephen Dorrell and Labour’s Alan Milburn, and by MPs from all three parties. Much as the commission is urgently needed, it will, unfortunately, take time to report. However, one crucially important part of Lamb’s proposal could be implemented by next year. It is to convert national insurance contributions (NICs) into a separate, progressive, hypothecated tax, earmarked solely for funding both health and social care, which cannot be treated separately. Unblocking the misuse of hospital beds, for instance, cannot be achieved without a joint approach. NICs no longer serve a useful purpose. Originally they were introduced to pay for the cost of health and pensions. Instead, they have become part of the government’s general revenue, but they still survive as a separate, inefficient, retrogressive tax on jobs, which increases both business costs and unemployment. Whatever happens, they should be scrapped. However, the Treasury is strongly opposed to hypothecated taxes. General taxation, it is argued, is more efficient because it involves fewer transaction costs and is collected from the largest possible base. It is also claimed that hypothecation ties the Treasury’s hands because it hampers the most efficient allocation of public funds to where they are most needed or give best value for money. It has also been suggested that a hypothecated health tax would alter behaviour: “We have paid for this service. We must get everything out of it we can.â€\x9d Some of these arguments are not without merit. But in my view they are vastly outweighed by the special regard people have for the NHS. We are more willing, or much less unwilling, to pay for what we greatly value. Many people resent paying taxes because they don’t like government policy, or some particular policies (spending on Trident, for instance, or what are perceived as excessive welfare benefits or bureaucratic waste). But a tax for a popular public service overcomes this objection. The most effective slogan of any recent Liberal Democrat election campaign was “An extra penny on income tax for educationâ€\x9d. The TV licence fee is a hypothecated tax. A poll commissioned by the BBC found that the licence fee was easily the least unpopular way of paying for the BBC. The great American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society.â€\x9d A special health and social care tax could not be a better example.',
 'Pop culture is now a rich kids’ playground To John Harris’s misgivings about the affordability of pop culture (Pop music was a great leveller, 16 November) might be added misgivings about who’s making it. The children of the rich are increasingly dominating the popular arts. The writers of the popular culture explosion of the late 50s and 60s came from the backgrounds that they wrote about, and its musicians, photographers and stylists grew up with one foot in the street and the other in art school. Even grammar school products like Mick Jagger were a bit of a rarity. If this continues, we will end up with a fossilised popular arts scene dominated in drama by modern-day Cowards and Rattigans, and in music without the periodic kick-starts provided by the Beatles and punk. David Redshaw Gravesend, Kent • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters',
 "Senior bitcoin developer says currency 'failed experiment' A senior bitcoin developer has declared the cryptocurrency a failed experiment, blaming the end of the currency on the refusal of the community to adopt new standards which would allow it to grow consistently while maintaining stability. Mike Hearn, a longtime senior developer on bitcoin and the former chair of the bitcoin foundation’s law and policy committee, announced in a blogpost that he would be selling his coins and quitting development on the project. “Despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly,â€\x9d he wrote. Hearn’s objections to the current state of bitcoin are varied and frequently technical in nature, but at heart there are two failures: the section of the bitcoin community with power over the future of the currency is overly centralised and overly resistant to change. Hearn writes that: “What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked ‘systemically important institutions’ and ‘too big to fail’ has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people.â€\x9d There are two important bottlenecks in bitcoin’s organisational structure: the developers and the miners. The former group are those people with the authority to make changes to the released version of bitcoin (the “coreâ€\x9d). Although bitcoin is open source software, meaning anyone is free to use it or tweak it into a new system, there is still only one official release of it. Anyone can propose changes to that release, but only five people have the authority to actually put those changes into the released version – and those five have been hopelessly split for the past six months about how to deal with bitcoin’s capacity problems as it grows. The split has become so bad that Gavin Andresen, the most senior of the developers, paired with Hearn in August to attempt to launch a “hard forkâ€\x9d of bitcoin, which would use the same basic code but fix some of the capacity constraints. That launch merely exacerbated the split, however, with people who supported the new version (dubbed bitcoin XT) being blacklisted by the supporters of the old version. But the main reason why XT never took off was the failure of the other major bottleneck: the miners. Bitcoin is supposed to be a decentralised currency. Anyone can download the entire history of bitcoin transactions, and devote computing power to verifying future transactions (called mining). For a change such as the switch to XT to succeed, more than half of the computing power on the bitcoin network has to support it by updating their own software accordingly. But very few people bother to mine for bitcoin. It’s expensive in terms of computer hardware, time and electricity so it is very difficult to beat professionally equipped outlets in the race for rewards. Those amateurs who do mine largely do so as part of pools, who share both computing power and rewards. Those pools, however, are also centrally controlled. As a result, Hearn points out, just two individuals control more than 50% of the power of the network. He adds that “over 95% of hashing power was controlled by a handful of guys sitting on a single stageâ€\x9d at a recent bitcoin conference. For their own reasons, the miners, who are largely based in China, are reluctant to switch to a competing implementation of bitcoin, or push for changes. As a result, Hearn writes, bitcoin is seeing ever greater congestion in the network, which it is unable to cope with in its present form. And the institutional failure to accept changes means that confidence in the currency is declining. “The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwardsâ€\x9d, Hearn writes.",
 'Openreach decision is an upgrade for all – as long as Ofcom gets sums right Has Sharon White at Ofcom flunked it by declining to order an immediate breakup of BT? No. The argument for liberating Openreach – as advocated by Sky, Vodafone and TalkTalk – was always too full of wishful thinking. There are many reasons to bemoan BT’s performance in broadband but abolishing one monopoly supplier to create another monopoly supplier would have achieved little in itself. An independent Openreach, loaded with a chunk of pension liabilities, might have chosen to sweat its old copper assets just as intensely as critics say BT does. Competition would not have been advanced one jot. Even more heavier-handed regulation might have been required to improve the UK’s broadband infrastructure. White is sensibly retaining the breakup option and thus waving a weapon at BT chief executive Gavin Patterson to discourage foot-dragging. But, for now, the focus is on encouraging rivals to invest in competing fibre cables while injecting accountability into Openreach. It is a good, pragmatic choice. First, BT will have to allow rivals to build their own fibre networks by opening up Openreach’s underground cable ducts and telegraph poles. Second, there will be heavier fines if Openreach misses service standards. Third, Openreach will have an independent board. The opening up of the infrastructure is the most important innovation. BT reacted by shrugging its shoulders and saying rivals have had that right since 2009 and few have bothered to use it. Ofcom counters that life will be different in future: fibre enthusiasts will enjoy easy access and lower costs and be allowed to make decent returns. Much depends on the regulator getting its sums right. But, if it has, there is the chance of a proper contest, to the benefit of consumers. Sky will no longer have to grumble that BT is wedding everyone to a “slow laneâ€\x9d copper-based future. It will be able to exploit its rival’s lack of vision by betting on ultrafast fibre and scooping the winnings. Go for it. Ofcom’s other two main prescriptions for Openreach will have to pass a real-world test. Penalties advertised as “substantialâ€\x9d must bite. And the new arm’s-length governance set-up – a separate board and investment budget – must avoid the endless wrangling seen in the banking sector over ringfencing. But Ofcom’s basic thinking is correct. More competition for Openreach, not a messy divorce from BT, sounds a quicker way to upgrade the country’s broadband. Paying dividend pays dividend for Lloyds bosses It’s easy to look pretty in today’s banking sector. All you have to do, it seems, is pay a dividend that investors can believe in. It worked for Lloyds Banking Group on Thursday as a £2bn distribution to shareholders was greeted with a 13% surge in the share price. The market’s excitement was odd because Lloyds did little more than it had previously pledged on dividends. Perhaps investors were worried that the Bank of England, at the 11th hour and amid the Brexit brouhaha, would insist that more capital should be retained. As it is, Lloyds’ 2.25p-a-share ordinary dividend (ignoring the 0.5p special) offers a yield of 3.2%. Not bad by recent standards, but there was nothing in Lloyds’ actual trading figures for 2015 to indicate old-fashioned growth. Pre-tax profits actually fell 7% to £1.64bn, dragged down by yet another thumping provision for mis-selling payment protection insurance. Net income was virtually flat. And boss António Horta-Osório said he won’t achieve his desired cost-to-income ratio until the end of 2019, about two years later than planned. One of the culprits for the latter was “the lower for longer interest rate environmentâ€\x9d. That’s not going away soon. PPI provisions will, Lloyds hopes, but the lending climate in the UK looks downright dull. Even at Lloyds’ preferred “underlyingâ€\x9d level – in other words, ignoring the nasties – profits were only up 5% to £8.1bn. That was in a good year for the UK economy; the weather could turn rougher. On the bright side, there are worse prospects than dull market leadership, especially when it is endorsed by a disgracefully tame competition regulator. The alternative investment choices for bank investors are litigation hell (HSBC), investment banking befuddlement (Barclays) or a bag of uncertainties (Royal Bank of Scotland). There is a separate question of whether Horta-Osório and colleagues, now that they have taken Lloyds out of the emergency ward, still need to be paid danger money. The long-term incentive plan for 2016 awards £20m-worth of shares to 11 individuals. That is more than generous given the rewards already reaped.',
 'Ted Cruz wins Jeb Bush endorsement as Republicans seek to stop Trump The Republican party establishment seized on Ted Cruz’s convincing victory in Utah on Wednesday, as Jeb Bush endorsed the Texas senator and rallied other conservatives around the hope, however slim, that he could stop Donald Trump. Cruz won an overwhelming majority in Mormon-heavy Utah on Tuesday, easily exceeding the 50% threshold that, under the state’s rules, secured him all 40 delegates. “To win, Republicans need to make this election about proposing solutions to the many challenges we face, and I believe that we should vote for Ted as he will do just that,â€\x9d Bush said in a statement. There was a strong dose of wishful thinking, however, in the endorsement from the former governor of Florida, a candidate who dropped out of the presidential race after a string of disastrous performances. Trump secured the largest delegate prize of Tuesday – the winner-takes-all state of Arizona – with 47% of the vote to Cruz’s 45%, in a state that is far larger and more representative of the wider country than Utah, which is dominated by a largely white and Mormon population. The billionaire frontrunner remains comfortably on track to finish the Republican race with the most delegates, which would give him a mandate for the nomination, even if he falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to win outright. His opponents maintain the best way to block his nomination would be to first prevent him from securing the necessary tally of delegates, and that to do so they must coalesce around an alternative candidate at a brokered convention. The Democratic results on Tuesday followed a similar pattern. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton easily defeated Bernie Sanders in delegate-rich Arizona, while the Vermont senator registered resounding victories in Utah and Idaho, the latter of which was at stake only for Democrats on Tuesday. Sanders’ victory margins in Utah and Idaho, in which he secured close to 80% of the vote, were by far the largest of the night, and are likely to energize his supporters, who maintain he still has a fighting chance of overcoming the former secretary of state. The senator is also projected to perform well in the next three Democratic states to hold contests in a few days – Alaska, Hawaii and Washington – and could end the month with a growing momentum. But Sanders’ path to the nomination remains steep, and would probably require a dramatic turnaround in the race. The state he lost, Arizona, was the more significant contest in the Democratic race both because of its larger haul of delegates, and because its demographics could foreshadow voting trends in parts of neighbouring California, which holds its primary on 7 June. The last state to vote in presidential nomination contests, California is usually an afterthought to campaigns. But this year the state’s delegate bonanza has the potential to play a decisive role in both the Democratic and Republican contests. Clinton probably has less to fear than Trump, not least because the delegates she won in primaries and caucuses are bolstered by the support of party officials, who also get a say in the nomination process, unbound by state results, as so-called superdelegates. They won’t say it publicly, but Clinton’s top campaign officials are privately confident that on the current trajectory, Sanders will face intense pressure to pull out of the race before the July convention so that Clinton can turn to attacking her Republican opponent. At her victory speech in Seattle on Tuesday, Clinton immediately positioned herself as the Democratic commander-in-chief in waiting, with a staunch critique of how her Republican rivals responded to the terrorist attacks in Brussels earlier in the day. Trump, who recently suggested the US should reconsider its role in the Nato defense alliance – a cornerstone of Washington’s foreign policy for decades – responded to the terrorist atrocity by repeating his call to waterboard terrorism suspects. On Wednesday, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that Muslim communities were “absolutely not reportingâ€\x9d terror suspects in their midst. Cruz, meanwhile, has been widely criticized for reacting to the attacks with a call for law enforcement patrols of Muslim neighborhoods. “In the face of terror, America doesn’t panic, we don’t build walls or turn our backs on our allies,â€\x9d Clinton said during her address. “We can’t throw out everything that we know about what works and what doesn’t and start torturing people.â€\x9d She added: “What Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and others are suggesting is not only wrong, it is dangerous.â€\x9d Widely disliked by his fellow senators of both parties, Cruz has mounted an improbable campaign to cast himself as the man who can unify the Republican party and defeat Trump. That push is complicated by Ohio governor John Kasich, who has remained in the race despite winning only a single state, his own. Bush’s endorsement signals a shift in the tide, and adds pressure on Kasich to withdraw. Bush said the party had to overcome “the divisiveness and vulgarityâ€\x9d perpetuated by Trump. The tenor of the race seems unlikely to change soon, if an election night Twitter squabble between Trump and Cruz is any indication. On a night when world leaders were grappling with the repercussions of terrorist bombings in Brussels, Trump and Cruz trolled one another over their wives. The businessman wrongly accused Cruz of being responsible for an ad in Utah, which used a nude photograph of Trump’s wife from a magazine shoot 15 years ago. “Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife,â€\x9d Trump wrote. Cruz responded: “Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought.â€\x9d',
 "Cruz found out how to best Trump in a debate. But it's the end of their bromance The Ted Cruz and Donald Trump love story – don’t call it a “bromanceâ€\x9d, now that Carly Fiorina’s used the word – is over. It was a short-lived and incredibly well-documented political phenomenon that began last month when Trump conspicuously held his punches against Cruz in a debate, and Cruz happily returned the favor. Conventional wisdom held that Cruz was positioning himself as Trump’s best friend. And indeed, if Trump had any intention of dropping out – or to put it in his terms, not-winning – their special relationship might well have blossomed. But it was not to be. The first sign that things had gotten rocky came last week, when Trump started loudly questioning Cruz’s eligibility to serve as president, since Cruz was born in Canada. Then, going into Thursday’s debate, perhaps the biggest question on anyone’s mind was whether Cruz would finally revise his policy of Trump appeasement and take him on. Well, the answer is in, and the two men’s love – forged of political convenience – is officially deader than Ben Affleck’s marriage. Ultimately Cruz’s betrayal was born of his instinct for political self-preservation. He went after Trump early – the moment that moderators brought up the question of his eligibility – and he did it much more skillfully and with considerably greater success than anyone else has managed to date. Asked about whether his Canadian birth disqualified him for president, the Harvard-trained lawyer drove home his legal expertise even as he questioned Trump’s motives: back in September, Cruz noted, Trump had his lawyers look at the birther question every which way and nothing came of it. “Since September, the constitution hasn’t changed,â€\x9d Cruz said. “But the poll numbers have.â€\x9d Later in the two-and-a-half-hour debate, the dissolution of their accord got even uglier when Cruz, asked to address the meaning of his previous comment that Trump has “New York valuesâ€\x9d, didn’t back off or even hedge. Cruz instead went for Trump’s throat – the soft vulnerable spot that is Trump’s association with patently liberal, elite New York. “The concept of New York values is not that complicated to figure out,â€\x9d Cruz said, adding to applause from the audience in South Carolina: “Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan, I’m just saying.â€\x9d Cruz’s response was cool-headed, exactly the sort of polished Princeton debate performance he was expected to deliver. And Trump’s counter – that conservative William F Buckley came from New York – wasn’t the strongest. Though he lacks the formal debating prowess of Cruz, Trump’s secondary attack was more adept. Instead of preying upon American’s economic anxieties or their irrational fear of Muslims and Mexicans, Trump invoked the spirit of New Yorkers after 9/11. “The people in New York fought and fought and fought,â€\x9d he said, recalling how the world “loved New York and loved New Yorkersâ€\x9d. It was a tactic that Cruz, for all his own calculated lines of attack, didn’t seem to have anticipated, and he backed off. And yet, despite the fact that it was quite possibly the weakest-looking Trump’s ever come out of a debate tussle with another candidate thus far, he didn’t miss but a beat before pivoting to patriotism and the place where he does excel like no other: pulling heart-strings and reminding Americans of the things they fear. If Cruz ended the contretemps technically ahead in the abstract realm of argumentation, he was decidedly less so in the realm of the human and intuition. Speaking from the heart doesn’t appear to come naturally to Cruz the way it does to Trump, even if it makes Cruz less susceptible to gaffes played off as bombast. Still, it was the kind of night that Cruz has reportedly been working toward, changing his debate style to be less lofty and more overtly aggressive. And there he succeeded. He may not have landed a definitive victory but he did something else: he answered the question of whether anything could ever stop Trump or even effectively counter his insults. And while Trump’s performance was certainly strong, but we may just have seen the first chink in his armor – thanks to Cruz, and the end of their super sad love story.",
 'Live music booking now There has been radio silence from artsy electropop performer Patrick Wolf since his 2012 album Sundark And Riverlight, but the man who managed to smuggle eyeshadow and sequins over the borders of indie-crazy mid-00s Camden is returning for a tour – although it’s unclear as yet whether any new material will be accompanying him (9-15 May, tour starts Lantern, Bristol) … Minneapolis band Poliça have just returned with their excellent third album, shelving moody electronica for something altogether more grown up, upbeat and, impressively, generically intangible. They’ll be touring it around the UK this autumn (14-23 Oct, tour starts Stylus, Leeds) … Having just released their second album, Not To Disappear, sensitive indie-electro-folk threesome Daughter are playing a show at Brixton Academy (27 Oct, SW9) … Ennio Morricone – film soundtrack luminary and freshly garlanded with an Oscar for his Hateful Eight score – is performing in Oxfordshire as part of the Nocturne concert series (23 Jun, Blenheim Palace). He’ll be bringing his western work as well as the Tarantino material.',
 'Deutsche Bank weighs on markets but Clinton rally limits damage - as it happened Worries about Deutsche Bank vied with an attempted rally after Hillary Clinton was deemed by many pundits to have won the first presidential debate, leaving European markets in an uncertain mood. For most of the day the concerns about the banking sector won out, but a revival in Deutache Bank itself - which ended the day unchanged - helped produce a mini-recovery. US markets did better, helped by a strong set of consumer confidence figures. And then there was the oil price, which fell sharply as the chances of a deal to curb output at this week’s producers’ meeting seemed to recede. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, said: European markets have confounded the initial enthusiasm generated off the back of the US presidential debate...This pessimistic continuation of Monday’s sharp losses says a lot about the expectations ahead of the oil-producers meeting conclusion. Today’s losses also say a lot about the wary nature of markets as we head into the business end of this election race, for we have seen before Donald Trump’s ability to defy any bumps along the way. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished down 10.37 points or 0.15% at 6807.67 Germany’s Dax dropped 0.31% to 10,361.48 France’s Cac closed down 0.21% at 4398.68 Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 0.36% to 16,134.71 Spain’s Ibex ended down 0.27% to 8688.2 In Athens the Greek market lost 0.21% to 562.40 On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 132 points or 0.7%. Meanwhile in the oil market, Brent crude is down 3.2% at $45.79 while West Texas Intermediate has lost 3.4% to $44.36. On that note, it’s time to close for the day. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, recently said there were too many banks in Europe, and now he has backing from a member of the Bundesbank: As we reported earlier, the Mexican currency bounced back from record lows in the immediate aftermath of the US presidential debate, with Hillary Clinton deemed by many to have won the day. And it could recover further, reckon Capital Economics. The consultancy’s David Rees writes: The Mexican peso appreciated by more than 2% against the US dollar shortly after the Democrat candidate, Hillary Clinton, appeared to prevail in the first US presidential debate on Monday. The fortunes of the peso in recent months have been closely tied with the likelihood that the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, will triumph in the upcoming presidential election. That is hardly surprising, given that Mr. Trump has taken a particularly bellicose stance towards Mexico. And he has repeatedly talked about pursuing more protectionist trade policies, which would be bad news for Mexico’s open and US-dependent economy. In the first instance, a victory for Mr. Trump on 8th November would probably cause the peso – and indeed most emerging market (EM) currencies – to weaken against the US dollar. And uncertainty regarding future trade policy, including a possible re-negotiation of the NAFTA trade accord, could weigh on the Mexican currency and ensure that it remains volatile. But we do not believe that the worse fears of protectionism will be borne out...And once the dust settles on the US election and a probable Fed rate hike in December, we would not be surprised to see the peso stage something of a comeback in the next couple of years, as prior structural reforms help economic growth to finally build momentum. And maybe there isn’t an oil deal after all: The oil price continues to slide as the prospect of any deal to curb output at this week’s producers meeting in Algeria recedes. Despite the reported proposal to cut production by 1m barrels a day - to be discussed on Wednesday - it seems unlikely Iran will agree, keen as it is to return output to the levels it enjoyed before the economic sanctions on the country. Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets, said: The price of oil dropped on Tuesday, leaving the price of Brent crude within the $46-$48 range it has been in for the last week in the lead-up to the meeting in Algiers. The drop came as Iranian oil minister Zanganeh indicated that Iran was not willing to freeze oil output at current levels. More interestingly Zanganeh said Iran is targeting its pre-sanctions oil market share of 12-13%. The assumption had been that Iran was targeting 4m barrel per day, but 12-13% of a higher OPEC total output since Iran was sanctioned implies a higher figure. Iran could be targeting something closer to 4.5-5m barrels per day in output, making a freeze agreement unlikely this year. Brent crude is down 2.8% at $46.02 while West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, has lost 2.94% to $44.58. Returning to the positive US consumer confidence figures, which seem to give more ammunition to the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates. Dennis de Jong, managing director at UFX.com, said: Fed Chair Janet Yellen will be delighted to see an above-expectations rise in consumer confidence for September, which follows on from an already strong August. Yellen was singled out for criticism by Donald Trump during last night’s presidential debate, with the presidential hopeful accusing Yellen of keeping interest rates low for political reasons. The question now is whether Yellen pulls the trigger on a rate hike at the next Fed meeting – which happens to take place just days before the polls open and America votes for its next president. Back with oil, and the producers’ meeting in Algeria. The Wall Street Journal is reporting a deal would be put on the table involving an output cut of 1m barrels a day, but it is unlikely to be agreed tomorrow: The positive US data seems to have help inspire Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average now up 67 points or 0.37%. American consumers are not being put off by worries about the global economy, oil prices, Brexit or the forthcoming election, to judge from the latest Conference Board figures. The consumer confidence index came in at 104.1, higher than the 99 reading analysts had expected and better than August’s 101.8. This is the best level since August 2007. Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, said: Consumer confidence increased in September for a second consecutive month and is now at its highest level since the recession. Consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions improved, primarily the result of a more positive view of the labor market. Looking ahead, consumers are more upbeat about the short-term employment outlook, but somewhat neutral about business conditions and income prospects. Overall, consumers continue to rate current conditions favorably and foresee moderate economic expansion in the months ahead. The Markit survey may have shown an improvement in September but the outlook is not all rosy. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit said: The service sector sent mixed signals in September, with faster growth of activity during the month offset by gloomy forward-looking indicators. Although business activity showed the largest monthly rise since April, inflows of new business slowed and employment growth was the weakest for three-and-a-half years. A drop in optimism about the year ahead to a near post-crisis low meanwhile cast a shadow over the outlook. What’s more, even with the latest uptick in activity, the overall rate of economic growth remains subdued. Add these service sector results to the manufacturing data and the PMI surveys suggest that the economy is growing at an annualised rate of only around 1% again in the third quarter. The slowdown in hiring means the survey results are consistent with a 120,000 rise in non-farm payrolls in September, which is a solid rate of expansion but somewhat disappointing compared to the gains seen earlier in the year. The slowdown in hiring is perhaps a natural symptom of the economy reaching full employment, but companies also reported a reduced appetite to hire and job losses due to weaker inflows of new business and worries about the outlook. Back with the US, and more better than expected economic data. Markit’s initial purchasing managers’ index for the service sector in September came in at 51.9, higher than the forecast 51.1 and August’s final reading of 51. The composite index was up from 51.5 last month to 52. The outlook for Deutsche Bank continues to be uncertain, analysts reckon. Carlo Mareels, a credit analyst at MUFG Securities, said: We don’t see any immediate catalysts that could change the uncertain outlook on Deutsche Bank and the weakness in Deutsche Bank spreads is hard to reverse in the absence of proper constructive news on the capital story. Profitability will remain challenging but capital is certainly the most pressing factor right now. We believe that the sub and senior will be subject to volatility but that they are essentially money good. On the AT1s [CoCo bonds] our central scenario is that they won’t switch off coupons, but it can’t be ruled out. We still see risk as significant and that needs to be priced in. However, if the Department of Justice’s fine is in the area of $6bn or higher, our view is that a capital raise will become necessary (which would most likely be very beneficial to the AT1s). ABN Amro analysts believe significant restructuring is required: Equity investors are fearful they will have to be called upon to support the capital position of the ailing Deutsche Bank (DB), as equity prices are down 64% since October 2015.... Crucially, despite restructuring, continual low and even negative net income quarters are draining the ability DB has to naturally increase its capital position. Their capital position needs to be improved, and the ability of it to achieve this naturally is being severely questioned. Significant restructuring, including major asset sales, will likely be needed if DB wishes to achieve an increased capital position without calling on shareholders. The delayed sale of DB’s stake in Hua Xia will be vital to help facilitate a suitable capital position for this year end. However, this is not a silver bullet and would only add a temporary €1.6bn uplift to [its Tier 1 capital ratio]. So more is needed... The payment request from the DoJ is just the tip of the iceberg of issues surrounding DB, as a number of other litigation suits remain open. The potential fines dwarf the €5.5bn DB have set aside for litigation. AT1 coupons are potentially at risk dependent on the timing/amount of the recent DoJ fine. Anything over €6bn will cause real problems for the payments. At present, we believe, the bank could weather short term capital issues for AT1 write-downs not to be an issue... In February DB were adamant in protecting their AT1 investors, but it is something that may not be so happy with going forward as already embattled equity holders would get stung for providing this benefit. The going concern for the company should be maintained provided the payment of the litigation charges is not demanded in the short term. We see a demand for the fines to be paid urgently as an unlikely scenario. It is both in the interest, of the bank to continue to function, and of the authorities to receive payment. More on Deutsche Bank and the repercussions if there was to be state aid from Germany, with some saying the country’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaüble will be the key player: Meanwhile Thomas Oppermann of the Social Democratic Party has weighed in: As has Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem: The Clinton rally in US markets has fizzled out before it even began. Banks - in the wake of Deutsche Bank’s share price fall - and Brexit continue to weigh on investors’ minds, while a fall in the oil price is also undermining confidence. With fading expectations of a deal to support the price at this week’s meeting of oil producers, Brent crude is down 2.66% at $46.09. In early trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average has edged up just 5 points while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have opened slightly lower. US house prices have continued to rise sharply, perhaps dangerously so, according to the latest Case-Shiller index. Prices rose by 5% year-on-year in July, slightly lower than June’s 5.1%. That’s more than twice as fast as consumer price inflation. And David Blitzer of S&P Dow Jones Indices, which produces the report, reckons it can’t last. “Given that the overall inflation is a bit below 2%, the pace is probably not sustainable over the long term.â€\x9d Wall Street is expecting the next few weeks to be pretty fraught, in the run-up to the election on November 8th. Art Hogan, chief market strategistat Wunderlich Equity Capital Markets, says: “Volatility is going to be the norm, not the exception over the next several weeks.â€\x9d At one stage, we expected the US stock market to jump by around 0.7% at the open. But now we’re heading towards a flat start. Reuters has now published the full quotes from Angela Merkel about the Deutsche Bank crisis: German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed hope on Tuesday that problems at Deutsche Bank could be solved after the lender made clear it needed no state aid with a $14 billion U.S. demand to settle claims it missold mortgage-backed securities. Asked during a news conference if Berlin was concerned about Deutsche Bank and was considering assistance for the lender, Merkel said: “I only want to say that Deutsche Bank is a part of the German banking and financial sector. And of course we hope that all companies, also if they face temporary problems, can develop in the right direction.â€\x9d “I don’t want to comment beyond that,â€\x9d she added. Deutsche Bank said on Monday it had no need for German government help. Wall Street is expected to open a little higher in an hour’s time, after New York has digested last night’s debate. Court news.... A rogue trader who scammed investors out of millions of pounds to fuel a hedonistic lifestyle of nightclubs and champagne has been sentenced to an extra 603 days imprisonment. Alex Hope, who was jailed for 7 years in 2015, incurred the extra penalty for failing to obey a confiscation order made against him. He had been ordered to repay £166,696, but has actually only handed over £1,00 so far. FCA director Mark Stewart says: As a result of the work of the FCA, almost £2.65 million was identified and frozen in accounts controlled by Mr Hope, which was returned to investors earlier this year. Mr Hope spent a significant proportion of the remainder of the funds on a lavish lifestyle, including gifts to family and friends. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the value of tainted gifts can be recovered and Mr Hope was ordered to pay a sum equal to the value of the gifts he made to friends and family. Hope’s outstanding penalty is accruing £36 interest per day, and he’ll still owe the full amount once released. Here’s Hope back in January 2015 - he originally hit the headlines for running up a huge bar bill. German chancellor Angela Merkel has told reporters in Berlin that she hopes the ‘temporary’ problems at Deutsche Bank can be solved. She’s holding a press conference with Malaysia’s PM, Najib Razak. But she doesn’t seem to have said much about the possible need for state aid to recapitalise the bank (something Deutsche insists isn’t needed). Never work with animals, children, or the Scottish weather. That’s the lesson from Grangemouth this morning, where energy company Ineos is celebrating the first arrival of its first shipment of US shale gas. My colleague Rob Davies has raced to see the big moment, but reports that it’s too blustery for the boat to dock! Rob’s still doing his best to keep us entertained, though: The World Trade Organisation has added to the gloom this morning, by slashing its forecast for trade growth this year to just 1.7%, down from 2.8%. That would be the first time since 2001 that trade has grown slower than the world economy. Royal Bank of Scotland’s shares are getting a hoofing, down 4% today. It’s being hit by the worries over Deutsche Bank; RBS is also facing the prospect of a large penalty from the DoJ, for mis-selling toxic mortgage securities. Conner Campbell of SpreadEx says: The German bank is now down another 3%, and is threatening to drop under €10 for the first time in around 30 years. This has sparked another round of losses in the European banking sector, with Barclays, HSBC and Societe Generale all seeing notable declines. Royal Bank of Scotland actually surpassed Deutsche Bank’s morning drop, percentage-wise at least, with investors fearful that the same kind of fine could hit RBS when its settlement with the US Department of Justice is finally revealed. That rally in the Mexican peso is fizzling out too, as the Clinton debate bounce comes to a halt: The sudden swings in the markets this morning show that volatility is back with a bang. With the US presidential election still up for grabs, and Deutsche Bank still troubled, this could be a wild autumn. FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga is concerned that this morning’s ‘Clinton bounce’ didn’t last: Stock markets received a slight welcome boost on Tuesday with most major arena’s swinging back into gains as talks of Hillary Clinton winning the first US presidential debate renewed risk appetite. Although Asian equities managed to charge into green territory post-debate, gains were swiftly relinquished in Europe amid the heavy losses in banks and carmakers. Wall Street could be exposed to steeper losses if the bearish domino effect from Europe provides a solid foundation for sellers to attack. It is becoming increasingly clear that the short term gains observed in stocks are becoming unsustainable with the ingredients of bear market potentially leaving stock markets exposed to heavy losses in the future. If this selloff continues, Deutsche Bank shares will fall below the €10 mark for the first time in three decades: The Financial Times is reporting that one of Germany’s smaller banks has cancelled a bond sale, in a sign of edginess in the markets. Here’s a flavour: A regional German bank has pulled a bond sale citing “market conditionsâ€\x9d, as Deutsche Bank shares have tumbled to fresh multi-decade lows. NordLB was due to sell a seven-year senior unsecured bond, but informed investors they would not proceed on Tuesday morning, report Thomas Hale in London and James Shotter in Frankfurt. The senior unsecured bond was initially expected to price around mid-swaps plus 90 basis points. The pulled Landesbank bond comes after Lufthansa also cancelled a debt sale on Monday, also pointing to the “pricing achievable in the current marketâ€\x9d Oh dear, this morning’s stock market rally is fizzling out -- before some Europeans have fully caught up with the drama in America. Deutsche Bank is to blame -- its shares have slipped to fresh record lows in the last few minutes. Currently down 2.65% at €10.29, a level not seen since the 1980s. This has send Germany’s stock market down 1% into the red, and erased the early gains in London too. Worries about Deutsche Bank’s financial strength are, well, trumping any relief following last night’s debate. Other European banks are also falling, with Germany’s Commerzbank down 2.9%. Jasper Lawler of CMC Markets explains: Declines in prominent German and Swiss banks have revived fears of a European banking crisis. Stocks had opened moderately higher in a small nod to establishment candidate Hilary Clinton winning the US presidential debate. As explained earlier, investors are worried that Angela Merkel might not step in to protect Deutsche from the possibility of a $14bn fine from US authorities. Deutsche’s market value is now just $16bn, meaning it could struggle to raise enough capital to pay off the fine. Writing in the Telegraph today, Matthew Lynn argues that the situation is terribly serious: If the German government does not stand behind the bank, then inevitably all its counter-parties – the other banks and institutions it deals with – are going to start feeling very nervous about trading with it. As we know from 2008, once confidence starts to evaporate, a bank is in big, big trouble. In fact, if Deutsche does go down, it is looking increasingly likely that it will take Merkel with it – and quite possibly the euro as well. More here: The Deutsche Bank crisis could take Angela Merkel down – and the Euro The surge in the Mexican peso shows that investors are pleased with Clinton’s performance, says Ana Thaker, market economist at PhillipCapital UK. She says: A vote for Clinton is considered a vote for the status quo and markets will welcome sustained accommodating monetary policy under her administration. City investors have been backing Hillary Clinton to win November’s election, according to IG: Gambling firm Betway have also cut the odds of a Clinton victory, to just 2/5: Betway’s Alan Alger, said: “Donald Trump was forced to backtrack and defend himself against Hillary Clinton for much of last night’s debate. The betting now firmly suggests the Democrat candidate has stretched her lead in the race to the White House. “Clinton may have appeared weak during her bout of ill health earlier this month, but punters think she looked strong last night and we’ve cut here odds from 4/6 to 2/5. “Those that think the Donald can talk his way back into the election battle can take 15/8 – the longest his odds have been in over a fortnight.â€\x9d However... we have been here before, in June, when the betting markets suggested Britain would remain in the EU. Back to last night’s debate... and Robin Bew of the Economist Intelligence Unit argues that Donald Trump didn’t do too badly: But The Economist itself reckons the Republican gaffed over his tax bill: FT editor Lionel Barber also calls it for Clinton: And polling expert Nate Silver shows how Trump kept shoving his oar in: It’s a bad morning for British workers at building supplies firm Wolseley. It has announced plans to close 80 UK stores, with the loss of 800 jobs, as part of a major restructuring. It hopes to redeploy some workers, but the axe could fall heavily at its distribution centre in Worcester. Wolseley shares have slumped by 3.8% this morning, after it also missed profit expectations. In other news....Deutsche Bank’s shares are becalmed this morning, up just 0.1% at €10.31, after yesterday’s 7.5% tumble. Investors were rattled on Monday, following reports that German chancellor Angela Merkel was refusing to provide state aid to the lender. Deutsche Bank insists that it hasn’t even asked for help, but with a $14bn fine looming – close to Deutsche’s market value – the situation is tough. City veteran David Buik says the uncertainty over Deutsche is worrying: I feel sorry for CEO John Cryan who inherited a hospital pass, when he stepped up to the plate in June 2016. These shares have lost significant value – down from €39 in January 2014 and €23.51 a year ago to €10.64 – down 71% and 54% respectively. Just to put some meat on the bone in July 2007 Deutsche Bank’s share price was €99.60! What markets cannot cope with is uncertainty and that sensation is there in spades, with John Cryan, probably very frustrated in being able to say very little. You can catch up with all the ’s coverage of the debate here: US Election 2016 Here’s our expert panel verdict: And here’s David Smith’s account of how Clinton scored points against her rival: Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump to order on Monday night in probably the most watched – and certainly the weirdest and wildest – presidential debate in American history. She demanded explanations over his tax returns, his treatment of workers, his temperament as the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger. As he ducked and dived with incoherent excuses, she stared at him with thinly veiled contempt. Then, right at the end, like a long-suffering, frosty school principal, she decided to expel the ranting, sniffling, whining 70-year-old schoolboy who had not done his homework. Trump had said she did not have the stamina to be president. Icy and deadly, Clinton replied: “Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.â€\x9d The Canadian dollar has also strengthened, in another sign that Clinton performed better last night (in the markets’ view, anyway). Arnaud Masset, analyst at Swissquote Bank, explains: The foreign exchange market reacted sharply to yesterday’s first US presidential debate. Emerging market currencies were broadly better bid, especially the Mexican peso but it was the Canadian dollar, which appreciated the most as experts concurred that Hillary Clinton had won this first round. The Canadian dollar was also in demand after the debate with USD/CAD falling back below the 1.32 threshold, down to 1.3166. Here are some video clips of last night’s debate, for those European readers who weren’t awake in the middle of the night FXTM Chief Market Strategist Hussein Sayed says the markets have awarded last night’s debate to the Democratic candidate, but it’s not all over.... Round one of the U.S. presidential debate is over and as expected big punches were exchanged from both sides, but clearly no knockout blows were landed. Although polls were showing different outcomes of who won the debate, financial markets obviously declared Clinton as the winner. Asian shares recovered some of yesterday’s losses and European stocks opened higher, meanwhile U.S. futures are also indicating a positive open. However, the best financial asset proxy to the U.S. presidential race is the Mexican Peso which rose by more than 1.5% against the U.S. dollar after declining to a new record low yesterday. The higher the Mexican currency goes suggests higher probability for Clinton reaching the White House as Trump repeatedly raged against globalisation and free trade agreements. The Aussie, Kiwi and Yen also supported the opinion that Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate. Kit Juckes of Societe Generale agrees: A snap poll by CNN/ORC has found that Hillary Clinton won last night’s debate, pretty conclusively. They report that: Hillary Clinton was deemed the winner of Monday night’s debate by 62% of voters who tuned in to watch, while just 27% said they thought Donald Trump had the better night, according to a CNN/ORC Poll of voters who watched the debate. That drubbing is similar to Mitt Romney’s dominant performance over President Barack Obama in the first 2012 presidential debate. Voters who watched said Clinton expressed her views more clearly than Trump and had a better understanding of the issues by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Clinton also was seen as having done a better job addressing concerns voters might have about her potential presidency by a 57% to 35% margin, and as the stronger leader by a 56% to 39% margin. If you want a clear sign of which candidate won last night’s debate, in investors’ eyes, then look at the Mexican currency. The Mexican peso has surged overnight, gaining 1.5% against the US dollar. That’s a decent recovery from the record low it plumbed yesterday. That means $1 is worth 19.575 peso, down from 19.9 peso before the debate began. The peso has become the market’s preferred measure of tracking the chances of a Trump victory, given his attacks on free trade and his pledge to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Asian stock markets also rose overnight, as Trump and Clinton swapped blows over everything from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the ‘Birther row’ over Barack Obama’s origins. Tokyo’s Nikkei jumped 1%, the Hong Kong Hang Seng gained 1.3%, and China’s main markets closed 0.6% higher. And that’s feeding through to Europe’s markets this morning, as this graphic shows: Shares are rallying across Europe this morning, as investors digest the first US presidential debate (which took place while most of them were asleep). In London, the FTSE 100 index has gained 26 points or 0.4% in early trading. European markets are showing bigger gains, with the Paris market up by 0.7%. Traders appear to be taking the view that Hillary Clinton came out best yesterday, after a 90 minute battle in which Donald Trump lost his cool more than once. Although Clinton didn’t deliver a knock-out blow, the Democratic candidate did seem more sure-footed on the key issues. Conner Campbell of SpreadEx points out that we’ve not recovered all of Monday’s losses yet: With Clinton seemingly stumping Trump in the first presidential debate a semblance of calm has returned to the markets. Yesterday saw a series of market-wide declines prompted, among other things, by the reminder that come November Donald Trump could be the new President of the United States of America. This morning, however, the European indices have taken anywhere between 0.6% and 0.8% back, arguably thanks to Hilary Clinton’s better received performance at last night’s debate. Whether or not that translates to a boost in the polls, especially given the contrarian, disenfranchised mind-set of many of Trump’s supporters, is unclear (perhaps explaining why the market’s good mood isn’t as good as its bad mood was bad on Monday). For now, however, the European indices are rebounding and, considering Brent Crude is flat and Deutsche Bank is still effectively at all-time lows, it’s hard not to pin the turnaround on the results of yesterday’s presidential nominee showdown. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Investors have a lot to think about today, both in the financial markets and the world of politics. Firstly, the US presidential race has gathered steam overnight after a bruising clash between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The two candidates to take control of the White House traded blows over economic policy, trade, and climate change. Personal issues, including Trump’s coyness to release his tax returns and Clinton’s deleted emails, added extra spice to the battle. Listening under the duvet in Britain, the Democratic candidate appeared to outshine her rival. But here’s what my US colleagues thought: Donald Trump’s freewheeling approach spun wildly out of control in the first presidential debate as he was forced on the defensive during a chaotic clash with Hillary Clinton. Goaded by Clinton and pressed hard by moderator Lester Holt, the Republican nominee angrily defended his record against charges of racism, sexism and tax avoidance for much of the 90-minute clash at Hofstra University, outside New York. Trump hit Clinton on trade and her political record – issues that have helped him draw level in recent polls and may yet dominate the election – but the property tycoon appeared thin-skinned and under-prepared as he sniffled his way through the debate. Clinton shows strength over Trump in one of history’s weirdest, wildest debatesRead more “It’s all words, it’s all soundbites,â€\x9d he retorted after a particularly one-sided exchange, adding that Clinton was a “typical politician: all talk, no actionâ€\x9d. More here: And here: Closer to home, traders are watching Germany’s largest bank with growing concern. Yesterday, Deutsche Bank’s shares hit their lowest level in a generation as it fought to persuade investors that it doesn’t need to be bailed out by the Berlin government. But Deutsche Bank still faces the threat of a $14bn fine for mis-selling US mortgage securities, so concerns over its future aren’t going away. And then there’s the oil price; energy ministers are expected to hold an informal Opec meeting on Wednesday to discuss a potential deal to cap production. Brent crude rallied late last night, on hopes Also coming up today Britain’s business leaders are gathering for the Institute of Directors’ annual convention. We’re expecting to hear a lot about Britain’s exit from the European Union, after fears of a ‘Hard Brexit’ sent the pound down to a five-week low yesterday. At 11am BST, the CBI publishes its retail sales figures for September. That will show if consumers kept spending despite Brexit uncertainty. The latest US house prices figures are due at 2pm BST (9am in New York), followed an hour latest by the consumer confidence stats. And in the City, we’re getting results from holiday group Thomas Cook and building supplies firm Wolseley.',
 'Mark Carney has had the last laugh on amateurish Theresa May You want me to stay for an extra three years? I’ll do one more and then I’m off. Mark Carney’s decision to leave the Bank of England in 2019 looks to be a straightforward snub to Theresa May. Earlier on Monday, the prime minister’s spokeswoman described the governor as “absolutelyâ€\x9d the best person for the job, which is the sort of thing you say if you think he’ll do the full eight-year term. But he’s doing six. Yes, it’s one more year than was signalled back at his appointment, but it is not the full deal. Those angry Tory Brexiters who have been making mischief at Carney’s expense for the past month will count this result as a victory for them. May has played this saga terribly. The Brexiters’ grumbles about Carney’s pre-EU referendum comments were fading from most people’s memories before she breathed new life into the soap opera in her speech to the Conservative party conference a month ago. She complained about the “bad side-effectsâ€\x9d of low interest rates and quantitative easing, and said “a change has got to comeâ€\x9d. What sort of change? She didn’t say, but suddenly it was open season on Carney. The Brexiters who resented Carney’s comments that leaving the EU would be the “biggest domestic risk to financial stabilityâ€\x9d popped up to denounce the governor and all his works. Michael Gove said Carney should learn some humility. Nigel Lawson thought he should resign. If he must stay, said the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, Carney should know his place. “It’s important to comport yourself as a quiet and discreet public servant,â€\x9d he said. William Hague was a rarity in being a remainer, but he filled in May’s blank about the possible form of change. Central bankers had lost the plot in their addiction to low interest rates, Hague argued, and “the era of their much-vaunted independence will come, possibly quite dramatically, to its endâ€\x9d. Would those voices have been so emboldened had May not spoken? It’s hard to say, but the chorus line has been an extraordinary spectacle. Senior politicians, even those who are years out of office, are normally wary of treading on the Bank’s operational independence. Suddenly, the criticisms were personal – Hague excepted – but also woefully vague about alternative monetary prescriptions. Does anybody seriously believe the UK economy would be in better shape if only interest rates had been, say, 3% for the past few years? May, we were told after the conference speech, did not mean to question the Bank’s independence and was merely expressing sympathy with savers. She should learn to take care. Her words provoked a pointless row about central bank independence and she ended up begging Carney to stay. In the event, the governor has agreed the shortest possible extension. He has had the last laugh while May’s handling looks amateurish. Clara Furse: from bailed-out director to HSBC UK chair Former director of bailed-out bank to chair of HSBC UK. That is probably not how Clara Furse’s appointment will be announced, but it would be accurate. Furse was a non-executive director of Belgian bank Fortis when, in partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland, it did the disastrous top-of-the-market purchase of ABN Amro in 2008. As with RBS, a state-sponsored rescue for Fortis followed. Furse, a former successful chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, was rehabilitated via a stint on the Bank’s financial policy committee. All the same, chairing HSBC’s ringfenced division in the UK is a big job. If Fortis had been British, would she be deemed suitable by the regulators? It’s hard to think so. Tesco’s £100m damages claim may not be so damaging A group of 124 British institutional funds want to be paid at least £100m in damages by Tesco. The poor souls feel terribly misled by the supermarket’s overstatement of profits a couple of years ago and are calling for their investors to be compensated for the subsequent fall in the share price. That, at least, is the official explanation for filing a claim in the high court, courtesy of Bentham Europe, a group that funds such legal actions. Some of the fund managers may indeed be driven by the righteous sense that investors “have a right to rely on statements made by companies to ensure that they correctly allocate capitalâ€\x9d, as Bentham’s Jeremy Marshall puts it. But more than a few, one suspects, aren’t terribly interested in US-style litigation and would be happy to take the rough with the smooth, if only everybody else would. They may be participating solely because they fear missing out if Tesco ends up having to write a cheque. Last year, Tesco settled a similar class action in the US for a fraction of the value of the initial claim. In the latest case, the supermarket could try offering the litigants, say, £10m for their nuisance value and see if their heart is really in it.',
 'California treasurer imposes year-long ban on working with Wells Fargo California’s state treasurer announced on Tuesday that it is imposing a year-long ban on working with Wells Fargo after staff “fleecedâ€\x9d the bank’s customers by creating 2m unauthorized accounts. The move by the US’s largest state comes as the bank faces another grilling in Congress over the scandal that has already led the bank to pay $185m in penalties and clawback millions in bonuses from top executives. “The recent discovery that Wells Fargo & Company fleeced its customers by opening fraudulent accounts for the purpose of extracting millions in illegal fees demonstrates, at best, a reckless lack of institutional control, and, at worst, a culture which actively promotes wanton greed,â€\x9d John Chiang, California’s state treasurer, wrote in a letter to the bank on Tuesday. Chiang’s office oversees nearly $2tn in annual banking transactions and manages a $75bn investment pool. “My office has long relied on Wells Fargo, our oldest California-based financial institution, as a partner to meet the state’s investment and borrowing needs,â€\x9d wrote Chiang. “But, to borrow from Albert Einstein, ‘Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with [larger] matters.’ In the case of Wells Fargo, how can I continue to entrust the public’s money to an organization which has shown such little regard for the legions of Californians who have placed their financial well-being in its care?â€\x9d The $185m settlement announced at the end of the month was a result of an audit that revealed that Wells Fargo staff created as many as 1.5m deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts without customers’ consent. As a result, the bank fired more than 5,300 employees. The bank denies that the creation of these accounts was part of an orchestrated effort. According to bank’s critics, the bank’s staff opened such unauthorized accounts in order to meet their sales quotas. The bank announced yesterday that it is terminating all of its sales quotas starting 1 October. In light of this scandal, Chiang’s office has effective immediately suspended its investment in all Wells Fargo securities, use of Wells Fargo as a broker-dealer for investment purchases and use of Wells Fargo as managing underwriter on negotiated sales of California state bonds. These sanctions are in effect for 12 months during which Chiang asked that Wells Fargo quarterly report back its compliance with the terms of its $185m settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Los Angeles city attorney, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Chiang has also called for separation of the chief executive and chair positions at Wells Fargo – both of which are currently held by John Stumpf, a review of Wells Fargo’s compensation practices and clawbacks of pay for those executives who are linked to the predatory sales practices. “Wells Fargo has diligently and professionally worked with the state for the past 17 years to support the government and people of California. Our highly experienced and proven government banking, securities and treasury management teams stand ready to continue delivering outstanding service to the state,â€\x9d a Wells Fargo spokesperson told the . “We certainly understand the concerns that have been raised. We are very sorry and take full responsibility for the incidents in our retail bank. We have already taken important steps, and will continue to do so, to address these issues and rebuild your trust.â€\x9d',
 'Benedict Cumberbatch webchat: your questions answered on kung fu, a wayward cloak and going shirtless Bened1ctCumberbatch I’ve got to rush off to the premiere now, but thanks for your questions and sorry for not being able to answer more of them! Also, sorry for not dealing with the more political ones – it’s hard to do them justice in such a short time. Scott McLennan asks: A hypothetical for you, Benedict: after witnessing your polished performance of Comfortably Numb with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour last month, your all-time favourite act comes to you asking you to perform with them the song you’ve always dreamed of singing live in front of a massive audience. What song do you choose? Bened1ctCumberbatch David texted me – I resisted for a while, especially because of those who had gone before – David Bowie and Kate Bush, among the legends. But then I realised I’d probably regret not standing beside him listening to him playing the body of the song, singing like a dream, more than I’d regret doing something out of my comfort zone! Simother Simother I love Mads Mikkelsen, what was it lime to work with him in Dr Strange? You worked with his brother is Sherlock, do you have a favourite out of the two? How are they different as actors? Bened1ctCumberbatch I do not have a favourite. They’re both wickedly cool and fantastically talented. What a family! I loved working with Mads. He was a gentleman, especially when it came to the fights. It was always about making it better than making himself look good – which he does flawlessly, I might add! Simother asks: I was wondering whether you “buildâ€\x9d a role up with backstories etc? Carice van Houten f.i. says that she just turns up and says the lines. A while ago you played an American (Johnny Depp’s brother; forgot the name of the movie, sorry) one of the things I notice between American and English is that English is quite precise and requires a lot more strength from the muscles in one’s mouth. Do you prepare for things like that? You play a lot of parts in a short amount of time (I don’t know if you still do that since you have a family), if you do work with a backstory (as well as learn your lines) what do you do if you do do that and how long does that take you, in general? Also how do you “take your selfâ€\x9d out of the character? For instance, when you played Stephen Hawking, given the physical aspect of that part, in that moment it is your body who is bringing that into expression, but it might not be comfortable, how do you separate these things? Anyhow, I love your work and how broad it is. Bened1ctCumberbatch Yes, I do build up a backstory in my head even if it’s just for me. I remember asking Steven Moffatt what his backstory was for Sherlock – “Oh, he’s just brilliant!â€\x9d was his response. That’s lasted until this series, where you’ll find out a lot more about his backstory. As far as preparation goes, it’s important to understand the who, what, where, why of the character before you meet him. That helps the character employ those tactics for whatever action they’re trying to perform, which can necessitate a limit of choice as well as a discovery of new things to be learned as an actor to portray the character with. For example, a character I played in a Martin Crimp play called The City at the Royal Court, was describing an incident where he was humiliated in his new job to his wife, and I began to characterise the voices in his story when Katie Mitchell [director] pointed out that it was unlikely he would have the confidence to do that as opposed to me, because I could. Those differentiations are vital, but often (and this really ain’t no humblebrag) I’m chasing the tailcoats of my character’s abilities, whether it’s their intelligence or professional excellence, or even their ability to sing/play piano/ride a horse/paint some of the great works of modern art! All these things require a heavy tutoring in new skill sets, one of the many privileges of our job, ie getting to learn new stuff and continuing with a form of further education, I suppose. And the results, while varied, sometimes work, but it’s all smoke and mirrors, and I often feel like a horrible fraudster. I think the worst is when I played violin as Sherlock – a skill that takes years of childhood and adolescent practice time. I’m feeling at this point that Alan drew some short straw in an office competition – while (forgive me) your question is long, my answer is more verbose and I’m worrying for his fingers! But just to finish, vocal and physical differences, prep of any sort, work on a backstory, learning a skill, all has to be given time and when it isn’t you run into generalising, and I’m fully aware I’ve done that on occasion, and so aim to create enough space around my work so there is enough space between roles and I have enough time to honour the tasks each present me with. Your last part of the question ... I have a lot to distract me that is away from my work and things that are more important, namely my family, so whether it’s through them or a little bit of exercise and fresh air, reconnecting with friends and stepping outside the bubble, I do manage to disconnect and disentangle myself from my work. I think that’s as important for everyone around me as myself to be able to do. Paper_Cranes asks: What book are you reading at the moment? Bened1ctCumberbatch A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and an Edison biography by Paul Israel, and Doctor Strange – Strange Tales Volume 2 Collected Comics. PixieBlue asks: Christopher and Valentine [Parade’s End] – would they have had a happy life together in the end? The book suggests yes, but what do you think? Bened1ctCumberbatch I think the book suggested not, actually? I think they had quite a tempestuous relationship, but I may be remembering wrong. LauraJukes asks: Do you ever ask for input on characterisation choices from your friends and family or is it quite a solitary process? Bened1ctCumberbatch Yes, of course there is an element where I trust their good taste, but it’s never solitary. This is such a collaborative process. Kevin Feige and Scott Derrickson were incredibly open to improvisations and alterations and I’m fine with giving choices for editors and directors to use or not use. TejaSwan asks: As an actor what kind of intellectual/physical challenges have you encountered in portraying Doctor Strange? Does the character have any characteristics that resonate with your personal beliefs? Bened1ctCumberbatch There were a lot of physical challenges to playing this role that involved the usual fitness regime and dietary discipline which I won’t bore you with, but was certainly a help when it came to the obligatory shirtless moment. Beyond that need for a certain aesthetic, I really did need to get fit to keep healthy and also to do the kung fu fight sequences, car chases and aerial acrobatics in wires and on the gravity rig we use for what we term the Magical Mystery Tour moment where the Ancient One sends Strange on a trip through the multiverse. Intellectually, I read, talked to and watched (on YouTube) neurosurgeons at work – what a fascinating area of medical science, dealing in ethical as much as medical complexities. I read two fascinating, heartbreaking and inspiring books – Dr Marsh’s Do No Harm and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Highly recommended reads whatever your interests, as both are beautiful and profound insights into human nature as much as their chosen professions and particular experiences. albert23 asks: Do you worry about over-exposure? (Side question: do you need a rest?) Wasn’t it odd there was once a sitcom where Sherlock Holmes’ dad was Dr House, and his dad’s partner Dr Who? What role should Anna Chancellor now be playing? Thanks for your concern – not in terms of my work, but maybe the demands of publicity or the idea that I’m permanently trying to sell something when I’m not working, which isn’t true. I have had a nice rest of late and it was much needed, so sorry to be bombarding your airwaves with this film arriving! It must get very tedious, but apparently there is a choice for you out there and you don’t have to listen to it, read it, worry about it. But I thank you for your concern! Anna C should play ... Mrs Hudson? I don’t know. Xanthe 2d asks: Do you ever wish that you could have played Hamlet before you became so well known? Bened1ctCumberbatch That’s a very good question. I didn’t find fame a hindrance in rehearsals and discovering the part with the extraordinary Lyndsay Turner and our immensely talented cast, and I might not have been able to play the role earlier in my career anyway. I wanted it to be generous as far as the amount of people who saw it, hence the scale of the production, and NT Live broadcasting it to cinemas then and still now, on occasion, so if my fame was seen as a negative because of early reviews or overzealous fans filming it, I really didn’t let that bother me for the three months of the extraordinary experience playing this most demanding of all roles. My memories are overwhelmingly positive from that experience. Fame is a funny fish, and while I respect the criticism that “you ask for it mate, you’re an actorâ€\x9d, I appreciate the fact that it’s possible to be famous for your work, and if your fame intrudes on that, it can be difficult. Despite a slow news cycle during a long summer, even though there were important things happening in the world and that becoming some kind of headline, as far as my day to day in rehearsing, performing and the whole production of Hamlet, it didn’t tip the focus in a direction that was negative for long enough to have a negative effect. Sorry, I am speaking so slowly to aid Alan, who is typing furiously that I’m having difficulty remembering what I’m saying at the beginning of my sentences – it’s not Alan’s fault! And it’s not Alan Rusbridger, in case you were wondering Dzh Akhmedova asks: Hello, mr Benedict! What is your favourite coffee? Bened1ctCumberbatch A flat white, but I also like black with no sugar. AriaVerner18 asks: I adore Your acting skills (both on the screen, and in theatre), I hope You for a long time will please us with new roles! I have a question: whether you have a favourite holiday and why? And also, whether something has changed for you after a role of Doctor Strange? Forgive mistakes in the text. :) Bened1ctCumberbatch I don’t do favourites, but it has to be the last one I had with my family all together in Mauritius, a beautiful country and beautiful people. Elizabeth_Bezushko asks: Which detail is your favourite in Dr Strange’s clothing? Bened1ctCumberbatch The cloak of levitation – we’ve got a good thing going and it has a large look out for me and I for it. We’re beginning to work well together now, although it was a difficult start to the relationship – it going one way, me going another – it going on meal breaks when I needed to be in front of the camera and one or two contractual issues. But now we’re very happy partners in crime. LauraJukes asks: What is your favourite thing about theatre work? (Can I also just say Hamlet was an incredible production and I feel privileged to have witnessed it live!) Bened1ctCumberbatch Thank you very much! My favourite thing is the immediacy of communication and the tightrope walk of being live, added to which playing an entire character arc in a short time is something you crave after filming. Equally, you crave the intimacy of a camera after a lot of exposure to live audiences, so I like to mix it up. Carlos Montgomery asks: What two characters have you played that you believe would like each other as friends? Bened1ctCumberbatch That’s a very good question – none, I think! They all have very different worldviews and are enjoyable to play because of that, but I suppose good friendships can survive that. aruaiman05 asks: I’m from Kazakhstan. It may sound random, but what is your favourite dish? Thank you very much! Bened1ctCumberbatch: I don’t do favourites, but some dim sum I had recently in Hong Kong was extraordinarily good! elisalong asks: I consider you to be one of the most talented and greatest actors of the recent era. What advice would you give to those seeking to enter the acting profession? Thank you for your time and I hope you rock your socks off in Doctor Strange! Bened1ctCumberbatch I’d be my baby boy, to understand what he thinks of the world, what we’re sjowing him of it, and to understand if we’re doing all right as parents. serina miller asks: Is doing a musical is on your bucket list, because you will be an incredible Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera, also Sir James in Finding Neverland! Bened1ctCumberbatch It is on my bucket list – but like a lot of things I don’t have a specific role in mind. I’ll have a think! Hooray! Benedict is with us now! Three minutes, we’re told … Message from our reporter Alan Evans: Benedict is currently running late in another interview – but’s he’s on his way. While we’re waiting, here’s the review of Doctor Strange we published earlier. Following an award-winning breakthrough on stage as Frankenstein, Benedict Cumberbatch has taken on everything from period dramas (Parade’s End, The Imitation Game) to Shakespeare (Hamlet, Richard III) and thrillers (Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, Black Mass); he’s worked with Steven Spielberg and Steve McQueen, and played characters as varied as Stephen Hawking, Vincent Van Gogh and Julian Assange. Click here to read your questions, Benedict will be joining us very soon …',
 'We are perfectly positioned within Europe. Why change it? ‘We should miss Britain a lot. But Britain would miss the European Union even more.â€\x9d The speaker was a senior member of the Italian government, in response to a question about the attitude of Italians to the thorny issue of Brexit. The occasion was the annual Venice Seminar, where members of the Italian government speak frankly, but not for direct attribution, on the political and economic scene. For many years the views expressed at those seminars about the Italian economy have been a triumph of hope over experience. For example, the Italian economy managed, after the initial impact of the great recession of 2008-10, to contract further in 2011 and 2012 when even the British economy was beginning to recover. There was then a period of flatlining during which optimistic forecasts were offered to us, but never fulfilled, as Italians hung on to their substantial savings and spent little. It now looks as though Italian “consumersâ€\x9d – ie citizens – are dipping into their savings and the economy is finally growing again, assisted by various measures which it is claimed have boosted confidence. There is also, of course, the beneficial impact on real incomes of the lower price of oil. At a time when much of the gloom and doom emanating from Davos stems from the impact on the finances of oil-exporting nations, the bonus to oil-importing nations seems to have been underestimated. I hope I am not alone in being slightly surprised that, after the serious recessions experienced in the west and Japan as a consequence of the two oil shocks of the 1970s – when huge increases in the price removed purchasing power and caused a serious inflationary spiral – the reverse movement in oil prices should also be considered an all-round disaster. There are winners and losers. Apart from anything else, the impact on inflation is such that policymakers have a lot of scope to relax fiscal policy without in any way breaching their inflation targets. Italian ministers and officials are rightly calling for greater flexibility from Brussels with regard to fiscal rules on taxation and public spending. They feel they have gone a long way in meeting cries for “structural reformâ€\x9d of the economy, although there is no doubt plenty of scope for more. Meanwhile, as prime minister Matteo Renzi points out: “The EU fixation on austerity is actually destroying growth.â€\x9d The difference drawn by Italian officials between current attitudes towards the EU in the UK and Italy is between “Euroscepticismâ€\x9d in the UK and “Eurocriticismâ€\x9d in Italy. (Edward Heath, who, as prime minister, took us into what was then the European Economic Community in 1973, had another word to describe the anti-Europeans in his party: “Eurosepticsâ€\x9d, pronounced with some venom.) The Italian government is already preparing for a conference in Rome next year to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Amid the travails of countries such as Spain and Italy during an economic crisis caused by the financial crash and exacerbated by the structure of the eurozone and its policies, the continued devotion to the euro has often puzzled outsiders. In that respect, it is interesting to see that our own prime minister, after some ambivalence, has adopted the view I first heard from George Soros: namely that by being a member of the EU but not of the eurozone or the Schengen agreement – passport-free movement in continental Europe – the UK has “the best of both worldsâ€\x9d. More than 60 years have passed since the Messina conference of 1955, where the groundwork for the Treaty of Rome was prepared, but which prime minister Anthony Eden refused to attend. His more enlightened successors spent most of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s trying to persuade the French that we wanted to rectify Eden’s mistake. It is difficult for many of us who followed all the shenanigans – including the successive “No’sâ€\x9d from President de Gaulle – to believe that, at a time when there are so many pressing problems that require pan-European cooperation, the Conservative party should be so obsessed with Brexit. From now until the referendum, the public are going to be bombarded with statistics from both sides. It will not be the end of the world if we leave, but it will almost certainly be the end of the UK, on the reasonable assumption that Scotland would want to break away. The idea that we should tear up treaty arrangements negotiated over decades, and then renegotiate from a position of bargaining weakness, almost beggars belief. Moreover, it is an ill-founded scare story that if we remain in the EU we are destined to participate in a political union. The others know our position and accept it, but are quite happy to go along with a Cameron claim that this reality is the result of triumphant negotiations on his part. There is endless reading available on the pros and cons of being in or out, but one highly readable book is Brexit by Denis MacShane, who was minister for Europe in the Blair government. It is subtitled “How Britain Will Leave Europeâ€\x9d but that is a publisher’s come-on. MacShane hopes it won’t happen, but fears it will unless the pro-Europeans get their act together. My own view is that the British remain essentially conservative with a very small “câ€\x9d and, other things being equal, would balk at such a retrograde step. But the opinion polls are worrying for us pro-Europeans, and the prime minister, although now apparently having stood up to be counted, is terrified of how migration will affect public opinion. I therefore draw solace from the fact that last week the odds at William Hill were 2-5 for a vote to stay in and 9-5 for Brexit. The big question is: will voters follow the money in the end?',
 'Public bodies made 1,119 errors in use of phone and web data in 2015 Seventeen people were wrongfully arrested or had their homes searched last year as a result of serious errors made by the police and security services after they had accessed confidential web and phone data, an official watchdog has revealed. More than 760,000 items of communications data, which track an individual’s phone and web use, were acquired by police or security services in 2015, according to the annual report of Sir Stanley Burnton, the interception of communications commissioner. The report, published on Thursday, reveals 1,119 errors made by public authorities in their use of communications data in the calendar year – a 20% increase on 2014. The watchdog found 23 cases involving serious errors, including nine “technical system errorsâ€\x9d that led to 2,036 “erroneous disclosuresâ€\x9d. The remaining 14 serious cases were the result of human error. Burnton’s annual report says the serious errors led to 17 cases in which people who were unconnected to a police investigation were either arrested or had property searched that had nothing to do with the inquiry. A further six innocent people were visited by police as a result of errors and there were delays to welfare checks on seven vulnerable people. The watchdog also identified four cases in which communications data was acquired to identify a journalist’s source without judicial authorisation. In one high-profile case, the watchdog found that Police Scotland had acted recklessly after the individuals concerned complained to the investigatory powers tribunal. In the other three cases the commissioner ruled that the conduct was “not wilful or recklessâ€\x9d and “did not adversely affect any individual significantlyâ€\x9d. Burnton says 145 public authorities had access to confidential data in 2015; 93.7% of applications were made by police forces and law enforcement agencies. The security services were responsible for a further 5.7% of requests and local authorities and other public bodies for the remaining 0.6%. The report criticises the prison service for not having an adequate translation strategy in place to monitor the calls and correspondence of prisoners using foreign languages. “This was particularly relevant to those prisons with a high proportion of foreign national prisoners where a small number of inspections revealed that staff were being directed to listen to a large number of calls made in foreign languages but were not being provided with any guidance as to whether the calls should be translated,â€\x9d Burnton said. “Consequently no benefit was being derived from the monitoring, which undermines the necessity and proportionality for it as the exercise cannot meet the objective for which monitoring was authorised.â€\x9d The 761,702 “items of communications dataâ€\x9d include “identifiersâ€\x9d such as mobile or landline numbers, email addresses or bank or credit card details. A request for incoming and outgoing call data on a particular mobile phone over 30 days is counted as one item of data. The watchdog also received 62 reports of errors related to the 3,059 interception warrants, which allow the police and security services to access the content of calls, emails, and other messages. These ranged from “over-collection and unauthorised selection or examination of material to the interception of the wrong communications identifier or failure to cancel an interceptionâ€\x9d. The prime minister, Theresa May, said Burnton’s report – and a second from the intelligence services commissioner – recognised the diligence and rigour of those who use investigatory powers to keep Britain safe. “Both reports contain details of the recommendations that the commissioners have made to continue to improve the way that these powers are used. The public authorities who have received these recommendations will be giving careful consideration to them and how to further improve their processes,â€\x9d she said in a written statement to the Commons.',
 "Lukewarm reception greets Chris Evans's revamped Top Gear Comparisons between Chris Evans’s and Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear are not appropriate, programme insiders said in the aftermath of disappointing viewing figures and tepid reviews for Sunday night’s debut of the relaunched show. The BBC2 programme attracted 4.4 million viewers – below the 5 million Evans had hoped for – but sources said that it was unfair to make judgements based on the first episode’s ratings because that did not take into account the impact of the bank holiday and the numbers catching up online. Evans himself insisted the programme was a “hit.â€\x9d The presenter tweeted: “Top Gear audience grew throughout the hour. FACT. Won its slot. FACT. Still number one on i Player. FACT. These are THE FACTS folksâ€\x9d. The BBC released a supportive statement. Alan Tyler, its acting controller for entertainment commissioning, said that Evans and co-host Matt LeBlanc had “successfully kicked off a whole new era in styleâ€\x9d. He added: “We are really looking forward to bringing our audiences even more thrills as the series continues.â€\x9d Evans told the last week that he would be disappointed if the programme rated below 5 million, although that would be well below Top Gear’s historic viewer numbers. The last series, featuring Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, averaged 6.4 million viewers. The BBC highlighted the fact that it gained viewers during the hour-long broadcast. A spokesperson added that, by Monday afternoon, Top Gear was the most popular show on iPlayer, with about half a million online views after the BBC2 broadcast, while spin-off show Extra Gear, fronted by motoring journalists Rory Reid and Chris Harris, was the second most watched. Reviews for the first episode were mixed, with some praise for its attempt to stick to the previous incarnation’s format but others lambasting it as a poor attempt to imitate Clarkson and co, who are making their own motoring programme with Amazon. There was criticism of the lack of chemistry between Evans and LeBlanc, though the response to racing driver Sabine Schmitz was broadly positive. The Mail was scathing, describing the revamp as “at best like watching a Top Gear tribute band performing one of those unfunny celebrity sketches on Comic Relief ... It was so bad you could practically hear the champagne corks popping at Amazon HQâ€\x9d. Andrew Billen in the Times was not convinced by the rapport between Evans and LeBlanc: “Chemistry was what we were looking for here, but their badinage was no more than passable offcuts from an unmade transatlantic buddy movie.â€\x9d His two-star review concluded: “Would we buy a used car show from this man? On this debut, only after some serious tweaking.â€\x9d One person close to the production said that comparing Evans’ debut on a warm bank holiday to previous series of Top Gear, which normally aired in winter, early spring or autumn, was “comparing oranges and spannersâ€\x9d. The most recent series shown during the summer launched in June 2013, and attracted 5 million viewers for the opening episode. “It will take time as we know, but comparing volume figures for last night is a little bit unfair,â€\x9d said the person, who asked not to be named. “There’s plenty for Chris and the chaps to build on. It was after all the very first show. It has plenty of room and time to ‎ breathe and develop.â€\x9d A bright spot for most was the performance of racing driver Sabine Schmitz and Evans’ decision to drop some of Clarkson’s blokeish demeanour. The Mirror said that even Clarkson’s “most sulky fansâ€\x9d should find a lot to like about the show after his departure and the Telegraph welcomed the new team’s conservative approach. Its four-star review said: “Given time to bed in, there’s little doubt that we will warm to the new regime. This time next year, most people – especially those who don’t subscribe to Amazon – will probably have forgotten what all the fuss was about.â€\x9d There have been numerous reports that Evans and LeBlanc do not get on, but the former Friends star has dismissed the claims as a “big load of bullshitâ€\x9d, adding that he “didn’t anticipate the ruthlessness of the British pressâ€\x9d.",
 "Facebook and other platforms 'will rob UK news industry of £450m by 2026' Platforms such as Facebook will suck as much as £450m out of the UK news industry in a decade’s time, according to a new forecast. A report by strategy consultants OC&C predicts that news producers, especially newspapers, are still to feel the full impact of the shift by younger generations to using social media to find their news. OC&C says that, based on the impact of platforms on other mature media markets such as music, about 30% of annual digital revenue could go to platforms. That would mean the likes of Facebook and Apple taking between £200m and £250m a year this year, rising to between £400m and £450m from 2026. The organisation says that the impact will be felt in both digital advertising, where platforms are already taking a 30% cut to sell ads for publishers on content such as Facebook’s Instant Articles and on Apple News, and in subscriptions. Though many publishers with successful digital subscriptions such as the Financial Times and the New York Times do not currently sell the majority of such products through platforms, OC&C predicts that will become more common in the future. The £450m OC&C says will be taken by platforms comes on top of continuing disruption to news from the shift to digital that has already cost the UK industry almost half its total revenue – about £3.5bn – over the past decade, and will see further falls as digital ads and subscriptions fail to make up for lost print advertising and sales. The report says: “Most of this would hit the bottom line directly, presenting another challenge to the industry’s finances – and could force brands that have been household names for decades or even centuries to close or radically reinvent themselves.â€\x9d The report also says that while more than two-thirds of over-55s still go straight to trusted news brands, about 41% of those under 34 use social media and other platforms as their primary way of getting news. The report says: “These stark generational differences suggest a future in which platforms displace trusted brands as the key link between news content and audiences.â€\x9d OC&C associate partner Toby Chapman added: “The behavioural shift is kind of inevitable ... you can’t just close your ears and pretend it isn’t happening.â€\x9d The report also warns that the shift to consuming through platforms presents other challenges for news provides beyond lost revenue, with news organisations reduced to mere financiers of journalism that appears elsewhere. Despite the bleak picture painted by the report, its authors say there are a number of measures news publishers can take to mitigate the impact of the shift to consumption on platforms. These include making sure their brand is prominent, both to stand out and to bring people to their own sites, and making the most of partnerships with platforms. They also suggest collaborating with other news organisations and lobbying government for protection. Chapman said: “There’s not doubt this is a bit of a warning signal for the industry, and needs to be treated seriously, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. What happened in music does not need to be what happens in news.â€\x9d",
 'Saturday Night Live: Trump played as a pawn while Clinton goes all Love, Actually Maybe it’s the promise of a nice long vacation, or maybe it’s having a nice thematic hook to hang their sketches on, but Saturday Night Live tends to excel at its Christmas episodes. Thanks to some over-long football and an inconsistent livestream, my viewing of this week’s SNL wasn’t quite as linear or complete as I would have hoped, but there was clearly plenty of funny in the week’s show. The cold open began with a recap of Donald Trump’s recent cabinet picks, but that was quickly glossed over for a visit from Vladimir Putin (as always, shirtless), who snuck down Trump’s chimney to “state officiallyâ€\x9d that Trump is Russia’s Manchurian candidate. After gifting the president-elect with a suspicious-looking Elf on the Shelf, John Goodman arrived with an inspired take on Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, who has a literal secret handshake with Putin and a firm plan for expanding oil drilling in Russia. As has become standard in these Trump sketches, Kate McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway got the best line – she promised not to go too far away because, she acknowledges: “I’m handcuffed to you for all of history.â€\x9d While the show has, in the past, focused on Trump’s seeming incompetence, here the writers doubled down on the president-elect as a pawn, not even getting to say “live from New Yorkâ€\x9d before Putin and Tillerson beat him to the punch. Casey Affleck’s self-deprecating monologue acknowledged that he seemed an anti-climactic host for this special pre-Christmas episode (and his awful scraggly beard was also smartly acknowledged). With some support from Alec Baldwin and Goodman, he vowed not to sing about Christmas, a welcome relief from the excess of musical monologues the show has been serving up in recent years. My livestream skipped before I could see whether he held fast to his non-singing vow; one can only hope. While singing monologues are often a weak spot on the show, I have long been an evangelist of SNL’s Christmas-themed musical numbers – “Santa’s My Boyfriendâ€\x9d, “Dick in a Boxâ€\x9d, and “Twin Bedâ€\x9d remain all-time classics. This year, they delivered again; a pre-tape with Kenan Thompson and musical guest Chance the Rapper resurrected some classic hip-hop for an ode to Barack Obama’s final Christmas as president. Celebrating the “first and maybe last black presidentâ€\x9d, the duo rapped about birth control and legal weed under the tree, with a guest verse about Leslie Jones’s love/lust for Joe Biden. It was catchy and clever and current, and I’ll have it stuck in my head all week. Weekend Update had a strong turn this week, with Michael Che comparing the meeting of Trump and Kanye West to the baffling mash-up of Scooby-Doo and the Harlem Globetrotters, while Colin Jost theorized that Trump chose Tillerson for secretary of state “because he was three cents cheaper than the Chevron CEO across the streetâ€\x9d. And Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer resurrected their back-talking best friend characters as childhood buddies of Putin for a delightfully bitchy take on the Russian president. Despite her relatively low profile, SNL seems preoccupied with Hillary Clinton, or at the very least, with looking for excuses for McKinnon to resurrect her brilliant impression. This week featured a spoof of the only scene of Love, Actually that we’ve all seen (the one with the cue cards), wherein Clinton tries to secretly convince an elector to vote for anyone other than Trump when the electoral college votes on Monday. “Tom Hanks,â€\x9d she urges. “The Rock. A rock.â€\x9d While it wasn’t perfect – one late sketch featuring a trio of horny elves was equally confusing and unfunny – it was definitely an above-average turn for the series. There were some egregious examples of product placement – Dunkin’ Donuts and Microsoft – but they’re working on fitting them in more seamlessly. Maybe during the break, the show will figure out a longer-term strategy for their Trump impression, since Baldwin would presumably like his Saturday nights back at some point. And given the pace of news this year, the show’s writers will have a lot of catching up to do when they return in mid-January.',
 'Twelve new arrests over Cliven Bundy standoff include Trump campaigner The FBI escalated its investigation into Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s 2014 standoff with the federal government Thursday with sweeping raids across the country that resulted in 12 arrests, including that of a Donald Trump campaign coalition co-chair in New Hampshire. Two of Bundy’s sons were also among those arrested, amid signs that federal authorities are ramping up their efforts against the ultra-conservative, anti-government movement that also inspired the armed standoff in Oregon earlier this year. Cliven Bundy had long refused to pay fees to the government to allow his cattle to graze on federally controlled public lands – a dispute that escalated to an armed standoff in 2014 when officials tried to seize his livestock. Hundreds of anti-government activists, some heavily armed, flocked to Bunkerville to support the Bundys, and the government ultimately backed down. A federal grand jury last month indicted Cliven, 69, and his two sons Ammon, 40, and Ryan, 43, on a slew of felony offenses – including armed assault of law enforcement officials and conspiracy against the government – for the high-profile land-use dispute at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada. The latest arrests mean five members of the Bundy family, Cliven included, are in jail awaiting trial. If convicted, they could each face decades in prison. Ammon and Ryan Bundy have also been indicted over the standoff in Oregon, which lasted 41 days. Now two more sons of Cliven – Davey, 39, and Mel, 41 – have also been arrested in a coordinated operation that also involved the arrest of Jerry DeLemus, a 61-year-old New Hampshire co-chair for Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner. Those three, along with 11 other new defendants, now face prosecution for their participation in the conflict over government land restrictions. The charges include conspiracy to impede and injure federal law enforcement officers, threatening and assaulting officers, obstruction of justice, interfering with interstate commerce by extortion, and use of firearms for a violent crime. The stunning turn of events on Thursday brought the total number of defendants in the case to 19 and indicates that federal prosecutors are aggressively targeting the Bundy family and their rightwing supporters who have for years protested against the federal government’s regulations on public lands. But in February, FBI officials arrested Cliven Bundy while he was on his way to Oregon to support an anti-government militia that had seized the Malheur national wildlife refuge to protest about the federal government’s treatment of local ranchers. His sons Ammon and Ryan led this year’s takeover of federal lands in Oregon, which began on 2 January and dragged on for more than a month before the final holdouts surrendered to the FBI. Ammon, Ryan and five other men are now facing felony charges in both the Nevada and Oregon cases and could end up with significant prison time if they are ultimately convicted. Shiree Bundy, older sister of Davey and Mel, told the that Davey was arrested on Thursday morning in his hometown of Delta, Utah. “Anyone who knows my brother [Davey] knows he is the most sweet, calm guy. He is a good person, a father, a husband, a hard worker,â€\x9d said Shiree, 45, who lives in Orderville, Utah. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody.â€\x9d Davey was present in Bunkerville during the 2014 standoff – like many in the family who returned to the ranch to support their father – but he was never violent, according to Shiree. “He stood there with my brothers as they asked them to let our cattle go,â€\x9d she said. “He didn’t even have a gun on him.â€\x9d When the standoff intensified in April 2014, Davey was briefly arrested and cited on misdemeanor charges of “refusing to disperseâ€\x9d. “They had nothing to hold him on then, and they can’t have anything on him now,â€\x9d said Shiree, who noted that Davey runs a construction company and has six children, ages one to 14. This year Davey also told Ammon and Ryan that he was not willing to risk arrest and join them in Oregon, according to Shiree. “When they said, ‘You should be up here,’ Davey said, ‘I’m not going to go to jail again. I have a family and kids to take care of.’â€\x9d Mel’s wife, Briana Bundy, said in a brief phone interview that her husband was arrested Thursday and that she didn’t know what charges he is facing. “I don’t have anything to say except wake the hell up, America. It’s time to decide what side of the line you’re on,â€\x9d said Briana, 30, who lives in Nevada and has five children, including a newborn baby. “I have my life to figure out. I have five kids now with no provider.â€\x9d Mel was present at the Oregon occupation at the beginning of the standoff, but he was not one of the 25 people recently indicted in the Malheur wildlife refuge case. “All we were doing was protecting our property,â€\x9d Mel said in an interview with the last month. “The federal government has overstepped its bounds.â€\x9d Cliven, Ammon and Ryan have all been denied bail and remain behind bars. DeLemus, a Tea Party activist, was present at the 2014 standoff and also traveled to the Oregon occupation this year. The interviewed DeLemus on multiple occasions at the Oregon refuge in January, and the rightwing activist repeatedly said he was there to try to help negotiate a peaceful resolution. Last July, Trump announced DeLemus as a co-chair of his “Veterans for Trumpâ€\x9d coalition in New Hampshire. His wife, Susan DeLemus, a Republican state representative, did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. DeLemus also made headlines last year when he proposed a “Draw Muhammadâ€\x9d art contest as part of an anti-Muslim demonstration. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment. Two of the defendants newly charged this week – Brian Cavalier and Blaine Cooper – are already in federal custody in Oregon for their roles in the Malheur case. “This investigation began the day after the assault against federal law enforcement officers and continues to this day,â€\x9d US attorney Daniel Bogden said in a statement. “We will continue to work to identify the assaulters and their role in the assault and the aftermath, in order to ensure that justice is served.â€\x9d The new grand jury indictment includes defendants from Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Oklahoma and New Hampshire.',
 "Watch the reworked video for David Bowie's Life on Mars RCA had decided to release Life on Mars as a single. David called me – if he wanted me to make a video, he’d call me one or two nights before – and said we needed to get another video together. He liked to do them, and so did I – not that there was any budget. I somehow got hold of a completely white studio and that dictated the concept – it was as simple as that. We showed up around noon, because none of us liked to start too early. As a cameraman, I had the guy who had shot the John, I’m Only Dancing video the year before, on stage at the Rainbow theatre. I was second cameraman. David looked amazing in his blue suit – it was made by his mate Freddie Burretti, who made the Ziggy costume. Pierre Laroche, who also worked on the Aladdin Sane cover, did the great makeup. And there we were – we just shot for no more than five hours, and then I had a couple of days to do an edit. We never had time to discuss any concept. And David never asked me to change anything. He was a very positive person to work with, very encouraging – he had the ability to get people to do great things for him. He took direction very well. He was willing to do whatever you wanted him to do. I never found him resistant in any way, and he brought his charisma to the table. If he wanted to work with someone, he would let them get on with it. He would ask: “What do you want me to do, Mick?â€\x9d And then he would do his thing. It was never like pulling teeth with David, it was like pulling gems. I had an amazing subject and an amazing song – this was the song that had turned me on to David – so what else did I need? David never looked like this at any other time. He never wore that suit again, never had that makeup on again. He never looked more amazing – like a space doll. When his videos got inducted into the Museum of Modern Art in New York, this was the one that everyone stood for – there were no distractions, no dancing girls, just David. At the time it was hardly seen at all, and it gathered some serious moss. In the late 90s, David gave me the copyrights for the four videos I had made for him, because I had never been paid for them – not that I had looked for any money. So when Parlophone contacted me about re-editing it I said: absolutely. I had a little gem and I wanted to polish it into a state where it was absolutely perfect. I had the black and white segments, and when I came across that very last bit after the music stopped, I thought it was a little gift, so I made it into an epilogue. People like the original video, but I think this version takes it to another level. The scenes really add a new flavour for it. I’m really happy with it, and I’m interested to see what the fans make of it. David Bowie Legacy is released 11 November on Parlophone.",
 "Thank God for the '@' symbol I can remember the days when I humorously used the “@â€\x9d symbol on my typewriter or computer keyboard to avoid using actual swear words. This admission outs me as, well, old – and thus separates me from the millions of people for whom “@â€\x9d has always and ever been the symbol for “atâ€\x9d in an email address. Raymond Tomlinson, the computer programmer who put that symbol into the email address, before the email address was even called the email address, as it happens, died at the too-early age of 74 last Saturday. He may well have been an intimidatingly brilliant man in every other respect of his life, but at his passing, he is being celebrated for doing precisely one thing. That is: for executing a keystroke of genius. Tomlinson did not invent email. But by creating a system in which a user name was separated from a network destination by the “atâ€\x9d sign he invented email that would not intimidate an ordinary person. A slightly earlier email scheme would send messages to numbered mailboxes, and you can understand why this would not sit well with the general population. In America and the rest of the world, being identified by a number is emblematic of losing one’s identity. It’s like that old Johnny Rivers lyric: “They’ve given you a number/ and taken away your name.â€\x9d Sure, American citizens like their social security numbers, but they’re taught not to share them with just anybody. By keeping them closely guarded they get a payout in their golden years, or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. In any event, I think we can all agree that email-by-identity-number sounds like something you’d encounter in a dystopian Orwellian nightmare scenario of the 1950s. Email by name, even goofy fake name, maybe especially goofy fake name, is friendly, personal, unpretentious. But that wasn’t what motivated Tomlinson to use the symbol. According to his obituary in the New York Times, what initially attracted Tomlinson to “@â€\x9d was its sheer availability. The symbol was not present in the user names for the internet precursor he was working with in the early 70s, Arpanet. Despite the tendency of coders to use oodles and oodles of typographical symbols whose significance cannot be grasped by mere non-programming mortals, the symbol at the time had no meaning in the programming Tomlinson was doing. So, as Mount Everest once was “thereâ€\x9d for George Mallory, so the “atâ€\x9d symbol was there for Tomlinson. I call it a keystroke of genius because I do remember first using email in the early 1990s. A lot of the times when you’re dealing with new technology, it’s kind of a pain in the cognitive muscles to remember how to do it because it just doesn’t make sense. A particularly petty-seeming example of this is putting a “1â€\x9d in front of a US telephone area code when making a call. Older phone users, again, like me, reflexively bristle: “When did the area code itself stop being enough?â€\x9d When I first started on AOL, and then when I went to work as a consultant for CompuServe in the mid 90s, working on a project that was going to blow AOL out of the water (you can guess how that turned out), the email address system of a user name followed by an “atâ€\x9d symbol followed by a destination name seemed so easy and intuitive as to feel natural. And this turned out to be the case even in countries where the “@â€\x9d had been nothing. Tomlinson’s available symbol also made perfect sense as regular person syntax, something that doesn’t happen all that often. For making an action undertaken on a computer seem as intuitive (almost) as drawing breath, Raymond Tomlinson deserves all the salutes.",
 'Children with cataracts regain sight after radical stem cell treatment A dozen infants who were born with cataracts have regained their sight after scientists used a radical new stem cell therapy to regenerate healthy lenses in their eyes. The children, all aged under two, are the first to receive the treatment for a condition that remains the most common cause of blindness in the world. The small-scale trial on babies and toddlers was approved soon after tests in animals found that the approach should both work and produce better results than conventional surgery. “The lens regenerated remarkably well,â€\x9d said Kang Zhang who led the study at the Shiley Eye Institute at the University of California in San Diego. “We restored visual function and that implies that a clear lens has regenerated.â€\x9d Doctors will now monitor the children to see whether their eyes develop normally, or grow fresh cataracts, a possibility if the stem cells that regenerated the lenses carry genetic faults that cause the lens-clouding condition. The feat was applauded by experts in the field, with Dusko Ilic, a stem cell scientist at King’s College London, calling the work “one of the finest achievements in the field of regenerative medicine.â€\x9d “They proved it first by testing a new surgical approach in rabbits and primates before successfully treating 12 infants with congenital cataracts. It is science at its best,â€\x9d he added. When children develop cataracts at birth or soon after, they can be treated by making a large incision at the front and back of the eye. The cloudy lens is then removed and replaced with a clear artificial one. But the surgery has a number of drawbacks. It can cause inflammation that complicates healing, and about half of the stem cells that protect the lens are destroyed in the process. A further problem is that the artificial lens cannot grow as the child does. In a series of elegant experiments, Zhang showed that stem cells found around the lens, known as lens epithelial stem cells, or LECs, can regenerate healthy lenses if they are not damaged during surgery. In animals studies, he found that minimally invasive surgery, which removed the lens without destroying a surrounding structure called the lens capsule, preserved the stem cells and allowed them to grow and form a new lens. To treat the children in the trial, surgeons made incisions no larger than 1.5mm in both of their eyes. They then removed the cloudy lenses, taking care to leave the lens capsules intact. The incisions healed in a month, and within three months, all of the children had regrown working lenses. When compared to 25 children who had conventional surgery, the dozen in the trial had clearer lenses, less inflammation and healed faster. Zhang, who describes his latest work in Nature, now plans to investigate whether a similar treatment can work for adults with cataracts. While replacement lenses are highly effective in older people with cataracts, many need glasses for driving or reading after surgery. In the UK, the NHS carries out more than 300,000 cataract operations a year. “This illustrates that there a can be a new approach. We can turn on own dormant stem cells. Just imagine how powerful this could be if we can do it for heart attacks, or turn on neuronal stem cells in the brain?â€\x9d Zhang said. Graham McGeown at Queen’s University, Belfast, said the work was a clear “proof of principleâ€\x9d for an important new treatment for cataracts in children. “This new approach dramatically reduced the risk of sight-damaging side effects when compared with the current best practice treatment, which involves more destructive surgery followed by implantation of an artificial lens,â€\x9d he said. “It is unclear, however, whether this would be of benefit in adults with cataracts, for whom current surgical techniques are usually successful.â€\x9d',
 "'Alice in Wonderland' NHS service let suicidal woman down, says coroner A coroner has criticised a national health service care system as “bonkersâ€\x9d, saying it let down a vulnerable and suicidal young mother who went on to kill herself. An inquest heard that Rebecca Kelsall, 31, had sought counselling for depression but did not receive adequate care and later took her own life. The coroner John Pollard said that rules within Britain’s mental healthcare regime had left Kelsall stranded without regular professional help. The inquest in Stockport, heard that Kelsall, who had two children, killed herself after NHS rules stopped health workers asking if she was ill, even though she had already told doctors she had been suicidal. Pollard described the rules as “bonkersâ€\x9d, adding that it was a NHS care system worthy of a “world in Alice in Wonderlandâ€\x9d. In May 2015, Kelsall phoned a mental health clinic where she had received counselling to say she was too unwell to make an appointment. Later the same day Kelsall drank vodka and took antidepressants before hanging herself at her home in Stretford, Greater Manchester. During the inquest into her death it was revealed that Kelsall had sought help from an online therapist saying she was having suicidal thoughts. But she was told she would have to wait four weeks for a face-to-face meeting and in the interim she would no longer be able to seek help online. She eventually saw a psychologist and again said she had suicidal thoughts. She missed a subsequent consultation due to illness but staff were unable to ascertain the nature of her illness due to “policyâ€\x9d banning “personal questionsâ€\x9d. After missing a further appointment Kelsall was dismissed from the health service and no effort was made to check on her welfare, the coroner heard. It emerged that Kelsall was already dead when she was formally discharged for being absent at the second meeting. At the inquest Pollard condemned the healthcare system which treated her, saying it was “flawed and poorâ€\x9d, and that she was a vulnerable person who should never have been discharged. Pollard said: “I believe that the fact somebody has already died and therefore cannot possibly attend their appointment is a pretty exceptional circumstance. This is very poor policy. This system has let her down. Here we have a vulnerable person with a history of problems, and because she doesn’t turn up the system simply says ‘discharge her’. There was no concern that a woman with problems and a history of suicidal thoughts didn’t attend. This seems to me to be a very flawed system. “I can’t understand why she was not asked why she was feeling unwell. If I rang the bank to say I wouldn’t be going in that day, I wouldn’t expect them to quiz me about it. But if I rang my doctor surgery, who should be solely concerned with my health, to tell them the same thing, I would expect them to ask me why I was poorly.â€\x9d Pollard said he would be writing to NHS employers and the Care Quality Commission to express concern about Kelsall’s treatment. “I can feel myself slipping into the world of Alice in Wonderland here. This is a bonkers system. I shouldn’t have to use words like bonkers but I feel it’s appropriate here. People like Rebecca need a system they can rely on. She could have easily remained on the e-therapy system while waiting for cognitive behavioural therapy, and the only reason she didn’t is because the rules wouldn’t let her. This is something I am very concerned about and hope it will be addressed.’’ Kelsall sought professional help under the online system in September 2014. Rachel Jagger, a self-help coordinator for the website, said Kelsall said she was having suicidal thoughts once or twice week. “We had a discussion about how she had been feeling tearful, how her sleeping pattern had changed and how she was finding it hard to cope from one day to the next. She reported feeling an intense eight out of 10 intention of self harming. But the next time we spoke her intention of self harming had dropped to two out of 10, though she was having suicidal thoughts once or twice a week.â€\x9d Jagger said that Kelsall went on to cancel two further online sessions and was told she could no longer have access to the online service and would have to wait four weeks for a face-to-face meeting. “I told her that I would rearrange an appointment for her, but due to policy it would be the last time I could do so before she would be discharged. She told me she was struggling to complete the tasks online and agreed that it would be best to arrange a face-to-face CBT session. “Unfortunately, due to our procedure we had to remove the option for her to access the online service because there would have been nobody available to support her. She was very concerned when we explained she would have to wait four weeks for this meeting.â€\x9d Kelsall was referred to Samantha Fox, a psychological wellbeing practitioner, and had two consultations with her. Fox told the hearing that Kelsall had experienced relationship problems in the past and her low mood was preventing her from going to work and socialising with friends. She said: “This meant she was spending more time alone, giving her the chance to ruminate about things. She talked to me about her problem with alcohol consumption but that she felt it was something she was managing, and she also discussed her two failed relationships but never elaborated. I always felt it was difficult for her to discuss this matter, so I never knew much about it.â€\x9d But Fox said Kelsall had failed to attend two further scheduled appointments, leading to her being discharged from the service. When asked by the coroner if Kelsall was contacted to find out why she was unwell, Fox said: “I do not believe that the admin department would ask a patient such a personal question about their health. If two or more appointments are missed, it is policy for us to send out a discharge letter. Unless there are extraordinary circumstances as to why they have been unable to attend, then they are notified that they have been dismissed from the service.â€\x9d Kelsall was found dead on 31 May 2015 after her family raised concerns for her welfare. There was no suicide note. The coroner recorded an open verdict saying Kelsall might not have been “thinking clearlyâ€\x9d at the time of her death. Her family were too upset to comment after the hearing. Vicki Nash, head of Mind’s policy and campaigns, said: “A third of suicides are among people known to NHS mental health services and it is vital that when people do seek help they get the support they need. No one in touch with services, asking for help, should reach the point of taking their own life. “NHS mental health services are under enormous pressure at the moment as funding cuts over recent years have come at a time of rising demand. As a result many people aren’t getting the right support at the right time, so they become more unwell and may reach crisis point. “We know that suicides among people in touch with crisis teams have increased, as have suicides among people sent out of the local area for care, often because of bed shortages. It is unacceptable that the very service there to help people in crisis is unable to support people in the right way and help them to recover. “This is why suicide prevention measures need to be accompanied by improvements to NHS mental health services. We have heard positive announcements in recent weeks about increased funding for mental health services. But without significant investment services … they won’t be able to start giving people the help they need, when they need it.â€\x9d In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Website: www.samaritans.org In the US, National Suicide Prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, crisis support service Lifeline: 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries click here",
 "Trump's balancing act: what to expect from his immigration speech Immigration has been one of Donald Trump’s signature issues since he announced his presidential campaign in June 2015. From the moment he got off the escalator at Trump Tower in New York and spoke about Mexico deliberately sending criminals and “rapistsâ€\x9d to the United States and the need to build a wall on the southern border, Trump hasn’t stopped talking about immigration. But in his Wednesday speech on the topic in Phoenix – which will follow his surprise visit to Mexico – Trump will need to balance the hardline rhetoric he used throughout the Republican primary with the need to win a general election in November. Trump rode his hardline stance to victory in the primary. While his rivals refused to categorically rule out a path to legal status for any of the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, Trump talked about “a deportation forceâ€\x9d to remove all of them within 18 to 24 months. However, the Republican nominee never worked out his plan in detail. The Trump campaign has divulged little on its actual policy, save a set of proposals dating back to August 2015. At almost every rally, Trump pledges that he will “build a wall and make Mexico pay for itâ€\x9d, but he has rarely gone into more detail. But, facing a general election where he has major deficits in the polls and is reviled by Latino voters, the Republican nominee has begun what he called a rhetorical “softeningâ€\x9d in recent weeks, raising questions about whether he was ever sincere in his hardline stance. In the past week and a half, Trump seemingly endorsed a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, only to reverse himself in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The back and forth prompted conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh to admit, “I never took him seriouslyâ€\x9d on immigration. Further, he announced late on Tuesday night that he would meet the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto before the speech on Wednesday to discuss immigration. The ongoing furor has raised the stakes around Trump’s speech and stoked outrage about an apparent flip-flop. In a speech in Iowa on Saturday, Trump spoke about details from his August 2015 plan that had gone almost unmentioned since, including the implementation of E-Verify (an online system that allows businesses to screen employees’ work eligibility) nationwide as well as an exit-entry tracking system to prevent visa overstays. However, Trump dismissed the question of what to do with the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, instead blaming the media: “In recent days, the media – as it usually does – has missed the whole point on immigration,â€\x9d he said. “All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million or more people here illegally.â€\x9d Mark Krikorian, a leading immigration hawk and head of the Center for Immigration Studies, bemoaned the fact that Trump has spent a “week and a half meanderingâ€\x9d on immigration. Krikorian, who has met with Trump on the issue, said this “was especially absurd given that it’s a core, key issue. He’s running as ‘Mr Immigration Control’.â€\x9d Krikorian told the he thought that Trump can only end up in the place where he actually started, “focusing on enforcement tools like E-Verify and tracking for visa holdersâ€\x9d. The vocal immigration hawk thought “the question of what happens to illegal immigrants is secondary; [the] primary question is how we stop another 12 million people from coming here.â€\x9d He noted that Trump was on record saying that some form of “amnestyâ€\x9d would always happen but that “a politician has no business talking like that and that’s the one most important thing that I am looking to not see, is some kind of guarantee or commitment of amnesty.â€\x9d But he said that he was far less concerned about the wall, which “as a policy matter is not that importantâ€\x9d. In the meantime, those on the right worried about a rhetorical softening did find some comfort from an interview that Trump’s son, Donald Jr, gave to CNN on Tuesday, in which he said that his father’s stance on undocumented immigrants was still the same and that all 11 million had to leave the country. But as longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone once said: “No one speaks for Donald Trump but Donald Trump.â€\x9d The Republican nominee is scheduled to give his immigration speech at 6pm local time at the Phoenix Convention Center on Wednesday.",
 "Google denies 'Tories are/Labour are' autocomplete 'conspiracy theories' Google has categorically denied “conspiracy theoriesâ€\x9d accusing it of censoring its search results to please the Conservative party in exchange for an agreement to pay just £130m in back taxes. The accusations stem from Google’s autocomplete function, which suggests search terms based on user input. The suggested searches are created algorithmically from previous searches on the topic. Users who enter “Labour areâ€\x9d are offered completed terms including “… finishedâ€\x9d, “… a jokeâ€\x9d, and “… right wingâ€\x9d. Similarly, entering “Lib Dems areâ€\x9d offers up “… finishedâ€\x9d, “… pointlessâ€\x9d and “… traitorsâ€\x9d. But entering “Conservatives areâ€\x9d or “Tories areâ€\x9d offers no search suggestions at all. That prompted some to accuse Google of censoring its search terms to please the government. One reader, for instance, wrote to the paper to say that “in light of the recent tax scandal, it seems that the internet may be up for the right priceâ€\x9d. Even the Daily Mail reported the conspiracy theories. A Google spokesperson told the that the company “can categorically state that tax is not remotely connected to this, nor are their ‘conspiracy theories’ founded in any wayâ€\x9d. Instead, Google said: “Autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms.â€\x9d So do searches for the Tories or Conservatives produce a different effect? Google offered a hint, saying: “We do remove offensive or inappropriate content from autocomplete predictions.â€\x9d There’s even a web page where anyone can report offensive predictions. It could be that the search results for “Tories areâ€\x9d and “Conservatives areâ€\x9d were so bad that the terms were removed automatically because they were so offensive. A similar override occurs for searches including “Christians areâ€\x9d, “Jews areâ€\x9d. Interestingly, “Muslims areâ€\x9d offers just one autocomplete: “Muslims are not terroristsâ€\x9d. Or it could be the case that the Conservatives are better at reporting offensive terms than Labour or the Liberal Democrats – but a source close to the Conservative party told the it had not reported any offensive terms to Google. Meanwhile, other searches for the same party do autocomplete: “The Conservative party isâ€\x9d completes with “your enemyâ€\x9d. A search for “Tory party isâ€\x9d offers another part of the puzzle, autocompleting to “Conservative party is badâ€\x9d – suggesting that Google treats the two terms as interchangeable.",
 'Conservative MPs start voting in leadership contest Conservative MPs have started voting in the contest to decide who will be their next party leader and the country’s prime minister, with Theresa May a clear frontrunner among her parliamentary colleagues. The politicians can cast a vote between 11am and 6pm, with the candidate securing the least support – most likely to be Liam Fox – being knocked out on Tuesday evening when the results are announced. Boris Johnson intensified the battle on Monday evening by throwing his weight behind Andrea Leadsom, who he said offered “the zap, the drive, and the determinationâ€\x9d that is needed to lead the country. The decision by the former London mayor to support the energy minister’s campaign is likely to draw more MPs to Leadsom, who is now the clear second favourite. “She has long championed the needs of the most vulnerable in our society. She has a better understanding of finance than almost anyone else in parliament. She has considerable experience of government. She is level-headed, kind, trustworthy, approachable and the possessor of a good sense of humour,â€\x9d said Johnson. The former London mayor’s decision to back Leadsom, after his own hopes were scuppered by the last-minute decision of Michael Gove to abandon him and run himself, was described as “revenge served coldâ€\x9d by one MP. The dramatic events have put May well in the lead in parliament, with the public backing of well over 100 MPs, including 10 cabinet ministers, followed by Leadsom, with just under 40 MPs, and then Michael Gove and Stephen Crabb with over 20. The results will knock out the candidate with the least support, but others will then have until 9am on Wednesday to withdraw from the race if they believe that the first-round results are not strong enough to carry on. A second round will be carried out on Thursday, and a third session – if necessary – next Tuesday, with the final two candidates being put forward to a vote by the party’s grassroots members. On Monday night MPs in parliament were discussing who was most likely to come third between the justice secretary, Gove, and the work and pensions secretary, Crabb. Some were suggesting that Tuesday’s result could trigger tactical voting in the next round, as May supporters try to stop Leadsom from being put to the grassroots, after a ConservativeHome poll put the energy minister just ahead of the home secretary. Some worry about the backers that Leadsom has attracted from the right of the party – with arch Eurosceptics such as Bill Cash, John Redwood and Bernard Jenkin all lining up behind her. It comes after May was forced on to the defensive over whether EU citizens would be able to remain in the UK, after Leadsom guaranteed the rights of more than 3 million migrants during a speech to launch her campaign. “We must give them certainty; they will not be bargaining chips in our negotiations,â€\x9d she said. Crabb and Gove have given similar assurances, as both sought to differentiate themselves from May. The home secretary responded at the start of a private Tory party hustings in parliament on Monday night by saying the issue would be dealt with in Brexit negotiations. She said she wanted to provide guarantees, but talks would also have to focus on protecting the rights of millions of British people living abroad. May told her party’s MPs that she wanted to take the issue head-on after a controversial session in parliament in which the immigration minister, James Brokenshire, faced criticism from Labour MPs and his party’s own benches as he laid out the government position. The hustings were followed by another session by the 2020 group of MPs, focused on how the Conservatives can secure a majority, who were able to watch each of the candidates in half-hour slots. There were also a number of Conservative MPs drinking in the House of Commons bars as many discussed how the leadership candidates had performed in the hustings. Some joked that Leadsom had lost them when she began to talk about “frontal lobesâ€\x9d and her “3 Bs – Brussels, banks and babiesâ€\x9d. The reference was to the attachment theory between parents and newborns and the impact on brain development – something she is passionate about. Many said Gove and Fox performed best but said May got the warmest reception and described Crabb as solid. Many also went to a karaoke session in parliament organised by the deputy leader of the house, Therese Coffey, where dozens of MPs sang a variety of songs including Mr Brightside, Mack the Knife and Summer Nights. All the leadership candidates turned up apart from Leadsom. Sources suggest Crabb sang a plea to MPs with “Don’t Stop Me Nowâ€\x9d.',
 'Women taking pill more likely to be treated for depression, study finds Women who take the contraceptive pill are more likely to be treated for depression, according to a large study. Millions of women worldwide use hormonal contraceptives, and there have long been reports that they can affect mood. A research project was launched in Denmark to look at the scale of the problem, involving the medical records of more than a million women and adolescent girls. It found that those on the combined pill were 23% more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant by their doctor, most commonly in the first six months after starting on the pill. Women on the progestin-only pills, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, were 34% more likely to take antidepressants or get a first diagnosis of depression than those not on hormonal contraception. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry, found that not only women taking pills but also those with implants, patches and intrauterine devices were affected. Adolescent girls appeared to be at highest risk. Those taking combined pills were 80% more likely and those on progestin-only pills more than twice as likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than their peers who were not on the pill. The researchers, Øjvind Lidegaard of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues, point out that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression in their lifetime as men, though rates are equal before puberty. The fluctuating levels of the two female sex hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, have been implicated. Studies have suggested raised progesterone levels in particular may lower mood. The impact of low-dose hormonal contraception on mood and possibly depression has not been fully studied, the authors say. They used registry data in Denmark on more than a million women and adolescent girls aged between 15 and 34. They were followed up from 2000 until 2013 with an average follow-up of 6.4 years. The authors call for more studies to investigate this possible side-effect of the pill. Other scientists said the research should not put women off using hormonal contraception. Dr Channa Jayasena, a clinical senior lecturer in reproductive endocrinology at Imperial College London, said: “This study raises important questions about the pill. In over a million Danish women, depression was associated with contraceptive pill use. The study does not prove [and does not claim] that the pill plays any role in the development of depression. However, we know hormones play a hugely important role in regulating human behaviour. “Given the enormous size of this study, further work is needed to see if these results can be repeated in other populations, and to determine possible biological mechanisms which might underlie any possible link between the pill and depression. Until then, women should not be deterred from taking the pill.â€\x9d Dr Ali Kubba, a fellow of the faculty of sexual and reproductive healthcare of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, also said further research was needed. “There is existing clinical evidence that hormonal contraception can impact some women’s moods, however, from this study there is no way of linking causation, therefore further research is needed to examine depression as a potential adverse effect of hormonal contraceptive use,â€\x9d he said. “Women should not be alarmed by this study as all women react differently to different methods of contraception. There are a variety of contraception methods on offer including the pill, implants, injections, intrauterine devices, and vaginal rings and we therefore advise women to discuss their options with a doctor, where they will discuss the possible side-effects and decisions around the most suitable method can be made jointly.â€\x9d',
 'The Young Offenders review – knockabout Irish crime caper Cork-born teenager Conor MacSweeney (Alex Murphy) and his best friend Jock (Chris Walley) are a classic little-and-large double act, the disparity in their heights made even more comical by the way they sport near-identical tracksuits, close-shaved haircuts and bumfluff moustaches. Bored with their regular routines of working, in Conor’s case, at the fish stall run by his single mother Mairead (Hilary Rose) and, in Jock’s case, stealing bicycles, they decide to embark on an adventure. Hearing that a €7m bale of cocaine has gone missing on the coast of Kerry, they set off on a treasure hunt, pursued by a garda (Dominic MacHale) determined to bring the bike-pilfering Jock to justice. As broad and brassy Irish comedies go (there have been quite a few of them lately), this one is reasonably palatable, striking a workable balance between knockabout slapstick, backchat, and proper storytelling and characterisation. The young leads’ crisp comic timing is another plus, though the whole package is hardly original and a notch less funny than seems to think it is.',
 'Turkey fails to meet criteria for visa-free EU travel Turkey has missed an EU deadline that would have allowed its citizens visa-free travel through most of Europe, amid ongoing tensions over a controversial migration deal. EU leaders promised the Turkish government that 79 million Turks could have access to Europe’s 26-country border-free Schengen travel zone by June, as part of a hotly disputed bargain on migration. But this was always conditional on Turkey meeting 72 EU conditions on border security and fundamental rights. The European commission announced on Wednesday that Turkey had still failed to meet some of the conditions, including changes to its counter-terrorism legislation. In a separate decision, EU ambassadors are expected to approve the opening of negotiations on one part of Turkish membership talks later on Wednesday. The decision to open talks on budget is a symbolic gesture that was promised under the migration deal. The prospect of Turkey’s membership of the EU has inflamed the UK EU referendum debate even though Turkey is unlikely to join for decades, if ever. The visa deal does not apply to the UK or Ireland, which are outside the EU’s Schengen area. Since Turkey’s EU membership talks began in 2005, only one of the 35 “chaptersâ€\x9d has been closed. Several are blocked over the country’s long-running dispute with Cyprus, while Turkey is seen by the EU as regressing on freedom of expression and the rule of law. The widely expected decision to delay the visa deal came one day after the EU’s ambassador to Turkey resigned. Hansjörg Haber will leave his post as the EU ambassador to Turkey in August, after making provocative comments about the migration deal that infuriated the Turkish government. The German diplomat, who was only appointed last August, was accused of showing disrespect for Turkish national values and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan. Doubts about the visa deal have mounted ever since ErdoÄŸan ousted the prime minister who led negotiations with the EU. Turkey’s strongman leader has flatly rejected EU calls to rewrite his country’s anti-terrorism laws, saying: “We’ll go our way, you go yours.â€\x9d In a statement the European commission said progress on the EU-Turkey deal was fragile. But Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner in charge of migration and visa policy, said he expected Turkey to meet the EU conditions on visa-free travel. “Statement diplomacy is not very helpful,â€\x9d he said, adding that his talks with government officials at the highest possible level showed a strong will to cooperate with the EU. “I believe the migration crisis is bringing Turkey closer to Europe,â€\x9d he said. He declined to specify when the deal could be agreed, muddying expectations that this might happen when the EU published its next progress report in September. Anxieties about visa-free travel in the EU have surfaced in several countries. A visa-free deal for Georgia’s 5 million citizens was put on hold last week, after last-minute opposition from France, Italy and Germany. The EU is also negotiating a visa-free travel deal with Ukraine. Governments, led by France and Germany, have insisted on an emergency brake that would allow them to halt the arrangement if there was abuse of the rules. Since the EU agreed the migration pact with Turkey in March, the number of migrants making the perilous journey to Greece has fallen sharply. Fewer than 50 people a day risked the dangerous Aegean Sea crossing in May on average, compared to daily arrivals of up to 2,000 at the start of the year. So far 511 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Europe from Turkey, under the one-for-one scheme. Around 462 migrants, including 31 Syrians, have been sent back to Turkey from Greece. The EU executive also called on Greece to take urgent steps to improve its asylum claims system, which fell foul of human rights standards even before a surge in arrivals on Greek beaches last year. Issuing a series of recommendations, it said Greece had to do more to ensure the safety of unaccompanied children and guarantee legal aid for claimants. But a senior human rights advocate at the Council of Europe said the EU-Turkey deal had created problems for Greece, which was struggling to cope with processing asylum claims. Tomáš BoÄ\x8dek, special representative on migration and refugees at the Council of Europe, said migrants and refugees were spending too long in overcrowded camps and asylum-processing “hotspotsâ€\x9d in Greece while they awaited a decision on their claims. Around 50,000 people are on the Greek mainland, while a further 7,000-8,000 are estimated to be in camps on the Greek islands. The Council of Europe, which is not an EU body, has sharply criticised the EU-Turkey deal as a possible breach of international law. BoÄ\x8dek, who served as the Czech Republic’s ambassador to the EU, recently visited Turkey, which is housing 3.1 million refugees. Ahead of a report to be published later this summer, he voiced concern that half a million Syrian refugee children were not in school in Turkey. Many children were working in fields or textile factories to help support their families, he said. “It would be difficult for any country to deal with this, but there are shortcomings, which are understandable because of this great number of refugees.â€\x9d',
 "Australia's biggest banks pump billions into fossil fuels despite climate pledges Australia’s big four banks are continuing to finance fossil fuel projects despite embracing a 2C or better global warming target, according to figures from financial activists Market Forces. The Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank signed off on loans totalling $5.5bn to coal, oil, gas and liquefied natural gas projects in 2015, a figure that is higher than three of the preceding eight years. Among the deals were eight loans for coal projects signed in Australia in 2015, with a total value of $4bn, including for struggling Whitehaven Coal, operator of the controversial Maules Creek mine. All of the projects had some financing from the big four banks, with their contributions totalling $995m. “It’s pretty much business as usual for the big four,â€\x9d said Julien Vincent from Market Forces. It comes amid a series of dire warnings for the future of coal, with consumption declining in major economies such as the US and China. Last week, Goldman Sachs forecast that coal may be in terminal decline, with the fall in demand possibly being irreversible. All big four banks have made statements supporting a 2C target and they have acknowledged the need to play a role in achieving a shift away from fossil fuels. After the Paris climate accord of December 2015, Westpac went so far as saying it would take “concrete action to ensure our lending and investing activities support an economy that limits global warming to less than two degreesâ€\x9d. ANZ’s statement acknowledged worries that lending to fossil fuels was in conflict with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It committed to not lend to any new coal-fired power plants that didn’t use high-quality coal. The data was collected from public announcements made by the banks since 2008 and shared with Australia by Market Forces. Vincent said it showed the banks’ actions were not consistent with statements about climate change because continuing to exploit fossil fuels would blow the carbon budget, increasing warming beyond 2C. Among the $5.5bn of financing from the big four banks, there were 21 fossil fuel projects, including $300m for the struggling Whitehaven Coal, which had its loan refinanced by ANZ, Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank. Under the new terms, Whitehaven Coal was given a lower interest rate, despite its share price plummeting to a quarter of what it was when its controversial Maules Creek mine was first approved in July 2013. When the refinancing was announced last year, Whitehaven Coal’s chief executive, Paul Flynn, was quoted in Fairfax Media trumpeting the support from the banks as a mark of confidence in the coal industry. “For those who think the coal industry is part of the past, they may need to rethink their views, because that is certainly not the view of those who have just funded the deal,â€\x9d Flynn said. “To have all the major banks represented in our syndicate and for them to sign up again, on even better terms than what we had before, obviously their belief in our business and our industry is very strong.â€\x9d Since that deal was announced less than a year ago, the company’s share price has fallen 65%. Tim Buckley, an analyst from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told Australia the banks immediately started trading the debt in secondary markets and lost 20% on it in the first few months. Buckley said the bad performance of that loan was an “a-ha momentâ€\x9d for the banking industry. He said he was sure that next year similar analysis would show a drop in fossil fuel lending but not because of environmental concerns – simply because they are realising fossil fuels are a bad bet. “The financial markets have realised that [the Paris accord] was a massive aha-moment for everyone … They are saying, ‘Look, we know that policy action globally is inevitable,â€\x9d Buckley said. As a result they were beginning to be more cautious about financing fossil fuels and that would be reflected at the end of this year, he said. In response to the Market Forces figures, the big four banks all sent statements to Australia emphasising their lending to renewable energy projects. Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank provided links to some publicly available data on their exposure to the fossil fuel industry but it was not possible to compare the figures over time or against other banks. ANZ has similar data available. ANZ said that since 40% of the world’s energy comes from coal and it remains the cheapest fuel, a transition from coal needed to be “managed responsibly over timeâ€\x9d. NAB said that, to secure Australia’s energy needs, renewable energy will play an increasing role but “fossil fuel will continue to be a major energy source for the foreseeable futureâ€\x9d. The big four Australian banks were involved in 70% of the deals but were not alone in financing coal, gas and LNG projects. Their deals made up a quarter of the $22bn in loans to fossil fuel projects that were signed-off on in 2015 from both Australian and international banks. The biggest lenders to fossil fuel projects in Australia were Japanese banks, with three closing deals with combined values of between $2.2bn and $2.9bn in 2015, pushing the big four lower in list of top 10 lenders to fossil fuels. The figures do not give a complete picture of how much the banks are lending to fossil fuels overall – their “exposureâ€\x9d – because many of the deals that were signed were refinancing, so are not necessarily increasing the amount of money lent to fossil fuel companies. Refinancing is a process where one loan is replaced with another under new terms. But Vincent said while banks were starting to become more transparent, they still did not provide enough information for shareholders and other stakeholders to calculate their overall exposure to fossil fuels over time and compare them. Vincent said that refinancing can also extend the length of a loan, or improve its terms, so refinanced deals are not always simply a continuation of the status quo. “And in light of statements supporting a move away from fossil fuels, banks could always choose not to refinance a loan,â€\x9d he said. “The Whitehaven deal is a good example. Any of the big four could have turned around and said ‘all those activists climbing on your project and delaying it, and the decline in share price, it’s just too hot to handle and we’re going to exit this’.â€\x9d “The banks are desperate to stay in a position of business as usual. What this shows is an intent and a willingness to stay involved in the industry and to be exposed to it.â€\x9d Vincent pointed out some banks have done exactly that on Abbot Point, leaving continuing doubts about whether the project could receive the loans it needs to proceed.",
 'Norwich City stand firm to leave Manchester City off the title pace Manchester City edged a point closer to Leicester City at the top of the Premier League table but this result surely represents ground lost by them in the title race. Rather than increase the pressure on the leaders, Manuel Pellegrini’s side performed like men who should worry about being overtaken by West Ham or Manchester United in the top four. The would-be champions have not won back-to-back league games for five months and have a difficult run-in on top of a Champions League campaign that they aim to extend by seeing off Dynamo Kyiv in midweek. Norwich, meanwhile, can take heart from a point won with a spirited performance and their first clean sheet in more than two months. It could prove a springboard to survival. Manchester City have grown accustomed to beating Norwich heavily in recent seasons, including a 3-0 win here in the FA Cup in January, but this time, when only victory would have fuelled belief that they can topple the league leaders, they lacked creativity and sharpness. Norwich initially seemed there for the taking but emerged as deserving recipients of a point. The hosts’ jitters, caused by a 10-match winless streak, served as an invitation to the visitors to make themselves at home again. Pellegrini’s team hogged the ball but did not have the ingenuity to do much with it and were at times expensively sluggish. When Russell Martin headed an attempted clearance on to Sergio Agüero in the fifth minute, the Argentina striker gave him enough time to recover and block the ensuing shot. And when Fernandinho produced a rare incisive pass in the 21st minute to put Gaël Clichy clean through, the left-back miscontrolled and let the ball run out of play. By that stage, all that the home goalkeeper, John Ruddy, had done was awkwardly push a 20-yard free-kick by Agüero over the bar. Not until the 29th minute did Ruddy have to excel, plunging quickly to his right to tip away a low drive from Agüero with one hand. City could not make him perform such a feat again. That shot came against the run of play because Norwich, encouraged by the visitors’ impotence, had started to apply pressure at the other end. With Martin Olsson supplying regular crosses from the left, the Carrow Road crowd began to belt out hopeful chants. Patrick Bamford nearly brought ecstatic roars in the 39th minute when he outwitted Nicolás Otamendi and hit a half-volley over Joe Hart from 30 yards. There were exasperated yelps all round when the ball cannoned out off the crossbar. By first-half stoppage time, when Matt Jarvis shot just wide from 16 yards, the title-chasers were a slovenly bunch. David Silva flitted about purposefully but lacked zest and too few of his team-mates were on his wavelength in the first half. Wilfried Bony, again picked ahead of Kelechi Iheanacho, exerted no influence before being replaced by Raheem Sterling in the 58th minute. In the middle, there was a Yaya Touré-shaped hole. The Ivorian has his flaws but boasts a creative menace that none of his team-mates provided in his absence. Manchester City started the second half with renewed urgency. That made Norwich defend with renewed nervousness, but no less commitment. Gary O’Neil and Jonny Howson were tirelessly vigilant in front of the back four. The visitors failed to penetrate. Just after the hour Silva, playing more centrally following Sterling’s introduction, spotted a run by Fernandinho and rewarded it with a beautiful pass. But the Brazilian eschewed a straightforward shot and offloaded to Agüero, who bumbled before his shot was blocked. Agüero sought to make amends moments later with a jagged run towards the box. Timm Klose took him down just outside, and the free-kick yielded nothing. “We had a very good attitude and very good possession but we couldn’t create the space that we needed in the last third,â€\x9d said Pellegrini, who insisted his team could still be champions. “If you mathematically have a chance to do it, you must always think you can do it.â€\x9d Neil remains convinced that Norwich will get out of trouble. “The amount of effort the players are putting in to stay in the league can’t be questioned and our game management and our decision making was better than in recent weeks,â€\x9d said the Scot, whose team will soon host the two sides closest to them in the table, Sunderland and a Newcastle United side whose illustrious new manager holds no fear for Neil. “Rafael BenÃ\xadtez isn’t going to win the game for them, it’s all about the players,â€\x9d said the Scotsman.',
 'Weak pound boosts UK manufacturing but import costs rise steeply Expansion in British factories slowed a little in October as the weak pound boosted exports but also pushed the prices of imports sharply higher. In the latest sign that consumers in the UK will face higher prices following the sharp fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote, manufacturers raised the price of their goods at the fastest rate in more than five years. The latest Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) survey suggested that firms are starting to pass on higher import costs as the weak pound makes raw materials such as oil more expensive. However, the weak exchange rate also helped to boost orders from the US, the EU and China. The broader survey suggested the sector got off to a decent start in the fourth quarter. The headline index combining output, orders, and employment fell to 54.3 in October, from 55.5 in September, where anything above 50 signals expansion. Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, and an author of the report, said the manufacturing sector should return to growth in the fourth quarter, after shrinking by 1% in the third. He added: “On the positive side, the boost to competitiveness [from the weak pound] drove new export order inflows higher, providing a key support to output volumes. The downside of the weaker currency is becoming increasingly evident, however, with increased import prices leading to one of the steepest rises in purchasing costs in the near 25-year survey history. “Inflationary pressure was also experienced at the factory gate, with average selling prices rising at the steepest pace since mid-2011.â€\x9d Capital Economics warned that the data suggested consumer prices would “pick up sharplyâ€\x9d in the next few months. The UK economy has shown more resilience than expected since the EU referendum on 23 June. Official figures published last week showed the economy grew by 0.5% in the third quarter between July and September. It was slower than the 0.7% growth in the second quarter, but stronger than economists expected and ruled out the possibility of a recession in the second half of 2016. A stronger-than-expected performance has fuelled expectations that the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) will refrain from cutting interest rates on Thursday, instead holding them at a record low of 0.25%. Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Markit, said: “The decent October manufacturing purchasing survey reinforces belief that the Bank of England will be sitting tight on monetary policy on Thursday after the November MPC meeting.â€\x9d',
 "Amber Heard sued for $10m over 'conspiracy' in London Fields promotion Another lawsuit has been filed over the film London Fields – this time directed at actor Amber Heard. In the $10m suit filed by the film’s producers, Heard, who starred as Nicola Six in the adaptation of the 1989 Martin Amis novel, is alleged to have “breached performance and promotional obligationsâ€\x9d, the Hollywood Reporter wrote. The star-studded film features Heard as a psychic who foresees her own murder, alongside actors Billy Bob Thornton and Jim Sturgess, with a cameo by her former husband Johnny Depp. London Fields was slated to make its debut at the Toronto film festival last year before being removed from the festival lineup after reports emerged that director Matthew Cullen would sue the producers for fraud, claiming they were marketing the film using his name despite debuting a version that he had nothing to do with. His suit against Christopher Hanley and other producers complained that footage of “9/11 jumpers edited against pornographyâ€\x9d and a juxtaposition of “the holiest city in Islam against mind-controlâ€\x9d had been inserted into the film. The producers called the cancellation an “ill-considered decision made against our rightsâ€\x9d at the time. In a statement, Muse Productions said Cullen missed deadlines to submit a “director’s cutâ€\x9d. Hanley’s Nicola Six Limited then filed a cross-complaint against Cullen. This latest suit is listed as “closely relatedâ€\x9d to that complaint, according to the 24-page document posted online by Deadline. The suit against Heard, filed in Los Angeles superior court, stated that “Heard’s conspiracy, her campaign against the Picture, and her contractual breaches … have damaged the Picture, causing substantial harm to the Plaintiff, the Picture, and the Picture’s investorsâ€\x9d. Among many claims, it alleged that she breached confidentiality obligations, failed to perform certain acting services and failed to comply with her publicity contract, according to the document. Later in the document, it states that her “misguided and unlawful conspiratorial campaignâ€\x9d against the film is ongoing. The film has received mostly poor reviews with the ’s Henry Barnes calling it “awfully sillyâ€\x9d.",
 'Local businesses will pay the price of Lloyds branch closures The news that Lloyds will be closing yet more branches will not come as much of a surprise given that almost two banks are closing their doors every single day and more than 1,500 communities no longer have access to even a single branch. There will be more bad news to come, and it will be local businesses and ordinary people in deprived areas that will pay the price as banking executives grapple with the costs of Brexit on top of £75bn in fines, compensation and legal expenses thanks to previous misdeeds. A bank closing its doors reduces SME lending growth in that area by 63% on average, rising to 104% when the branch in question is the last in town. The impact is hugely damaging to the local economy, especially as in nine out of 10 cases the banks that are closing are situated in areas where median household income is below the national average of £27,600. Move Your Money, a not-for-profit organisation that campaigns for ethical banking, has found that the closure of a bank branch sees lending to businesses in that postcode fall by £1.6m over the course of a year. This is a huge loss of investment in areas where unemployment is high and high streets are full of boarded up shop fronts. Over two-thirds of small business customers state that having access to a bank branch is important to them, and the importance of a high street branch stretches far beyond traders having somewhere to go to deposit their cash or nascent firms having ready access to capital. When a bank shuts up shop more often than not the cash machines disappear too and every local business in the vicinity suffers from the knock on effect. Despite the rise of chip and pin and contactless payment methods, cash still accounts for almost half of all high street sales and three-quarters of sales at newsagents and convenience stores. Furthermore, for every withdrawal from an ATM £16 – amounting to £36bn a year – is injected directly into local stores, meaning more than a third of total high street spending is directly reliant on easy access to a cash machine. Lloyds have not yet confirmed exactly which further branches will be closed, but in all likelihood it will branches in areas that are already struggling and can least afford to see the local economy atrophy in this way. The banking industry and the government will continue to point to the Access to Banking Protocol as evidence that the public interest and local communities are being protected when banks close branches. But the Access to Banking Protocol is not fit for purpose – it is just window-dressing for the big banks and government alike to hide behind so it appears that they are doing something about branch closures. What is the point of consulting with local people and businesses once the decision has already been taken? A consultation can only be meaningful if it takes place in advance of any decision on closure. An independent review of the Access to Banking Protocol is currently under way, but unless the government wakes up and stops listening to the banking lobbyists before it’s too late, the promises that will be inevitably made at every budget and autumn statement about supporting small businesses in this country should be taken with a large pinch of salt. In their advertising and marketing campaigns, the big banks are keen to position themselves as the friends of small businesses, but nothing could be further from the truth. To paraphrase Saint Teresa of Avila, if this is how banks treat their friends, it is no wonder they have so few. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.',
 'Can we stop talking about our bushes now? Feminists are needed elsewhere How political are your pubes? It’s not a question most of us spend much time worrying about, yet when you’re a woman, how you choose to cultivate your lady garden sprouts up as a topic with tedious regularity. In its latest incarnation, the arbiters at Tatler magazine have declared the “freedom bushâ€\x9d back in fashion (those who sneer at the notion of the pudenda being subject to changing aesthetic trends would do well to remember that dark mid-noughties period: the “vajazzle yearsâ€\x9d). If even the conservative, conventional Sloane is cultivating a full bush then, it’s worth noting, that could indeed hint at a seismic shift in societal norms regarding pubic grooming. But equally, after years and years of the same “debateâ€\x9d, is it not time that feminist coverage in the media was directed elsewhere? In other words, magazine editors, enough already. We are just emerging from a period that has seen a new generation embrace feminism in a way that the capitalist post-feminists of the 1990s could scarcely have imagined. Much of this has been powerful and positive: the conversation about the importance of sexual consent, for instance, and how it operates within a culture that continues to trivialise rape, has never been louder and more energetic. The fightback against street harassment has been equally inspirational. But at the same time a strand of feminism in the media has spent the last few years concerning itself with issues that many would dismiss as trivial, including pubes, and footwear, and 50 Shades of Grey, not to mention that perennial question that birthed a million op-eds: is Beyoncé a feminist or not? As a writer, I have been guilty of entering into some of these debates. With an internet media run on opinion, feminist polemic can feel like one of the few journalistic avenues open to the young, aspiring woman writer (critiquing media sexism is how I began my own career, and I am grateful to it, but I have said my piece on women’s magazines). For a long while, talking about the more trivial aspects of the feminist debate – as opposed to, for instance, boring old domestic violence – was the only way to get feminism covered in the mainstream media. But as time has gone on, the focus on the fluffy – so often to the point where it appears to be given equal billing to more urgent and distressing issues affecting women – has irked me, and other feminists writers, more and more. Perhaps it is because I have been in this game for a while now, and have thus seen the same topics recycled several times over with very little new being said (my friend and colleague Emer O’Toole wrote the definitive piece on female body hair several years ago – what could be left to say about it?). Or perhaps it is because I have grown up a tad in the past five years. But more than either of those two things, I would reason that this is a time when the need for feminism is making itself acutely obvious in all manner of ways. There is so very little to laugh about, to the point where even the notion of a “freedom foofâ€\x9d fails to raise a smile. Donald Trump, a man with so much obvious contempt for women that it feels almost unbelievable – like watching a fictional dystopia play out on our TV screens – is running for president. Analysis has shown that, if women were excluded and only US men were eligible to vote, Trump would win the election. It is abundantly clear that there are millions of people who would rather have a fascist than a female as leader. We are told that women can achieve anything in this day and age – “so what are you whining about?â€\x9d being the inevitable subtext. “Look at Hillary,â€\x9d we are told, to which the inevitable rebuttal is: “Yes, look at Hillary. Look at what she is up against.â€\x9d There are other concerns, of course. The way the previous sexual behaviour of the complainant in the Ched Evans case was pored over during his successful appeal and in court this month has caused widespread dismay. Then there’s the closure of domestic violence shelters – 17% have closed due to funding cuts, 32 of which were specialist services for black and ethnic minority women, and 48% of 167 domestic violence services in England said they were running services without any funding. Two women a week are murdered by their partners or ex-partners, and vulnerable women such as female asylum seekers continue to be abused. There were 99 pregnant women held in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre last year. Three Serco workers are currently in court over the alleged rape of a Yarl’s Wood detainee. As a recent report noted, the harassment and abuse of young girls in schools is endemic. I took part in a feminist debate this month, during which the broadcaster Jenni Murray recounted being turned down for a mortgage in the 1970s for no other reason than her gender; another speaker spoke about the murder of her friend at 18 by a boyfriend; and the DJ Clara Amfo expressed her frustration at being unable to articulate her anger about female oppression without being labelled an “angry black womanâ€\x9d. I returned home depressed and tearful. Faced with these sobering facts, is it any wonder, really, that so many people seek refuge in arguing instead about bikini waxes? I’ve been to enough schools to talk to young women about feminism to know that feminist “fluffâ€\x9d can be an easy way to open a discussion – a “gateway drugâ€\x9d if you will, for those unfamiliar with the topic, or put off or intimidated by the stereotypes surrounding it. It’s important that teenage girls particularly question why it is they feel pressured into certain sexual behaviours. That issue does not go away once you declare that the “full bushâ€\x9d is back. The impact of pornography on the way young people conduct relationships goes way beyond a few wax strips, taking in issues of consent, coercion and abuse, objectification, grooming and revenge porn. It’s all cheerful stuff. The personal is political, the feminists of the 1970s told us, and this has morphed into a strange kind of choice feminism where women are encouraged to examine their clothing, their footwear, their grooming, their behaviour, every little choice that they make, in order to assess whether it matches up. But the big picture is now so alarmingly vivid that it obscures these trivial questions. Freedom is never so easy to imagine as when it might be taken away. Most women know that our bushes have very little to do with it.',
 'Rafael BenÃ\xadtez exudes belief Newcastle can avoid relegation Rafael BenÃ\xadtez says he finds mind games boring but the worrying thing for Sam Allardyce and Alex Neil is that, right now, he has no need to resort to them. Underpinned by a famously forensic eye for detail, the Spaniard’s aura of calm, good-natured authority is transforming Newcastle United to the point where supporters of Allardyce’s Sunderland and Neil’s Norwich City are becoming unsettled. By simply being himself, BenÃ\xadtez has not only galvanised his own team but planted seeds of doubt in the minds of both rivals. A combination of the Spaniard’s grace under pressure and Newcastle’s best Premier League run since 2014 has fuelled real hope on Tyneside that a team one and two points, respectively, ahead of the other contenders for the last two relegation spots can stay out of the bottom three. Considering Norwich and Sunderland have a game in hand, the odds remain against St James’ Park staging top-tier football next season but BenÃ\xadtez retains the air of an experienced pilot quietly confident he can safely accomplish a high-risk landing on an icy runway buffeted by crosswinds. “It’s not 100% in our hands,â€\x9d acknowledged Newcastle’s manager, who knows he needs another win at Aston Villa on Saturday. “But we’re going in the right direction, we’re doing the right things, we’re enjoying this challenge and we’ll try and enjoy it until the end.â€\x9d The fragility of such pleasure was emphasised by the nervous undercurrents rippling through a capacity crowd before the excellent Andros Townsend sent a sublime free-kick curving into the top corner. Indeed the tension would surely have become unbearable had Karl Darlow not subsequently dived low to his left and saved a Yohan Cabaye penalty that threatened to offer Crystal Palace a point. It was typical of BenÃ\xadtez that, when Rob Elliot ruptured his cruciate ligament and joined the similarly injured Tim Krul in the treatment room, he refused to panic, instead simply stating how lucky Newcastle were to have such a good third-choice goalkeeper. Judging by Darlow’s occasional, generally unconvincing, appearances under previous managers it seemed wishful thinking but, instead, the former Nottingham Forest goalkeeper has been little short of brilliant. Granted his positioning and footwork may be a bit unorthodox at times but he has pulled off a series of fabulous saves – on Saturday he repelled a difficult volley from Palace’s dangerous Yannick Bolasie and an awkward Cabaye shot – as his team-mates have reacquainted themselves with the concept of hope. “This is a big three points for us,â€\x9d said Darlow, who was shocked to see the penalty awarded for what seemed a nonexistent handball against Moussa Sissoko. If it helped that Cabaye, widely booed by his once adoring former geordie public, struck his kick poorly, Darlow still performed heroics. “I just picked the way to go, dived hard and reacted to the ball,â€\x9d he said, reflecting on a stop which could yet prove worth £100m to Newcastle. “It was possibly the most valuable save I’ve made. It was one of those special moments that could keep us up. We do our research and look through everyone’s penalties before we play them and Cabaye had put his last four or five the other way. So it was just instinct.â€\x9d Had fortune not frowned on Krul and Elliot, Darlow knows he would not even be warming the bench now so he appreciated it was imperative to take his unexpected chance. “I never had any doubt I could play at this level,â€\x9d he said. “I just needed an opportunity but now I have to help make sure we stay up.â€\x9d With Bolasie and Cabaye causing them all sorts of problems Newcastle did not start too well but, gradually, a series of players apparently reborn under BenÃ\xadtez came to the fore. While Jamaal Lascelles highlighted his authority at centre-half with a fine, goal-preventing tackle on Connor Wickham, Cheik Tioté made some important interceptions and the impressive Jack Colback began really imposing himself on central midfield. When Townsend’s magnificent free kick arced over the wall, safety felt within reach. “It wasn’t an easy game,â€\x9d said BenÃ\xadtez. “When you see the size of Crystal Palace’s players you realise that, physically, they’re stronger than us so we couldn’t win by just fighting. We had to play football and when we started to move the ball on the floor you could see the difference.â€\x9d It was all so absorbing that, rather than proving provocatively divisive, Alan Pardew’s presence on his first return to the club since leaving for Palace seemed almost irrelevant. “Alan was braced for a hostile one,â€\x9d said his assistant, Keith Millen. “But there was nothing. Newcastle fans realised they had bigger things to worry about.â€\x9d Man of the match Karl Darlow (Newcastle United)',
 'HSBC paid 453 staff at least €1m in 2015 HSBC paid 453 staff €1m (£780,000) or more in 2015 – up from 320 a year earlier – as it warned it faced a bumpy economic backdrop. The disclosure was made on Monday as the bank reported a 1% rise in profits and a cut in the pay of its chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, from £7.6m to £7.3m. Robin Hood Tax campaigners lobbying for what they argue is fairer taxation of the financial sector criticised the payouts. “It may have been a bumpy year for HSBC, but that hasn’t stopped the flow of bumper payouts. Many more millionaires made and £7.3m for the chief executive is hardly the picture of a reformed financial sector,â€\x9d the group said. “The banking sector is still completely out of sync with the rest of the economy. It’s in everyone’s interest that the UK has a more level playing field. The chancellor should take note.â€\x9d The pay of non-executive directors – almost all of whom receive more than £100,000 – was disclosed. Rona Fairhead – who chaired HSBC’s audit committee at the time of the tax scandal in its Swiss arm – is the highest paid non-executive, receiving £524,000, up from £513,000. Chair of the BBC Trust, Fairhead is leaving the HSBC board this year after chairing its US subsidiary. Jonathan Symonds, the former finance director of Novartis who chairs HSBC’s European arm, received £521,000. Phillip Ameen, who chairs the audit committee and is member of the risk committee of the bank’s US arm, received £416,000. A former director, Sandy Flockhart, who left in April 2012, also received £155,503 because of double taxation he incurred in Hong Kong and the UK. The bank is preparing to ask shareholders to approve a policy for its top management to incorporate a closer link to shareholder returns in the bonuses paid out through the three-year long-term incentive plan. Under new scheme rules, Gulliver’s possible potential annual pay is being cut to £9.9m from up to £13m in the past. The minimum amount he can receive will be £3.3m, down from £3.5m, which includes a £1.25m salary, £1.7m fixed-pay allowance intended to shelter him from the EU cap on bonuses and a £625,000 pension contribution. That contribution is being cut from 50% of his salary to 30% in response to investor concerns. Gulliver also received £662,000 in benefits, largely to cover the cost of living in a property owned by the bank in Hong Kong. The bank said the introduction of UK rules that require bonuses to be deferred over seven years, rather than three, were more stringent than those in the EU, US and Asia-Pacific, “making it challenging for UK banks to attract talent with transferable skills or from other industriesâ€\x9d. “We believe more regulator coordination is required to ensure there are more globally consistent remuneration standards and a level playing field,â€\x9d HSBC said.',
 'Supermarkets can act on childhood obesity It’s rather disingenuous of Mike Coupe to expect from the government a “holistic approach to tackle childhood obesity, including compulsory measured targetsâ€\x9d (Report, 19 August). As Sainsbury’s CEO he has the power to decide whether his shops sell food containing high levels of sugar. As a shareholder I urge him to take the lead. Supermarkets have effectively prevented GM food getting into our bodies by not stocking it. Why then not the same with sugary food? Richard Cooper Chichester, West Sussex • How about going back to the National Loaf, which had a small percentage of wholemeal flour added to the white. They tell us we were much healthier then. How about calling it the “GB loafâ€\x9d or the “Olympic loafâ€\x9d? I’m sure any increase in cost would be negligible. Eunice Mayes (aged 90) Towcester, Northamptonshire • I am not expecting the to become a latter-day Sunny Stories, but will you please stop moaning about Brexit (‘An unimaginably hard task’: experts say divorcing EU may take 10 years, 17 August, etc ad nauseam). Kelvin Appleton Beverley, East Yorkshire • Can someone tell Larry Elliott (Brexit Armageddon was a terrifying vision – but it simply hasn’t happened, 20 August) that we haven’t left the EU yet? Vaughan Dean Ampthill, Bedfordshire • So John Major has been “hailed as the driving force behind Britain’s extraordinary medal haulâ€\x9d (Pass Notes, 18 August). Does that make up for rail privatisation? Ted Watson Brighton • Could the three feet recently discovered in Bath perhaps belong to Jake the Peg (Report, 18 August)? He hasn’t been seen in public for some time. John Rees-Jones Datchet, Berkshire • All these comments about brief letters are just a load of pants. Geoff Elms llanfyrnach, Pembrokeshire',
 'Amma Asante: ‘I’m here to disrupt expectations’ Amma Asante is drinking tea – “If you have PG Tips, all the better,â€\x9d she calls to the retreating waiter – in the plush quietness and gleaming surfaces of London’s Cafe Royal. Despite traffic jams and torrential rain, she is impeccably calm, certainly calmer than many film-makers would be had their latest production been selected to open this year’s London film festival. But Asante, whose previous films A Way of Life and Belle garnered her high praise and multiple awards, including a Bafta, is clearly a star in the making – and possibly also a star-maker; Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whom she cast in her breakthrough part as the title character in Belle, has just appeared opposite Matthew McConaughey in the American civil war drama Free State of Jones. Earlier this year Asante was also invited to become a member of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has had its biggest ever intake of new members following intense criticism over the lack of racial diversity in Oscar nominees. In joining a Hollywood club with a decades-long reputation for being largely white, male and aged over 50, she’ll now have voting rights on the Oscars, and a part to play in steering the industry and what comes to our screens in the future. For the moment, though, she’s concentrating on A United Kingdom, which had an unexpected – and even inconvenient – genesis. About 18 months ago, Asante was about to move not only home but also country, quitting the Netherlands, where she had lived for eight years, in favour of Denmark, where her husband is from. Amid all the upheaval and readjustment the phone rang. At the other end was actor David Oyelowo, whom Asante had known since they worked together on the BBC drama Brothers and Sisters back in 1998. Oyelowo, fresh from playing Martin Luther King in Selma, wanted to persuade her to be part of an idea whose moment had come – “a labour of loveâ€\x9d, as he described it. The project was to film the life of Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, the first prime minister of Botswana and his wife, an office clerk from Eltham. Their marriage, in 1948, when Botswana was still the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, had immense ramifications, both personal and political: Khama, who had met Williams at a missionary society dance in London, had been supposed to return from his stint at Balliol College, Oxford and subsequent studies for the bar to take up the kingship of the Bamangwato people. He was not supposed to return with a white, English bride, and particularly not just as neighbouring South Africa had made interracial marriage illegal under the apartheid system; her arrival angered both Bamangwato chiefs and many who couldn’t believe that their future leader would choose an outsider above a local. Ruth Williams’s family also opposed the marriage, and there was vehement objection from the British government, enraged by what they saw as a dangerous misstep in managing regional relationships. Oyelowo had first come across Susan Williams’s book Colour Bar, on which the film is based, in 2010, through producers Justin Moore-Lewy and Charlie Mason, who had acquired the rights. Since then, the three had struggled to get the project, with Oyelowo playing Khama, off the ground. But the story of Khama, Williams and Bechuanaland’s gradual journey towards independence immediately struck a chord with Asante, fresh from her success with the recently released Belle, which also drew on a complex piece of history to explore relationships across racial divides. Her father, she tells me, was a pan-African, a man who believed in a united states of Africa. “He grew up in Ghana when it was still the Gold Coast; grew up, as my mother did, as the child of a colony, and watched it become independent. And Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to gain its independence, so we always lived with that badge on our chest; I was always raised knowing that was the country that I came from. I grew up being able to repeat – at seven or eight years old — the speeches of Kwame Nkrumah, who became the first president of Ghana.â€\x9d Consequently, she explains, she was gripped not only by the fierceness and endurance of the romantic relationship at the heart of the story, but also by the intricacy and subtleties of its sociopolitical setting. Reading her way through Williams’s book – it’s brilliant, she says, but so dense with complex detail that she could only read 18 pages a day – she realised that she wanted to explore how Khama came to a point where he could contemplate utterly changing the political landscape of his country. “Even though I didn’t know the story,â€\x9d she remarks, “I was very aware of the young, privileged men of Africa who moved through the UK in the 1940s, who were sent to be educated. I knew it because the women weren’t.â€\x9d What she didn’t want, she explains, was to privilege one aspect of the drama over the other. And neither did she think it was necessary: “You could create a very political backdrop against the love story. Because, really, what is interesting about being a black man married to a white woman today? Yes, in certain quarters, it’s still difficult and there is still a taboo. But it’s not that interesting – why pick them, as opposed to any other interracial couple? What’s really interesting is what happened once this couple chose to fall in love, the period in which they fell in love, which was right as South Africa was about to enshrine apartheid into its laws, and the fallout that occurs.â€\x9d She notes – while also acknowledging the earlier film’s vital importance at the time – that A United Kingdom is not a rerun of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the 1967 film in which a black man played by Sidney Poitier courts a white woman, to the consternation of her parents. Rather, she says, she had to find those things in the story that would resonate with contemporary issues. Among those is the issue of transition and identity. One facet of the story she focused on explores the idea that someone might be sent away at a formative age to experience life and education in another country and yet still be expected to return essentially unaltered; it also shows those at home, inching their way towards establishing nationhood in the face of societal change. I tell her that I was struck by the numerous interwoven stories of restriction and emancipation, and the different weight that history accorded them. Near the start of Asante and screenwriter Guy Hibbert’s film, Khama and his wife, played by Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, return to Bechuanaland and are met with hostility, despite his previous popularity; he determines to address the kgotla – a public meeting – and put his case. Scores of Bamangwato men, many of them dressed in suits, walk from their villages to attend, but there is barely a woman to be seen. Asante nods: she dotted a few around the edges, she remembers, as if to suggest that they couldn’t help themselves from coming to listen, but there was a firm message that politics was not for women. And yet she knew that she had to represent the view of Bamangwato women. “When I first came to the script, the point of view of the black female wasn’t really there, and it was very important,â€\x9d she says. “I thought about my mother, I thought about my aunts; my mother was born and raised in a very rural village, but her brother is a chief. And the idea that he should go abroad and return, even with someone of the same colour but who was an outsider, and say, this is going to be your queen, I just imagined what their response would be. And there you have it, in the film.â€\x9d Asante has had a lifetime of considering the nuances that attach themselves to the questions of identity and power informing her work. Now 47, she reckons that she is in a position to empower two sides of her identity – her Ghanaian heritage and her British upbringing – to be in dialogue with one another. “I allow that conversation to happen, and it’s a pleasure,â€\x9d she explains. “And I don’t know what side I’ll come out on each day, or what decision I’ll come out with on each day, but it is a dynamic rather than a conflict.â€\x9d Is she able to put into words what characterises these different parts of her? She mentions her pride in the traditions of her parents’ Ghanaian background, and of how important it is to her to be able to speak their language. “And yet, the very British side of me, who is the child of immigrants, is the side of me that welcomes outsiders – the modern British side, that is – and enjoys crossing boundaries and sharing boundaries and being open to what an outsider might bring. But I’m still deeply protective of my traditions at the same time.â€\x9d (Amusingly, as we both ponder the miniature glass cloche covering the miniature biscuit that has accompanied tea, she puts her mild aversion to elaborate service down to her British “sideâ€\x9d.) She grew up in Streatham, which she describes, in the early 1980s and beyond, as “a pretty racist environmentâ€\x9d – complete with graffiti on the walls and lit matches pushed through the letterbox. “That was just a way of life,â€\x9d she says now, inadvertently making reference to the title of her first feature film, “but I was aware of the stress it put my parents through.â€\x9d Her accountant father’s response was to tell his family that there was one thing they had to remember at all times: “Know that you are loved.â€\x9d Fascinatingly, these exact words recur as a line in Belle (2013), the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the child of a British admiral and an African slave, who was brought to England by her father and left in the care of her great-uncle, Lord Mansfield; they are the words spoken to her by her father, whom she only knows for a few hours, as he bids her farewell. Even more poignantly, Asante’s father died during the filming of Belle, and she talks movingly about his impact on her work. She will always, she thinks, create benevolent fathers who are also flawed; hers, whom she describes as her hero, “made mistakes, but when he got it right, he got it really rightâ€\x9d. Belle grew up in Kenwood House in Hampstead, surrounded by great material privilege and familial love, but simultaneously excluded from vast swaths of society by the colour of her skin. As in A United Kingdom, there is a love story; but there is also a highly involved narrative that chronicles the changing legal position of slave cargo – at heart, the degree to which slaves being transported at sea were regarded as human beings rather than mere possessions, to be jettisoned at the drop of a hat. Both elements of the film unite to portray a mixed-race woman growing in self-recognition and self-possession, and balancing the different claims made on her loyalties. Both movies also imply that a key moment in the journey towards selfhood is the acceptance that individuals contain multitudes. As a child, Asante began to act, and joined the cast of Grange Hill; she was part of the “Just Say Noâ€\x9d campaign, and was one of nine cast members to visit Ronald Reagan’s White House. But she would also develop lines to use in her off-screen life; for instance, she always used to reply “Ghanaâ€\x9d when asked where she was from, because “Streathamâ€\x9d seemed to cause confusion of the “No, where are you really from?â€\x9d variety. “So that became too complex,â€\x9d she recalls, “and also it was a big fat rejection, because I actually felt as British as anybody else but I would constantly be reminded that I wasn’t. And so it was easier to just say African.â€\x9d But things changed somewhat when her debut, A Way of Life, was released. Set in Wales, the film tells the story of a young, single mother fighting extreme disadvantage, and also of her Turkish, Muslim neighbour. It started to get a little attention, and “quite often I would read about myself, and it would be, ‘young British film-maker’. And when you see words written about you, they’re very powerful.â€\x9d Did she feel that, in a sense, she was being claimed? Yes, she replies, “but there was a sense of, well, that’s what I’ve been saying all along, but haven’t been allowed to say. But that’s exactly what I am. I’m a young British director.â€\x9d We talk more broadly about the issues of migration and the resistance to it that are bedevilling the world at the moment. Asante locates in much of the fear that surrounds the conversation an interesting insight into entitlement. “I often think about what we might look back at in 100 or 200 years’ time from now and see as really…â€\x9d – she grasps for the word – “primitive. Because we fear, we really believe, there isn’t enough to share, and there really isn’t enough to go around, because that’s a narrative that we’re given. But that’s because we’ve decided that certain boundaries should exist and must exist, and you should stay over there, because the world over there is created for you, and the world over here is created for us. Well, that’s never worked.â€\x9d At the time, she points out, change is always complicated, and when it happens too quickly, can be problematic. “You can’t have a country of fearful people,â€\x9d she says, and in A United Kingdom, she is understanding of the competing demands on the Attlee and Churchill governments, both of which adopted problematic stances towards Bechuanaland as they sought to rebuild postwar British society. And yet, as she also says and the film makes clear, there was a good outcome: Seretse Khama took his country towards independence and democratic representation, and there it remains. She has already been criticised, she says, for making too much of a crowd-pleaser, to which she retorts that she can’t change history. But does she think that underlying that attitude is an unfamiliarity, perhaps even tantamount to disbelief, with the business of telling an African success story? She nods vigorously. “There was an argument over whether we should show some of the more beautiful images that we have in the film of Africa. This is why you need a person of colour at the table. Because I said, why not? That’s the Africa I know. Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Botswana every single year to go and see the animal life there. Why would we pretend that that doesn’t exist? Why wouldn’t we show the beautiful sunsets? I remember waking up in my mother’s African village to beautiful sunrises and beautiful sunsets. “We’re so used to seeing flies in African children’s faces, we’re so used to seeing what I call a degraded Africa, that does not have a person of colour at the centre of their own story – they’re usually a supporting character who’s an observer of their own story – that sometimes I think that when you see it told a different way, which means that you take a character like Rosamund Pike played in Ruth and flip the switch and make her the other, then it makes some people feel uncomfortable. Your expectations are disrupted. And I believe that’s what I’m here for. I hold that flag.â€\x9d Asante is full of praise for Pike, who came to film after Gone Girl, and immediately embraced the no-makeup, frizzy hair and sensible shoes look that her character adopted when she moved to Botswana (there are rather more swinging skirts with nipped-in waists at the jazz clubs that feature in the film’s London scenes). “To me, she embodied the courage that I imagined Ruth had,â€\x9d she says. Particularly impressive was Pike’s insistence that she would simply drop to the ground during a scene in which Williams, suffering from diphtheria, collapses on a dusty road. Asante, worried about the numerous rocks in the path, had had sleepless nights wondering how they could conceal a mattress, but had to content herself with setting the crew to remove as many stones as they could. When one of Khama and Williams’s sons visited the set, he delivered the ultimate imprimatur: “It’s not every day you see your mother and father come back to life.â€\x9d Next, Asante is going to tackle the Nazis. Where Hands Touch, which she has written herself, will start filming in October, with The Hunger Games’s Amandla Stenberg and Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay starring as a teenage couple facing the not inconsiderable obstacle of his membership of the Hitler Youth and the fact that she is a mixed-race girl living in the Third Reich. Once again, issues of identity play an integral part, as does Asante’s abiding interest in capturing social and political structures at the moment where they begin to fall apart. We conclude by talking about broader issues of representation within the film industry, and specifically in the context of her recent membership of the Academy. How effective does she feel that development will be in promoting change and inclusion in the entertainment business? It is, she says, a “substantial and relevantâ€\x9d move, and she commends the Academy for doing it. But she remains realistic: “When you’re in it, it seems slow and it feels slow. When we look back in 100 years, who knows how it will look with hindsight. However, it does feel like we’re turning a corner. It’s not a short corner, it’s a very big bend, and we’re some way around it and we’ve still got a long way to go. Let’s be really honest about this: the Oscars reflect the industry, so the Oscars can change but they can only do so much without the industry changing as well.â€\x9d In other words the movies need to get made in the first place, so that audiences are not presented with eight identical films when they go to the multiplex. Cinemagoers, too, can play their part, choosing to see a more diverse range of films as they are released, and not necessarily waiting until they come out on DVD. “It’s really interesting, “she continues, “that if you walk into an industry party and it’s predominantly male, predominantly of a certain age, predominantly white, it starts to feel old-fashioned. It doesn’t feel progressive. When you walk into a place and you see women, and you see people of colour, and varying abilities and disabilities, it feels like it’s somehow a reflection of the world – you’re in the world, and that we’re in a relevant industry.â€\x9d She laughs, remembering her recent trip to a vibrant Toronto. “That didn’t mean to say that the lovely old white men were gone. They were still there!â€\x9d The bottom line, she thinks, is that the industry needs to see a broadening of the wares as a business opportunity, not merely as a matter of morality: “If you do not have a flourish of new lifeblood,â€\x9d she says, “you don’t get a beautiful ocean, you get a dull, dank puddle.â€\x9d A United Kingdom opens the London film festival on Wednesday and will be in cinemas from 25 November Race on screen: critic Jonathan Romney’s highlights from this year’s London film festival Chi-Raq Dir: Spike Lee The Greek comedy of Lysistrata’s sex strike, adapted as the story of a Chicago woman who campaigns to stop gang war Spike Lee’s most acclaimed film for ages – a jovial yet impassioned musical strike against violence within black communities. Angela Bassett, Wesley Snipes and Samuel L Jackson join newcomer Teyonah Parris in an uproarious slice of hip-hop Brecht. Daughters of the Dust Dir: Julie Dash An evocation of a community of island-dwelling African American women in 1902 Now restored, Julie Dash’s 1991 debut feature opened up a new direction in independent US cinema that has never been followed up. Fusing black history, costume drama and a vision of feminist utopia, this dream-like film was one of the inspirations for Beyoncé’s Lemonade visuals. The Birth of a Nation Dir: Nate Parker The story of Nat Turner, a preacher who led a slave revolt in Virginia in the 1830s A Sundance-winning debut from actor turned writer-director Nate Parker. It polemically appropriates the title of DW Griffith’s 1915 film – a classic forever identified with American racism, against which Parker boldly takes up the cudgels. Divines Dir: Houda Benyamina A young woman from the Paris banlieue hustles to survive, while getting emotionally entangled with a male breakdancer The debut from French director Houda Benyamina, inspired by her experiences of the 2005 Paris riots, was one of this year’s Cannes breakout titles. Anarchic, ferociously energetic and joyously flouting the sexual stereotypes of hood drama, it introduces the explosively talented Oulaya Amamra as heroine Dounia. Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy Dir: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun The former president of Chad prepares to stand trial for the crimes of his regime Mahamat-Saleh Haroun is one of the foremost contemporary African directors, his dramas including Abouna and A Screaming Man. Here he’s in a less familiar role as documentarist, scrutinising the past and present traumas of his own country. The 60th BFI London film festival takes place across the capital, 5-16 October',
 'Co-op chief is leading the way in executive pay restraint We like to say we do things differently at the Co-op. Well, last week we proved it. On a morning when the Co-op reported growing profits and growing investment, including in frontline pay for colleagues, our chief executive Richard Pennycook also announced he was taking a voluntary pay cut. A total of 60% across base pay and bonus. That’s not the way CEOs usually behave. Normally, more profit leads to higher pay (at least for top execs). It was a little disappointing, therefore, to see your article (Co-op boss will take 60% pay cut – but not until next year, 8 April) focusing on the fact that some elements of the cut to bonus won’t come in to effect until 2017. The has always beaten the fair pay drum loudly, holding those in positions of power across business and politics to account when it comes to what they are paid. And rightly so. With the gap between the UK’s poorest and the richest growing each year, people understandably want to know that pay and rewards for business leaders are justified. Richard may well have scandalised some of his opposite numbers in the PLC world by his announcement. But if he has that would be a good thing. I’d like to think that the Co-op may just have sparked the beginning of a change in attitude towards executive pay, and I believe the should be right behind us. Nick Crofts President, The Co-operative Group • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'Plenty of reasons for a second EU referendum Rafael Behr (Opinion, 21 September) and senior Liberal Democrats who question the wisdom of Tim Farron’s commitment to a second referendum once the terms of Brexit are settled, assume present attitudes will persist. They ignore the likelihood that negotiations will end in “a hard Brexitâ€\x9d. Continued membership of the single market and of the EU customs union is the least likely outcome. Outside both, the prospect of an easy conclusion of favourable new free trade agreements (FTAs) with the rest of the world is a pipe dream. We would not only need a new FTA with the EU, likely to be a protracted negotiation as it has to be agreed by all 27 members, but also with some 50 countries with which the EU now has FTAs, as well as those with which it is now negotiating, principally China and the US. We would also have to re-enter the World Trade Organisation, which involves making a number of commitments that have to be approved by all 164 WTO members. London’s survival as the financial centre of Europe would also be in doubt. Outside the single market financial institutions would be unlikely to obtain the passports they need for doing business in the single market. The obstacles to a swift solution that would benefit our world trade are numerous and formidable. The likely result within a few years is a “Brexit recessionâ€\x9d, caused by reduced foreign investment, even disinvestment, by those who once saw Britain as the gateway to the single market – Japanese carmakers, for example – as well as an exodus of British companies to the continent. By the time negotiations conclude, there is likely to be a major shift in public opinion against our leaving the EU. Dick Taverne House of Lords • Polly Toynbee (Get serious, Labour rebels, your country needs you, 20 September) makes the valid point that these 172 MPs should be standard bearers for the nation’s pro-EU 48%. In this context, I think it should also be borne in mind that less than 35% of the electorate voted for Brexit. Surely our elected representatives must take account of the 65% who, for whatever reasons, did not vote for the UK to leave the EU. It is another good reason for parliament, and not solely the prime minister, to decide whether to trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. Mike Pender Cardiff • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'Twitter acquires AI startup Magic Pony for a reported $150m Twitter has bought London-based AI startup Magic Pony Technology for a reported $150m (£102m) as the company moves to strengthen its position in image-sharing, video and live video. Founded in 2014, Magic Pony uses machine learning to build improved systems for visual processing. The company said it was excited to be joining forces with Twitter “to improve the visual experiences that are delivered across their appsâ€\x9d. Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, said Magic Pony’s technology would be used to enhance live and video offerings and “opens up a whole lot of exciting creative possibilities for Twitterâ€\x9d. Dorsey said the team included “11 PhDs with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high-performance computing and computational neuroscienceâ€\x9d. By teaching a neural network what certain types of images are like, Magic Pony’s systems can restore lost information to blurry pictures, or create new visuals from scratch. In demonstrations of its technology in April, Magic Pony showed one system that could “restoreâ€\x9d a realistic face from the pixelated visage of the main character of Doom, and another that could automatically generate a brick-and-plaster wall from a small image. Many of the company’s advantages over competitors come from its speed and efficiency. While big companies such as Google and Adobe have image-processing technology that can pull off many of the same feats, Magic Pony says it targets “desktop, mobile and webâ€\x9d, and has demonstrated some of its systems running on video, live. Twitter could build the technology into its app to improve the quality of streamed video or use it as a form of ersatz image compression. Magic Pony’s cofounder, Rob Bishop, told MIT Technology Review in April that “online video-streaming businesses rely heavily on video compression. Our first product demonstrates that image quality can be greatly enhanced using deep learning, and fast mobile GPUs now allow us to deploy it anywhere.â€\x9d Bishop was the first engineering employee at Raspberry Pi. He and his cofounder, Zehan Wang, met at London-based startup accelerator Entrepreneur First. Magic Pony’s investors highlighted the acquisition as further evidence of the UK’s lead in AI. “The UK continues to grow as the ‘go-to’ place for companies looking to build best in breed AI technology,â€\x9d said Luke Hakes of Octopus Ventures. Suranga Chandratillake of Balderton Capital added: “We are delighted that an iconic west coast company has once again recognised that Europe is right at the forefront of the AI revolution.â€\x9d London-based DeepMind sparked an AI boom when it was acquired by Google in January 2014 for more than $500m. The company has since built the first software capable of beating a professional human player at the ancient Asian board game Go, a victory long considered impossible by AI experts.',
 'Miss Hokusai review – artist anime blends the sentimental, erotic and strange Katsushika Hokusai is the Japanese artist whose famous work is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (1830): an elegant and mysterious vision of a huge wave in mid-break, droplets of spray fixed like icicles, endlessly reproduced on T-shirts, posters, etc. This interesting and unexpectedly complex anime, based on Hinako Sugiura’s manga series Sarusaberi, or Crape Myrtle, is about Hokusai’s daughter and assistant O-Ei, voiced by Anne Watanabe. The movie persuasively speculates that she was effectively his collaborator and artistic co-creator, and the film combines the sentimental, the erotic and the simply strange. Father and daughter here have a very frank attitude to their lucrative erotica output, and there are intriguing leftfield moments, such as a visit to a courtesan, who is tricked into revealing her mystical ability to let her head float away from her neck. O-Ei has a bizarre vision of a giant Buddha appearing in the sky and letting its great foot stamp on her. There is a nod to the famous wave. It is an interesting work, delicately and discreetly animated, with a quiet visual coup in its final moments when the Edo (as it was then called) of 1814 is dreamily replaced by the Tokyo of the 21st century.',
 'X-Men: Apocalypse review – lots of bangs for your bucks but loopiness is lost A gallery of mutants from generations old and new is spread across Marvel’s hyperactive and excitable new X-Men movie, directed by Bryan Singer, which seems to absorb ideas of occult resurgence and mythic confrontation from films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. Now the mutants have to battle the ur-mutant, the first mutant of all, the ancient Egyptian potentate En Sabah Nur, smaller and more human-sized than in the comics and played with massive impassivity by Oscar Isaac. En Sabah Nur returns to Earth with the intention of destroying this wicked world and all its vanities before building it anew. The epicentre of his kingdom in Cairo is a colossal new pyramid with a distinctive filigree design, a little like the World Trade Center. The movie builds to the regulation city-smashing finale, with gravity suspended for the resulting debris and masonry fragments. The internal motor of this episode is kept turning over by a handful of very lively set-pieces, although it isn’t an obvious advance on the previous film, X-Men: Days of Future Past, which was more dizzyingly complex and strange. It does not have the same cerebral loopiness; there’s not enough for Jennifer Lawrence to do as Raven and the film ungallantly drops Famke Janssen as Jean Grey in favour of casting a younger actor, Sophie Turner — while keeping a certain comparably senior male star in place. But it keeps the fireworks firing and incidentally explains how Dr Xavier (James McAvoy) lost his hair, and it’s nothing so banal as male pattern baldness. We are now around a decade on from the last movie, which gave us the mutants’ first appearance in the age of Nixon and which ended in an assassination attempt from Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Now we are in the conservative 1980s: there is a glimpse of Ronald Reagan’s photograph on the wall of the CIA office and even a bit of William F Buckley on a TV news clip. Mutants are existing underground: Raven (Lawrence) is hiding out in East Berlin – somehow movies set in this period never happen in the boring old prosperous West Berlin – where she discovers and liberates a mutant, Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Magneto himself is incognito in Poland, working in a factory and he now has a wife and child. You might think these domestic encumbrances are going to be pretty inconvenient if he is going to resume his mutant vocation. And you would be right. Meanwhile, Dr Xavier is still running his palatial school for gifted children which soon becomes home to a startling new star student, high-schooler Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) – otherwise known as Cyclops. Scott is subject to excruciating pain in his eyes which torments him until he realises that these are weapons of mass destruction, and he demonstrates these powers in Dr Xavier’s grounds in a very entertaining sequence. The narrative is kicked into action when Magneto’s cover in Poland is blown, and he gets on the TV news, where is recognised by Quicksilver –another very entertaining turn from Evan Peters – who turns up at the school intending to help, just as En Sabah Nur arrives with his hideous sub-Biblical entourage of mutant helpers, seeking to appropriate Dr Xavier’s entire mental universe and recruit everyone to the dark side who wants to join. Fans of DOFP will be looking for a followup to the now classic frozen-time sequence in which Quicksilver dashed around the place, plucking bullets out of the air and putting people in silly positions – and all to the haunting accompaniment of Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle. Now he does the same thing as Eurythmics play Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). It’s amusing, but not quite the showstopper it was the last time – and the returns are diminishing for this routine. Boldly, Singer reprises one of the most startling aspects of the first X-Men movie from 2000: Magneto is briefly returned to Auschwitz, where his parents perished, and invoked as a touchstone of the kind of pure evil which will destroy humanity. In a movie with less artless and forthright vehemence, and one with greater pretensions to middlebrow good taste, this could hardly have worked, but Singer brings it off here, just about. The idea of an apocalypse means every dial has to be turned up to 11 and this film certainly provides bangs for your buck, although there is less space for the surreal strangeness of the X-Men to breathe, less dialogue interest, and they do not have the looser, wittier joy of the Avengers. But the more playful episodes with Cyclops and Quicksilver are welcome and everything hangs together. But in the future X-Men films have to mutate into something with fewer characters and more characterisation.',
 'RBS, Barclays and other banks fined in Swiss franc Libor case Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays are among banks hit with SFr99m (£78m) of fines by the Swiss competition regulator for operating four separate cartels, as the international fallout from the Libor rate-rigging scandal spreads. The two British lenders were hit with a combined £37m in fines, while HSBC, Lloyds and City of London brokers Icap, Tullett Prebon and RP Martin all remain under investigation by Switzerland’s competition commission, Comco. Barclays was fined £23.5m by Comco for colluding to influence interest rate derivatives by manipulating Euribor, used for euro loans between banks. The British lender was found to have participated in cartel behaviour over 32 months, while RBS was fined £9.7m for eight months of participation. Proceedings against a slew of other banks including HSBC are ongoing, while Deutsche Bank received immunity for blowing the whistle on the cartel. “The cartel aimed at distorting the normal course of pricing components for interest rate derivatives in euro,â€\x9d said Comco. “Traders of different banks occasionally discussed their bank’s submissions for the calculation of the Euribor as well as their trading and pricing strategies.â€\x9d The probe also saw France’s Société Générale fined £2.6m, while proceedings remain open against JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Rabobank. RBS was granted immunity in a separate probe into collusion with JP Morgan to influence the Swiss franc version of the Libor interest rate, after it told regulators of the activity. Comco fined JP Morgan £27m after concluding that the two banks had operated a “bilateral cartelâ€\x9d between March 2008 and July 2009, with the aim of influencing the benchmark rate. RBS received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel to Comco, while JP Morgan had its fine reduced after cooperating with the regulator’s inquiries. A third probe into yen Libor rates saw the regulator hand out £11.3m of fines, including a £3m penalty for RBS, for manipulation that took place between 2007 and 2010. The proceedings continue against banks including HSBC and Lloyds, while Icap, RP Martin and Tullett Prebon were also named as being subject to ongoing scrutiny, along with Rabobank and UBS. A final probe into the spread on Swiss franc interest rate derivatives resulted in £4.25m of fines, including just £670,000 for RBS, after its penalty was reduced for cooperation with the regulator. The scale of the Swiss regulator’s penalties pale in comparison to those dished out by European competition authorities earlier this month. Three major banks – including HSBC – were fined €485m (£412m) for colluding to manipulate the crucial Euribor benchmark rate, after a five-year investigation. The trio had chosen not to take part in an earlier settlement that included RBS and Barclays. The rate-rigging scandal has seen banks hit with hundreds of millions of pounds in fines from a variety of regulators, while bankers from Barclays and UBS have been jailed.',
 'Brexit could force multibillion-pound projects to be scrapped, says NAO chief Billions of pounds’ worth of public projects will have to be scrapped by Theresa May because of a “tidal waveâ€\x9d of pressures from an impending Brexit, the head of Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has said. The comptroller and auditor general of the National Audit Office, Sir Amyas Morse, said the government would have to treat leaving the EU as an “emergencyâ€\x9d and that government departments would be forced to decide which plans could be cancelled or suspended. Major projects such as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, a third runway at Heathrow and the ambitious HS2 rail project would have to be reassessed as the government decides which can be done without, he told the . Others which will be re-examined include the £7bn refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster, the London commuter line Crossrail 2 and former chancellor George Osborne’s northern powerhouse strategy. Britain’s most senior auditor gave his alarming verdict on Whitehall’s readiness as the prime minister comes under increasing pressure from European leaders to start talks on the UK’s exit from the EU as soon as possible. “It’s a tidal wave coming up the beach,â€\x9d he said. “It is an emergency. If we don’t get it right, it will affect our economy and standards of life in this country. To say we are going to carry on and do everything we did before – I just don’t think that’s going to be sustainable.â€\x9d “We probably won’t face something like this again. You can truly use the word emergency about getting a Brexit right,â€\x9d he said. Morse, the government’s chief auditor who has a statutory responsibility to scrutinise all public spending, has spoken out in a rare interview – a reflection of his concern that there is little time to waste. He warned that the UK’s decision to leave the EU would mean government resources, including civil servants, IT professionals and legal advisers, being directed towards managing Brexit and therefore away from delivering major infrastructure projects. Aiming his words at Downing Street, he said that government departments must be forced to reduce their commitments to major projects, which are valued at £405bn, because some government departments are facing cuts of up to 40%. “We need to ask ourselves, can the public sector deliver Hinkley Point C, a third runway, HS2, a northern powerhouse, nuclear decommissioning, Trident renewal and restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster all at the same time? “All these projects are drawing on the same pool of skills and many of these contain optimism bias that they will be able to meet their skill needs at an appropriate cost,â€\x9d he said, while declining to speculate on which should be scrapped. “You are going to have to rein in projects … and say, what is the benefit? How damaging is it not to have it for a period of time? Can we afford it?â€\x9d he said. “There is a policy at the moment to have lots of infrastructure projects. I say fine, but some of them will have very big consequences in terms of your ability to deliver your other goals.â€\x9d A Brexit would mean that other government activity would inevitably have to be curtailed, but there was a danger of it being left too late. Morse said the initiative to cancel projects quickly had to come from Downing Street. “I think that a lot of this will happen anyway as the [Brexit] plans build up,â€\x9d he said. “But it [would be] so much better if it happens facing forward and the government takes a grip of it rather than saying: ‘You know, we have been overtaken by events and now we are rushing around arbitrarily stopping things,’ which could be chaotic and costly.â€\x9d Morse said each government department will have to conduct a “stocktakeâ€\x9d to ensure that Whitehall has the capacity and the public money to deal with the challenges of extracting Britain from the EU. “Everything from EU science research funding to aviation policy to fisheries policy will need to be looked at and new systems and business operations put into place to fill the gap left by the EU,â€\x9d he said. He added: “Brexit means lots of additional work for departments. We really have to create some capacity to be able to handle that surge in demand.â€\x9d The challenge of a Brexit also has to be completed in the face of large-scale staff cuts across Whitehall, he added. “This is while the budgets for most departments have [been subjected to] very aggressive reductions. In the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills there is a reduction of central costs, I think, of 40%,â€\x9d he said. He said a “digital capability gapâ€\x9d meant that even before Brexit the government needed to find about 2,800 new staff with IT skills to undertake projects already planned over the next five years. This gap, it has been estimated by the NAO, would cost £213m to fill with full-time civil servants and £418m if the work was handed to contractors. Ministerial ambition also made it hard for the government to think rationally about which projects were “must haveâ€\x9d and which were “would likeâ€\x9d and expendable, he said. “It comes partly from the natural enthusiasm of ministers who want to announce major initiatives and a natural enthusiasm of civil servants to be seen as ‘can do’,â€\x9d he said. “It is not a very attractive prospect for a minister to stand up and say: ‘Well, I haven’t really initiated anything in my time at this ministry but I have done a very prudent job managing the projects inherited from my predecessor and, by the way, when I retire, someone else will be able to see the completion of these projects and get the credit.’ These are not criticisms of any particular government, this is just how it is.â€\x9d He also warned that the government should also prepare for a possible “Scotxitâ€\x9d, given that Scotland voted to stay in the EU, which could be even trickier than a deal with the EU. “That will be a negotiation you will be able to see from the moon,â€\x9d he said.',
 'The game improving a community’s health without them noticing It is drizzling and cold in Salford, but a class of eight- and nine-year-olds from Lewis Street school in Patricroft are buzzing as their teachers lead them down the streets of terraced houses between classes. They stride through a park, dodging an abandoned car seat, to swipe lanyards against three street sensors before returning to lessons. It’s called “going fobbingâ€\x9d in Salford – walking or cycling to sensors on lampposts all round the city and swiping them to get points. It’s part of a health and community building scheme called Beat The Street (BTS) and it’s taken Lewis Street by storm. Pupils and parents have travelled 3,288 miles (scoring a mighty 66,490 points) on fobbing expeditions over two months to outwalk all Salford’s other 23 participating schools and 13 community groups. Patricroft is a struggling area, where unemployment is high and the number of people describing their health as bad or very bad is well above the national average. But there’s a clear sense of purpose here as the warmly wrapped youngsters line up to swipe their fobs near the school. “I did all the 50 fobs in three days over half term,â€\x9d says one little girl excitedly. Her teacher reveals that this previously inactive child now goes to an after-school sports club almost every night of the week. The school has undergone a mini revolution. A detailed and constantly changing online content plan, social media and incentives such as tickets to local amenities, keep the players engaged – not to mention the sense of competition. Rachael Hall, the school’s sports coach, says: “I’ve never known anything like it – children are going out walking every evening and weekend. Teaching assistants take the children out at lunchtime three times a week and take whole classes out twice a week. I’ve had parents telling me how happy they are to be spending time with their children going fobbing rather than sitting in front of the TV.â€\x9d She says a little boy with cerebral palsy with walking problems has made big progress because of the peer pressure to participate in BTS. Another pupil has become so fascinated by the project that he has taken to writing down where he has been, which has improved his school work. This is exactly what Beat the Street founder and Reading GP, Dr William Bird is after – galvanising whole communities, with the health message almost a side issue. He says: “I want to get the whole of the UK walking, starting with the cities where it is easiest. Walking creates vibrancy – take it away and you create a flat and dying city full of underpasses where no one wants to go.â€\x9d Intelligent Health, which Dr Bird set up to operate BTS, works by turning a town or community into a game where people of all ages earn points by walking, cycling or running between sensors placed on lampposts. In the process, no-go areas are opened up to pedestrians, people have fun together and develop healthier habits. Jennifer Dodd-Power, engagement manager for BTS in Salford, has convinced 5,500 people to take part so far – (though not a patch on Belfast which boasted 36,000 players). She says: “People are not seeing BTS as exercise but as a fun way of going out with the family. We are not saying to people ‘go and join a gym or get yourself to an exercise class’ we are saying ‘go out and meet your friends’.â€\x9d Part of her work has been to link fobbing with community events – such as the Eccles Makers Market – where BTS participants could gain extra points on the day of the event at a temporary sensor set up nearby. The two-month games are preceded by three months’ community engagement, where people such as Dodd work with GPs, local NHS organisations, community groups, sports clubs and schools to build up the enthusiasm. Then the activities requested by a community are set up, whether that be women-only bike riding classes in Asian-dominated Handsworth in Birmingham, or just the incentive to walk into town for previously immobile elderly members of Banham Drive, Sudbury. There elderly residents walked more than 1,500 miles together and have now set up organised walks. BTS is proving successful in health terms according to results from 53,000 participants. During the game phase the proportion of adults meeting the physical activity guidelines increased from 46% to 57% and the percentage of adults reported walking on five to seven days per week increased from 47% to 61%. Government research shows that those who fulfil the recommendation of 150 minutes per week of exercise will improve 23 different long-term conditions including diabetes and dementia, reduce the risk of developing several cancers and even stimulate the brain chemicals that reverse ageing, says Bird. Intelligent Health’s research shows that people are put off by the NHS’s health messages, because they feel they are being lectured. So the year-long health programmes targeting areas of deprivation put the emphasis on enjoying activity with others – and last year 175,198 people travelled more than 1.5m miles with BTS in 21 areas. The scheme is not working for everyone, though. Head of Lewis Street School, Gemma Lavelle, says: “Even though BTS has raised our activity levels we know that some parents have not signed up. What do we have to do to get some of the really hard-to-reach families involved?â€\x9d Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'Robbie Williams: The Heavy Entertainment Show review – cheek, swagger and schmaltz “Light entertainment, but on steroidsâ€\x9d is how Robbie Williams conceived his 11th solo album, a record that reunites the singer with writer Guy Chambers, co-author of umpteen smash hits from the Robbie back catalogue, on a new label. Chambers returned for 2013’s Swings Both Ways, but that was all dicky bows and pomade. This is supposed to be a pop event – a sort of Lady Gaga reunites with RedOne situation – in which Williams redeploys the particular combination of cheek, imperiousness and schmaltz that saw him boss the late 90s and early 00s. That’s probably not how Heavy Entertainment will play out, exactly. It’s hard to pinpoint where this album fits in the shifting-sand ecology of contemporary pop. Perhaps wisely, Williams opts out of current sounds such as glacial R&B and big-drop dancefloor digitals, borrowing, magpie-like, from glam rock and 80s funk. If Mixed Signals – all 80s soft rock via 00s synths – sounds like the Killers, that’s because Williams hired them to write it. Strangely enough, he wears this windswept stuff surprisingly well. His old pal Rufus Wainwright helps out on Hotel Crazy, a lyrics-heavy vamp that sounds like it should have a West End musical written around it. Millennial-targeting chart fodder isn’t Williams’s prime concern, anyway. Pretty Woman – a roots gone pop collaboration with Ed Sheeran and producer Benny Blanco – and Sensitive – a forgettable Stuart Price funk-pop bagatelle – are the closest Williams comes to courting the pop crowd. More to the point, the first single from Heavy Entertainment, the oligarch-mocking Party Like a Russian, generated far more commentary than roubles, failing to chart particularly high (No 23). By contrast, 2012’s Candy, Williams’s last reintroductory salvo, topped the singles. Whatever you think of Party Like a Russian – allegedly, it was dreamed up in the aftermath of a Roman Abramovich-funded private gig – few other artists would attempt such camp, bombastic ridiculousness, and today’s charts are, perhaps, all the more anodyne for that absence of chutzpah. You couldn’t imagine too many celebs singing a song called Motherfucker, either, in which the mental ill health of the forebears is visited upon a young son in tabloid-baiting form. “Your uncle sells drugs,â€\x9d it goes, “Your cousin is a cutter/Your grandma is a fluffer/ Your grandad’s in the gutter…â€\x9d In its gleeful refusal to provide reassurance to young Charlton Williams, aged two, it is, perhaps, one of the least nausea-inducing songs ever dedicated to a celebrity offspring. The tunes that could only come from Williams make this record entertaining if a little groan-worthy. The could-be-anybody songs just don’t stick in the memory. The album’s introductory title track is, of course, pure Robbie – another operatic, circussy blare full of his particular brand of self-deprecating preening. “I am notorious for making all the crowd sing the chor-i-us,â€\x9d he smirks. “I just made up that word!â€\x9d If ever something was needed to reconfirm his pop star status, here it is: you still want to biff him.',
 "Paul Ryan and Donald Trump might say they're unified. But there's a bloody civil war on When Donald Trump met with Paul Ryan in Washington on Thursday, you could say it was a meeting between the current and possibly future nominee of the Republican party. Or you could say it was a battle for the soul of the party, between a conservative reformer and nativist rabble-rouser. The latter is how Ryan himself portrayed the debate when he torpedoed the orange flagship on CNN last week. Saying he “just wasn’t readyâ€\x9d to support Trump, the House speaker warned that Trump’s platform was not inclusive, presidential or, well, conservative. “We don’t always nominate a Lincoln or a Reagan every four years, but we hope that our nominee aspires to be Lincoln- or Reagan-esque, that that person advances the principles of our party and appeals to a wide, vast majority of Americans,â€\x9d Ryan said. Ryan insisted that the burden of unifying the party rested with Trump. “Saying we’re unified doesn’t in and of itself unify us,â€\x9d he explained, “but actually taking the principles that we all believe in, showing that there’s a dedication to those, and running a principled campaign that Republicans can be proud about and that can actually appeal to a majority of Americans – that to me is what it takes to unify this party.â€\x9d Trump responded in that most presidential of ways: by making it personal. “I’m not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda,â€\x9d he said in a statement. At least the slap wasn’t on Twitter. So when the two great leaders met on Thursday morning, somewhere behind a monster scrum of live-tweeting reporters, the language was a diplomatic veneer of unity. In their joint communique, Trump and Ryan said: “While we were honest about our few differences, we recognize that there are also many important areas of common ground.â€\x9d The joint statement did not detail what that common ground looks like, other than defeating Hillary Clinton. Which sounds much like the statements of a Miss Universe contestant at one of Trump’s beauty pageants: both contestants agree that they want to travel, help children and work for world peace. Ryan later told reporters a little more about those “few differencesâ€\x9d, which sounded rather fundamental. “How do we keep adding and adding and adding voters while not subtracting any voters,â€\x9d he said. He didn’t have to say: like Latinos or women, for instance. Ryan’s challenge is particularly exquisite. He needs unity because his day job is otherwise impossible. It was only six months ago that power was thrust upon him when his own House Republicans devoured both his predecessor, John Boehner, and the anointed successor, Kevin McCarthy. Boehner was sick of the civil war, while his chosen successor was consumed by it. McCarthy committed the unforgivable sin of being honest on TV when he admitted that the Benghazi committee supposedly investigating the deadly attacks in Libya in 2012 was really intended to destroy Clinton’s poll numbers. McCarthy was crushed by the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, who made Boehner’s position a living hell. That caucus is now almost uniformly opposed to Trump (while McCarthy now loves Trump). There are some early efforts to engineer a meeting between the caucus and the nominee, in an attempt to redefine how an unstoppable force can meet immovable object. Given a choice between placating the Freedom Caucus and placating Donald Trump, Ryan is wisely choosing self-preservation with the former. “To pretend we’re unified without actually unifying, then we go into the fall at half strength,â€\x9d Ryan told reporters after meeting with House GOP members on Wednesday. Some things are easier when your name is Trump: securing bank loans, declaring bankruptcy, amassing Twitter followers and getting booked for exclusive TV interviews. Some things are harder: mastering policy, acting presidential, leading a party whose power-brokers loathe you. What does peace in the Republican look like? Why, Paul Ryan of course. “I’d love to see him run for president,â€\x9d Mitt Romney reportedly told a private fundraiser meeting last week, according to the New York Times. The last Republican nominee added his name to a long list of pro-Ryan grandees, including Boehner himself, as well as Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. It’s one thing to shake hands across a party after primary season; it’s entirely different negotiating an armistice between rival armies in the midst of bloody civil war. Especially when the armies believe they have everything left to fight for.",
 "Austria's Christian Kern calls for EU shakeup regardless of UK vote The British referendum on membership of the EU could herald the “slow goodbye of the European ideaâ€\x9d unless politicians learn their lessons from it, Austria’s new chancellor has said. “Whatever the outcome of the British referendum, afterwards Europe will not be able to shy away from a few much-needed debates,â€\x9d Christian Kern said in his first interview with the international press since being parachuted to the top of Austrian politics a month ago. Speaking to the , Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, France’s Le Monde and Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, Kern said that a British exit from the EU would lead to “enormous economic upheaval and a shift in the continent’s political balanceâ€\x9d. He added: “Especially when it comes to foreign policy, Great Britain is an extremely important partner.â€\x9d But the Social Democrat claimed he would watch Thursday’s referendum “with a certain serenityâ€\x9d because he believed fundamental reforms were necessary whatever the outcome. “We have to clear up some fundamental issues in Europe irrespective of whether Brexit or remain will win,â€\x9d he said. “Even without Britain, neoliberal ideas dominate in Europe and one of the challenges for the EU will have to be not just to engage with the four fundamental freedoms [free movement of goods, capital, people and services], but also the question of how our welfare system in Europe has to be clarified. If we ignore that, then that’s a slow goodbye to the European idea.â€\x9d Speaking before Marine Le Pen, of France’s far-right Front National, called on all 28 member states to hold their own referendums, Kern said he would not hold a vote on EU membership: “At the end of the day, we who lead this country also have a certain responsibility and you don’t have to give in to every call for a referendum. On such a question, I would not submit Austria to a referendum.â€\x9d The 50-year-old Kern, formerly the head of Austria’s railway company ÖBB, has taken on the chancellorship of his country at a tumultuous time. His predecessor, Werner Faymann, in power since 2008, resigned after he said he had lost the trust of his party in the face of a far-right surge for the Freedom party (FPÖ). Last month, Austria nearly voted in the EU’s first rightwing populist president, after the FPÖ candidate, Norbert Hofer, narrowly lost to Green-backed Alexander Van der Bellen in a bitterly fought contest. The Freedom party is currently trying to appeal against the result in front of Austria’s constitutional court. “If you look at the confrontation between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, or the Trump phenomenon, then you see: populists thrive on being able to send out a clear message. They tell people where and how decisions are made. Our problem in Europe is that we have a lot of questions that can no longer be answered on a national stage. “In Europe, an impression is being created that politics has lost the means to intervene into people’s living conditions. We have to find a clearer message.â€\x9d Kern said leftwing parties around Europe needed to reconsider their strategy in dealing with populist parties, with criticism focused on their track record once they had come into power. “In Carinthia, the FPÖ pushed the region to the edge of bankruptcy and left behind a complete mess. We have to call them out on this much more,â€\x9d he said. Reacting to the murder of the British Labour MP Jo Cox, Kern said the incident was “further proof of how quickly violent words can turn into violent deedsâ€\x9d. He added: “On social media, you see people falling into parallel worlds that we can no longer get them back out of. How do you get back these people who believe that all media and all journalists are lying to them?â€\x9d In recent months, Austria has witnessed not only a surge in support for the FPÖ , but also increased high-profile stunts and protests by the so-called Identitarian movement, a far-right activist group originally derived from France’s far-right and anti-immigrant youth movement Génération Identitaire, which consciously copies the methods of protest groups such as Antifa and Greenpeace. Last weekend, up to 1,000 Identitarian supporters gathered for a protest in Vienna, chanting: “Homeland, freedom, tradition, end of the line for multiculturalism.â€\x9d While the group has often been dismissed as media-savvy but politically ineffective, Kern said recent events should prompt a rethink about the group’s legality. The Identitarian movement, he said, was “a movement that is generally considered to be rightwing extremist; if you saw what they did in Vienna last week, it reminds you of the marches in the 1930s, with flags and all the trimmings. We have to think about whether we are too tolerant.â€\x9d Asked whether the group should be banned, Kern said: “Until last week, I would have denied that but, in the meantime, I have started to have my doubts. Three weeks ago, I also said that we have managed to accept 90,000 refugees without seeing any arson attacks on asylum seekers’ homes. In the meantime, we’ve had an instance like that. Things can change quickly.â€\x9d Kern’s predecessor went from being one of the key supporters of Angela Merkel’s open-border strategy at the height of the refugee crisis to one of its most active critics, and the Austrian foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, was one of the key players behind the closure of the Balkan route in March. Asked if he felt the German chancellor had made a mistake when she suspended the Dublin agreement for Syrian refugees last summer, Kern said: “We were all surprised by the scale of migration movements. You can only judge such decisions in the context of the time. “Back then, Angela Merkel’s actions were justified. If you look now at what lengths the German chancellor is going to with Turkey, then it is clear that she wants a change of direction. I don’t want to imagine what happens when the Turkey deal fails.â€\x9d",
 'Barclays needs some big ideas while share price languishes ‘Our stock price is broadly where it was immediately after the global financial crisis, six years ago,â€\x9d said Barclays chairman John McFarlane last July, sympathising with the bank’s “incredibly patientâ€\x9d investors and vowing to “accelerate the delivery of shareholder valueâ€\x9d. His observation about the share price is now out of date. Barclays has plunged from 280p to 173p – back to where it was in the dark days of 2012 when Bob Diamond was forced to resign as chief executive. Most banks have slumped in value since last summer, it should be said. Financial stocks, especially those with investment banks, like Barclays, don’t like falling stock markets. The plunging oil price has brought worries about bad debts in the offing. Regulators are not going soft on their capital demands. In Barclays’ case, there’s a deeper worry. What’s the strategy? Does Jes Staley, McFarlane’s pick as the latest chief executive, have a radical reinvention plan? Or is he going to offer another uninspiring round of cost-cutting? Never let a good crisis go to waste, advised Bernstein’s analysts, in an open letter to Staley. Their radical formula: get out of Africa, sell the US credit card business, and carve out the investment bank and promise to float it in the US, in effect unwinding Diamond’s purchase of the rump of Lehman Brothers. The latter idea is the big one and would require Staley and McFarlane to swallow hard. But Bernstein is right that housing a US investment bank inside a UK retail bank is “an absolute investment nightmareâ€\x9d in the new regulatory era. If Staley and McFarlane disagree, they’d better be able to show how the unhappy relationship is meant to work. To many observers, it looks fundamentally dysfunctional.',
 'Swansea 1-0 Aston Villa: Premier League – as it happened Gomis drills fractionally wide from 25 yards, a fine effort. Moments later the final whistle goes, and Swansea have surely ensured they will be in this league next season. Villa played well at times, particularly in the first half, but they were toothless in attack. Thanks for your company, goodnight! 90 min There are four minutes of added time. In the first of those, Britton is booked for a brazenly cynical foul on Agbonlahor. 89 min Lescott is booked for stopping a Swansea break with a tug on Gomis. 87 min “Had a short It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia break, and let’s see what’s happening,â€\x9d says Michael Rosefield. “Ah. I could probably squeeze another episode in.â€\x9d Everything’s fine. 83 min “Commiserations for having to ogle the odyssey of misery that is Swansea v Villa,â€\x9d says Keeley Moss. “Not having anything as sophisticated as Sky Sports, BT Sport or any other televisual means of football-viewing, I’m a third of the way through the May 2002 episode of Crimewatch UK. Which come to think of it, is probably where Villa ought to be shown given their frankly criminal defending this term.â€\x9d 82 min Swansea are as comfortable as at any stage in the match. After an excellent first half, Villa are now playing like Villa. 78 min Villa are having a good spell, although it would be stretching it to say they look like scoring. The youngster Green has been good since coming on. Meanwhile, Swansea bring on Kyle Naughton for the impressive Modou Barrow. 77 min “With tonight’s match as further proof, I’d submit that this Villa team is the worst in the history of the Premier League,â€\x9d says Alan Gomes. “Not just the worst Villa team, which it obviously is. The very worst team in two decades of Premier League history. Even worse than that post bankrupcy Pompey affair. Tim Sherwood, take a bow!â€\x9d Never forget. 75 min Villa’s fans appeal for handball when Cissokho’s cross hits a Swansea defender. 74 min A Villa substitution: Gabby Agbonlahor replaces Carles Gil. 72 min Green runs at Rangel and wins a corner for Villa. Fernandez heads it behind for a second corner, which Gil swings onto the head of Lescott. He sees it late and heads straight at Fabianski from 10 yards. That’s the third shot on target in this match. 68 min Sigurdsson, already booked, brings Hutton down. It wasn’t enough for a second yellow. I bet Mike Dean was tempted, though. 67 min “Shame you have to watch this filth,â€\x9d weeps Paul Jaines. “To show my solidarity I am sitting in in front of an open fire sipping a beautiful aged Bordeaux and eating French cheese. I may open a Burgundy next.â€\x9d I’ll be opening some claret with a sharp pencil in a minute. 66 min A corner to Villa, conceded by Williams. Gil swings it in from the right, and the inevitable Williams heads it clear. He is a brilliant defender. 65 min “I’ve watched Villa all season and that’s got to be the worst goal conceded by any team,â€\x9d says Thomas Darnton. “Guzan should have easily got there. He has made too many mistakes this season and I think that Remi Garde should give Mark Bunn another go because we then won’t concede shabby goals like that.â€\x9d Cutting out those cheap goals could be the difference between finishing 20th and, er, eh. 62 min Fer nutmegs Lescott in the box but then picks the wrong option. Swansea are in control now. 62 min A Villa substitution: the 17-year-old Andre Green replaces Veretout. 61 min “To be honest it’s difficult ... â€\x9d begins Malcolm Tucker Mark Turner. “...to muster a comment and help you out in your onerous task. After a week of wonderful Cheltenham (just watched Sprinter Sacre on YouTube again...spine-tingling), then the amazing Leicester bagging another three points in a tight nail-biter we’re served as dessert...Swansea versus Aston Villa and the home team take the obvious lead after a first half of utter drudge. Sports reporting for the brave, we salute you Mister Rob.â€\x9d 60 min Sigurdsson is booked for a bad tackle on a Villa player whose name must be withheld for legal reasons I didn’t catch. 58 min Remi Garde slumps back in his chair with the rueul look of a man who bought a collector’s edition DVD of 8 1/2 on eBay and has just opened the parcel to find a cassette tape of 9 1/2 Weeks. 57 min “Not watching it either,â€\x9d says Michael Rosefield. “I find Villa games are best enjoyed with eyes closed, head in hands, rocking yourself back-and-forth and telling yourself everything’s fine.â€\x9d That email came before the goal. This one came after. “EVERYTHING’S FINE, EVERYTHING’S FINE, EVERYTHING’S FINE.â€\x9d What a scruffy goal. That foul by Cissokho led to a free-kick for Swansea 40 yards out. It was curled into the corridor of uncertainty by Sigurdsson, which tempted Guzan off his line. He got there late and flapped it onto Fernandez, who was looking the other way when the ball hit him and rebounded gently into the net. 52 min Cissokho, on a yellow card, trips the dangerous Barrow. It looks like a second yellow card, but Mike Dean instead decides to give Cissokho a final warning. I want to marry Mike Dean. 51 min “How do you see the relegation battle going, especially Benitez is in charge of Newcastle?â€\x9d says Shaun Wilkinson. “Will he make the difference? I would suggest that whoever loses the derby tomorrow is going down with the Villa.â€\x9d Relegation battles are relatively hard to predict. There have been some thoroughly improbable escapes in the last decade – West Ham, Fulham, Wigan, Portsmouth – so I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them apart from Villa stayed up. And that’s the expertise for which you all love the . (I think Newcastle and Norwich will go.) 50 min “I am here, I have money on Siggy,â€\x9d says Paul E. “Not even watching, just reading you.â€\x9d I’m sorry. 48 min Barrow makes another no-frills run infield, opening up the play. Then he shifts it to Sigurdsson, who breaks towards the area before Lescott makes an important interception. 47 min Anyone out there? Please, please, please don’t make me do another 45 minutes of this on my own. 46 min Swansea begin the second half. They have brought ball-retention specialist Leon Britton on for Ki. The match has lived down to expectations so far. Villa should be ahead, but they aren’t. See you in 10 minutes! 42 min A terrific cross from Gueye is half cleared to Gestede, who loops an overhead kick towards goal from 12 yards. Fabianski had it covered but Williams headed it away for a corner to be on the safe side. From the corner, Clark heads over from 10 yards, a decent chance. 40 min Williams makes an excellent sliding challenge on the right of the area to deny Ayew, and the ball deflects back off Ayew for a goalkick. Why did none of the big clubs buy Williams when he was in his prime? 38 min Barrow runs at Cissokho but then plays a poor pass to Ki on the edge of the box. He is a threat with his speed though. Gomis then screams a long-range shot high and wide. 35 min Rangel gets into the box on the right and picks out Sigurdsson, whose first-time shot is blocked by Clark. 33 min Veretout’s flat cross is met with a powerful flicked header from Gestede, 15 yards out. Fabianski plunges to his left to make a comfortable save. 32 min Sigurdsson plays a fine through ball to Barrow, who is just offside. Not that it mattered, because he over-ran the ball when he went round Guzan. He has been Swansea’s biggest threat though. He is comically fast. 31 min With every passing minute of Villa superiority, it becomes ever more obvious that Swansea will win 1-0 with a 94th-minute own goal from Alan Hutton. 29 min Sigurdsson curls the free kick high and wide. 27 min Gomis finds Barrow, who zooms forward before being hoofed up in the air by Cissokho. That’s a clear yellow card and a free-kick to Swansea 30 yards from goal. 24 min Sigurdsson’s dangerous inswinging free-kick from the left is headed behind for a corner by Lescott with Guzan flailing at fresh air. 21 min Villa get a corner on the right. Veretout swings it out to the near post, where Clark rises and flicks a header just over the bar from six yards. He should probably have scored. 20 min A long throw from Hutton almost breaks to Ayew in the six-yard box, and eventually it’s scrambled clear. 19 min Kingsley’s mishit clearance hits the raised hand of Williams, but he knew precisely nothing about it and a penalty would have been harsh. I bet Mike Dean was tempted though. 18 min Gueye’s fierce low shot from 25 yards is blocked. Villa have been by far the better team. 16 min Gestede and Williams square up after an impromptu wrestle, and then a few of the other players join in. Mike Dean doesn’t book either player. Williams shoved Gestede in the face, which might warrant a retrospective ban the way things are these days. 13 min Barrow’s driven cross is put behind for a corner by Clark at the near post. Sigurdsson takes the corner from the right, and the stooping Cork heads wide of the near post. It wasn’t any kind of chance. 8 min Ayew misses a good chance for Villa. Cork lost the ball in a dangerous position, allowing Ayew to run towards goal. He slipped smoothly past Williams on the edge of the box but then walloped his shot over the bar. 7 min “There was this as well when Villa were challenging for the title,â€\x9d says Niall Mullen. “United were on the cusp of greatness. 23 years ago. Twenty three.â€\x9d 6 min Villa have started confidently and are playing some good stuff. 3 min Fer dithers and unwittingly gives the ball to Lescott, who drills a snapshot wide from the edge of the area. 2 min “Your preamble made me wonder: would Villa somehow staying up rival Leicester winning the league for story of the season?â€\x9d says Alex Hanton. “Or are there no events in English football that could rival it? Maybe if Flamini invents time travel and Arsenal replace Gunnersaurus with an actual cloned velociraptor?â€\x9d I’m not even sure Leicester winning the league can live up to the thought of Leicester winning the league. It’s the greatest football story of our generation, at the very least. 1 min Peep peep! We’re off. Some happier memories for Villa fans “You beauuuuuty!â€\x9d And this, an epic League Cup semi-final. Swansea (4-3-3) Fabianski, Rangel, Williams, Fernandez, Kingsley; Fer, Cork, Ki; Barrow, Gomis, Sigurdsson. Subs: Amat, Britton, Paloschi, Nordfeldt, Routledge, Montero, Naughton. Aston Villa (4-2-3-1) Guzan; Hutton, Clark, Lescott, Cissokho; Westwood, Gana; Gil, Veretout, Ayew; Gestede. Subs: Okore, Bacuna, Sinclair, Agbonlahor, Sanchez, Green, Bunn. Referee Mike Dean (Wirral) Hello. Forgive me for speaking frankly, but the love child of Don King and Barry Hearn would struggle to hype this match. It’s not without significance, however. Villa are down, barring the Mother Teresa of great escapes, but Swansea aren’t quite safe. They have a tough run-in after today, and if results go against them they could be a precarious five points clear of safety by tomorrow. Then again, if they win at home to Villa – and, really, they will need to take a very long look in a very long mirror if they don’t – they will surely be immune from relegation. Kick off is at 5.30pm.',
 'Ebola survivors face long-term neurological problems, researchers find Ebola survivors are continuing to suffer from neurological problems more than six months after infection, according to the early results of a new study. The findings from research undertaken by US neurologists in Liberia appear to confirm suspicions that there are serious long-term effects of Ebola virus disease. They have been made public days after Pauline Cafferkey, the nurse who contracted Ebola while working as a volunteer in Sierra Leone, was admitted for the third time to the infectious diseases unit of the Royal Free hospital. The study was carried out in Liberia by researchers from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda. A team of neurologists travelled to Liberia, where they recruited 87 survivors of the epidemic for a study on the long-term impact on the brain. Four were excluded because of other conditions. The remaining 82 were examined by the team and compared with close contacts who had not contracted the Ebola virus. Most of the survivors had health issues and neurological damage of some kind. “While an end to the outbreak has been declared, these survivors are still struggling with long-term problems,â€\x9d said Lauren Bowen, the study’s author. The survivors had an average age of 35. The most common ongoing problems they experienced were weakness, headache, memory loss, depressed mood and muscle pain. Two people were suicidal and one had hallucinations. Common neurological findings on examination included abnormal eye movements, tremors and abnormal reflexes. Their friends and relatives are also being examined to try to determine which of these findings are specifically related to Ebola virus infection. “It is important for us to know how this virus may continue to affect the brain long term,â€\x9d said Bowen. Her neurological study is part of a larger piece of research called Prevail III, which monitors Ebola survivors. “More than 28,600 people were infected with Ebola in west Africa during the outbreak. Of that number, 11,300 died. In collaboration with the ongoing Prevail III natural history study of Ebola survivors, we wanted to find out more about possible continued long-term brain health problems for the more than 17,000 survivors of the infection.â€\x9d The full study will be presented to the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Vancouver in April. Cafferkey, 40, who returned from working in the Kerry Town Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone, run by Save the Children, in December 2014, spent almost a month in isolation in the Royal Free in January 2015. When she was discharged and returned to her home in Scotland, it was assumed that her problems were over, but last October she again fell ill. She was diagnosed with meningitis, triggered by the Ebola virus lingering in her nervous system. Again she was transferred to the Royal Free, where she came close to death but rallied and returned home. She has now been admitted again “due to a late complication from her previous infection by the Ebola virusâ€\x9d, a Royal Free spokesperson said. Her condition is said to be stable.',
 'Why Big Ang from Mob Wives was the most gif-worthy reality star ever To a lot of people, reality television is simply mindless, lowbrow entertainment. For me, it’s a lot more than that. Reality television and pop culture have been passions of mine for years – as a hobby and a job. Unfortunately reality television can sometimes become too real. My name is T Kyle. Who? you might ask. You may have seen my work on the internet before. Just under five years ago, I started a Tumblr called RealityTVGIFs. To most of my audience, the Tumblr is a destination site for reaction gifs. However, my close friends know that RealityTVGIFs is my digital diary. I capture my reactions, opinions and responses to things going on in pop culture and in my personal life. It is a diary expressed via outrageous reality show moments. Weird? Maybe. But amid my daily stresses, it makes me laugh. Mob Wives is a VH1 show that follows Staten Island women connected to men with alleged mob ties. Whether or not you watch it, if you visit my site you know who Big Ang was. The show’s star died of cancer on Thursday aged 55. I was an employee at Viacom when Mob Wives was renewed after its incredibly successful debut season. We would have these town hall events where the bigwigs at the company would present teaser trailers for new, upcoming programming. The second season of Mob Wives was about to premiere, and they played a short cast profile of a new cast member. Her name was Angela “Big Angâ€\x9d Raiola. “Last night me and my friend were out partying with the guys like we were 21 …â€\x9d I immediately turned to a co-worker and said, “She is going to be a huge breakout star.â€\x9d I just knew it. The hoarse voice, the outsized lips, that big laugh. Big Ang rapidly became, as I predicted, an internet sensation. Whether it was rolling her eyes, hollering that she needed a drink or simply announcing, “I don’t give a shit,â€\x9d in the middle of a scene, Big Ang’s reactions were always hilarious, unexpected and real. This is why she was so “gif-ableâ€\x9d and made such great television. Every single thing she did was over-the-top. In a recent episode, the girls gather for a yoga session. The instructor asks the girls to “Omâ€\x9d. Completely over it, Big Ang starts whining in that unique raspy voice “Ommmm I need a bloody maryyy.â€\x9d I exploded in laughter, and I’ve been quoting the scene to friends ever since it aired. As someone who works in entertainment, the fourth wall gets broken a lot. You’ll find yourself at an event lending an iPhone charger to a Mob Wife, trying to explain what gif means to a Drag Race contestant, or even doing lemon-drop shots with a Real Housewife. I’ve met many reality stars over the years and sometimes they suffer from inflated egos, boosted by their 15 minutes of fame. Big Ang was not one of those reality stars. Contrary to the ruthless one-liners and occasional violence you see on Mob Wives each week, the entire cast is actually a very kind and gracious bunch. Big Ang was one of the kindest and most humble people I’ve ever met. Big Ang and her relatives, her cast mates, her friends; they all made you feel like you were family when you were around them. Her energy, her laugh and her smile were infectious. Every person I know, from her adoring fans to network professionals, have had nothing but positive things to say about her. She was genuinely so kind to every person she worked with. We were her “babiesâ€\x9d. On the show, you would often see Big Ang playing the peacemaker and trying to resolve issues among cast members. “We’re only here for a short time, so just have a good time!â€\x9d This was not a “characterâ€\x9d she was playing, it is how she truly was. That was her reality, and we loved her for it. I post about Big Ang a lot on RealityTVGIFs. “You’re obsessed with her!â€\x9d fans would say. Yes, I am. As a fan she made me smile and as a professional, I wanted everything she did to be successful. She was a great person and she deserved all the success, the “money!â€\x9d and “diamonds!â€\x9d, to quote two of her favourite words. It is people like Big Ang who made me enjoy my job, and she will truly be missed.',
 "Brexit would free UK from 'spirit-crushing' green directives, says minister The UK could develop a more flexible approach to environmental protection free of “spirit-crushingâ€\x9d Brussels directives if it votes to leave the EU, the farming minister, George Eustice, has said. Speaking to the , the pro-Brexit minister said a leave vote in the 23 June referendum would free up a £2bn green dividend that could be spent on insurance schemes and incentives for farmers. Environmental laws that have helped protect endangered species and clean up dirty beaches are seen one of the key achievements of the EU, but Eustice sought to reassure green-minded voters that the UK could develop better protections by going it alone. “The birds and habitats directives would go,â€\x9d he said, referring to two key pieces of European environmental law. “A lot of the national directives they instructed us to put in place would stay. But the directives’ framework is so rigid that it is spirit-crushing. “If we had more flexibility, we could focus our scientists’ energies on coming up with new, interesting ways to protect the environment, rather than just producing voluminous documents from Brussels.â€\x9d The leave camp says that, in the event of a Brexit vote, £2bn would be earmarked for conservation spending out of the money it expects to recoup from payments to Brussels. “Our objective would be to put in place a government-backed insurance scheme, similar to the one in Canada, to protect farmers from bad weather, crop failures and drops in prices,â€\x9d Eustice said. “We would also have a whole suite of accreditation schemes run by the Soil Association, Rivers Trust and RSPCA to incentivise farmers to do positive things for the environment.â€\x9d But Eustice’s fellow environment minister Rory Stewart told the that EU membership was crucial to the UK’s environmental protections. “It is European action that put a stop to the devastating impact on our forests of acid rain, and we are now tackling air quality by cutting harmful emissions. Through the EU we have improved more than 9,000 miles of rivers since 2010 and our water environment is in the healthiest state for 25 years,â€\x9d he said. “We have preserved valuable marine life through ending the wasteful practice of throwing fish back, dead, into the sea with a Europe-wide ban on discarding many species of fish. From tackling harmful chemicals that damage the ozone layer to cracking down on the black-market ivory trade, the UK has a strong track record in driving up environmental standards across Europe.â€\x9d Environmentalists said they feared a developmental free-for-all on sites shielded by the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme, including Snowdonia, the Lake District, the Thames estuary, the North Yorkshire Moors, Scotland’s Flow Country and Dartmoor. One of the original authors of EU environmental legislation was Stanley Johnson, Boris’s father, who now co-chairs Environmentalists for Europe. He said of Eustice’s proposal: “I am absolutely shocked and horrified at what looks like a no-holds-barred attack by the Brexiteers on an agreed consensus that the environment benefits from a common approach. “Don’t tell me that a new Brexit-led British government is going to put environmental regulations at top of its pile on June 24. It is not going to happen.â€\x9d The European commission is reviewing the birds and habitats directives – which define Europe’s conservation strategy – and is under unprecedented public pressure not to water them down. The origin of the “fitness checkâ€\x9d lies in a domestic review instigated by George Osborne in 2011, when he told parliament that the “gold-platingâ€\x9d of EU habitat rules was imposing “ridiculous costsâ€\x9d on business. Martin Harper, the conservation director of the RSPB, said: “These nature directives have been the cornerstone of nature conservation in Europe since coming into force. Not only have they improved the fortunes of threatened species but they are essential if we want to meet our international biodiversity commitments.â€\x9d On pesticides, Eustice said the EU’s precautionary principle needed to be reformed in favour of a US-style risk-based approach, allowing faster authorisation. “A precautionary approach is the right thing to do but it should be based on realistic assessments of risk and not just theoretical hazards,â€\x9d he said. “That is the wrong way to go about it.â€\x9d The principle has underpinned bans on GM foods, neonicotonoid inseciticides linked to bee colony declines and endocrine disrupting chemicals. The marine strategy directive would also be scrapped, Eustice said. He cited a dispute with Brussels over the UK’s failure to designate protected marine areas for harbour porpoises as an example of over-regulation, when dolphin-repelling electronic devices could have been used on nets instead. However, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society said electronic pingers could already be used under current EU nature laws, which also protect porpoises from trawling, dredging, pile driving and noise from military sonars. Clive Lewis, the shadow energy and climate change spokesperson, said: “It is absurd to suggest that Brexit could be good for the environment when the major challenges we face, not least the risk of catastrophic climate change, are international by their nature.â€\x9d",
 'Everton 3-1 Middlesbrough: Premier League – as it happened Everton go back to second in the table, having taken 13 points from their first five games. It’s their best start since 1978-79. They respond impressively to Maarten Stekelenburg’s own goal and were comfortable winners, with Gareth Barry scoring on his 600th Premier League appearance. Thanks for your company; night. 90+1 min A nice touch from Ronald Koeman, who substitutes Gareth Barry so that he can get an ovation from the crowd. Tom Cleverley replaces him. 90 min There will be two minutes of added formality. 88 min Everton play a bit of keep-ball to amuse themselves. They look a good side, and so much more solid than last season. 86 min “I want 3000 words by Monday on Everton and Liverpool being top dogs in the league once more, just like back in the day before wireless meant anything other than a radio,â€\x9d writes my owner Ian Copestake. 84 min Middlesbrough make their final substitution, with Adam Clayton replacing Forshaw. 82 min Fischer’s fierce shot from 20 yards is blocked by the stretching Coleman. I think it would have otherwise inconvenienced Stekelenburg. 80 min De Roon’s high cross is punched away under pressure by Stekelenburg, and Downing’s follow-up shot hits a defender. 79 min Idrissa Gueye has had another excellent game for Everton. 77 min Bolasie mavericks past Barragan but then runs into a second defender. 76 min Boro don’t look like getting a corner, never mind scoring. I think they’ll stay up, but if they do it won’t be because of their attack. 74 min “Agree 100% with the mooted Incorrigible Mavericks rule,â€\x9d says David Hopkins. “All the better if their skills have little practical application. I’m thinking of Ted McMinn dribbling past some hapless fullback, stopping, then doing it once more for a laugh.â€\x9d 72 min Gerard Deulofeu replaces Kevin Mirallas for Everton. 70 min Both sides have accepted the result, and the match is drifting along increasingly aimlessly. 69 min Another Boro substitution: Viktor Fischer, the former boy wonder, replaces Gaston Ramirez. 66 min Enner Valencia comes on for his Everton debut, replacing the injured Lukaku. It looks like a precautionary substitution rather than anything more serious, although Lukaku has gone straight down the tunnel. 63 min Barkley almost frees Lukaku in the box; eventually the ball pinballs through the keeper Valdes. When Barkley plays like this, with such penetrative simplicity, you can see why so many managers get excited about him. 62 min “I’m not actually watching the game, but glad to see Bolasie involved,â€\x9d says Matt Dony. “He is possibly the most entertaining player in world football. I mean, he’s obviously not in that ‘top, top player’ bracket, but the sheer unpredictability is worth the entrance fee. In that respect, he reminds me of Luis Garcia in his 2006/7 pomp. The best player in history for 10 minutes of any given match, an absolute liability for the other 80.â€\x9d Quite. There should be a quota system whereby every team has to include one incorrigible maverick in their XI. If we can clone Adel Taarabt, so much the better. 59 min Middlesbrough bring on David Nugent for Emilio Nsue. 56 min Everton are in total control of the game now, and Barkley draws a good save from Valdes with a stinging low drive. Barkley has been excellent today, possibly the best player on the pitch. 54 min Mirallas’s golden five minutes continues with a dreadful piece of control in the box after fine play from Barkley. 51 min Baines makes a virtue of a dismal pass from Mirallas, winning a corner as a result. It’s headed away by Friend. 50 min Middlesbrough, tactically speaking, weren’t really built with 3-1 deficits in mind. They are a neat, tidy side but they don’t create that many chances. This should be a comfortable second half for Everton. 49 min It looks like the third goal has been given to Lukaku. I’m not sure he touched it, mind. 46 min Peep peep! Everton begin the second half, and as things stand this will be their best start to a season since 1978-79. Half-time reading aka ‘I think it was me who said...’ After a slow start, that was an enjoyable half of football. The worst thing Middlesbrough did was take the lead, because it woke Everton and the crowd up. See you soon for the second half. 45+2 min Gareth Barry is booked for a foul on Ramirez. Bolasie’s inswinging cross from the right drifts past everyone and into the net. Lukaku claimed it but I don’t think he got a touch. Valdes appealed that Lukaku was offside but replays showed he was fine. Seamus Coleman gives Everton the lead with a fine solo goal. He received Gueye’s pass just outside the area on the right, burst past a couple of defenders and finished calmly into the bottom corner with his left foot. 40 min Barrajan loafs forward promisingly, only to get giddy and hoof one miles over the bar from 25 yards. 36 min Barkley beats Ayala with a beautiful flicked nutmeg, a bit like Robbie Fowler on Steve Staunton when he scored that famous goal against Aston Villa in 1996, and then runs into the box before hitting a shot that is well blocked by a combination of Gibson and the recovering Ayala. When the ball went dead Ayala was booked for attempting to pull Barkley back after he had been turned. 34 min “You’re right about the Middlesbrough goal looking like Andy Gray’s goal at Wembley in 1984,â€\x9d says Gary Naylor. “If we’re playing the same rules as 32 years ago, I look forward to plenty of tackles from behind, a few professional fouls and a shinpad-splitting challenge or two. No cards though. And a title for us next year.â€\x9d 32 min A fine effort from Bolaise, who thumps a 15-yard header onto the roof of the net from Baines’s hanging cross. 28 min Barkley ruins an excellent run by blazing over the bar when Lukaku was in a better position. 26 min “Pretty sure Andy Gray never played in a World Cup final,â€\x9d says Richie Segal, making a very fair point. What the hell was I thinking there? 25 min Middlesbrough might also be aggrieved with the goal against them, because Williams challenged Valdes with his studs showing. Howard Webb says it was a probably a free-kick, and he’ll be thrilled to know I agree with him. Gareth Barry equalises for Everton. On today of all days. A corner from the left rebounded across the box, and Barry half-volleyed it calmly into the top of the net. That’s an excellent finish actually, and a rare goal to mark his 600th Premier League appearance. 23 min The BT commentators - Steve McManaman, Glenn Hoddle and Howard Webb - all think it was a fair goal. I’m not so sure. Stekelenburg was a bit weak but I’m not sure Negredo didn’t foul him. Everton are not happy with this, and there are echoes of Andy Gray’s goal in the 1984 World Cup final. Downing hung up a deep cross towards the far post, where Stekelenburg was in the process of catching it when Negredo powered through and headed the ball into the net. Actually, I think it’s an own goal because Negredo seemed to knock Stekelenburg’s arm, which knocked the ball out of his hands and into the net. 20 min Mirallas comes inside from the left and drills a low shot that is comfortably held by Valdes. Everton have stirred after a sluggish start. 19 min A good effort from Barkley, who moves away from Forshaw and hits a wobbling left-footed shot from 25 yards that is beaten away by Valdes. 17 min It would be silly to jump to conclusions after four and a bit games, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do: Boro won’t go down this season. They look a really good, organised side. 15 min Barry, on his 600th Premier League appearance, is robbed in a dangerous area but Ramirez. He moves straight for goal but Coleman makes a good tackle on the edge of the area. 13 min Everton win their first corner, to be taken by Mirallas on the right. Jagielka mistimes his jump at the near post and shoulders it over the bar. 12 min Here’s Hubert O’Hearn. “Koeman’s knack of almost instantly shaping a club into an attractive and downright scary side, no matter what players he loses, reminds me of a wonderful line about Jack Nicklaus and his clubs (golf variety): ‘He can play with his and beat you, or he can take yours and still beat you.’â€\x9d 10 min There’s not a huge amount happening right now. 6 min The overlapping Friend is fouled by Coleman on the left wing. Actually, it looks quite a soft free-kick on second glance. Ramirez curls the free-kick towards the near post, where Downing flicks a header across the face of goal and wide. Ayala almost got to it at the far post. 5 min It’s been a confident start from Boro in what sounds like a very muted atmosphere, though that might just be that somebody has pressed the wrong button in the BT bunker. 1 min Peep peep! Middlesbrough, in red, kick off from left to right. Everton are in blue. “Reid’s cross - GRAY!â€\x9d If you’re an Everton fan, with a fondness for the years 1984 and 1985, this book is definitely for you. It’s published by deCoubertin, who have a cracking collection of Everton books in particular. Everton (4-2-3-1) Stekelenburg; Coleman, Williams, Jagielka, Baines; Gueye, Barry; Mirallas, Barkley, Bolasie; Lukaku. Substitutes: Joel, Deulofeu, Lennon, Cleverley, Valencia, Funes Mori, Holgate. Middlesbrough (4-2-3-1) Valdes; Barragan, Ayala, Gibson, Friend; De Roon, Forshaw; Nsue, Ramirez, Downing; Negredo. Substitutes: Guzan, Espinosa, Clayton, Fischer, Chambers, Nugent, Traore. Kevin de Bruyne is Pep’s Michael Laudrup, discuss Hello. Sometimes, a player’s weakness becomes his strength as a manager: think of George Graham and Glenn Hoddle, swaggering midfielders and magnificent defensive coaches, or hard-faced centre-back Tony Mowbray preaching tiki-taka in the Midlands. Ronald Koeman and Aitor Karanka, whose Everton and Middlesbrough sides meet at Goodison Park today, took their playing strengths with them when they went into management: both were defenders (well, nominally in Koeman’s case) and both know exactly what to do with a bank of four. Both teams are not without attacking flair, but defence will be the key to whether their achieve their ambitions this season. Middlesbrough will be happy to stay up; Everton, who are currently the closest of the also-rans to the champions Manchester City, are aiming for Europe. Kick off is at 5.30pm. Rob will be here shortly. In the meantime, why not have a read of Andy Hunter on how Ronald Koeman feels the noise more than MartÃ\xadnez and Moyes after his strong start at Everton?',
 'Conservative party turmoil escalates with open call for Cameron to quit David Cameron’s hopes of being able to avoid terminal damage to Conservative party unity after the EU referendum campaign were dented on Sunday when two rebel MPs openly called for a new leader and a general election before Christmas. The attacks came from Andrew Bridgen and Nadine Dorries – both Brexiters, and longstanding, publicity-hungry opponents of the prime minister – and their claim that even winning the EU referendum won’t stop Cameron facing a leadership challenge in the summer was dismissed by fellow Tories. But their comments coincided with the ministers in charge of the leave campaign launching some of their strongest personal attacks yet on Cameron, prompting Labour’s Alan Johnson to say that the Tory infighting was getting “very ugly indeedâ€\x9d. Bridgen told the BBC’s 5 Live that Cameron had been making “outrageousâ€\x9d claims in his bid to persuade voters to back remain and that, as a consequence, he had effectively lost his parliamentary majority. “The party is fairly fractured, straight down the middle and I don’t know which character could possibly pull it back together going forward for an effective government. I honestly think we probably need to go for a general election before Christmas and get a new mandate from the people,â€\x9d he said. Bridgen said at least 50 Tory MPs – the number needed to call a confidence vote – felt the same way about Cameron and that a vote on the prime minister’s future was “probably highly likelyâ€\x9d after the referendum. Dorries told ITV’s Peston on Sunday she had already submitted her letter to the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 committee expressing no confidence in the prime minister. “[Cameron] has lied profoundly, and I think that is actually really at the heart of why Conservative MPs have been so angered. To say that Turkey is not going to join the European Union as far as 30 years is a lie.â€\x9d A leadership contest would only take place if Cameron lost a confidence vote, which would be unlikely if the remain campaign wins the referendum. But a sizeable vote against Cameron in a confidence ballot could still prove fatal to his premiership, forcing him to accelerate plans for his departure. Dorries said that if remain won 60/40, Cameron would probably survive. “If remain win by a narrow majority, or if leave win, he’s toast within days,â€\x9d she said. Even if, as many Tories expect, a confidence vote does not materialise, the Bridgen/Dorries comments are a reminder of how maverick, hardline Eurosceptics were able to play havoc with John Major’s government in the 1990s because he had such a small majority. Cameron’s working majority is just 16. The Conservative MP Steve Baker said Bridgen “[had] a pointâ€\x9d about how unsympathetic backbenchers were towards Cameron’s EU stance. Baker claimed only about 30 were very strongly committed to remain – and he said he thought there could be “a problemâ€\x9d for the prime minister after 23 June. But more senior figures in Tory Brexit camp backed Cameron and insisted a confidence vote would not happen because the rebels would not get enough support. “I don’t think there are 50 colleagues gunning for the prime minister,â€\x9d said Chris Grayling, the justice secretary. “I can assure you that those people who fought to win their seats 12 months ago are definitely not gunning for a general election by Christmas.â€\x9d Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee, said Bridgen’s intervention was “unfortunateâ€\x9d and that the party had to pull together after the referendum. Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, said the party would need “a period of stabilityâ€\x9d after the referendum and that it would be best for Cameron to stay as prime minister. Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, also said he was not in favour of replacing Cameron. In a particularly personal attack that seemed clearly aimed at Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne, Priti Patel, the employment minister, used an article in the Sunday Telegraph to say it was “shamefulâ€\x9d that wealthy remain campaigners did not realise how much harm mass immigration was doing to the poor. “If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you’ll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable,â€\x9d she wrote. “It’s shameful that those leading the pro-EU campaign fail to care for those who do not have their advantages.â€\x9d Patel’s article coincided with Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, and Michael Gove, the justice secretary, writing an open letter to Cameron asking him to accept that it would be impossible for him to achieve his manifesto promise of getting net migration below 100,000 if the UK stayed in the EU. The letter, also signed by Labour’s Gisela Stuart, said failure to keep this promise “is corrosive of public trustâ€\x9d. A source close to Cameron said that there was now overwhelming evidence, backed up by Sunday’s survey of economists, that leaving the EU would cause a “serious economic shockâ€\x9d and that “the suggestion that crashing your economy is the best way of dealing with immigration is clearly nonsenseâ€\x9d. Commenting on the Tory turmoil, Alan Johnson, chair of Labour In for Britain, said: “What is extraordinary is the vindictiveness and nastiness we are seeing within the Conservative party and Conservative cabinet. I think it’s very ugly, very ugly indeed. If those are David Cameron’s friends and allies, he’s welcome to them.â€\x9d Andrew Bridgen profile Andrew Bridgen, Tory MP for North West Leicestershire since 2010, has form as a critic of David Cameron’s. In 2013 he publicly admitted that he had sent a letter to the chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 committee calling for a vote of confidence in his leader. Explaining his decision in a newspaper article, he said there was a “credibility problemâ€\x9d with Cameron. “The voters think we have many of the right messages – they just don’t believe the messenger. In some cases, the messages are wrong or badly handled. By pressing ahead with gay marriage and delaying a promise on an EU referendum until he was forced to do so, Mr Cameron has fuelled the rise of Ukip. We have created our own nemesis,â€\x9d he wrote. “I think the situation is this: it’s like being in an aeroplane. The pilot doesn’t know how to land it. We can either do something about it before the crash, or sit back, watch the in-flight movies and wait for the inevitable.â€\x9d At the time Bridgen was one of only two Tory MPs known to have written a letter calling for a confidence vote. The other, Patrick Mercer, resigned after a lobbying scandal. A year later Bridgen wrote an open letter to Cameron formally withdrawing his letter calling for a confidence vote, and offering Cameron his “full and enthusiastic supportâ€\x9d. Explaining his volte-face, he said much had happened in the meantime.',
 'New Hampshire results: resounding wins for Trump and Sanders Voters in New Hampshire delivered a resounding rebuke to the US political establishment on Tuesday, with strong wins for leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders and bombastic Republican outsider Donald Trump in the second major test of the 2016 presidential race. The Vermont senator’s victory over Hillary Clinton will give him much needed momentum as he heads for tougher states farther south, while high voter turnout helped power Trump to a double-digit victory that could end up matching consistent polling leads he has maintained since declaring his candidacy. Voters hungry for what Sanders calls “political revolutionâ€\x9d turned out in large numbers to vote for the Democratic socialist, according to the Associated Press. Sanders took to the stage at his victory party and wasted no time going straight to the theme that appears to have dominated the election here: campaign finance. “Together we have sent a message that will resonate from Wall Street to Washington ... that government belongs to all of the people,â€\x9d he said to applause and foot-stomping from a fired up audience of mixed ages. But he warned of the brickbats ahead as the campaign prepares to move to the national stage. “They are throwing everything at me except the kitchen sink, and I have a feeling that it is coming soon,â€\x9d he said. One of the biggest cheers of the night came when he started a sentence: “When we make it to the White House ... â€\x9d but the crowd turned and shook their fists at the press riser when Sanders talked of “sending a message to the media establishmentâ€\x9d. Foreign policy also made a return to his stump speech, after a period of relative absence during campaigning here that had attracted growing criticism. “As president I will defend this nation, but I will do it responsibly,â€\x9d he said. “We cannot and should not be the policeman of the world. “Thank you, New Hampshire,â€\x9d he concluded. “Now it’s on to Nevada, South Carolina and beyond.â€\x9d Trump gave an unusually emotional speech to supporters in a hotel ballroom next to a Best Western hotel by the Manchester airport, starting by thanking his deceased parents as well as his siblings. He also took a moment to mention Sanders. “Congratulations to Bernie,â€\x9d he said. “We have to congratulate him, we may not like it. He wants to give away our country, folks. We’re not going to let it happen.â€\x9d Trump’s campaign, fueled by a blend of insurgent populism and unprecedented media attention, has turned every rule of politics on its head. His success in New Hampshire happened despite comparatively weak campaign organization in the state and a penchant for controversial remarks that would have sunk the campaigns of almost any other candidate. Yet none of the controversies have affected Trump’s standing with his base of disaffected blue-collar white voters, who remain drawn to his pledge to “Make America Great Againâ€\x9d. Many of Trump’s themes were familiar to a New Hampshire primary electorate that strongly supported Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996; but Trump added an aura of celebrity and drew in many who were entirely new to the political process. What remained less clear as the polls closed was how the pile-up of candidates vying to finish in the top tier behind Trump would perform. Ohio governor John Kasich came in second place with 15.9% to Trump’s 35.1%, according to the AP, with almost 89% of precincts reporting. “Maybe – just maybe – we are turning the page on a dark part of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness,â€\x9d Kasich told supporters in Concord. By dawn, the fight over third place was still not formally resolved, though Texas senator Ted Cruz led former Florida governor Jeb Bush by a narrow 11.6% to 11.1% – a margin of 1,240 votes. Florida senator Marco Rubio, who had been tipped as the man to emerge as the establishment favourite, was languishing in a damaging fifth place on 10.6%. He admitted his slump was “on meâ€\x9d after a terrible debate performance days before polling which left him looking scripted and inauthentic. Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor whose last act ahead of the primary was to savage Rubio on the debate stage, seemed all but certain to suspend his campaign in the coming days, admitting he would return home to New Jersey to consider his next moves. The fight over the 2016 Democratic nomination had been expected to be a wintertime formality for Clinton. But the prospect of sustained campaigns from Sanders had sent the former secretary of state’s campaign into a whirlwind of spin about whether the outsider surge could last. The call for Sanders came early: with nearly 60% of precincts reporting, he had 59.3% of the votes to Clinton’s 38.9%. By morning, with 89% of votes counted, that margin held good – Sanders on 60%, Clinton on 38.4%. At the Sanders results party in Concord, supporters were being turned away before polling had even closed. Few were doubting he would win; the question was only by how much. In her concession speech delivered from Southern New Hampshire University in Hooksett, Clinton said: “I know I have some work to do.â€\x9d Former president Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea stood by her side. Clinton, who called Sanders earlier in the evening, congratulated her rival and said of his supporters: “Even if they are not supporting me now, I support them.â€\x9d Senior Sanders staff see this decisive win in New Hampshire as their ticket to the genuine national campaign momentum that has so far proved difficult to achieve. Chief adviser Tad Devine told the the he is increasingly confident of securing union support to help the campaign in Nevada, the scene of their next and perhaps most important showdown with Clinton. “People need to understand something,â€\x9d said a passionate Devine. “We are a better campaign. We are a better resourced campaign. We have more people on the ground. We are demonstrating that resource superiority by going on television all across this country. We are redeploying hundreds of people who worked on this campaign [in New Hampshire]. We are happy to compete with them in the air and on the ground anywhere in this country.â€\x9d Clinton’s campaign had been bracing for a loss, with surrogates telling voters in a cafe earlier in the day that they were “looking for a miracleâ€\x9d. The former secretary of state’s 2008 comeback win in New Hampshire against Barack Obama added momentum to the prospect of the first female US president. But the state offered no such luck this time. Voters across the state said they were gripped by Sanders and Trump, perhaps more for what they represented rather than the nature as tried and tested candidates who could go the distance. From school gymnasiums to post offices in socially liberal cities and gun-toting conservative hamlets, they expressed widespread discontent with both Clinton in particular and the Republican party’s leadership as a whole. Chris Comfort, a 50-year-old retired plumber, had voted for Trump. “I really believe he’s not owned by anyone,â€\x9d he said. “And that’s a big thing in politics today.â€\x9d Comfort said he also admired Sanders, whom he saw as atypical of the American political system: “He is like Donald Trump in the fact that he’s a man of principle – he doesn’t waver,â€\x9d he said. “Mr Sanders has always been for what he believes in, and I respect that.â€\x9d The two parties will now criss-cross the country, with Sanders carrying his momentum to a Democratic caucus in Nevada on 20 February and Trump testing his popularity among southern Republicans in South Carolina’s primary on the same day. The campaigns will then turn their attentions towards Super Tuesday on 1 March, when 14 states will vote – including seven in the south, where Clinton is expected to beat Sanders among African American voters. But Joseph Bafumi, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth University who has studied how new voters can be brought into a party’s coalition by outsider candidates, said Trump and Sanders had become “much more viable for the nominationâ€\x9d by meeting expectations in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “It’s more of a question of momentum,â€\x9d he said of Trump, “but it indicates to the rest of the country that his supporters can reliably go out and vote for him.â€\x9d',
 'David Moyes admits lack of summer recruitment could cost Sunderland dear David Moyes has made it plain that Sunderland will be practically doomed to relegation unless his squad is strengthened significantly in January. “I think we know we’re going to have to improve on what we’ve got to give ourselves a chance,â€\x9d the manager said, following the 3-2 home defeat against Crystal Palace on Saturday. “Ultimately you have to have good players on the pitch and, at the moment, we’re not getting enough good players on the pitch. We need to get a better team, it’s as simple as that. We need to get a team which can give us results.â€\x9d This latest setback leaves Moyes with only one point from his first six Premier League games since succeeding Sam Allardyce, and Sunderland bottom of the table. “It’s been a tough period because I wanted to be successful,â€\x9d Moyes said. “I knew it wasn’t going to be all easy, that’s for sure, but I did expect to find myself winning games. Now, though, we have to try and find a way to get out of it.â€\x9d Although Moyes acknowledges that a lack of adequate recruitment, not only this summer but in previous years, lies at heart of Sunderland’s problems, he is adamant that his existing players need to assume responsibility for the defensive negligence which, once again, cost them dear as they squandered a 2-0 lead against Palace. This, it seems, is absolutely not the time for tea and sympathy. “I don’t know that I’m necessarily an arm-around-the-shoulder man,â€\x9d Moyes said. “I want to see men stand up and take responsibility, be tough and take the challenge on. At the moment we’re not doing the basics well enough; not heading it and kicking it when we get the chance or doing the picking up and marking we need to do. “The players need to take responsibility. It can’t always be me leading them by the hand and showing them where they should be and what they should do.â€\x9d Moyes – who has managed Everton, Manchester United and Real Sociedad – regarded Palace’s stoppage-time winning goal as a case in point, with an unmarked Christian Benteke heading home a free-kick. “Benteke’s arguably the best header of the ball in the Premier League and nobody got close,â€\x9d he said. “We gave him a free run and jump.â€\x9d Despite Sunderland making eight summer signings, they failed to secure the striker Moyes craved to support Jermain Defoe, who scored twice against Palace; they also failed to re-sign Yann M’Vila, the former France midfielder who shone on Wearside last season while on loan from Rubin Kazan, and lost Younès Kaboul, a key defender, to Watford. Before leaving to coach England in mid-July Allardyce had become deeply concerned by the lack of a single signing and Moyes was left playing catch-up. “We’re probably paying the price for not recruiting earlier,â€\x9d the Scot said. “But what would you say about the year before that or the year before that? Would you say we’re paying the price for recruitment then or are there other reasons?â€\x9d Jan Kirchhoff shared his manager’s dismay. “A shocking result,â€\x9d the former Bayern Munich midfielder said. “We led 2-0 but we didn’t all have the same idea about what to do next and we threw it away. “As players we have to take 100% responsibility. We get well prepared before the games. It’s up to us to communicate on the pitch. We need leadership down there, people who are willing to take the lead. We have to get our shape back and have one clear idea of what we’re doing.â€\x9d',
 'Tottenham and Danny Rose punish wasteful Liverpool to claim draw Jürgen Klopp leaned back in his chair, threw a glance to the skies, and wore the expression of a man who had just been told the last bus home had been cancelled. “Oh my God,â€\x9d he said, exhaling deeply. The information he was trying to take in actually concerned one of the decisive moments of Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Tottenham. It was a moment that might have turned one point into an excellent three. With one of their crisp breaks Georginio Wijnaldum slipped the ball to Adam Lallana, who pushed the move onwards and the ball across goal for Sadio Mané to tap in. Up went the official’s flag and the strike was disallowed for a very tight offside. “What can I say?â€\x9d Klopp said. “It was a wonderful goal, huh? Brilliant play. It happens.â€\x9d He sounded phlegmatic but looked slightly crestfallen. Despite the positives he can take from a complicated early season cluster of games all away from home, he made no bones about his disappointment that there were no more points on the board to show for it. “We have not the most easy starting programme. Four points from nine is not what I wanted but it’s OK. That’s our platform.â€\x9d Tottenham’s platform shows five points from nine but in terms of the team’s energy levels and attacking zest there has to be more to come from Mauricio Pochettino’s team. For much of this tussle they toiled, they endeavoured, but clear chances did not come easily. The attacking prowess of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and the newcomer Vincent Janssen is yet to really catch fire this season. Pochettino didn’t seem to mind too much if it’s been a slow burner up until this point. “Last season Harry scored in game 10 and was top scorer. I would sign up again for that,â€\x9d he smiled. Liverpool had more than enough chances to win, quite apart from the mysterious offside call. From the start the thrust of Mané and trickery of Philippe Coutinho tested Tottenham. They set about the challenge here with swift movement and energy. With half-time approaching, Liverpool were handed a clear opportunity to turn their attacking promise into something concrete with a penalty. The referee Bobby Madley saw Érik Lamela catch Roberto Firmino at the edge of the box and pointed to the spot. It was down to James Milner, who had been filling in unfussily at left-back, to make the difference. He slammed his shot past Michel Vorm. Tottenham needed a response, a shot of energy, of inspiration after the break. But it was Liverpool who restarted with more intent: Wijnaldum scooped over; the impressive Joël Matip skimmed a header off the top of the crossbar. Pochettino’s frustration was growing but he later credited his team’s resolve for summoning enough pressure to equalise. Danny Rose escaped the general congestion and was allowed plenty of space to pick his spot when Eric Dier’s cross was knocked towards him. Rose beat Simon Mignolet at the near post, releasing a wave of pent-up Tottenham angst. “ I am very pleased with the reaction, the effort and character we showed because it wasn’t easy,â€\x9d assessed Pochettino, who had to rebalance his team when Kyle Walker felt sick. Dier switched effortlessly to right-back, and the attack was rearranged. They could have even won it with Toby Alderweireld’s powerful header, which inspired the agile, twisting, save of the day from Mignolet. The fact it was only one vital stop meant something to Klopp in measuring his team’s progress, as the keeper had been incredibly busy in the same fixture last year. “Simon saved our life last time. Today he had one brilliant save,â€\x9d Klopp said. Liverpool had late chances to clinch it themselves but it was not to be and the manager preached the possibilities he can see in his team, even if there is more polish to come. “This game showed again what we can do. We were really flexible and offensive and played football, had wonderful moments with passing and direction. I wish we would have won it but we have to accept the point and it’s OK. That’s what we have to show in each game.â€\x9d Pochettino bade farewell to a large chunk of his players on international duty thankful to have avoided a nasty slip. He feels he is “monthsâ€\x9d away from having his squad where he wants it to be in order to truly compete. He is not the only manager who has lamented the difficulty in finding a sharp groove after a truncated, post-European Championship pre-season. “This is not a perfect break,â€\x9d Pochettino says. “All the players involved [in the Euros] go again to the national team. It is difficult because some players are going, some will play, others no. We need maybe a few months to get all in the same level. It’s crazy.â€\x9d No doubt there is more to come from both Tottenham and Liverpool.',
 "Hacked Powell emails: Trump a 'pariah' but would rather not vote for Clinton A series of leaks of email exchanges involving the former US secretary of state Colin Powell have revealed a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, as well as lesser criticism of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Powell, George W Bush’s chief diplomat from 2001 to 2005, called his fellow Republican a “national disgraceâ€\x9d and an “international pariahâ€\x9d. Personal email exchanges leaked on Tuesday and Wednesday reveal the retired four-star general’s contempt for Trump, whose conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama’s place of birth Powell also labels as “racistâ€\x9d. “Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,â€\x9d Powell wrote to his former aide in emails first reported by Buzzfeed News, referring to conspiracy theories that suggest Obama was not born in the US. “That’s what the 99% believe. “When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim. As I have said before, ‘What if he was?’ Muslims are born as Americans everyday.â€\x9d Powell’s emails surfaced on the website DCLeaks.com, which has previously featured other hacks into prominent Republicans and Democrats. Bush’s former top diplomat, who has served in three Republican administrations, confirmed the exchanges were his but declined to comment any further. In another alleged exchange, reported by the New York Post, Powell told Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds he would not vote for Hillary Clinton while citing tabloid rumors about Bill Clinton’s private life. “I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect,â€\x9d Powell said. “A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still d—ing bimbos at home (according to the NYP).â€\x9d Powell told the New York Post he did not recall that particular exchange when asked about its authenticity. While it is unclear who is responsible for hacking into Powell’s emails, the website DCLeaks reportedly has ties to the Russian government. When the Democratic National Committee’s emails were leaked in July, just ahead of the party’s national convention, the FBI said it believed Russia was behind the hack. Powell’s own email use has become a focal point in the controversy surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server. During an interview with FBI investigators, the Democratic nominee said Powell had advised her to use a personal email and that he did the same while serving as secretary of state. Powell later accused Clinton’s campaign of trying to throw him under the bus, but House Democrats last week released email correspondence between the two in which Powell discussed how to get around state department restrictions on both personal email and devices. Even so, Powell voices his frustration with the Clinton campaign in one of the latest leaked emails, reported by NBCNews. “I have told Hilleary’s [sic] minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try,â€\x9d Powell wrote.",
 "Seth Meyers on Trump the candidate: 'I think he knows he'd hate the job' Few comedians have been having as much fun with this presidential election as the host of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. Meyers’ sharply satirical examination of Trumpworld – A Closer Look – has established him, arguably with the exception of Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, among the pre-eminent political late night satirists of 2016. And with a nightly audience of 1.5 million, he has found a distinctive political voice. “When Trump came down the escalator to announce his candidacy we thought we’d get two weeks of material of it,â€\x9d Meyers said this week before taping a new show partially devoted to Republican preoccupations with sex. “We thought he’d tease and get the kind of attention from saying he might run. “But we never thought he’d go through with it.â€\x9d What started as material for comedy soon transformed into something else entirely. “With each of [Trump’s] successes,â€\x9d Meyers said, “there’s been a stock-taking of how different this felt from any election that’s come before it. It’s been a gift, but a gift that wears on you. Whenever we have a hiatus week, part of what makes it relaxing is to get away from this.â€\x9d On Friday, with 11 days to go, the campaign was thrown into turmoil by the latest turn in the drama over Hillary Clinton’s emails. That took the spotlight away from Trump – most likely, momentarily. “I think he found an audience and then cultivated what that audience wanted,â€\x9d Meyers said. “I think audience reaction is what he’s most concerned with.â€\x9d It’s the kind of observation a performer would make. “He has a very good antenna for it,â€\x9d Meyers continued. “He loves playing the big room – those 20,000 seat arenas – and that’s why he can’t be bothered to show up to most interviews. He’d rather phone it in.â€\x9d Some have suggested that however much Trump protests that he wants to be president, in a sense he knows he is not the man for the job. He may be vain and thin-skinned, but that doesn’t quite account for the self-destructive fights he picks. Meyers believes the reality may be that Trump sees himself as a reluctant saviour. “‘If only he’d run, he’d be the solution to all our problems’ is a lot more fun than actually having to solve those problems,â€\x9d he said. “We haven’t shied away from using words like ‘racist’ and ‘liar’, but our theory is that this got out of hand for him. “He didn’t think he’d get this far, but I think he knows he’d hate the job.â€\x9d Over the past 18 months, the conventional wisdom about what a candidate can or cannot do has been thoroughly overturned. “We were told an outside candidate couldn’t upset the apple cart of what the GOP is,â€\x9d Meyers said. “But with each outrage, people have said they’d leave, thinking other people would follow them, but no one did.â€\x9d Before he took the Late Night job two and a half years ago, as a speaker at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Meyers memorably asked whether Trump was planning to run as a Republican or as a joke. That was in the midst of the Trump’s “birther campaignâ€\x9d against Barack Obama, and Obama had already made fun of the businessman. Footage clearly shows Trump sitting stony faced as he endures Meyers’ comedic attention. Some believe such ritualised humiliation steeled Trump to run. “My worry was that the president had gone first and already told a lot of jokes about him and there would be audience exhaustion,â€\x9d Meyers said. “Turned out people were happy to hear more jokes about him, but the first thing I heard when I stepped off the stage was to steer clear of him at the parties.â€\x9d The next day, Trump started criticising Meyers and his performance. “When you talk about a gift,â€\x9d Meyers said, “that’s the gift that keeps giving. He’s so transparent in his inability to take the high road and that’s the scariest thing about him – how deep-seated his resentments are.â€\x9d But has the rich seam of Trump comedic material let his opponent off lightly? “It’s comical but it’s harder to explain,â€\x9d Meyers says about Clinton’s emails, controversy over her family foundation and the WikiLeaks release of hacked Democratic party emails. “And we’ve tried. “The bigger problem we have, though, is there have been so few days when what’s happening on the Clinton side has been a better story than what’s happening on the Trump side. “We want to be fair, but we don’t feel that being fair is an equal number of jokes on each candidate. That’s a false equivalency. For us, it’s about chasing the best story for jokes and it’s rare that she’s a better joke than him.â€\x9d The now infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which Trump is heard to brag about his ability to kiss and touch women without their consent emerged from NBC. The network has not escaped accusations of political bias. But as Meyers pointed out in a segment to camera last week, many of the Republican party’s own problems appear to stem from living within a bubble of highly partisan media information. In 10 days, after election day, the banquet of political comedy will have been consumed. Will Meyers feel bereft? Or over-indulged and suffering indigestion? Meyers recalls his time at Saturday Night Live, when the cool draft of post-election comedown could be felt ahead of the vote. In this cycle, however, it’s not clear what will come next. “We didn’t know we wanted to take it here so I wouldn’t want to predict where we’d take it next,â€\x9d he says. “Donald Trump seems to be saying he thinks the election will have a long tail. “I don’t know if the first 100 days of the next presidency will be about the defeated candidate still making a lot of noise.â€\x9d",
 'The view on the Lloyds sale: better never than late Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies. It is, for sure, better that George Osborne has, for the moment, pulled back from dumping the taxpayers’ shares in Lloyds on to a bearish market, than it would have been for him to plough stubbornly ahead. Before last year’s election the chancellor bragged that the national debt would fall faster than expected, a claim that turned out to depend on selling things like Lloyds, which flatters the books but does nothing at all for the public sector’s balance sheet. So it is a relief to learn, now the election is won, that the desperation for cash upfront can be somewhat tempered by concern about the available price. But Mr Osborne is merely slowing the pace, not changing course, on a deeply ideological privatisation programme. There has not been the same noise as there was when the Thatcher government urged everybody to Tell Sid about the British Gas prospectus, nor the same buzz as there was when middle Britons who had never previously thought of buying stocks posted off a cheque for BT shares. Quietly, however, Mr Osborne has been breaking records. The Press Association tots up a total of £26bn in asset sales last year – including the state’s Eurostar stake, 30% of the Royal Mail and a slice of Lloyds. This surpasses the previous high of £20bn, set way back in 1987, when Rolls-Royce and British Airways were sold. Back then, a Conservative government also exhibited a strong doctrinaire preference for private over public ownership. But after the mix of inflation, stagnation and strikes which had characterised Britain’s economic history in the 1970s, the privatisation argument had some appeal to middle-of-the-road pragmatists too, and especially for the likes of BA and Rolls, players in increasingly competitive markets, where commercial freedoms seemed important. The contrast with today is stark. The great scars on the economy’s back in 2016 were not put there by strike-happy, overstaffed nationalised industries, but rather by predatory and under-regulated banks. The public enemy should, surely, not be the sort of plodding bureaucrat who used to run the Yorkshire Water Board, but rather the slickly suited profiteer who got paid an order of magnitude more for gambling with other people’s money. Lloyds and the other big banks were virtually all disgraced, either in the crisis itself, or else in one or another of the scandals that broke in its aftermath: mass mis-selling, Libor rigging and the laundering of Mexican drug money. Today’s middle-of-the-road pragmatists, one might imagine, would be attracted to breaking up the big banks and setting up state-run challengers, not inviting the bankers to return to business as normal by selling the public stake. Finance is a special case after the crisis, perhaps, but new blights are emerging on the wider record of privatisation too. This young year has already seen MPs condemn a weak regulator for allowing excessive water charges, and David Cameron blast the energy giants for failing to cut bills in line with tumbling costs in world markets. In telecoms – which used to be deemed the archetypal privatisation success – BT got the green light to acquire EE, a move away from the promised privatisation end-point, of a competitive market where the customer is sovereign, and a move towards an oligopoly, where a few big firms call the shots. So if there is one cheer for the delay in the Lloyds sale, to earn three the chancellor would have had to cancel the whole flotation, unless and until it could be convincingly fitted into a fundamental programme of bank reform of which there is no sign. But then the chancellor’s scramble to find British assets to sell into the hands of a Chinese communist state suggests that privatisation is today more of a product of compulsive habit rather than critical thought. It once had its pragmatic advocates. These days, however, privatisation looks like a triumph of the rightwing heart over the dispassionate head.',
 "Can Britain's bureaucracy handle a Brexit? Following a vote to leave the EU, the UK would face complex negotiations to manage its withdrawal. Given the all-encompassing nature of EU membership, a crucial question is whether Whitehall – particularly the Foreign Office (FCO) and Cabinet Office – is sufficiently equipped and resourced to achieve a satisfactory outcome (whatever that might entail). No country has left the EU, so there is no template to follow. We do know that negotiations would need to address both a British withdrawal and its new relationship with the EU, and be ratified by the remaining EU member states as well as the UK and European parliaments. There are several possibilities for this: Britain could seek to be part of the European Economic Area, following the Norwegian model (although David Cameron has ruled this out), or instead emulate a more detached Swiss-style relationship through the European Free Trade Area. A special, British model is also possible, as the UK expects more than to be grouped with Norway and Switzerland (pdf) in the event of a Brexit. Whatever the decision, at least three new treaties may be required, giving an idea of the scale of what must be agreed within the two-year notice period – although there are provisions for this to be extended. How will this process be managed? When states become EU members they must agree and transpose into law 100,000-plus pages of the EU acquis (accumulated legislation), which gives us an idea of what reverse-engineering this process might entail. All aspects of UK membership would have to be addressed, with no part of Whitehall unaffected. This will pose a significant administrative challenge domestically and in Brussels. Sophisticated machinery exists to manage British European policy, which would logically underpin the negotiating process – although unsurprisingly the government refuses to comment on specific arrangements in the event of a leave vote. The so-called triangle of the FCO, Cabinet Office and UK permanent representation in Brussels (UKRep) oversees European policy coordination, but each government department manages the details of their specific policy responsibilities, while the Treasury also has a significant say. The Cabinet Office would be the logical domestic hub for the negotiations, with the FCO contributing expertise in terms of treaty-making and using the UK’s broader diplomatic network in pursuit of an agreement. UKRep could be expected to lead negotiations in Brussels while also providing a conduit for on-the-ground intelligence and advice on negotiating strategy. The economic significance of leaving the EU means significant Treasury involvement should also be expected. The process will require careful management and political leadership to contain tensions over priorities. Stretched to the limit Do the main institutional actors have the resources, capacity, headcount and expertise to do this, while simultaneously managing the ongoing business of government? Although Cabinet Office staff numbers have risen since 2013, it will require additional resources, particularly in expertise, to manage the domestic component of the negotiations. In Brussels, the scope of the agreement the UK will be pursuing will place considerable demands on UKRep. Officials will be seeking to persuade soon-to-be former EU partners, some of whom may be ambivalent about Britain’s decision to withdraw and feel no great compunction to make things easy. (Indeed, some may wish to make withdrawal as painful as possible pour encourager les autres.) This in turn will place a burden on the FCO, which is currently enduring one of its most challenging periods in terms of pressure on resources and capabilities. In its 2014 report (pdf), the foreign affairs select committee declared that as a consequence of the stringent budget settlement imposed under the 2010 spending review – described as one of the tightest in Whitehall (pdf) – the FCO “is being stretched almost to the limitâ€\x9d. Doing more with less has been a constant requirement of the FCO in recent years. Moreover, dealing with intense periods of EU activity is not new, as seen during Britain’s six-month EU presidency in 2005 when its European team expanded to 200. But Brexit negotiations will be of a different magnitude. It will not be just a matter of reassigning resources for the duration of the negotiations, there is also the question of whether the FCO can access the required European expertise. At the same time, it will be seeking to manage the impact of a Brexit on UK relations with third parties, as well as dealing with the ongoing foreign policy matters for which it is responsible. The UK’s administrative structures will face a test unprecedented in scale and complexity – and this will be happening after a decade or more of cuts in resources and spending. While Britain’s coordination machinery is considered efficient and effective, this alone is not enough to guarantee success. For policymakers and politicians, the challenge will be to achieve the best possible deal with the resources available. Their ability to do this may well determine the quality of any final withdrawal agreement. Nicholas Wright is a teaching fellow in EU politics at University College London This is an edited version of a blog which originally appeared on the LSE BrexitVote blog Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.",
 'Greens call for royal commission to examine ‘breaking up banks’ The Greens want to use a royal commission to examine whether banks should be broken up to split the retail arms from their investment and financial advice arms in response to recent scandals. The Greens banking and finance policy also calls for increased penalties for white-collar crime, capping ATM fees and forcing banks to allow portable bank accounts which allow easy transfers, similar to taking mobile phone numbers between companies. The Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, a former banker, has been calling for a royal commission into the sector, which has been dogged by scandals over poor financial advice, insider trading and rigging interest rates. After resisting a royal commission, Labor followed suit and has called for a royal commission into the banks following the scandals. The Greens policy now goes a step further, outlining that a banking royal commission would “fully examine the problems associated with the ‘vertically integrated’ model. “This would including looking at ‘breaking up the banks’ to separate retail banking from financial advice and investment banking,â€\x9d the policy statement says. The Greens would increase penalties for white-collar crime in line with other advanced economies. For example, for criminal offences such as insider trading, Australia currently fines individuals $810,000 or three times the benefit gained, whichever is greater. The Greens propose an increase to $5m or three times the benefit gained – a fine more in line with Canada and the United States. In the UK, the fine is not capped. Whistleblowers should be financially rewarded if their information leads to reclaimed money, according to the Greens, as is the case in the United States. The Greens would also “make it illegalâ€\x9d to charge excessive ATM fees and wants bank accounts to be fully portable through a common data system. “The digital age makes ‘identity transfer’ relatively easy,â€\x9d says the policy. “People can carry mobile phone numbers from one provider to another. The same option should be available to consumers in banking.â€\x9d The Greens would prohibit superannuation funds from direct borrowing to invest in housing, in line with a recommendation of the financial system inquiry by David Murray. “The financial system inquiry warned that continued growth in borrowing for housing by superannuation funds could pose a risk to the financial system,â€\x9d the policy says. While the Coalition rejected Murray’s recommendation, it did agree to work with regulators and the tax office to monitor the risk and report back to government. The Australian Bankers’ Association rejected the policy saying it would trigger an economic downturn. ABA chief executive, Steven Münchenberg, said Australia had some of the strongest banks in the world and the major banks are part of small group which have earned the high Standard & Poor’s rating of AA-. “This means that, even in times of global uncertainty and market volatility, Australia’s major banks are still able to raise the money needed from overseas investors to fund the Australian economy and meet the financial needs of businesses and households,â€\x9d he said in a statement. “This major economic advantage would be lost under the Greens’ policy, triggering an economic downturn.â€\x9d',
 'The movies go to war: museum explores real to reel conflict After intensively watching death, destruction and misery in about 100 war movies, Imperial War Museum curator Laura Clouting admits she needs a change of pace: “I’m absolutely dying to watch something a little more lighthearted. I need some Jurassic Park, some Sister Act!â€\x9d Clouting is curating a major new exhibition that goes behind the scenes of some of the most famous war movies, from The Dam Busters to Das Boot to War Horse. Opening to the public on Friday, the immersive show will explore a movie genre which shows little sign of going away, or waning in popularity. Clouting has, necessarily, sat through lots of movies. “It makes me realise just how big and how enduring the genre is, there are so many war films. Cinema has got this appetite for understanding conflict and it is because war is the most extreme human experience, whether you are a soldier or a civilian.â€\x9d The museum last held a war movie show in 1970; a very different exhibition in that technology meant they could only use stills. This time visitors will be able to watch lots of excerpts, whether Alec Guinness blowing up the bridge on the River Kwai, or Donald Duck doing his bit for the collective effort during the second world war. There will also be props, costumes and scripts loaned to help shine a brighter light on particular films. For example, Lawrence of Arabia, in which David Lean cast the statuesque blond figure of Peter O’Toole to play TE Lawrence who was, in truth, barely 5ft 5in. The exhibition includes one of his robes, his rifle and a letter that may surprise visitors who have read accounts of Lawrence’s mania for self publicity, with journalist Lowell Thomas writing of his “genius for backing into the limelightâ€\x9d. A 1927 letter to director Rex Ingram rails against talk of his role in the Arab revolt being made into a Hollywood film. He writes: “I would hate to see myself parodied on a pitiful basis of my record of what the fellows with me did.â€\x9d Elsewhere there is the suit worn by Liam Neeson in Schindler’s List, the military cap worn by Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler in Downfall, and a Santa hat worn by Jake Gyllenhaal’s bored marine character in Jarhead. In another compare-and-contrast section, footage from one of the most popular war films, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, is shown with actual footage from the D-Day landings. Clouting said the show was “an idea that the museum had wanted to grapple with for a long timeâ€\x9d. A good peg arrived in the 100th anniversary not only of the Battle of the Somme, but also the film that the War Office commissioned, a remarkable documentary and propaganda film that was watched by about 20 million people over six weeks in 1916. It includes many smiling, cheerful Tommies but there are also far darker moments. “It is quite frank,â€\x9d said Clouting. “The film does not hold back from showing you images of the dead or the wounded.â€\x9d Clouting is hoping there are many films included that visitors will recall with fondness. But there are also movies covered where film makers have got it very wrong. The woefully inaccurate U-571, for example, which was discussed in parliament after it portrayed US navy submariners capturing an Enigma cipher machine from the Germans. An arguably worse example is Objective Burma, which has Errol Flynn leading American paratroopers defeating the Japanese, ignoring the fact that it was a largely British and Commonwealth conflict. “There was such outrage that it was banned from British cinemas within a week,â€\x9d said Clouting. “People are furious with this film for making out that the Americans won [that conflict].â€\x9d • Real to Reel: A Century of War Movies at IWM London, 1 July to 8 January 2017 • This article was amended on 30 June 2016. An earlier version misnamed the curator of the exhibition as Lucy Clouting. This has been corrected to say Laura Clouting.',
 "China tantalized by US election mayhem and prospect of 'thug' Trump as president His detractors concur that Donald Trump is the most unpalatable candidate for the White House in the history of the United States. But almost 8,000km away in Beijing, China’s authoritarian rulers appear to think he might be just the man for the job. Veteran pekingologists suspect the Chinese leadership has been secretly rooting for a Trump victory, wagering his elevation to the Oval Office would strike a body blow to their greatest rival. “It was Mao Zedong who said: ‘Without destruction there can be no construction’. And, if I interpret him correctly, Donald Trump is the suicide bomber of American politics,â€\x9d said Orville Schell, the head of the Centre on US-China Relations at New York’s Asia Society. “He wants to just bring the whole house down and start over. And I think there is an element [of that] that is quite tantalizing to China.â€\x9d Schell noted how China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, had repeatedly declared himself a fan of Chairman Mao’s teachings. “And of course the key principle of Mao’s rule was “da nao tian gongâ€\x9d - “make disorder under heavenâ€\x9d. I think Trump has every promise of doing that in America.â€\x9d Harvard University’s Roderick MacFarquhar is another veteran China scholar who suspects the Communist party has been crossing its fingers for a Trump triumph. “I think they would see him as an enormous opportunity,â€\x9d said MacFarquhar, a former Labour party MP, adding: “I don’t think they’d see Hillary as any kind of opportunity at all.â€\x9d Party newspapers have revelled in this year’s scandal-tainted race for the White House, spinning each sordid turn as proof of the perks of one-party rule. “The ‘master of democracy’ should swallow its super confidence and arrogance,â€\x9d the Communist party’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, smirked in a recent editorial. Nick Bisley, an Asia expert from La Trobe University in Melbourne, said the ignominious election battle had handed Beijing an example of the United States’ “debased political cultureâ€\x9d and further exposed democracy as “a vulgar, deeply inefficient and chaotic form of governmentâ€\x9d. “If you are a propaganda officer in the bureau in Beijing crafting your anti-democratic messaging you’ve got a lot to work with.â€\x9d MacFarquhar, the author of a seminal work on Mao’s tumultuous 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, said that while Beijing would now regard a Trump White House as unlikely, President Xi would have taken particular delight in watching the Republican candidate “upendâ€\x9d the political establishment in a way that was redolent of those 10 years of chaos. There were parallels, he said, between Trump’s attack on the system and the way in which Chairman Mao - to a far more devastating degree - had unleashed his Red Guards on the Communist party in 1966. “Saying that your opponent should be jailed and, if he became president, she would be jailed, that really is American-style Cultural Revolution stuff,â€\x9d MacFarquhar said. “Even if he quietly folds his tent and goes back to his reality television [after the election], he has thrown a bomb into the system and the Chinese can’t but like that.â€\x9d More than merely wallowing in the current mayhem, however, some scholars suspect there are those in Beijing actively hoping for a Trump victory on 8 November, even as the chances of that happening appear to fade. Schell said he believed China’s “more-than-flirtations with Putinâ€\x9d and embrace of the Philippines’ hardman president Rodrigo Duterte showed its rulers saw the benefits of “making a deal with a good thug, rather than with somebody constrained by principle.â€\x9d “And surely in Donald Trump we have the ne plus ultra of American thuggery.â€\x9d “I think they would feel that there were all sorts of opportunities with Trump,â€\x9d agreed MacFarquhar. “Some of them might be more dangerous than others. He would be an uncertain commodity, like he is for the Americans… But Hillary was a certain commodity - and not one they liked.â€\x9d MacFarquhar said part of Beijing’s attraction to Trump was simply a question of its dislike of Clinton and her support for human rights and Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asiaâ€\x9d. “They think she is a hardliner on China, which I’m sure she is compared to Obama. So any rival to Hillary who might win would have been a blessing for them.â€\x9d But the Harvard academic said Trump’s statements questioning US support for its Nato allies and defence treaty with Japan meant he would be “an absolute giftâ€\x9d to Beijing as it strove for superpower status. “Trump - even though he is ‘anti-China, anti-China, anti-China’ - has always talked about deals. That’s his shtick… [and] the Chinese would be only too happy to do a deal with Trump if that was on the cards.â€\x9d For all Trump’s affection for the word China, few experts dare predict the impact his presidency might have on ties between Washington and Beijing. Schell said he believed Duterte, who recently travelled to China to seek an unexpected rapprochement with its leaders, could be “the most revelatory model for what we might get with Trumpâ€\x9d. Following the Filipino president’s lead, Trump might seek some sort of new arrangement with Xi Jinping that would be beneficial to Beijing. If that didn’t happen, “at least they get a blank slate, at least they are dealing with someone else - and they are not bad at making deals with dictatorsâ€\x9d. “I think Trump is our Mussolini,â€\x9d Schell concluded. “And the Chinese have always gotten along fine with people like that.â€\x9d",
 "Dublin v London: what's the best bet for rich bankers? A city that is just an hour’s plane ride from London, where people speak English and which, crucially, is still part of the EU, Dublin has been marketing itself as an alternative destination for bankers and financiers should their companies decide to move jobs out of the UK. But what, if anything, can Ireland’s capital offer the City’s high flyers? Property The first consideration is, of course, location and if Kensington (the London borough with the highest proportion of those employed in banking/finance) is soon to be emptied, its designer-clothing-clad former residents might feel at home in the Dublin suburb of Blackrock. The coastal village south of Dublin’s city centre has the capital’s highest proportion of people working in finance. According to the 2011 census, 16% of Blackrock’s working population are in banking/finance, compared with 20% of those in Kensington. The good news is that property in Blackrock is a snip compared with the London borough: in June 2016, the average property price was £512,629 in Blackrock, less than half Kensington’s going rate (£1.2m). The disparity between rents is even greater: in the year ending March 2016, the average monthly rental for a three-bed property in Kensington/Chelsea stood at £5,174 compared with £1,510 in Blackrock in the year ending 30 June, and the savings increase for people looking at four-bedroom properties. But while property may be cheaper, its availability is more problematic. According to figures provided by the property website Daft.ie, in the first three months of 2016 just 64 properties were put up for sale in Blackrock, compared with 668 in Kensington and Chelsea. So the chances of finding the kind of high-end property Ross O’Carroll Kelly would proudly inhabit may be more difficult. Ronan Lyons, an economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft.ie reports, said when it came to availability, it was important to take into account the relative size of the two cities. However, he added: “The number of high-end properties in Dublin is very low, in a city growing rapidly and with a high presence of executives for foreign multinationals,â€\x9d he said. “Like London, Dublin is a city that has been forced by regulation to grow out, rather than up, which has made housing unnecessarily scarce and expensive at all ends of the market.â€\x9d Quality of life Dubliners have taken great pleasure in recent surveys that compare the Irish capital favourably with other cities of the world. One suggested it was one of the world’s friendliest cities and recent Mercer indexes ranked it better than London on both quality of life and cost of living. The Irish capital also fares better than London when it comes to self-reported health. Just over 50% of Londoners rated their health as “very goodâ€\x9d in the 2011 census, versus 63% of Dubliners. In Kensington 57.5% said they were in “very goodâ€\x9d health: in Blackrock the figure was 71%. Taxes and earnings On this subject the news is only bad for high flyers. Wages are lower and – despite its reputation as a paragon of low tax – income taxes are higher in Dublin than in London. Let’s say a brokerage transferring its workforce from London to Dublin decided to continue paying its now Irish-based workforce London salaries. An average broker, who according to the Office for National Statistics could expect to earn £128,231 before tax, would have take-home pay of £77,500 if they lived in the UK but £72,290 in Ireland using August exchange rates. Ireland is a more attractive proposition for companies, however, with a 12.5% corporate tax rate, compared with the UK’s 20% rate. Private schools There are more private secondary schools within a three-mile radius of Kensington (67) than there are in the whole of Ireland (52), and almost twice as many as in Dublin (35). But if you are going to live anywhere, then the local authority which contains Blackrock (Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown) has the country’s highest concentration of private schools, with seven fee-paying schools per 100,000 population. Michelin stars and golf clubs When it comes to entertainment, Dublin might have some growing to do if it is going to attract the banking set. While the city is renowned for its pubs, its residents are relatively starved of Michelin star restaurants compared with London. There are five in Dublin against 65 in London. Translated per head of population, that equates to 7.5 Michelin starred restaurants per 100,000 people in London, compared with 3.7 in Dublin. There are five Michelin starred establishments in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea while, as of early October, Blackrock has only one – Heron & Grey. While it may not have as many fine dining options, Dublin is a golfer’s dream. For those intent on spoiling a good walk, there are a whopping 113 clubs within an hour’s drive of Main Street in Blackrock, well ahead of the 30 golf clubs (excluding pitch and putts) within an hour’s drive of Kensington High Street.",
 'Let Donald Trump be our unifier Donald Trump is not a leader or a presidential candidate. He is an outcome, a viral manifestation of a serious malignant illness. He is the mirror of our emptiness, the emptying out that has been happening to our country for a very long time. He is an outcome of a two-party system that has consistently ignored the needs and wishes of the majority of Americans for generations. He is the manifestation of celebrity culture where those that have everything are worshipped for their shiny success and in the world of celebrity that shininess is a stand in for principles, substance and moral values. He is personality over planning, symbol over substance, insipidness over insightfulness. He is the outcome of the rich being able to buy anything, including our democracy. He is an outcome of centuries of underlying unaddressed, massively denied and metastasized racism. He is the hatred of the poor and the needy, the denigration of immigrants and those seeking refuge from the devastation of US wars and imperialism. He is the outcome of an insidious exceptionalism – the bedrock belief that American lives are more precious and valuable than any Others, those that we stigmatize, bomb, torture, murder, control, invade and whose economies we trash, whose resources we devour, whose futures we steal. He is the outcome of fear which masquerades as bullying. He is the manifestation of patriarchy and the endlessly indoctrinated belief that only a father will save us even though the mainly men who have been determining reality for this country and the planet have led us to near ruin. He is the outcome of high tech fantasy, virtual disconnection, TV reality shows. He is proof of the duplicity of corporate sponsored media that claim “neutralityâ€\x9d while reaping profits from propping up racists, tyrants, fascists, haters and those that would seek to destroy the country. He is the outcome of an insanely violent culture, increasingly unkind with more bullying, that normalizes cruelty, industrializes punishment and declares endless war on its own citizens. He is the consolidation of a government that devotes huge portions of its budget to building an imperial military rather than feeding and educating its own people, that wreaks havoc on the world rather than fighting climate change, that promotes the pillaging of the earth rather than ending violence against the people who inhabit it, that forces working people to police the world rather than providing them with meaningful work. He is the product of a country with the most number of armed citizens in the world, where the average of 89 firearms for every 100 people leads to more deaths at the hands of fellow countrymen every year than international terrorists have killed ever. He is the outcome of a country where police consistently murder Black women and men with little to no repercussions and millions are living in perpetual incarceration. He is the outcome of corrupt, self-seeking, extremist politicians who ignore the constitution and make it their business to refuse any meaningful legislation from getting passed. He is the outcome of an insidious, selfish morality where getting what you want, making money at any expense is the credo and how we behave, who we hurt, or destroy, what earth we eviscerate is inconsequential. He is the holographic representation of the failure of a country, our denial, our refusal to act and rise for each other and to take responsibility for what our government, corporations, military are doing across the world. He is a symptom of what happens when collective consciousness has divided and subdivided so many times within this neoliberal psychosis that we no longer know how to make alliances, build coalitions and have each other’s backs or stand with each other when the going gets rough. He is an outcome of a country with denial as thick as its amnesia. We come to honor and idolize war criminals and racists and sexists and corporates who’ve destroyed the lives of millions. He is an outcome of years and years of each of us being taught to fend for ourselves, fight for our own share, step over those who we are told are slower or weaker but who may in fact be deeper, more moral or more considered. He is an outcome of a world divided between winners and losers. He is an outcome of fatigue and privilege and disenchantment and hopelessness and exclusion. He is an outcome of cynicism and an imposed belief that there is nothing we can really do to overcome this corporate neoliberal imperialist racist sexist homphobic earth-hating transphobic system. The moment of America has arrived. This is our reckoning, our karma come to roost. It is way beyond the question of who we vote for in the upcoming election. It is a question of who we are. What is America? What kind of country do we want this to be? What values and principles do we hold and cherish? What will we do and what lengths will we go to, what collective imagination will we employ, what mighty love will we summon to ensure the ending of this violence, this hate, this destruction of our mother earth, this grotesque inequality of wealth, this mad and ferocious drive to our end? Here’s what Donald Trump is not: He is not us. He is not all of us. He is not the best of us. He is not inevitable. Let us take Trump at his word. Let him be our Unifier.',
 'Blood test could identify people who will respond to antidepressants Scientists have developed a blood test that could identify which people with depression will respond to treatment so that patients can avoid spending months taking antidepressants that do not help them. The experts involved believe the breakthrough could lead to depressed patients receiving personalised treatments that are more likely to relieve their symptoms. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said that, if it worked, the test could prove to be a key moment in the quest for the holy grail of biological psychiatry. The scientists at King’s College London behind the development claim that their test “accurately and reliably predicts whether depressed patients will respond to common antidepressants, which could herald a new era of personalised treatment for people with depressionâ€\x9d. If the test proves effective it is hoped that by measuring patients’ level of blood inflammation it would identify which of them would benefit from receiving antidepressants soon after their diagnosis to stop their condition worsening. About half of all patients with depression get no benefit from antidepressants the first time they take them and they never work for one in three people. Currently it is impossible to establish who should or should not be given antidepressants, or combinations of them. That means that patients are tried on a succession of different drugs for 12 weeks or more and experience prolonged periods of ineffective treatment because their medication does not benefit them. One in six Britons will suffer depression at some point in their life. Last year 61.5m prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in England. Researchers focused on two independent clinical groups of depressed patients on two biological markers that measure inflammation of the blood, as heightened levels are associated with poor response to antidepressants. They found that blood test results above certain levels reliably predicted how well patients would respond to commonly prescribed antidepressants. Their findings have been reported in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. “The identification of biomarkers that predict treatment response is crucial in reducing the social and economic burden of depression and improving quality of life for patients,â€\x9d said Prof Carmine Pariante from KCL’s institute of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience. “This study provides a clinically suitable approach for personalising antidepressants therapy. Patients who have blood inflammation above a certain threshold could be directed towards earlier access to more assertive antidepressant strategies, including the addition of other antidepressants or anti-inflammatory drugs,â€\x9d Pariante added. Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, a spokesman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “Finding biological markers for depression (and other mental illnesses) has been the holy grail of biological psychiatry. “Such a finding and a test to back it up would be critical to advancing our understanding of the biological causes of depression. It would accelerate our therapeutic interventions and make them more tailored to the needs of the patient.â€\x9d But further clinical research is needed to see if the findings can be applied in a clinical setting, Hallstrom added. Stephen Buckley, head of information at the mental health charity Mind, said: “We welcome research which adds to our understanding of treatments and medications that may work for people experiencing mental health problems. These initial findings are interesting, but, as with all areas of mental health, there is still more research to be done.â€\x9d Mental health problems, including depression, are estimated to cost £105bn a year in England. The World Health Organisation has predicted that by 2020 depression will be the second biggest cause of health problems in the world.',
 'So what is Trumponomics? More of the same So America’s ruling classes have lost to a billionaire who plays at being a man of the people. Donald Trump ran against the hierarchy of his own party, without the blessing of commentators or the big CEOs, without the speeches to Wall Street or the funding from Silicon Valley. Amid all the justifiable dismay expressed today, don’t forget one thing: Hillary Clinton was the establishment candidate; it was Trump who ran as the perennially unfancied outsider. He remains an almost illicit politician, a preference you express in hushed tones. Look at the placards brandished last night by self-declared members of the “silent majorityâ€\x9d. Just over a month ago, I rang round Trump voters in West Virginia and Pennsylvania – two of the states that went red last night. Among the things that struck me most forcibly was how sheepish they were about admitting publicly they were going to vote for the man. “He’s a jackass, but … â€\x9d one began. Another: “I think he’s a total idiot, but … â€\x9d But I’ll back him. But who else is there? But I’ve had enough. That was the tenor of nearly all the conversations – with a few citizens of one of the noisiest democracies on Earth then asking if I could keep their identities secret. Well, let me add another but. Trump is an outsider politician leading an insurgency of self-declared outsider Americans: the white men who feel homeless in their own country and the coal-mining and rustbelt states that got written off by both parties – but that won’t produce outsider policies. A good chunk of the Trump base consists of people who consider themselves to be losers from four decades of political and economic orthodoxy. But Donald J Trump won’t be the president who reads the last rites for neoliberalism – for the simple reason that the empty-headed narcissist has no idea what to replace it with. This isn’t the mainstream view. Among the prefects of political and economic commentary, the standard thing to do this morning is to rehearse Trump’s fury at free trade, to look at the voters that most of them have never bothered talking to – and to squawk that America has struck out in a new and radically different direction. It’s a revolution! The pitchforks finally have their leader! As Trump edged towards the 270-mark, one of the first emails I got was from a senior fund manager at the giant Fidelity group, declaring: “We are heading into a world of unprecedented political risk which calls into question the pillars of the post-WWII settlement.â€\x9d At least as far as the economics go, that is just overheated nonsense. First, it ignores just how protean Trump’s politics are. This is the man who just a few months ago in an off-the-record meeting at the New York Times told senior journalists that “everything is negotiableâ€\x9d. This is the Republican warrior whose most memorable photo is of him and his new wife laughing along with his VIP guests Bill and Hillary Clinton. This is the blowhard who can’t help contradicting himself. Take out the contortions, exaggerations and outright lies from the standard Trump riff – and you have next to nothing. All this makes him easily containable for the Republicans in the Senate and the House that he’ll need to work with . What the head boys and head girls also miss is just how old-fashioned Trumponomics is. Look at the people around him. Among his top economic advisers is Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank last seen laying down many of the policy planks for Ronald Reagan. Sure enough, the policies are pure Reagan: slashing red tape and business taxes, “a major tax cutâ€\x9d on income, a repeal of estate taxes and a hankering for high interest rates and sound money. This sort of tax-cutting will cost trillions – up to $9tn over the next decade, according to some modelling. They will rip a hole through US public finances – especially if Trump brings them in alongside his spending spree on infrastructure. But his promise now is the promise that was made by Reagan, his adviser Arthur Laffer and the rest of the snake-oil salesmen: it will bring in more tax revenue over the long run. None of this will be much help for his blue-collar voters. But then the property billionaire isn’t into sharing out the wealth, encouraging trade unions or paying workers more. It wasn’t so long ago that he claimed wages were “too highâ€\x9d – before flip-flopping and tweeting that America’s middle classes have had “no effective raise in years. BAD.â€\x9d His latest position is that “I would like to see an increase [in the minimum wage] of some magnitude. But I’d rather leave it to the states.â€\x9d Gee thanks, Donald! You can see the paradox. Much of Trump’s base was voting against the great unravelling of America’s social contract. They were rebelling against Reaganism and its love for Wall Street over Main Street, its property boom and industrial bust. Yet what they’re about to get is more Reaganism, from a man whose glory years were the Reagan years. When that doesn’t work out, the new president will retreat further into his anti-immigrant, “decent peopleâ€\x9d rhetoric. If he need script lines, he can borrow some from the new British government. A revolt isn’t a revolution. The head prefects in our politics and media see disorder and immediately cry insurrection. That’s what they did in Britain after the Brexit vote and it’s how they’ll mark 20 January, 2017, the date of President Trump’s inauguration. Just as they called those events wrong, so they’ll call the aftermath wrong. You can overdo the comparisons, but let’s at least agree that Trump’s America and Brexit Britain share the same common tragedy: a large chunk of the public that’s had enough of the same-old failed orthodoxy, a technocratic elite that also knows it’s no longer working – and a political class unable to grasp any real alternatives.',
 'Teachers and doctors should invoke the spirit of 1919 and strike together The period after the first world war was a volatile time in Britain’s labour market. Journalist Kingsley Martin wrote in 1966: “The only time in my life when revolution in Britain seemed likely was in 1919.â€\x9d At that time, Britain’s working class was in the ascendancy: it was indignant, organised and willing to take action. Union membership, which numbered 2.6 million in 1910, had more than tripled to nearly 8 million by 1919. Groups taking industrial action between 1917 and 1919 included miners, railway and transport workers, engineers, bakers, cotton spinners and munitions workers. In a move that alarmed the government, the police also decided to go on strike in the summer of 1918, leading the prime minister, David Lloyd George, to sanction any action necessary, “however graveâ€\x9d, to quell the mutiny of the “ s of Orderâ€\x9d. By 1920, unions had secured a series of victories for workers, including 40-hour weeks, wage increases, the prevention of pay cuts and better working conditions. In her farewell speech to the NUT conference this week, the general secretary, Christine Blower, raised the possibility of coordinated action between teachers and junior doctors. Of course, such a move couldn’t be realistically compared with 1919 – for one thing, modern trade union laws prevent different unions taking solidarity action together. What Blower is actually proposing is that both unions arrange to hold two separate strikes “coincidentallyâ€\x9d on the same day. More important though, the contemporary British working class has been significantly enfeebled by global neoliberalism, which has meant atomised workplaces, suffocating trade union legislation, a supine political class, and the notion that capitalism has won the ideological battle (remember that the working class of 1919 had the October revolution to inspire it). A coordinated strike between teachers and doctors in 2016 is a drop in the ocean compared with the unrest that has come before. But 1919 is still instructive because it reminds us that under capitalism, collective action by workers has the ability to fundamentally change society. And it does this by redressing the power balance between workers and their employers. There is a contract all workers and employers enter into: the worker gives his or her skills and labour, and in return the employer gives a salary and decent working conditions. When the employer retracts his or her half of the bargain, the worker must do the same. This retraction is the only tool workers have in order to force employers to honour their commitments. But it’s not just about individual examples of industrial action. The employer-employee relationship is essential to the functioning of a capitalist society as a whole – and workers have the collective ability to reshape the economy way beyond their particular working conditions. Or as Trotsky breathlessly put it: “If carried through to the end, the general strike brings the revolutionary class up against the task of organising a new state power.â€\x9d Teachers and doctors are now considering tapping into this collective power, not because they want to bring about a Bolshevik revolution but because they have been driven to an extreme act by a government that is utterly intransigent. Jeremy Hunt has already promised to “imposeâ€\x9d a new contract on junior doctors, despite the profession being almost totally opposed to it. Similarly, the government has announced it will make every school in the UK an academy, despite the consistent opposition of the teaching profession. Once an employer (the government in this case) has made its final stance on a dispute clear, workers can choose to accept that or stand up to it. And if they stand up to it, going on strike is the only option they have. Collective strike action between teachers and doctors is not a radical act, but a rational one – given that it is clear that the government has the power to override their objections without it. This is why public opinion cannot be the only factor unions take into consideration when deciding to go on strike. If this action goes ahead, it will cause significant disruption – a fact that will be used to sour the public mood against the strikers. In a parliamentary democracy, public opinion is a form of power – and it is useful for unions to have it on their side. But the dominant issue in a strike is industrial power, and many strikes have been won without the backing of the public (consider London’s tube drivers, for example). On the other hand, the government may find itself on the wrong side of public opinion this time: it’s difficult to be a functioning member of society without giving teachers and doctors some degree of trust. Industrial unrest is usually a symptom of a dysfunctional workplace. The wider issue here is the relationship breakdown between public sector workers and the government. It’s simply unrealistic to blame that on the workers themselves – they don’t have the resources or inclination to spontaneously attack an employer. Would you wake up one morning and pick a fight with your boss for no reason? What we’re left with is the conclusion that this government undervalues and mistreats people working in the sectors that keep us educated, cared for and alive. If teachers and doctors strike together, it will not just be a significant moment in British industrial relations, but a necessary one. And the outcome will affect us all.',
 'Ben Carson nominated for housing secretary in Trump administration Donald Trump has nominated former opponent Ben Carson as his secretary of housing and urban development. In a statement from his transition team on Monday, Trump said he was “thrilled to nominateâ€\x9d Carson, saying the retired neurosurgeon had “a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communitiesâ€\x9d. “Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans,â€\x9d he added. Carson responded to the announcement with a brief statement accepting Trump’s nomination. “I am honored and look forward to working hard on behalf of the American people,â€\x9d he wrote. Carson had previously taken himself out of the running to serve in Trump’s cabinet amid speculation that the former doctor was being considered to head the Department of Health and Human Services. A Carson spokesperson said he did not feel he had the experience to run a federal agency and did not want to assume a role “that could cripple the presidencyâ€\x9d. But Carson signalled his thinking had changed in a Facebook post late last month, in which he hinted at a possible position at the federal agency tasked with overseeing America’s fair housing laws and urban development policies. “After serious discussions with the Trump transition team, I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone,â€\x9d Carson wrote in the post on 23 November. “We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid.â€\x9d Republicans praised Carson’s personal attributes but were relatively muted in response to Trump’s decision to place an outsider at the helm of one of the nation’s top agencies. “We appreciate Dr Carson’s willingness to take on such a challenging task at an agency that is in need of reform to better serve all Americans,â€\x9d Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said in a statement. “I’m confident his life-long career of selfless service will be a positive addition to the incoming administration.â€\x9d Democrats, by contrast, assailed the retired neurosurgeon as wholly unqualified for the role. “Dr Ben Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development,â€\x9d said Nancy Pelosi, who was recently re-elected as the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives, in a statement. “There is no evidence that Dr Carson brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America.â€\x9d Charles Schumer, the incoming Democratic leader in the Senate, said he had serious concerns about Carson’s lack of expertise and experience in the field of housing. “Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least,â€\x9d he said. “As he moves through the confirmation process, Americans deserve to know that their potential HUD secretary is well versed in housing policy and has a vision for federal housing programs that meets the needs of Americans across the country and seeks to provide access to those that we haven’t reached already.â€\x9d The largest civil rights organization for LGBTQ individuals also sounded alarm over Carson’s nomination, pointing to his steadfast opposition to gay equality. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said past comments by Carson referring to homosexuality as “a choiceâ€\x9d and support for conversion therapy raised serious concerns over how HUD would address the housing needs of the LGBTQ community, while citing research showing that LGBTQ youth account for up to 40% of the total unaccompanied homeless youth population. “Throughout his failed presidential campaign, Carson ran on a platform on inequality, and, if nominated, his hateful views could have disastrous effects on LGBTQ people,â€\x9d said HRC president Chad Griffin. “As a community already faced with housing insecurity, we need an ally, not an agitator, who will protect every American’s right to a safe place to lie down each night.â€\x9d Carson and Trump feuded bitterly during the Republican presidential primaries, with Trump at one point characterizing Carson as having a “pathological temperâ€\x9d akin to the illness of a child molester. But Carson endorsed Trump in March, saying the two men had “buried the hatchetâ€\x9d, and went on to be one of the real estate mogul’s most loyal supporters for the duration of the election campaign. Trump’s decision to tap Carson as the housing and urban development (HUD) secretary followed his announcement nominating the South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, as ambassador to the United Nations, and Elaine Chao as transportation secretary. Haley, Chao and Carson are the first people of color chosen by Trump to serve in his cabinet. This article was amended on 5 December 2016. Due to an editing error, an earlier version omitted that Elaine Chao, who is Taiwanese American, had been nominated as transportation secretary. Chao, Haley and Carson are the three people of color nominated to Trump’s cabinet.',
 "'Horrible spike' in hate crime linked to Brexit vote, Met police say A “horrible spikeâ€\x9d in hate crime after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was at least partly linked to the referendum, Britain’s most senior police officer has said. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, told a hearing at London’s City Hall that hate crime was showing signs of decreasing after a sharp rise in June and July, but it had still not returned to pre-referendum levels. Monitoring presented at the hearing by the London mayor’s evidence and insight team showed a 16% increase in hate crime in the 12 months to August. It also showed that in the 38 days after the referendum there were more than 2,300 recorded race-hate offences in London, compared with 1,400 in the 38 days before the vote. Hogan-Howe expressed alarm about the figures. “We saw this horrible spike after Brexit,â€\x9d he said. He revealed there was a connection between the referendum and many of the incidents and pointed out that many of the victims were eastern Europeans. Hogan-Howe said: “We couldn’t say it was absolutely down to Brexit, although there was obviously a spike after it. Some of them were attributed to it because of what was said at the time. We could attribute that, and eastern Europeans were particularly targeted within the race-hate crime [category]. So there certainly was a spike related to it. “We have fortunately seen it start to come back down, but I’m not sure we can say yet it is back to previous levels.â€\x9d He added: “The absolute numbers are low, but we think it is massively under-reported [crime]. Sadly, people don’t tell us about the harassment and the abuse that we know will go on out there.â€\x9d Hogan-Howe pledged that more specialist officers dedicated to tackling hate crime would be deployed. Sophie Linden, London’s deputy mayor for policing, who was hosting the hearing, said she was still getting daily reports about hate crime in the capital. “It is worrying that it does not appear to have gone back down to pre-referendum levels.â€\x9d Figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council showed a 49% rise in hate crime incidents to 1,863 in the last week in July in England, Wales and Northern Ireland compared with the previous year. A survey by the found that European embassies in Britain have logged dozens of incidents of suspected hate crime and abuse against their citizens since the referendum. The vast majority of incidents involved citizens from eastern European countries, with more attacks against Poles than against all the other nationalities put together. They include the killing of Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow, in an apparently unprovoked attack that is being treated by police as a possible hate crime. Five 15-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy, all from Harlow, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Jóźwik and bailed until 7 October pending further inquiries. A second Polish man survived the attack.",
 'Why Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is a better fashion satire than Zoolander 2 March 2015 saw the splashy beginning of Zoolander 2’s relentless buzz-building campaign as stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson appeared in character at Paris fashion week. It was covered extensively by both film and fashion press, and kicked off an exhaustively well-sustained assault on anyone with an internet connection all the way through to its release in February this year. Given the first film’s cult following and how surprisingly well it stands up to repeat viewings 15 years later, expectations were high for another quotable combination of well-measured silliness and sharp fashion-industry satire. But it was a washout, a tiresome and aggressively unfunny mis-step, the sort of lazy rehash that makes you question whether you even liked the original. Five months later and we have another couple of fictional fashionistas dusted off and resurrected for those blessed with a good memory. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie brings back Patsy and Edina, originally on the BBC in 1992, and catapults them to the big screen following in the footsteps of The Inbetweeners and, most recently, Dad’s Army. The campaign was far more modest, cheap even, and the buzz was notably less feverish, not helped by the film’s first press screening taking place just two days before its release. Yet, against all odds, it works. The comic timing of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley has been curiously underutilised in the years since Ab Fab went off air, and the film, wonderfully short, scrappy and snappy at 91 minutes, gives them free rein to remind us of their skills. It’s imperfect (the plot is almost an afterthought), but it’s far funnier than it should be, given how unnecessary it all seemed on paper. The pleasure of watching the pair drunkenly embarrass themselves across Europe far outweighs watching Stiller and Wilson uncover new levels of idiocy in a glossier transatlantic trip. Both films posit their characters as relics, struggling to keep up with an industry changed irrevocably by social media and populated with those far younger and sharper. But Patsy and Edina were always in this mode, obsessed with remaining current, aware of their sell-by date and failing, miserably, to succeed in the fashion world. Alternately, Derek and Hansel were, bizarrely and comically, at the top of their game in the first film, only to be brought back to earth in the sequel. When your film receives a green light on the basis of fan service, you’d be wise to make sure your most loyal fans are well-served. By changing the dynamic, we lost the joke of seeing two middle-aged, above-average-looking men touted as gorgeous supermodels and instead in the sequel, they ended up playing fortysomething dads failing to comprehend selfie culture. Ab Fab doesn’t deviate from its original setup, it merely exaggerates it, an understandable decision given the increased gap between the leads and the youthful culture they hope to dominate. There’s also a confidence in the characters in Ab Fab thanks to a wealth of material, 39 episodes in fact, that have proved their longevity and also the actors’ skill at playing them. Zoolander 2 proved that Derek and Hansel have less mileage, and despite both films having largely nonsensical and haphazard plots, only Patsy and Edina manage to rise above. The poor box office of Stiller’s sequel was a sign that the fandom wasn’t as strong as Paramount had anticipated. On the same budget of $50m, similarly belated comedy follow-up Anchorman 2 managed to make almost four times that, while Zoolander 2 just about broke even. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie won’t play to huge numbers abroad, but surprisingly strong reviews and a fanbase that’s stuck around since the early 90s might make it a modest domestic success. By never pretending to be in style, Patsy and Edina have remained more fashionable than Derek and Hansel could have ever dreamed of.',
 'Live music booking now “You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversationâ€\x9d, sang Beyoncé on Formation, as she laid out the signposts for a thousand thinkpieces with a single that referenced Hurricane Katrina, “Jackson 5 nostrilsâ€\x9d and keeping a bottle of hot sauce in her handbag. But it was her visual imagery that proved most commanding, from the sight of a slowly sinking police car in her new video, to the Black Panther references of last weekend’s Super Bowl performance. As such, her new stage show is likely where you’ll next see Beyoncé in fully realised form. Tickets are currently available to members of her fanclub, and will go on general release on Tuesday (28 Jun to 9 Jul, tour starts Stadium Of Light, Sunderland) … The lineup for Manchester’s Parklife festival (11 & 12 Jun, Heaton Park) will include Jess Glynne, Stormzy and everyone in between (that being: Wolf Alice, Craig David, the Chemical Brothers, Jamie xx, Ice Cube and Skepta) … Finally, ethereal French singer-songwriter Héloïse Letissier – otherwise known as Christine And The Queens – adds an extra London date to her tour (3 May, Roundhouse, NW1)',
 'Drinking too much water when ill can be harmful, finds study The common advice to drink plenty of water when ill is based on scant evidence and can actively harm chances of recovery, doctors have warned. Medics at King’s College hospital NHS foundation trust, in London, raised the alarm after they treated a patient with hyponatremia – abnormally low sodium – from drinking too much water to help with a recurring urinary tract infection. In the case highlighted, a 59-year-old woman consumed several litres of water based on medical advice she recalled from previous similar episodes to “flush out her systemâ€\x9d. She became progressively shaky, muddled, vomited several times and had significant speech difficulties. Dr Maryann Noronha, the co-author of the study published in BMJ Case Reports on Thursday, said: “When people are ill they don’t tend to drink very much water because it’s the last thing they want to do and you can become dehydrated very quickly. “To counteract that risk, doctors have said ‘Make sure you drink lots of water.’ That has perpetrated the myth that you must drink gallons of water. Most people don’t do that but in this case they did it to the letter.â€\x9d Tests revealed her high intake of water had resulted in dangerously low sodium levels – 123 mmol/L – classifying it as a medical emergency. A mortality rate of almost 30% has been reported for patients with sodium levels of less than 125 mmol/L. Doctors restricted her fluid intake to 1 litre over the next 24 hours. By the following morning her blood tests were normal and she was discharged later that day. In a previous case a woman with gastroenteritis developed hyponatremia and died from drinking excessive amounts of water. Fatal water intoxication has also been reported in people engaged in endurance exercise and using the drug MDMA (ecstasy), when they have sweated heavily and overcompensated with fluids. The authors stress that it is rare to develop water intoxication with normal renal function but warn that some illnesses drive up levels of antidiuretic hormones, which reduce normal excretion of water. “Doctors should try to be more specific in their advice,â€\x9d said Noronha. “I say to people, while they are ill they should at least consume their normal fluid intake and up to half again [ie, up to 150%]. If you drink three litres, you shouldn’t drink six litres when you are ill.â€\x9d Public Health England recommends people should drink six to eight glasses of fluid a day, including water, lower fat milk and sugar-free drinks including tea and coffee. Noronha said the amount needed by different people varies, but the main message is not to change your consumption too greatly when you are ill. “If you are someone who doesn’t drink much water and then suddenly fill your body with masses that’s going to have a very big effect,â€\x9d she said. She hopes the paper might prompt research in the area so that objective guidance can be drawn up. Dr Imran Rafi, the chair of clinical innovation and research at the Royal College of GPs, said: “Drinking enough water is important in keeping healthy, both physically and mentally, and patients should keep their fluids up when unwell, particularly in conditions that can cause dehydration. “There is no steadfast recommendation as to how much water people should drink in order to stay healthy, but the key thing is to keep hydrated – and passing clear urine is a good indication of this. “This case report highlights that excessive water intake can have important consequences for patients, and this is something that healthcare professionals, and patients, should be mindful of.â€\x9d What is the advice? Public Health England recommends drinking six to eight glasses of fluid a day, including but not limited to water. There is no official guidance as to how much to drink when ill, but Noronha advises no more than 1.5 times the amount you would usually drink. Noronha says water is generally fine but recommends a rehydrations sachet if suffering from gastroenteritis.',
 'Juan Mata’s mastery may push Wayne Rooney to Manchester United margins Wayne Rooney may now be entering the career phase when he is used only in certain games for Manchester United. This was the unescapable conclusion drawn from José Mourinho’s decision to drop him to the bench and the 4-1 rout of Leicester City at Old Trafford that followed. The victory on Saturday was significant because it reversed the rot of two successive Premier League defeats and to do so Mourinho found the ruthless streak that has been a driving part of his gilded success at Porto, Chelsea (in both spells), Internazionale and Real Madrid. After the EFL Cup win at Northampton Town ended the run of three defeats on the bounce in all competitions – the other came in the Europa League – Mourinho examined what was needed to defeat the champions and decided his captain was surplus to requirements. Instead Zlatan Ibrahimovic retained his place at centre-forward, and Mourinho fielded the pace of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard out wide. The selection of Juan Mata at No10 was of most significance. For the first time since the Spaniard arrived in January 2014 (from Mourinho’s Chelsea) Mata was selected in his favoured position ahead of Rooney, who had to gaze on as United coasted into the break 4-0 ahead. A 20-minute burst that featured goals from Chris Smalling, Mata, Paul Pogba (a maiden United strike) and Rashford – answered only by Demarai Gray’s second-half shot – finished the contest and may have ended Rooney’s days as a certain starter. The Liverpudlian has been written off before – doing so is a quasi-national pastime – but Mourinho’s post-game comments may come to be viewed as the death knell for his alpha-male status in the XI. “We thought the solution for us was to play with the two fast kids and with Mata in a position where he could interact,â€\x9d the Portuguese said. The subtext here is that Mourinho decided Rooney was the inferior option to Mata to link with Lingard and Rashford. The reason is the side’s previous poor form in which Rooney’s apparent inability to stop wandering out of position clogged United’s flow. Yet Mourinho stressed that Rooney was still his man (as the manager has to) and Smalling believes his England colleague will soon be back in the side. “I think he’s a very experienced guy and he’s played that many games that it’ll only be a matter of time before he’s back in there and firing again because he’s quality,â€\x9d the defender said. Mourinho talked of how Rooney was the captain not only on the field but away from it with regard to representing the club and helping out team-mates. Smalling concurred. Asked if Rooney had been down about being dropped, he said: “No. He was the same as [ever] before the game when we’re all getting ready. He is often one of the most vocal and he was the same. “Regardless of whatever the situation is, whatever game, whether he is on the bench or playing or whatever, he is always that same type of character and that’s why he is England’s main man and our main man.â€\x9d But for how much longer? United’s next outing is the visit of Ukraine’s Zarya Lugansk on Thursday evening for the second Europa League group match. Rooney may well be recalled for a game that must be won following the defeat at Feyenoord in the opener. This, though, may establish a pattern of the forward being deployed sparingly by Mourinho and in contests against lesser opponents. If Rooney was discarded for the challenge of Leicester what about when, say, United travel to Liverpool (the next league game but one) or are at Chelsea the following weekend? The victory against Leicester has given Mourinho a mandate – for the foreseeable future, at least – to leave out Rooney when he wishes. A reverse to Claudio Ranieri’s side or even a less emphatic win may have provoked the question of whether Rooney is a convenient scapegoat. Not now. For the time being the man with 246 United goals (three behind Sir Bobby Charlton’s record) may be reduced to a peripheral role. Smalling said Rooney had been vocal in the dressing room before the match despite starting on the bench. “He had the same method,â€\x9d the 26-year-old said. “Even when there’s games – obviously we play League Cup and he [Mourinho] changes the whole team, he’s still the same, in the changing room talking. That’s something that will never change with Wayne.â€\x9d The defender revealed what Mourinho’s message was beforehand. “He really wanted to get that factor over of enjoyment and enjoying it because he there’s 70-odd thousand people in the stands who would want to be in our shoes and his shoes,â€\x9d he said. “It’s just a case of realising how lucky we are. And you can see that everyone did enjoy it so that message really did get across.â€\x9d How much personal satisfaction Rooney drew from not being a factor in the victory is moot. He may not have been hurdling the moon to witness the side function so well without him. Afterwards Rooney, who came on for Rashford with seven minutes remaining, had a kickabout with his children on the pitch. The question is how soon he will again be mixing it regularly with the big boys.',
 'PPI payouts knock down Lloyds profits but boost British shoppers It is difficult to remember a year when the British consumer was forced to cope without the proceeds from a mis-selling scandal. The payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal has proved to be the most lucrative, punishing banks with fines of £22.5bn and administrative costs of another £8-9bn for attaching the expensive insurance cover to credit cards and loans without consumers’ knowledge. Lloyds Banking Group has just added another £4bn to the total cost after it said another tranche of cash would be needed to satisfy regulators. According to the Financial Conduct Authority, the total payout in each year since 2011 averages £4.5bn. About 12 million people have secured compensation, with an average payout of £1,875. In 2012 the total reached £6.3bn, which is the equivalent to a 1.5p cut in the standard rate of tax. At the time, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said the refunds could push GDP growth 0.1-0.2% higher. A survey by the money-saving website VoucherCodesPro in 2014 examined more closely what happened to the money. It found that most people rushed out and bought a holiday. Next on the list was a new car, followed by buying home appliances such as fridge freezers, followed by paying bills. The survey also found that it only took two and a half weeks on average to spend the money from a settled PPI claim. Only 12% of people put any of the windfall into a savings account. Looking back at the trends of recent years, it is noticeable that the sales figures for holidays and cars have soared and provided the backbone for GDP growth. But the payouts are only one element, albeit the largest, of the PPI boost to the economy. The regulator and the banks have spent around £4bn processing claims and the private claims companies, infamous for urging bank customers to seek compensation with pestering phone calls, have grabbed an estimated £5bn for themselves. Such was the boom in jobs that, in 2014, it registered in the official labour market statistics as one of the fastest growing areas of employment. These workers will have spent their wages and paid tax, increasing GDP further. Maybe that is why George Osborne is keen to offer Lloyds shares owned by the government at a discount. He can see the PPI effect waning and he recognises the need for a multi-billion-pound boost to the economy – not from the exchequer, which is cutting back on spending, but by selling a taxpayer-owned asset and calling it a gift. It was the same in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher’s privatisations started the cascade of funds. In the 1990s, there was the demutualisation of building societies and countless insurers. When the Halifax turned itself into a PLC in 1997, 7.5 million customers received shares worth £1,500 and the handout was worth 2p off the standard rate of income tax. One estimate found that 12% of recipients saved the money, but everyone else spent it. Osborne will hope he can sell the Lloyds shares and get a good price for them, in order to boost incomes and offset the worst of his austerity measures.',
 'Sunderland suffer with Virgil van Dijk grabbing Southampton a point Following an unseemly few days for Sunderland off the pitch, it was back to the football and time for the club’s players to provide some on-field respite. They did so up to a point, weathering a literal and metaphorical storm before taking a late lead courtesy of a Jermain Defoe strike shortly after Southampton had been reduced to 10 men. Unable to hang on, they let Virgil van Dijk rescue a point for his side three minutes into added time. This was two points dropped rather than one gained for Sunderland, but at a ground where they suffered the humiliation of losing 8-0 last season, it was revenge of sorts and defeats elsewhere for fellow relegation battlers Newcastle United and Norwich City made it a little sweeter. Or did they? “It was a kick in the teeth,â€\x9d said Sam Allardyce. “I can’t even begin to tell you how dejected we are and how much more difficult we’ve made our job to stay in the Premier League.â€\x9d Asked if he could see any positives from the point gained, his answer was emphatic. “No,â€\x9d he sighed wistfully. “I was looking forward to celebrating my first clean sheet on Mother’s Day, but now I think I’ll be crying into my glass of wine and I hope I don’t take this out on my grandkids.â€\x9d In an opening half hour memorable mainly for the bitterness of the south coast cold, neither side created much to warm the cockles. After 22 minutes Fabio Borini, in at the expense of Defoe, escaped down the right only for his low, angled drive to be blocked by an excellent covering tackle from Van Djik. Soon after, Southampton ought to have gone ahead, only to be foiled by an excellent Vito Mannone save after Dusan Tadic had reacted quickly to power a Graziano Pellè knockdown goalwards. Just after the half hour, Mannone’s opposite number was called into something resembling urgent action. With a Wahbi Khazri free-kick from wide threatening to drift in to the top left-hand corner, a furiously back-pedalling Fraser Forster did well to palm the goal-bound effort on to his crossbar. In splendid isolation out on the wing, Khazri clasped his head with both hands in sheer frustration. The cold of the first half was augmented by torrential rain early in the second, although the deluge failed to dampen the enthusiasm of a vocal visiting support. As the downpour eased off, Jack Rodwell had them out of their seats but his low effort failed to trouble Forster unduly. Rising to the spirit of tit-for-tat in which much of the game was played, Oriol Romeu promptly sent the ball fizzing inches over from 20-yards. As the game entered its final 20 minutes, Sunderland sat deep on the back foot but it was Southampton’s José Fonte who was forced into an act of desperation. The Portuguese earned a straight red card for grappling Borini as he chased a through ball to the edge of the penalty area. From the subsequent free-kick, Patrick van Aanholt brought a very smart stop from Forster. Enter Defoe. Lamine Koné pounced on a knockdown from Jan Kirchhoff in the penalty area, evaded a tackle and squared for the substitute to prod home from seven yards and prompt scenes of unbridled jubilation in the away end. They were short-lived, however: Southampton huffed and puffed relentlessly before eventually blowing the Sunderland house down when the excellent Van Dijk found himself unmarked on the end of a cross into the Sunderland penalty area and fired home deep in injury time. “It’s strange that we play our best football in the last five or six minutes,â€\x9d said Ronald Koeman. “From the beginning we need better performances football wise but we showed great character after going 1-0 down and I’m very pleased with that.â€\x9d Slumped in a chair at his post-match press conference, his opposite number could scarcely have sounded more glum.',
 "Lisa Hannigan: At Swim review – come on in, the water's lovely It’s 14 years since Lisa Hannigan first came to attention as the second voice on Damien Rice’s debut, O, and five since her last album, Passenger. She is never in a rush, and her third album benefits enormously from a sense of stillness and serenity. Producer Aaron Dessner (from the National) has framed the Dublin-born singer’s crystal vocals in an understated, often hushed atmosphere. Hannigan’s voice is sometimes unadorned, or with minimal (often just piano) backing; even singing ghostly harmonies with itself. Watery themes predominate, from the lovely, adorational Undertow’s offer to “swim in your current, flow on every word you sayâ€\x9d to the disarmingly beautiful Ora’s haunting invitation to join her at “homeâ€\x9d in the vast blue waters. Several songs have a deep, troubling power: death and darkness haunt We, the Drowned and Prayer for the Dying, and gentle opener Fall casually suggests: “Hang the rich and spare the young.â€\x9d These are stunningly pretty songs with quietly powerful undercurrents.",
 'EU states set to veto any Brexit deal threatening free movement Four central European countries are prepared to veto any Brexit deal agreed between the UK and the European Union that restricts their citizens’ rights to live and work in Britain, the prime minister of Slovakia has said. In a stark reminder of the challenge Britain faces at the negotiating table, Robert Fico said Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – known as the Visegrad, or V4, group – would not hesitate to block any future trade accord that threatened the key EU principle of free movement of workers. “The V4 countries will be uncompromising,â€\x9d Fico said on Saturday, a day after EU leaders met informally in Bratislava, without Britain, to try to chart a roadmap for the bloc’s future after the shock of the Brexit vote. “Unless we feel a guarantee that these people [living and working in Britain] are equal, we will veto any agreement between the EU and Britain,â€\x9d Fico told Reuters. “I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there’s no room for compromise.â€\x9d London has not yet revealed what kind of trade agreement it wants with the European Union, but has said its priority is to control EU immigration while maximising opportunities for trade. The European commission and parliament, in addition to the 27 remaining member states who must all ratify a future Brexit trade deal, have repeatedly made clear that enhanced access to the single market will not be on offer unless Britain accepts free movement. Brexit was not formally discussed at Friday’s meeting, but the commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, reiterated the bloc’s stance at a press conference, saying he could not see “any possibility of compromisingâ€\x9d on the question. Fico also stressed after the summit that he and other central European governments would not allow their nationals to become “second-class citizensâ€\x9d. He said on Saturday that fierce Visegrad opposition to mandatory quotas for refugees had persuaded the EU to shift its approach to the migrant crisis. The bloc will now pursue a new principle of “flexible solidarityâ€\x9d, he said, although it is not yet clear what that might mean in practice. Fico said the V4 countries would show the same determination in defending their common interest in protecting their citizens’ rights to work in Britain, reiterating that there could be no “cherry-pickingâ€\x9d in upcoming Brexit negotiations and that EU freedoms must be respected. Britain has said it will not start the formal two-year talks to leave the EU this year because it needs time to consider its position, but could do so next year. In principle the article 50 exit deal, which the EU will approve by qualified majority voting, must be concluded before the new trade deal – which will require unanimity – can be addressed. On Friday the European council president, Donald Tusk, said in Bratislava that he believed following a meeting with the prime minister, Theresa May, that article 50 would probably be invoked in January or February 2017. However, a Downing Street source said on Saturday that the prime minister did not specifically mention January or February at the meeting and that Tusk’s comments were an “interpretationâ€\x9d of their conversation. Fico said the Visegrad group would continue to adopt and defend common positions, which he described as being sometimes more “pragmaticâ€\x9d than other EU nations owing to the four states’ history since the second world war and the collapse of the communist bloc. He said he wanted migration issues to be more clearly addressed in the bloc’s future roadmap, but was happy that border security was more of a priority and that discussion was now underway on flexible solidarity to allow countries to offer what they feel they can to help resolve the migrant crisis.',
 'Like Ed Balls, Jeremy Corbyn is struggling to impress the judges When polling stations closed at 10pm on the night of 7 May 2015, the bookies would have given generous odds on Ed Balls doing the waltz on Strictly Come Dancing and Jeremy Corbyn leading the Labour party less than 18 months later. Had things turned out a little differently, Balls would now be running the Treasury and Corbyn would have remained a backbench MP. Ed Miliband would have been at the head of a coalition government and there would have been no EU referendum. In the intervening period, Corbyn has won not one but two leadership contests, both by thumping majorities. His opponents in the party have been routed and he now has the job of getting Labour ready to fight the next election. That will be no easy task. Three months ago, the notion that the Conservative party would hold a double-digit opinion poll lead over the Labour party looked remote. David Cameron had just resigned after calling and losing the Brexit referendum and there were fears of a summer of financial and political chaos while the Tories chose a new prime minister. Labour had its problems but they appeared to be minor by comparison. The mood has now changed. Theresa May is enjoying a honeymoon period and political pundits assume that she will trounce Corbyn whenever she chooses to go to the country, whether that is at a snap election next spring or if the current parliament is allowed to run its full five-year course. The conventional wisdom is that Britain is facing another prolonged period of uninterrupted Conservative rule. But honeymoons - as Gordon Brown can testify - come to an end. Labour’s last prime minister looked the part and had an assured start when he took over from Tony Blair in the summer of 2007. Then the financial crisis broke, there were queues outside Northern Rock branches and it was never the same again. May’s honeymoon could turn out to be similarly brief. While the risk of an immediate recession has receded, it is possible that the government will make a hash of the Brexit negotiations when they eventually start. Before that, though, there is the possibility that the supposed cure for the last recession unwittingly creates the conditions for another painful downturn. This is what is happening. Interest rates are low everywhere and have been for years. The Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are still upping the amount of stimulus they are providing, even though it is almost a decade since the sub-prime mortgage crisis erupted in the summer of 2007. The only major central bank that is even thinking about tightening policy is the US Federal Reserve. The Fed took the first tentative step towards the “normalisationâ€\x9d of interest rates (around 5% was the pre-crisis norm) last December and sent out signals that the cost of borrowing would be pushed up several times during 2016. Since then, though, the Fed has sat tight even though unemployment is low and consumer spending is strong. With negligible wage pressure and last year’s fall in the cost of energy holding inflation down, the Fed has said it wants to see further evidence that the economy is strengthening before moving again. Wall Street has taken that as a strong hint to be prepared for a December rate rise although, on past form, it won’t take much for the Fed to again decide to leave policy unchanged. In theory, the ability to borrow for the long term at ultra-low rates should be providing an incentive for US businesses to invest. That, though, is not what is happening. Rather than invest, corporations are borrowing money in order to buy back their own shares. This makes sense because, as Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research has pointed out, the cost of money is below the yield on stocks. But it also means the Fed has created the perfect conditions for a massive stock market bubble, which will pop the moment that interest rates start to rise. The US, courtesy of the dearth of investment, has weak productivity and inflation will start to pick up once growth accelerates to much more than 2%. The fear of the majority of the Fed’s policymakers is that an over-hasty move would send share prices sharply lower, leading to slower growth, higher unemployment and an undershoot of its inflation target. But delay means that the stock market bubble continues to inflate and that the bust – when it comes – will be even more severe. It is easy enough to envisage circumstances in which a panic on Wall Street leads to the second global recession in a decade. What would this mean for UK politics? Labour had two problems during the 2007-09 crash. The first was that it was in power when the banks nearly went bust. The second was that it was ill-prepared ideologically to challenge the basis upon which the global economy had been run for the previous 30 years. New Labour had bought into the idea that there was precious little governments could, or even should, do to tame the power of global finance. Clearly, Corbyn doesn’t have the first of these problems. If there is another financial crisis, it is going to happen on May’s watch. The more interesting question is whether Labour could respond to a fresh crisis with an economic programme that is intellectually coherent and politically attractive. This is a tall order. Labour does not tend to win power when times are tough; rather it wins during periods when the mood is optimistic and when the economy is strong, as in 1964 and 1997. In 1945, it was impossible to portray Labour’s economic platform as dangerously radical, since state control of key industries had been necessary to win the war. The UK has the same economic weakness as the US: private investment has been too low even with interest rates at record lows. Corbyn’s answer is higher public spending channeled through a national investment bank. There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, it makes a lot of sense to remedy the UK’s infrastructure deficiencies when borrowing is so cheap. Likewise, an idea that Corbyn floated in the 2015 leadership race - People’s quantitative easing - would provide a useful policy weapon in the event of another severe financial crisis. There is little scope for central banks to cut interest rates further and the current QE programmes have encouraged speculation rather than investment. People’s QE is a form of helicopter money: public investment financed by money creation by the Bank of England. But Labour has done little to turn higher borrowing or People’s QE into mainstream ideas and is failing to counter the perception that it knows more about spending money than creating wealth. In that respect, Corbyn and Balls are alike: both are struggling to impress the judges.',
 "I went to a Trump rally in my hijab. His supporters aren't just racist caricatures After Rose Hamid’s horrifying experience at Trump’s rally on Friday in South Carolina, many people might wonder how I survived a Trump rally wearing a bright-orange headscarf while holding a giant Qur’an – or why I went at all. I went because I firmly believe that Hamid was on the right path: it is important for people to stand up peacefully for the right things, even if we are confronted with physical and verbal intimidation. It is important to give people that may not have ever met or interacted with a Muslim an opportunity to meet her and learn about Islam from someone that actually practices it. And it is important, at a time when people like me too often face discrimination and hatred living our daily lives, to be polite, and yet be visible and present when we are the subject of political speeches. And nothing bad happened to me at the rally: there were some hard stares and dirty looks, but no outright rude behavior. I spoke to several lovely people and had the type of informative and substantive discourse that one should expect at a political event. It was good to see that the bullies and thugs who have been fixtures at several other Trump rallies had taken the day off; maybe they were just too shocked to say anything directly to me. Before this weekend, I’d never staged any sort of civil disobedience act; before this weekend, I had been perfectly content to never attend a Trump rally. But Hamid inspired me to make myself visible to the kind of people the media suggests hate me, and to make myself available for their edification. So I looked up Trump’s speaking schedule, discovered that he was speaking on Sunday in Reno, Nevada (a four-hour drive from me), downloaded a ticket and hopped into my car. I drove overnight through a blizzard and fog, but I arrived safely and I was able to get to the venue about 15 minutes after the doors opened; already, the line snaked around the building. Many people in line did double-takes, or their heads snapped around to gawk at me (almost to the point where I thought they would snap off), but I was permitted to stand in line and wait as about a half dozen vendors peddled a motley array of Trump merchandise around us. The most provocative act that I encountered occurred towards the beginning of my two-hour wait: a vendor noticed me and immediately came down to my section of the line where he loudly announced that he was selling “Bomb The Hell Out Of Isisâ€\x9d T-shirts (apparently, the desire to kill people is considered trendy fashion at a Trump rally). He looked directly at me to see how I would react; I looked back at him, shook my head, smiled and read my Qur’an as I patiently waited for someone to engage me in civil conversation. I attended Sunday’s rally with the intention to educate myself and, hopefully, to educate others. I didn’t go to shout at Trump’s supporters, no matter how passionately I feel about some of their claims. And it was interesting to hear Trump and his supporters’ viewpoints for more than just the few seconds offered by most soundbites. His supporters are people, not caricatures. They feel marginalized economically, politically, and socially; they see a world different from the one they think should exist. Many non-Trump supporters are also concerned about the current economic and political state of our planet and its implications for a stabile future for our children. What differentiates me from many of the Trump supporters I met this weekend is that their concerns for our future have led to an overwhelming need to see all of our problems as someone else’s fault. To Trump and his supporters, Asian countries have “dumpedâ€\x9d their goods in America and almost bankrupted our country by causing our trade deficit; Mexico won’t keep “illegalsâ€\x9d (who are the “sourceâ€\x9d for Americans’ drugs) on their side of the border; and, of course, Muslims have “alwaysâ€\x9d been fighting us, and come from countries populated by ingrates who are unwilling to pay for the wars that we started on “theirâ€\x9d behalf. But solving our trade deficit isn’t as simple as ending the supply of cheap Asian goods that Americans so happily consume. Mexico is not going to pay us to build us a wall. The rest of the world will not stand by and let the US seize Iraq’s oilfields (and thus control a significant supply of the world’s oil). Trump’s supporters, though, love him for his outrageous suggestions; it provides them with a sense of empowerment and control. And his lack of specificity allows each person to hear what they want to hear. The increasing popularity of these types of events reflects the fact that Trump supporters – the people who used to be Tea Partiers, who supported Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin or any one of a number of politicians who’ve used this rhetoric before Trump – aren’t going to go away. Whether Trump wins or loses, his supporters will still be out there, longing for another leader to “make America great againâ€\x9d. People like me cannot keep thinking and hoping that Trump supporters will all go away eventually. We cannot continue to believe that they represent a fringe group of people and that their candidates can never be elected to a major role in government. We need to see them, and listen to them, and disagree respectfully. We need to, as Americans, begin talking to and not at one another. I understood that I was a guest at their rally, and that I had a duty to them to be a good guest; in return, I felt like they were good hosts. And whether they engaged me directly or not, many of them had to acknowledge the presence of someone who disagreed with them, but who did not fit their stereotypes by being disagreeable. Yes, what I did could have been dangerous: the Trump campaign, like many movements, has been dogged by its share of mischief makers. The thugs and bullies who have hurt other dissenters are a small, but very real, part of the ultra-nationalism that vague, implausible rhetoric like Trump’s attracts. But it was worth the risk to me to show them that their insecurities about Muslims were unfounded. It was worth it to humanize Muslims for them. And it was worth it, to me, to recognize their humanity, too.",
 'Sundance film festival: The Birth of a Nation and Weiner win top awards The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s film about the Nat Turner slave revolt, won both the US dramatic audience award and the grand jury prize at the 32nd Sundance film festival awards. Nate Parker described the Sundance experience as being like a “summer camp … with magical camp counselorsâ€\x9d. Parker also picked up the audience award for The Birth of a Nation, which was bought by Fox Searchlight for a record $17.5m after a bidding war with Netflix. The directing award went to Swiss Army Man, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s divisive film which featured Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse and saw walkouts. Dawn Porter’s film Trapped, which focuses on abortion rights, was also recognised with a special jury prize in the documentary section. Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, who premiered his film Hunt for the Wilderpeople at this year’s festival, hosted the awards and was a gregarious presence, introducing himself with self-effacing remarks about how much money his films have made and how many of his films have premiered at Sundance (four). Weiner won the grand jury prize for best documentary at the festival in Park City, Utah. The directing duo of Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg gained unbelievable access to Anthony Weiner’s disastrous mayoral campaign in 2013. The world cinema dramatic competition went to Elite Zexer, with her film Sand Storm, about a bedouin community, while Felix van Groeningen won the directing award for his film Belgica. Sonita, the story of an Iranian rapper, won the grand jury prize in the world cinema documentary competition, while MichaÅ‚ Marczak picked up the directing award for All These Sleepless Nights. As revealed earlier in the week, Jim Cummings won the short film-making award for his film Thunder Road. The 32nd Sundance film festival ends Sunday.',
 'Primark owner buoyed by stronger euro Primark’s owner is expecting a boost from the rising value of the euro against the pound in the wake of the Brexit vote. Associated British Foods had previously warned that it expected a “marginal declineâ€\x9d in earnings per share for the financial year, which ends in August. However, following the result of the EU referendum, the company said overseas profits in the final quarter would be better than expected once translated into sterling. The better-than-expected news on profits came as Primark revealed its third consecutive quarter of sales falls at established stores, for the three months to 18 June. ABF said total sales at its fashion chain had risen by 7% in the 40 weeks to 18 June after it opened 11 new stores in the last three months of the period. However, underlying sales in the last quarter were hit by “unpredictable weather patternsâ€\x9d, particularly the cold weather in April followed by a return to more seasonal weather in May. John Bason, ABF’s finance director, said the retailer’s sales performance had been affected across Europe by the weather, although it had enjoyed strong growth in Ireland amid an economic recovery in its home market. The company also warned that Primark’s UK profit margins would suffer as a result of the falling value of the pound against the dollar and the euro. However, this will be offset by a favourable boost to margins at the group’s sugar business and also in translating profits earned outside the UK, which last year made up 50% of the total. Bason said it was too early to tell if there would be a post-Brexit sales dip in the UK, but he added: “I’ve seen Primark do well in good economic times and more challenged economic times.â€\x9d He said there would be cost pressures on all clothing retailers next year in the light of the devaluation of the pound, but that it was not clear if this would feed through into price rises for shoppers. Bason said Primark’s prices would be partly driven by the actions of its competitors. “We are never going to be a leader on price increases,â€\x9d he said. Plans to expand Primark remain unchanged in the light of the UK’s vote to leave the EU. The chain expects to open 300,000 sq ft more trading space by August, including two more stores in the US, at Willow Grove in gGreater Philadelphia, and Freehold Raceway in New Jersey. It will also double the size of its Creteil store in Paris. The company said the decision to leave the EU had created uncertainty in the business environment and financial markets, but added: “We have a strong balance sheet and we remain optimistic for the group’s continued growth.â€\x9d',
 'Orson Welles fans who donated to have final film finished want their money back A campaign to restore Orson Welles’ final film has been plunged into delay and acrimony following reports that the late Hollywood legend’s long-term partner is refusing to give up the negatives. Donors to the crowdfunding campaign to restore The Other Side of the Wind have begun to ask for their money back, according to the New York Post. A total of $406,605 (£288,577) was raised towards completing the movie, which was shot by Welles between 1970 and 1976 but remained unfinished upon his death in 1985. Among the campaign’s high-profile backers are JJ Abrams, Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola. The legendary lost movie was originally due to be completed in time for the Citizen Kane director’s 100th birthday on 6 May 2015, with Peter Bogdanovich overseeing the new edit. But Bogdanovich, who also features in the film, last week told France’s Le Monde that he did not know when the work would be completed. “I am supposed to supervise the editing of the film,â€\x9d said the director, who was asked by Welles to finish it in the event of his death. “I keep being told ‘10 days, maybe two weeks, we should have it all wrapped up’. I have been hearing that for a long time, but it is possible that one day I will be surprised and they will really have everything wrapped up and we can go to work.â€\x9d The New York Post cites “unconfirmed reportsâ€\x9d that the negatives for The Other Side of the Wind are still being held by Croatian actor Oja Kodar, who was Welles’ companion from the early 1960s until his death (though the film-maker did not leave his third wife Paola Mori, whom he married in 1955). Kodar, 75, told the New York Times two years ago that she was ready to sign the contract to finally bring the film to the big screen. She also appears in The Other Side of the Wind, a self-reflexive drama starring John Huston as an obsessive veteran film-maker struggling to complete his final movie despite the collapse of the Hollywood studio system and the rise of a new wave of younger directors. Other cast members include Bob Random, Susan Strasberg, Joseph McBride, Lilli Palmer and a young Dennis Hopper. The crowdfunding campaign was launched on Indiegogo after efforts to secure financing fell through. Some donors have now expressed anger that The Other Side of the Wind remains unfinished, and that they have not been updated on progress by campaign organisers. Donor Jérôme Stavroguine on the Indiegogo campaign page said: “More than $400,000 disappeared with the promises of finishing a masterpiece. What can we do in order to get a refund and report this to Indiegogo?â€\x9d A spokesperson for Indiegogo told the New York Post that it had only received five requests for a refund, and had referred donors to the campaign’s organisers. Fan site Wellesnet reports that Netflix is now negotiating to fund the film’s completion, having made a $5m offer that also includes cash for a making-of documentary. However, negotiations over remuneration for the holder of the rights appear to be ongoing. Kodar’s nephew Sasha Welles, who has been negotiating on behalf of his aunt, told Wellesnet: “For decades we have been optimistic, otherwise we wouldn’t be trying for so long to get this film released. How optimistic should we be about this particular deal? Hard to tell. “All in all, I am not so optimistic, since they keep on chiseling away from our old agreement. Every time I give in to something they want, they come up with something else. This keeps going on and on and I don’t know where the end is.â€\x9d',
 'Meilyr Jones: ‘Rome is a place of faith and blood and lust’ Meilyr Jones stands on a street corner not far from Pigneto, wearing gold trainers and a long belted overcoat, his face lit up by the day. It has been, he explains, quite an experience: shooting a video for his next single, watching the sun rise, kissing a stranger and riding shotgun on a Vespa around the backroads of Rome. He leads me through the evening streets, warm with early spring, and is seemingly carried by a kind of buoyancy: talking about the sea, poetry, his childhood in Aberystwyth, his flatshare in London, heading down quiet roads, around corners, doubling back, until we find the bar he has been hunting: a narrow corridor where the wine comes served in plastic cups and the stereo plays opera. At the next table a man is giving a guitar lesson while a small boy plays hide and seek beneath the chairs. Rome is where, three years ago, Jones felt his life begin to change. For eight years and three albums he had fronted the band Race Horses. When they split in January 2013, he found himself cut adrift, 26 years old, questioning the direction of his life and his relationship with music. “It was a messy break and I felt that I’d lost friends,â€\x9d he says. “I felt I’d developed a fear of committing to anything. I didn’t feel at all ready to think of myself as a solo musician. I just felt like being normal.â€\x9d He began investing his time into other artforms: he was dating a sculptor at the time, and his brother gave him a book on sculpture written by the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. He read Byron and Berlioz’s memoirs and Goethe’s Italian Journey. “All these signs were leading me to Rome,â€\x9d he recalls. “And I had an intuition that I should go there, that something good and magical might happen if I just looked the other way a little bit and let things happen.â€\x9d Jones tries to explain the excitement of that time. “I started to feel a new life force,â€\x9d he says. “It didn’t feel like an academic pursuit, it just felt like how it did when I discovered the Beatles for the first time.â€\x9d He was weary, he adds, of a world that was “too knowing, and too nicheâ€\x9d, of the “cool, affluent-sounding musicâ€\x9d that seemed all-pervading. By contrast, he says, “[classical] sculpture and Renaissance music felt like a really living thing. I was enjoying Byron and Don Juan in a really vivid way. It didn’t feel exaggerated or put on – Byron and Keats were what felt real to me. And a love of nature, and my serious feelings of love.â€\x9d Speaking with Jones is much like this: a tumble of enthusiasms that can encompass Bel Canto and Let’s Wrestle in a single breath. In seemingly one conversational strand he’ll tell you of his love for children’s literature (his father was a children’s book editor), Fellini and the plastic floral arrangements you often find in Italian churches. It’s a quality his album 2013 captures, too: Scottish choirs lie down beside karaoke bars, Japanese buskers, orchestras, bursts of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel. “That feels like modern life to me,â€\x9d he says by way of explanation. “You can place the cheap next to the expensive thing and not put the emphasis on the expensive thing. You can like pop culture, and you can like recording with an orchestra, and just let them live together.â€\x9d Jones always loved music and performance. “I remember coming home from school one day and saying to my mum: ‘I really want to sing in the Eistedfodd,’â€\x9d he says. “And my mum was really shocked. I started singing duets with this guy who was really tiny, and I was really tall. But I loved it, I absolutely loved it. I just felt like I could do it, and all my feelings could go into singing.â€\x9d A few years later he began learning the tuba. “And I got quite good at the tuba, I guess,â€\x9d he says. “I loved it, I loved playing solos on it. I felt I could just close my eyes and swim in the sound. It felt really colourful and sensitive – like singing, where my feelings would just come into musical sound.â€\x9d The love for the tuba persisted, even after he got madly into the Beatles, learned bass and started a band. And it was his love of the tuba that led him to study at the Royal College of Music, an experience he describes as “making me more excited about rock’n’rollâ€\x9d. He dropped out before graduation. “I thought it would be a really creative place,â€\x9d he says, “but it was just dull.â€\x9d He recalls the confusion of that first term, of not understanding how anything worked. “I didn’t come from a music college background, or private school, I was from a comprehensive,â€\x9d he says. “And it kind of meant they all knew what to do, because they’d been in a younger version of that.â€\x9d We move on to a cinema bar a few streets away, sit on a sofa and watch the room. Jones spent six weeks living in Rome, though it felt longer. “Time seemed to stretch,â€\x9d he says. “Nights felt really exciting and wild and free. And in the days I’d go running and go to churches and look at frescoes and lie down in the park and feel really happy. It was kind of a recovering thing. But it did feel like a new life.â€\x9d He lived in a flatshare he found on Craigslist, staying up until the small hours with his flatmates, trying to follow their conversation though he had no Italian, trying to learn the language through reading Dante. He remembers one evening taking a copy of Tasso’s poetry to a bar, and a group of actors trying to translate it for him “til four or five in the morningâ€\x9d. He fell in love with the city’s looseness, he says. With the fact “you can’t apply a logical light to a place that operates from a place of faith and blood and lustâ€\x9d. He did not think about music. “I thought about other things,â€\x9d he says. “But then nature just led to tunes starting coming into my head, and I started to write them down.â€\x9d They did not sound like Race Horses songs. “I didn’t imagine playing them in a band, it was just that music was coming. It felt like a new way of writing music for me – light and balanced and not intense, but beautiful.â€\x9dWhat he wanted, he says, was “to speak from a place that felt like it was dying, and that comes from music that was recorded in one room around one microphone, when people were closer, when people didn’t contrive themselves into versions of themselves when recording.â€\x9d He craved something that was “gentle and dramatic and lovely and sweet, not crudeâ€\x9d. I wonder how deliberate his intellectual nods are, how audiences might respond to songs that reference DH Lawrence and Berlioz. “There’s almost been a generation robbed of intelligence,â€\x9d he says gently. “I think we live in a time where it’s so the wrong balance, where any whiff of it is seen as stuck-up. Everyone’s like: ‘Ooh, Byron, posh, fucking weird.’ And yeah, true, but essentially also really brave and human and easy to read – so easy to read! I can read it! It’s not psychological Russian stuff. It’s beautiful, effortless. And I think my criticism of now is the fact there’s not enough roughness. Things aren’t sexy enough, genuinely sexy. Things aren’t wild enough, things aren’t erotic enough, things aren’t gentle enough, things aren’t light enough, things aren’t fun enough.â€\x9d In the bar a film club presentation is beginning and we shuffle our way out into the street, to the sound of music and motorbike engines, of busy restaurants and laughter spilling from nearby bars. Jones stops and beckons me down to where a window is all lit up and inside a room full of men and women are dancing the tango, their bodies studies in poise and flex. Jones looks enraptured. “That’s amazing!â€\x9d he says, half to himself. I think back to something he told me earlier, as we left the bar. “In a way this is an exciting time to live in,â€\x9d he said. “Because sex has turned into such a casual whatever, and the mind is neglected as well. And both those two things, they’re the best things, and they’re together hidden somewhere.â€\x9d Just for a moment, looking at Jones’s face pressed up against a window in a backstreet in Rome, I wonder if we might have found them. 2013 is out on Moshi Moshi',
 "Hammond's foundations are too weak to build us out of the housing crisis When it comes to the autumn statement and the annual budget, you have to analyse it as you would a magician’s show. Sitting back and enjoying the artifice and performance is one option, but to find out what has really been said and figure out how the trick has been pulled off, you need a keen eye for sleight of hand. Superficially, Philip Hammond’s first autumn statement seemed to accept the fact that housing costs and worries are foremost in people’s minds. The Conservatives’ volte face on letting agents fees is to be tentatively welcomed: for years we were told scrapping the fees would push landlords out of the market by cutting their bottom line. This argument rests on two fallacies: that people choose to rent out homes for any reason other than to make money; and that, faced with the choice between earning slightly less from tenants, and earning nothing at all, some landlords would decide to jack in their rental portfolios. So the move is a sweetener for anyone likely to move house and continue renting soon. For people looking to own, or needing emergency accommodation, however, the picture is far less rosy. Again, the headline figures were tending towards the positive: Hammond’s announcement of £4bn to fund new affordable homes was a headline-grabbing number. As always, though, it’s worth reading the small print: the £1.4bn tranche earmarked for local authorities to provide new affordable homes specifies the homes built can be shared-ownership schemes, or “affordable rentâ€\x9d (that is, don’t forget, 80% of the local market rent) but not social rent, which in many areas is the only truly affordable housing tenure. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), in its economic and fiscal outlook, remains less convinced of the government’s ability to increase housebuilding. “Dropping the requirement for housing associations to move to a shared-ownership model and abandoning plans to force higher rents on some tenants will both reduce the cash inflows available for housebuilding,â€\x9d it says. “Partly offsetting that, additional grant funding and other smaller measures will increase cash inflows and boost housebuilding. The net effect is to reduce cumulative housebuilding by housing associations by around 13,000 over the forecast period, with a boost next year becoming a drag by 2019–20.â€\x9d The number of social rent homes has already plummeted and now the focus is on building homes that the vast majority of people in housing need cannot afford. The OBR has also warned the scrapping of letting agents fees could also result in higher rents, further denting would-be homeowners’ ability to save for deposits, and excluding even more people from the private rented sector, thanks to the Local Housing Allowance cap. But a spectre is haunting Britain – the spectre of Brexit. Hammond announced the referendum decision had blown a £59bn hole in the public finances. With the government finally giving up on the idea of “balancing the booksâ€\x9d by 2020, and admitting that austerity has not resulted in a huge public finance windfall, we are now braced for another cataclysmic dent in the nation’s wealth. That Hammond was more restrained on housing than his predecessor George Osborne is little surprise. Osborne promised big and barely delivered, while Hammond has promised little and the OBR is already convinced he will follow suit. In the wake of the Brexit vote, it feels as though housing has been downgraded as a national concern – a fact that won’t give much comfort to the millions of people affected by our dysfunctional system. Sign up for your free Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you on the last Friday of the month. Follow us:@ Housing",
 'The Millennial Whoop: the melodic hook that’s taken over pop music It goes by many names, but in today’s pop, it’s always there. Jesse Lacey from the band Brand New calls it the “mom calling you inside from the porch intervalâ€\x9d. More recently, it’s become known as the Millennial Whoop, and it’s a standard of big pop songs from Katy Perry to Justin Bieber to Kings Of Leon to will.i.am to Fall Out Boy. Now, the Whoop has become more than a far-off niggle about all modern pop sounding the same, thanks to a recent forensic dissection of the phenomenon by Patrick Metzger on his website, The Patterning. Metzger isolates it as: “A sequence of notes that alternates between the fifth and third notes of a major scale, typically starting on the fifth. The rhythm is usually straight 8th-notes, but it may start on the downbeat or on the upbeat in different songs. A singer usually belts these notes with an “Ohâ€\x9d phoneme, often in a “Wa-oh-wa-ohâ€\x9d pattern. And it’s in so many pop songs it’s criminal.â€\x9d The cleanest example of what he means came right at the start of the millennial era, with the monolithic hook for the Rasmus’s 2003 hit In the Shadows. The most recent comes from the sainted Frank Ocean’s Ivy, released a week ago. The funniest is a track cut from the Lonely Island’s forthcoming movie Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, satirising the teen-muppet jingles of the Bieber-wave. In between, there have been lawsuits over whether anyone can truly own the Whoop. In 2013, songwriter Ally Burnett tried to sue Carly-Rae Jepsen and Owl City over their collaboration Good Time, which she said plagiarised her own Ah, It’s a Love Song, a case based mainly on the Whoop they shared. Jepsen settled out of court, but Owl City held out, and won $500,000 plus legal proof that the Whoop is for everyone. Pop music, as Metzger points out, is always based on a measure of comforting familiarity. We like the Whoop (and songwriters especially like it) because it gives us enough orientation to allow us to get our heads around a piece of music we may not already be familiar with. In the slavishly playlisted, gnat’s-attention-span world of daytime radio, the Whoop has become a signalling device, often cropping up bang on cue around the one-minute mark, saying: “Hey wait! Don’t run away just yet!â€\x9d Naturally, the Whoop is not the first time pop music has eaten itself – there was the Bo Diddley Beat as far back as the 1950s. Some melodic ideas transcend all cultures. Axis of Awesome’s 4 Chords speared the I-V-vi-IV chord progression that underlies hundreds of hits. And there are never going to be more than 12 notes on the western scale. But given that a 2012 study concluded that the diversity of melodies used over the preceding 55 years had shrunk dramatically, the ubiquitous Whoop’s smothering two-note baby-talk emotional register means that your sense of pop music dumbing down may not be entirely down to ageing.',
 'FCA orders new inquiry into HBOS chiefs City regulators are to investigate the role of HBOS’s senior management in the near-collapse of the bank during the financial crisis more than seven years ago. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) will look into the bank’s former bosses, who could be barred from working in the City. The FCA said the investigations would decide whether the senior figures, who include the former chief executive Andy Hornby and former chairman Lord Stevenson, should face proceedings that could strike them off the FCA’s approved persons list. The FCA declined to identify which past managers it would investigate. Those under investigation have been informed, although the names have not been made public, and the FCA has appointed investigators with the power to call subjects in for questioning as it re-examines evidence. Potential penalties against the bank bosses do not include fines, due to a three-year time limit. That limit has since been extended to six years. The investigation is likely to take many months and could face multiple legal hurdles if individuals choose to challenge potential attempts to ban them. The decison follows a highly critical report in November by Andrew Green QC into decisions made by the FCA’s predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, over HBOS. The bank, which traded on the high street as Halifax and Bank of Scotland, was rescued by Lloyds in a Labour government-engineered deal in September 2008. Green criticised the FSA’s decision to ban and fine HBOS’s former head of corporate banking Peter Cummings from working in the City, but leave others free to carry on their business careers. But he said the FSA was reasonable in deciding not to investigate James Crosby, who quit as chief executive in 2006 and has since handed back a knighthood over the HBOS affair. Green said the regulators should consider immediately whether to investigate other former managers of HBOS, including Hornby and Stevenson, and that the regulator was wrong not to have considered investigations into other former bosses. Regulators have also faced intense political pressure to look again at HBOS. The Financial Reporting Council said last week that it would re-examine KPMG’s auditing of the bank after criticism from the Treasury select committee, which also called on the FCA to hold individuals to account. Andrew Tyrie, the committee chairman, said: “Overdue doesn’t capture it. It is eight years since the collapse of HBOS. It has taken a heap of pressure from parliament to secure appropriate action from the regulators. “Mr Green concluded that the FSA should have got on with this in 2009. So the FCA and PRA should conduct these investigations immediately.â€\x9d Hornby revived his career, first as chief executive of Alliance Boots and, since 2011, at the bookmaker Gala Coral, where he is chief operating officer. Gala Coral, which is privately owned, is planning to merge with Ladbrokes in a deal that would put Hornby back near the top of a public company, though not on the board. The FCA cannot bar someone from being a company director outside the finance industry, but the Department for Business can do. Other former HBOS leaders who could face investigation include the former finance chief Mike Ellis, the chairman of Skipton building society, Colin Matthew, who ran HBOS’s international division, and Lindsay Mackay, who ran the treasury operation. Gala Coral said Hornby had played an important role in improving the bookmaker’s business and that he had the confidence of colleagues, management and the company’s owners. Skipton said neither Ellis nor the building society had been contacted by the FCA about its decision. Stevenson could not be reached through the House of Lords. In November, he and other former HBOS directors issued a statement saying that an investigation into their conduct was not warranted. HBOS, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, was almost brought down by reckless corporate lending and attempts to run its treasury operation for maximum profit. Green’s review of the FSA’s decisions on HBOS accompanied a wider report into the bank’s failure that described an inexperienced board and a management team which ignored risks in a quest for growth. The bank’s lending spree caused bad debts of £45bn – more than the £38bn in losses racked up by the far larger Royal Bank of Scotland. After Lloyds bought HBOS, the combined bank was bailed out with £20bn of taxpayers’ money as Gordon Brown’s government tried to prevent the financial system from collapsing. George Osborne announced on Thursday that he was postponing the sale of the final 9% of Lloyds shares owned by taxpayers due to volatile financial markets.',
 'Former Reserve Bank board member calls for inquiry into Australian banks A former Reserve Bank board member has called for an inquiry into Australia’s banking sector, saying the quality of their financial advice needs a lot more work, and warned that the Turnbull government should not pursue company tax cuts in the current environment. John Edwards, who last week finished a five-year term on the RBA board which sets the country’s interest rates, said he does not think the Coalition has a “convincing planâ€\x9d to substantially reduce the deficit within a reasonable timeframe. He told the ABC’s 7.30 program on Wednesday that the government’s current plan depended on a “very big increase in personal income tax collections, of the order of 20% over the next three years.â€\x9d “That really involves something like a 10% to 15% increase in the personal income tax paid by all employees, and basically I don’t think that’s on,â€\x9d he said. Edwards also said the government ought to look at other forms of tax increases to bring the deficit down, including winding back super tax concessions, and the capital gains tax discount. He said it was “ludicrous situationâ€\x9d that consecutive federal governments had let cumulative budget deficits, as a share of GDP, become far bigger than they ever were after the last two recessions in Australia. “And we haven’t even had a recession,â€\x9d he said. Edwards, who was an adviser to Paul Keating, also backed Malcolm Turnbull’s call for the major banks to pass on this week’s Reserve Bank rate cut in full to customers. The RBA cut the official cash rate to a new historic low of 1.5% on Tuesday, citing low inflation and the need to encourage sustainable economic growth, but the major banks responded by passing on some of the rate cut to their mortgage rates, telegraphing cuts to rates for business loans, and increasing rates for term deposits. Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday that the commercial banks ought to pass on the full interest rate cut to their customers, or explain why they would not. “They should do that, and if they are not prepared to do it, as appears to be the case, then their chief executives should explain very clearly to the Australian people and their customers why they have not done so,â€\x9d Turnbull said. Edwards said the banks are arguing that their cost of funding has gone up, but their average cost of funding had actually gone down in recent years, because the official interest rate has fallen from 7.25% to 1.5% since mid-2008. When asked if there should be a royal commission into the banking industry, he said an inquiry of some kind “would be helpful.â€\x9d “We need to do a lot more work on the quality of financial advice being offered by banks,â€\x9d he said. “Particularly because they’ve become such a huge presence in funds management, and because the population is ageing. “Their authority in that area is becoming vastly bigger than it was, even a decade ago. I think that’s where we need to get a better idea of what the culture is, and where the performance and practice is,â€\x9d he said.',
 'Race review – reverential middle-of-the-pack drama More marathon than sprint, Stephen Hopkins’ period biopic affords the Jesse Owens story – one of the greatest eff-yous ever recorded in competitive sport – a reverential, middle-of-the-pack treatment: stumbling exposition, grandstanding performers, a thousand yards of rousing speeches and music cues. It’s regrettably typical that Stephan James’s Owens is given a caucasian interlocutor in coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis, reining in the smirks), and that his personal struggles are partially obscured by the negotiations of diplomat Jeremy Irons with a chilly Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat) and saucy Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten). Still, it raises its game – as drama, spectacle and camp – the closer it gets to the Olympic stadium, where Hitler awaits, muttering darkly in the stands like a Voldemort in epaulettes. That it remains broadly watchable owes much to James’s lean, committed turn, but what’s around him often seems to be carving its lightning-bolt history into not stone but easily digestible cheese.',
 "Kendrick Lamar's Untitled Unmastered: 'The work of someone who's in it for the long haul' – first-listen review At first glance, Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album – if Untitled Unmastered is an album, rather than a dumping of offcuts – looks suspiciously like a reaction against his third album. To Pimp a Butterfly was a dense, grandiose statement: equal parts soul-bearing confessional and state of the nation address, complete with a narrative thread and a vast cast that underlined its expansive musical ambitions and sense of place in the pantheon of legendary black music (guest appearances from Ronald Isley, George Clinton and Tupac Shakur, and samples from Sufjan Stevens and Fela Kuti amid the bursts of jazz playing from Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper). By contrast, its successor is less than half as long, arrives in a plain sleeve with its tracks unnamed, save for a series of mysterious dates that may allude to when the tracks were written or recorded, or the incidents that inspired the lyrics took place, or indeed neither of those things. It appears to suggest it’s unfinished and no credits – a state of affairs that’s enabled producer Swizz Beatz to claim that his five-year-old son produced the penultimate track. In fact, the latter isn’t an entirely ridiculous suggestion: the second half of 2014-2016, as we’re going to have to call it, appears to consist of a rough lo-fi recording – it might be of a rehearsal or a songwriting session, but it sounds like Lamar trying to amuse his mates with the aid of a bass guitar riff, endlessly harping on a pun about oral sex that also turns up in 08/14/2014 – might conceivably have been captured by a child inadvertently pressing record. This gives the impression of an artist keen to deflate the kind of expectations heaped upon him since To Pimp a Butterfly’s release. Lamar finds himself pressured to push artistic boundaries while selling millions of copies and acting as hip-hop’s political conscience, or, as he puts it on Untitled Unmastered’s opening track, “to use my vocals to save mankind for youâ€\x9d. Or perhaps Lamar, who is clearly intelligent and empathetic, has noted that we live in a grim world of instant reactions and first-listen reviews and decided to throw critics a bone, knocking out something straightforward and throwaway that can neatly be summarised after a few cursory spins. Or, as a few cursory spins reveals, perhaps not. In the opening eight minutes alone you get a burst of Isaac Hayes-ish pillow talk (disturbingly directed at someone the protagonist calls “little lambâ€\x9d), some distinctly free playing on sax and piano, a concentrated burst of brilliantly turned apocalyptic imagery, a scattering of off-key, arrhythmic samples, ruminations on the pressures and pleasures of fame, along with thought about racism, the Catholic church sex abuse scandal and what position Lamar likes to have sex in. You get a gentle musical coda that seems completely unconnected to the track that precedes it, lyrics that switch dizzyingly between narrators and a light sprinkling of the kind of high, wailing synth sounds that decorate Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine and dozens of g-funk tracks. From dense lyrics, complex and often wilfully uncommercial music, to the influence of jazz, social comment rubbing against personal angst and references to 70s soul, Untitled Unmastered is obviously intent on continuing down the path of To Pimp a Butterfly, for better or for worse. On the plus side, you’re continually struck by a thrilling sense of freewheeling, unfettered musical inventiveness. If you were looking to find fault, you might note that an artist who devotes four minutes of a 34-minute-long album to a rough recording of a loose rehearsal jam is not someone much abashed by accusations of self-indulgence. If it occasionally sounds less bleak and chaotic than its predecessor, less eager to short circuit anything resembling a melodic hook with a deliberately jarring musical shift – 09/21/2014 and 06/30/2014 are beautiful pieces of music, the former woozily gorgeous, with a heavy-lidded female vocal; the latter boasting a guest appearance from CeeLo Green over a Latin rhythm and strings. There are moments when the album is overwhelmed by claustrophobia and paranoia, not least 08/14/2014’s unsettling melange of sparsely accompanied soul vocals, frantic whispering and dark lyrics. 06/30/2014’s sweet thumbs up for misfits, meanwhile, proves to be a solitary sliver of hope. Elsewhere, Lamar’s commercial success is tempered by the belief that the music industry treats black artists like slaves, while his Christianity is undermined by the feeling that organised religion is corrupt, and the problems facing the US are nothing compared to the horrors lurking in the world elsewhere: the album concludes with Lamar being ticked off for moaning by a Cape Town native, who offers the old “tsk, first world problemsâ€\x9d response over a slinky piece of synthesised funk, informing him: “Your projects ain’t shit, I grew up in a hut, bitchâ€\x9d. When Lamar performed the track now known as 05/28/2013 on The Colbert Report at the end of 2014, it came complete with a defiant coda not a million miles removed from the chorus of To Pimp a Butterfly’s Alright that was later adopted as chant by Black Lives Matter activists: tellingly, its optimism has vanished from the version here. Quite what Untitled Unmastered is supposed to be is an intriguing point. You could argue that it seems like an addendum to To Pimp a Butterfly, in that initial impressions suggest pretty much anything here could sit comfortably on that album: it doesn’t feel like the radical departure that its predecessor did from 2012’s Good Kid, MADD City. Equally, the fact that pretty much anything on it could sit comfortably on that record tells you something about the quality of what’s here. Cheeringly, it doesn’t sound like music made by someone buckling under the weight of expectations that follow such a vast critical and commercial successs. Instead, it sounds like the work of someone who’s in it for the long haul.",
 'Instagram blocks links to Snapchat and Telegram Facebook doesn’t often give the impression of being scared of anything, but it looks like the social network is a bit concerned about the potential for competition from Snapchat and Telegram. The two social networks have found themselves blacklisted from Facebook’s Instagram service, just weeks after Telegram also reported minor censorship among users of Facebook’s WhatsApp messenger. Instagram users who try to set their profile URL to link to either a Telegram or Snapchat page find themselves warned instead that “Links asking someone to add you on another service aren’t supported on Instagramâ€\x9d. The issue was highlighted by Telegram and its founder Pavel Durov: Telegram also highlighted another issue, on WhatsApp, which prevented links to its own service from showing up as clickable. Users are even prevented from cutting and pasting a link to Telegram or its profile pages. Facebook says: “We’ve removed the ability to include ‘add me’ links on Instagram profile pages. This was a rare use-case, and not the way our platform was intended to be used. Other types of links are still allowed.â€\x9d In other words, the links to Telegram and Snapchat that are blocked are more single-purpose than most other networks, focused largely on adding new contacts. It’s not possible, for instance, to link to a particular post, or to view a history of previous posts, through those links. The story is reminiscent of troubles Instagram went through when it was a small network itself. In 2012, Twitter unilaterally blocked Instagram from using the “find friendsâ€\x9d feature on its API. The company had been concerned that users were simply exporting their following lists to Instagram, and tried to stem the exodus. In the end, Twitter was right to be concerned: Instagram is now the larger social network, with 400 million monthly active users compared to Twitter’s 320 million. So its no surprise that Instagram now wants to stop users adding each other on cooler, smaller and younger social networks in turn. But as Twitter’s experience shows, it’s hard to keep the floodgates shut forever.',
 'Leonardo DiCaprio given rival invitations to visit Great Barrier Reef Scientists and tour operators on the Great Barrier Reef have extended a “non-politicalâ€\x9d offer to show Leonardo DiCaprio the impacts of coral bleaching, after the Queensland government responded to the actor’s comments on bleaching by inviting him to visit the reef. Dean Miller, a marine biologist and science director of the non-profit group Great Barrier Reef Legacy, said he wanted to say to DiCaprio: “We would like to take you to the Great Barrier Reef and show you firsthand what we see, no political or media spin, just the facts from the scientists themselves to show you what is really happening here.â€\x9d At the US State Department’s Our Ocean conference in Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio made an impassioned plea for policymakers to save coral reefs by addressing climate change. He highlighted recent bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. “This year, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered what is thought to be the largest bleaching event ever recorded,â€\x9d he told the meeting, after being introduced by the secretary of state, John Kerry. “Over 600 miles of reef previously teeming with life is devastated. We are seeing this level of impact to coral reefs around the world from Hawaii to the Florida Keys, from Madagascar to Indonesia.â€\x9d He said what he saw in other reefs around the world took his breath away: “Not a fish in site, colourless, ghost-like coral, a complete graveyard.â€\x9d In response, Queensland’s deputy premier, Jackie Trad, invited DiCaprio to come and see the reef for himself. “He can come any time he likes, he’s absolutely welcome to come to Australia, to come to Queensland and to come to the Great Barrier Reef,â€\x9d she said in Brisbane. In response, Great Barrier Reef Legacy – a non-profit organisation of scientists, tourism operators, filmmakers, educators and conservationists – made its own offer. “All of us at the GBR Legacy live and breath the Great Barrier Reef every single day and are seeing firsthand the damage that climate change is doing here,â€\x9d said Miller, who is also a documentary filmmaker. John Rumney, a veteran tourism operator on the reef and the managing director of GBR Legacy, said he wanted to take DiCaprio out to see the reef’s largest single coral colony – a 1,000 to 2,000-year-old boulder coral he said was called “the monolithâ€\x9d. “If Leonardo can see the current health of the Great Barrier Reef for himself, especially the largest and possibly the oldest coral colony here on the reef, he will be as shocked as we all are,â€\x9d Rumney said. “Rather than being ushered and controlled by a government agency that has demonstrated it will do anything to put a spin in their favour, the reef needs to be first.â€\x9d It wasn’t clear how serious the government’s offer to DiCaprio was but GBR Legacy’s offer is backed by Aroona Luxury Charters, which said it would put up $54,000 to fund DiCaprio’s trip. He could dive the reef from its luxury ecotourism boat, said Ross Miller, Aroona’s captain and manager. “If Leonardo can assist in any way, then we would be honoured to take him to the reef on a week-long expedition into the northern and more remote sections to show him why the reef is so special to us all, and why we need act now,â€\x9d Ross Miller said. He said the boat could offer a more remote and adventurous tour than others that were available. The Great Barrier Reef was hit hard by the global coral bleaching event this year. With a strong El Niño adding to global warming, reefs around the world turned white and died. On the Great Barrier Reef, 93% of reefs were affected by bleaching and almost a quarter of the coral is thought to have died. GBR Legacy is hoping to soon launch the first “independentâ€\x9d privately funded research vessel on the reef, which would offer free space to scientists, students and media, Dean Miller said. “We are opening our arms and our doors to anyone on the planet that can help us overcome the great barriers to save our reefs and Leonardo DiCaprio is most certainly someone who can help us make significant and positive changes for the future health of the Great barrier Reef.â€\x9d Postscript: After this article was first published, Indigenous traditional land owners in north Queensland, the Yidindji nation, also extended an invite to DiCaprio. Yidindji foreign minister, Murrumu Walubara Yidindji, said on Twitter that his government was “more than happyâ€\x9d to give DiCaprio “a unique perspectiveâ€\x9d on the Great Barrier Reef.',
 'Deutsche Bank swings to profit despite anxiety over mis-selling scandal Deutsche Bank surprised investors by reporting a profit for the third quarter of the year, as its chief executive admitted the huge settlement it faces from American authorities for a decade-old mis-selling scandal was having “an unsettling effectâ€\x9d. Germany’s biggest bank has been rocked by reports that the US Department of Justice might demand as much as $14bn to settle the long-running dispute over the way it sold residential mortgage backed securities before the 2008 banking crisis. Announcing profits of €619m, the chief executive, John Cryan, said: “The results for the quarter demonstrate well the strengths of our operating businesses and the outstanding work of our people. We continued to make good progress on restructuring the bank. “However, in the past several weeks these positive developments were overshadowed by the attention around our negotiations concerning the residential mortgage backed securities matter in the United States. This had an unsettling effect. The bank is working hard on achieving a resolution of this issue as soon as possible.â€\x9d He warned staff in a memo that “the situation will remain tough for some time to comeâ€\x9d. Revenues were depressed and there were some outflows, the bank acknowledged, as a result of anxiety about its ability to pay the penalty. The bank’s liquid assets – ones it can use quickly to pay demands for cash – fell €23bn to €200bn between the end of June and the end of September. But Marcus Schenck, the finance director, said this had now stabilised. Cryan has made clear that Deutsche – which employs around 8,000 people in the UK – does not expect the final bill to be as high as $14bn and has dismissed reports that the bank has called on the German government for help. Deutsche’s shares plunged last month to levels they last traded at in the 1980s, slipping through €10, and the bank acknowledged that the anxiety about the DoJ settlement had knocked its business. On Thursday its shares were trading at around €13. A year ago they were at €27. Cryan told analysts that reaching a deal with the DoJ and handling other litigation was his “top priorityâ€\x9d but the timing is not under his control. He admitted the ongoing talks were creating uncertainty: “Uncertainty that affects the market’s view of Deutsche Bank as an investment, uncertainty that affected some clients’ view of Deutsche Bank as a counterparty and uncertainty that even affects our financial planning and strategy execution.â€\x9d Cryan, a Briton who has been at the helm of Germany’s biggest bank since last year, said he was personally spending time with clients and attempting to “dispel some of the more lurid mythsâ€\x9d about the bank. “We know that when our name is in the headlines for the wrong reasons, our phone doesn’t ring as frequently,â€\x9d said Cryan, who dismissed suggestions that investors were questioning his strategy for the bank. The sale of Postbank – Deutsche’s high street operation – would not be rushed, he said, until an attractive offer was received. Cryan said he wanted to keep the asset management arm, which is currently being reviewed and is often regarded as a possible business for Deutsche to sell, as an integral part of the group. The profits were a dramatic improvement on the same period last year when Deutsche made a €6bn loss. For the nine-month period, a loss of €3bn has been reversed to a €1.6bn profit. Schenck said a decision had not been made on how bonuses would be paid to staff, but indicated that less would be paid out in cash and more in shares. “In what form variable compensation will be paid is not yet decided. Given the situation of the bank and the profitability situation … having more tied towards the share price development in the future seems to make sense,â€\x9d said Schenck.',
 'Saving a new mother from death almost made me quit as a nurse Sometimes women bleed after having a baby, I was told in my orientation sessions. Some blood loss is normal, they said, but may require quick action and medication. Sometimes it’s predictable, like with fast or long labours when the uterus gets overworked. At its worst, it can be like someone forgetting to turn off the garden hose. They were right. It was the end of a 12-hour night shift. Although I had more than five years experience as a nurse, I had only worked in labour and delivery for a year, just long enough to know I had a lot to learn. I crept back into the quiet, dark delivery room after my break. My patient’s epidural was effective and she was sleeping through her contractions while her husband napped in the corner. I realised that the induced contractions on the monitor were coming too fast. This can either cause stress for the baby or tire out a uterus. In this case, the baby was fine but mum’s uterus was getting tired. The baby’s heart rate looked good on the monitor and things progressed quickly. The family doctor, who rarely did deliveries any more, flew in just in time to catch the baby. One more minute and I would have delivered her. Then the steady pour began. Big baby, third baby, fast labour, too many contractions – a lethal combination. Like a runner at the end of a sprint, the mother’s uterus just gave up. The room filled with doctors. I was part of the resuscitation team. We started IVs, hung blood, gave medication. A senior nurse came in to assist. My natural inclination was to turn it over to her experienced hand, but she said: “You’ve got this, I’m here if you need me.â€\x9d I have never felt so empowered. All my worries that I would freeze under stress were eradicated. The adrenalin was like a camera focusing a lens. I knew what to do, and how to do it. I watched as the colour drained from the patient’s face and she began to lose consciousness. When I readied her for the operating room, I realised if she died, the last thing she would have seen was my face as I took her healthy baby out of her arms to be fed by another nurse. After documenting everything in a record to show we had done what we could, I stopped in the car park to dry heave. The superwoman feeling was gone, exhaustion and shock in its place. Then the dread set in. I realised I could do this, but did I want to? I was scared that the next time my patient might not live. I knew all nurses have the potential to lose a patient but in that moment, it became real to me. I could be the difference between life and death. I had a scheduled week off and the further away from the situation I got, the more I didn’t think I could return. I spent the days at home with my family and began to doubt my abilities. I had called to find out that, although the patient had lost her uterus, we had saved her life. In the end, practicality won out. If I didn’t go back what would I do? I have children to feed and a mortgage to pay. I didn’t see an alternative but to face my fear head on. My heart rate increased when I received my next assignment. My patient was having her fourth baby; it was big and she had a history of bleeding heavily after delivery. All the things that put her at risk of bleeding again. Checking the board, I realised the same obstetrician was also on duty. The patient had a challenging delivery and in the end she did bleed, but I was ready for it. I massaged her uterus and gave the drugs I had the week before. This time, they worked and the bleeding stopped. Somehow, the universe knew this repeat haemorrhage was exactly what I needed. I chose to believe the voices in my head saying I couldn’t handle this job were wrong. The second haemorrhage wasn’t as bad as the first, but the feeling of panic was gone. Despite hoping mums don’t haemorrhage, I realised that it is a privilege to be a nurse with the skills, the medication, and the team to treat them if they do. Postpartum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. I didn’t have to watch in desperation as my patients bled to death like so many nurses and midwives do. I live in a country where I have the privilege of being part of a team that has the resources to fight back. Without doing what I do, in a different place or time, these patients wouldn’t survive. Here, in Canada, I have the chance to save them. If you would like to write a piece for Blood, sweat and tears, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'Wells Fargo eliminates sales quotas after unauthorized accounts scandal Wells Fargo will eliminate sales goals for all of its retail banking products by January, the bank announced on Tuesday. The decision comes less than a week after the largest US bank reached a deal with regulators and agreed to pay $185m in penalties for its illegal sales practices. More than 5,000 employees were fired by Wells Fargo after an investigation revealed that they were opening deposit and credit card accounts without permission from its customers in order to meet sales quotas enforced by the bank. According to regulators, as many as 1.5m deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts could have been opened without customers’ consent. “We are doing this because we want our customer to have full confidence that we are focused on their best interests. We deeply regret what happened and we are committed to making it right,â€\x9d Richele J Messick, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, said in an email. As part of the settlement, Wells Fargo agreed to hire a consultant to review its sales practices and refund the fees paid by consumers on the accounts that were opened without their permission. So far, customers have been refunded $2.6m in unwarranted fees. According to the bank, “accounts refunded represented a fraction of 1% of the accounts reviewed, and refunds averaged $25â€\x9d. The issue of unauthorized duplicate accounts was first reported by the Los Angeles Times in 2013. At that time, a personal banker working at Wells Fargo was expected to sell 20 products a day. “I am not sure how that’s possible within an eight-hour day of work. Pretty much every customer takes an hour,â€\x9d Khalid Taha, a former Wells Fargo employee, told the in 2015. “[In 2014], the sales goal dropped to 15 products a day, which is still unreasonable. You don’t sell more than a product per customer. You can, but it’s not that easy. And most of our customers are current customers. They already have several products.â€\x9d Some employees – including Taha – have previously attempted to draw attention to the issue by staging a protest in front of the bank’s headquarters in Minneapolis. About 5,300 employees were fired over a five-year period. Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which levied a $100m penalty on Wells Fargo, said it was not a coincidence that so many employees were involved. “It’s a systemic breakdown,â€\x9d he said in an interview with CNBC. “Obviously employees were sharing information with one another. They were doing things together. And 5,300 or more of them have now been fired. That was a huge problem. It should not occur at any bank. And it should not have occurred at Wells Fargo.â€\x9d Cordray pointed out that this is the largest penalty levied by CFPB so far. He added that while there is no indication that this is happening at other banks, all banks with incentive programs should monitor them closely. The Wells Fargo settlement is a “loud and serious warningâ€\x9d to other banks, he said. In a statement announcing the elimination of sales quotas, Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf noted that the bank has strengthened its “control and oversightâ€\x9d over the past several years. “The elimination of product sales goals represents another step to reinforce our service culture, helps ensure that nothing gets in the way of our ability to achieve our mission, and is consistent with our commitment to providing a great place to work,â€\x9d said Stumpf.',
 'Tom Hiddleston: five best moments Marvel supervillian, accomplished thespian, internet catnip … Tom Hiddleston’s swift and varied career has already seen him collect both MTV and Olivier awards. As he continues to impress on the small screen in BBC thriller The Night Manager, and before he continues to cement his blockbuster credentials with roles in franchises Kong: Skull Island and Thor: Ragnarok, he’s front and centre of Ben Wheatley’s divisive new JG Ballard adaptation, High-Rise. In it, he plays a doctor who moves into a socially segregated tower block that descends into chaos. Here are his career highlights so far: Unrelated Hiddleston found an early collaborator of some measure in writer-director Joanna Hogg, whose naturalistic work brought out the best of his under-utilised ability to play, you know, regular folk. As the arrogant son of the family whose Italian holiday is startled by a troubled guest, he gives a confident performance that doesn’t betray his relative inexperience. Archipelago Hiddleston reunited with Hogg for her next film, another tale of a family struggling while on holiday together. Again he plays the son, but this time he’s undergoing something of a quarter-life crisis and offers up an impressive performance that rings true in in an entirely different way. He worked with Hogg once more in 2013’s Exhibition and one hopes they collaborate again in future. The Deep Blue Sea While Rachel Weisz generated a deserved Oscar buzz for her devastating turn as a woman debating suicide while reliving a doomed affair, Hiddleston’s equally impressive performance went rather overlooked. His rakish, temperamental cad was simultaneously charming and odious, perfectly encapsulating a lover who always seems just slightly out of reach. The Avengers Marvel’s reinvention of the superhero genre has been largely successful, offering up wit and vibrancy alongside the usual spectacle, but one common complaint is a lack of nasty or interesting villains. The one major exception has been Thor’s insidious wronged brother Loki, a character which, in the hands of a broader actor, could have been played for ham. Thanks to Hiddleston, he’s a compellingly evil presence. Only Lovers Left Alive Pairing Hiddleston with Tilda Swinton in a tale of centuries old vampires is one of the smartest ideas that Jim Jarmusch (or any director) has ever had. They’re a transfixing pair, each dealing with their immortality differently and Hiddleston’s gothic turn is better than his later work in Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak.',
 'Every tobacco death is an avoidable tragedy. The epidemic must stop here Tobacco use, the leading cause of death from non-communicable diseases such as heart and lung disorders and cancer, claims about 6m lives a year. On Monday, countries will gather in Delhi, India, for the seventh conference of the parties to the World Health Organisation framework convention on tobacco control, a treaty that has sparked global action to stem the epidemic. The treaty is already one of the most widely embraced in UN history. One of my proudest accomplishments at the helm of the World Health Organisation has been rallying global efforts to drive down tobacco use. I’m pleased to say that, following the adoption of the agreement, governments around the world have taken decisive steps not only to reduce tobacco use, but also to stand up to the multinational tobacco companies standing in the way of global progress. The tide of tobacco use is beginning to turn. After decades of Big Tobacco targeting low- and middle-income countries and years of steadily increasing sales, tobacco sales show signs of dropping. Countries are passing stronger laws to reduce demand for tobacco products not envisioned even a few years ago, and tobacco companies are losing the legal challenges they mount against these measures. From Uruguay to Australia, countries large and small have stood up to the tobacco industry by implementing plain packaging and large pictorial health warning labels. Where tobacco companies have tried to threaten and bully nations, governments have responded with firm measures to protect public health. However, amid these clear signs of progress, the tobacco industry has made it absolutely clear that it has no intention of abandoning a business model that depends on enticing millions of new users – especially young people – to its deadly products. The impetus of the global movement to reduce tobacco use should not be lost. More than ever, decisive action is needed. Now is the time for countries to build on the momentum established and protect their citizens. By raising tax on tobacco products, requiring graphic warning labels, conducting hard hitting mass media campaigns and banning tobacco industry advertising and marketing, countries can improve the health of their citizens, reduce healthcare costs and prevent the tobacco industry from addicting another generation of children. Illicit trade in tobacco threatens the progress governments make in tobacco control by making cheap and unregulated products available. I am pleased to note that governments are increasingly taking action and becoming parties to the new international treaty to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products. We need to work together, as allies in global health, to fight to protect people from the dangers of tobacco. I recently appointed Michael Bloomberg as WHO global ambassador for non-communicable diseases because of his track record in tobacco control, which includes more than 10 years of support for low- and middle-income countries. Advocates like him, and many others who champion tobacco control, stand with the WHO to support governments in this fight. I am also heartened by progress on standardised or “plainâ€\x9d packaging – a measure introduced by the treaty and pioneered in Australia, where smoking rates have now fallen to record lows. The early evidence from Australia shows that plain packaging, as part of a comprehensive approach to tobacco control, is diminishing the appeal of tobacco products, increasing the effectiveness of health warnings and reducing the ability of the pack to mislead. France and the UK have begun implementing plain packaging laws, and New Zealand and Hungary have recently passed legislation. Many other countries are close behind. We have made great strides, but we have so much more to do. Tobacco use remains one of the most vexing challenges we face in the global health arena. I urge global leaders convening in India to see this moment as an opportunity to bend the course of public health history and commit to returning home with a renewed dedication to fully implement the WHO framework convention. To make the event effective, it is vital that governments recognise the inherent conflict between public health and the interests of the tobacco industry. Representatives from the latter should be completely excluded from government delegations. Every death from tobacco is an avoidable tragedy. It is our task to reverse the tide, effecting an irreversible decline in the number of such deaths. We need history to show us that the turning point in the tobacco epidemic is now. We know what to do and we know how to do it. We now need to ensure that every country moves forward and no one is left behind. Future generations depend on us.',
 'Who should be the next Metropolitan police commissioner? Another day another departure. If it’s not a prime minister, a party leader or a national football manager, it’s a police chief. The news that Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will be leaving his job as commissioner of the Metropolitan police is just the latest indication that it’s tougher at the top these days than in the gentler times when senior coppers slipped quietly away after a jolly retirement party at Scotland Yard. Sir Bernard took on the job five years ago in the wake of the departure, in quick succession, of Ian Blair and Paul Stephenson, the former destabilised by the then mayor, Boris Johnson, the latter in the wake of what was deemed to be a poor police response to the hacking scandals exposed by the . To that extent he has at least lasted the course and will doubtless soon be able to find himself a comfortable home in the security industry, away from the daily crises that come with his current post. So who should replace him? The betting at the moment seems to be on there being, for the first time, a woman as commissioner. Various names have been mentioned, from the much admired Sara Thornton to – despite denials – Lynne Owens and Cressida Dick, although the latter is no longer a police officer. A female prime minister and a female home secretary may well feel that it is about time that the capital city followed the examples set successfully over the last decade by provincial forces and appointed a woman to the helm. Whoever it may be should start by repairing relations with the media, whose cooperation is vital to the Met’s work. In 2012, Hogan-Howe famously embraced the controversial report into relations between the police and the media commissioned by the then home secretary, Theresa May, and headed by Dame Elizabeth Filkin. “There should be no more secret conversations,â€\x9d said Sir Bernard at the time of the Filkin report’s publication, agreeing that too many detectives were too chummy with the press. “There should be no more improper contact and by that what I mean is between the police and the media – that which is of a selfish, rather than a public interest. Meetings will no longer be enhanced by hospitality and alcohol.â€\x9d Ah, those secret conversations – by which he meant that detectives should not be having chats with crime correspondents without having a press officer present and certainly should not be popping down to the pub with a reporter after a day at the Yard. While previous commissioners had briefed crime correspondents on a more or less regular monthly basis, Sir Bernard ended the practice and made clear his distaste for much of what the media got up to. As a result, relations with the media in this post-Leveson world have rarely been chillier. The new commissioner will have to make it clear that she – or he – is prepared to open the doors again in the way that Sir Robert Mark did so successfully back in the 1970s. They could do worse than to repeat Sir Robert’s credo: “Officers who speak in good faith may be assured of my support even if they make errors of judgment when deciding what information to disclose.â€\x9d To his credit, however, last year Sir Bernard did allow the BBC’s cameras to follow his officers in the series, The Met: Policing London. In doing so, he said that he was weary of the standard type of programme – “cops banging in doors, charging around with their blue lights on, a macho commentary … they are short on the informative sideâ€\x9d. As a way of showing the difficulties of the job and the dangers faced by officers, the series was widely regarded as a success, so his risk was justified and should be repeated by the next office-holder. The new person will also need to be someone who can win the confidence both of the home secretary, Amber Rudd, and, more importantly, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is fresh from his triumphs on the other side of the Atlantic. Did he pick up any policing ideas there? He would not be the first mayor to imagine that a savvy American police chief might be the best way to shake up the Yard, although such a scenario – flirted with in the past – seems unlikely today. Khan has already made it clear that he is his own man when it comes to decisions and he will doubtless want someone who reflects his view that the diversity of London requires a very special kind of sensitivity. No one who has watched the catastrophic breakdown in relations between the police and the public in too many big American cities will want to see the same kind of conflict repeated in London where our own riots are still fresh in the memory. The old-school crimes which a commissioner had to prioritise in the past – the bank robberies that occurred on an almost daily basis – are much less of an issue these days when so much more theft is carried out by cybercriminals. So the new chief will also have to be someone who is not overwhelmed by the rather prosaic and unspectacular nature of investigating such offences. And, of course, the top priority will be how the new person reacts when – not if – faced with their first major terror incident in the capital. Which is why the Met’s top counter-terrorism officer, Mark Rowley, is also now seen as a candidate. Anyway, the faint-hearted need not apply.',
 'Homebuyers wobble in wake of Brexit vote Homebuyers spooked by the UK’s decision to leave the EU are pulling out of deals or attempting to renegotiate prices, according to property professionals, as the housing market suffers Brexit vote aftershocks. One property developer in central London, which had offered a “Brexit clauseâ€\x9d allowing nervous buyers to pull out of deals in the event of a leave vote said it was allowing buyers to withdraw and keep their deposits. David Humbles, managing director of the luxury Two Fifty One development, said: “We can confirm that a few purchasers have decided not to proceed given the uncertainty of the market. However, the majority are continuing with their purchase and the marketing strategy to offer the pledge at the launch was a worthwhile exercise.â€\x9d Consulting group KPMG has forecast that prices could fall by 5% outside London, and more in the capital, while commentators said a slowdown in sales which started ahead of the referendum was likely to continue. Fearful of landing in immediate negative equity, some buyers have decided to put their purchases on ice. A buying agent who specialises in finding homes for the well-off said two clients had pulled out of deals as soon as the result was known, while another had reduced their offer. “I suspect that turnover will shrink and prices will fall – by 10% perhaps by Christmas,â€\x9d said Henry Pryor in a blog post. Pryor, who added that another client had exchanged contracts with a Brexit clause, meaning they could pull out if the UK voted to leave, but it was unclear whether they would invoke it. Andrew Montlake from mortgage broker Coreco said the firm had received “an initial flurry of calls from clients wondering if they should put things on iceâ€\x9d, and that a small number had decided to put purchases on hold. First-time buyer Josh Morris said he was considering pulling out of his purchase – a property in Liverpool which he put an offer on earlier this month. On Thursday Morris spent a long time on the phone to the mortgage broker, who arranged to call back at lunchtime on Friday to go through some details. Instead he called at 9.30am saying he should set the ball rolling but Morris said that he and his wife, a doctor, were now reconsidering. “If I buy and the value falls, as seems likely, I’m going to end up in negative equity and be stuck ... but if I pull out and wait is it going to get harder for me to get a mortgage?â€\x9d David Nesbit of Nesbits estate agency in Portsmouth said he knew of one sale locally, not through his agency, that had fallen through immediately after the exit result became apparent. “It was someone who was connected with the stockmarket and because of the drop in the market decided not to go ahead.â€\x9d He said that while there might be some short-term consolidation in prices – with ambitious sellers not obtaining prices they may have been expecting – a shortage of properties in the area would help stabilise the market. Other agents warn that Brexit may leave the property market moribund for months. Ian Denton, director of the Jackson-Stops agency in Woburn, Bedfordshire, said: “The usual summer lull may continue through to October while we wait to appoint a new prime minister. The appetite to buy may be less, with people sitting on the fence.â€\x9d However, some agents reported a pick-up in interest from buyers, saying the removal of uncertainty and the falling pound were both driving demand for property. Bidwells in Cambridge, a city which has seen some of the biggest UK prices hikes of recent years, said it had sold a large house on the edge of the city for £2.25m. The vendor had invited sealed bids, to delivered on the day the result was announced, and the winning bidder had offered more than the asking price. In Midhurst, West Sussex, agent Nick Ferrier of Jackson-Stops said it agreed a sale on a home valued at £5m on Friday morning immediately after the result became apparent. Viewing requests for other properties were still “very strongâ€\x9d, he added. In London’s ultra-prime market, some agents were almost jubilant, saying that the pound’s steep fall against the dollar would bring international buyers to London. Robin Paterson of Sotheby’s International Realty, which has a £22m Belgravia 7-bed home among the properties it is currently marketing, said: “The UK’s decision to leave the EU is an historic event and we should embrace this whole heartedly. This opens new opportunities for investment, we may have fewer European investors in the coming months but we believe there will be significant inward investment from Asia, as well as from the US. Buyers from these regions will undoubtedly be looking to snap up bricks and mortar in the UK with the predicted fall in sterling.â€\x9d In Chelsea, upmarket agency Hamptons said it had received a new bid on a property from a French buyer who was offering more because the exchange rate had moved in his favour. One market likely to see a boost is Scotland, with English buyers fleeing to a country aiming to remain in the EU. Rightmove, the property website, said that between 7am and 1pm on Friday, searches for Edinburgh homes were 250% up on the previous day. However, both Rightmove and Zoopla said it was too early to identify price movements in either the letting or purchase markets as a result of Brexit.',
 'Brain implant helps paralysed man regain partial control of his hand A 24-year-old man who was paralysed in an accident six years ago has regained some control of his hand using an implant that sends signals from his brain directly to the muscles that move his wrist and fingers. Known as a neural bypass, the implant allows Ian Burkhart to swipe a credit card, play the video game, Guitar Hero, and perform actions such as picking up a bottle and pouring the contents, holding a phone to his ear, and stirring a cup. He is the first person to benefit from the technology. Burkhart, from Dublin, Ohio, was on a beach holiday to celebrate the end of his first year in college when he dived into a wave that dumped him onto a hidden sandbar. He was 19, extremely independent, and had never considered that such an accident might strike him down. The force of the impact snapped Burkhart’s neck at the C5 level. He could still move his arms to some extent, but his hands and legs were useless. Friends pulled him out of the water and raised the alarm. By chance, an off-duty fireman was on the beach and called paramedics. Burkhart had therapy for the injury with a team of doctors at Ohio State University. From the start, he was hopeful that advances in medical technology would improve his quality of life. He told the team he was interested in research and willing to take part in trials of new technologies. The Ohio researchers got their hands on a neural bypass developed by a charity called Battelle and offered Burkhart the chance to have the implant fitted. “That was the million dollar question: do you want to have brain surgery or something that may not benefit you. There are a lot of risks,â€\x9d said Burkhart. “It was certainly something I had to consider for quite some time. But after a meeting with all the team and everyone involved, I knew I was in good hands.â€\x9d He went ahead and surgeons duly fitted a tiny computer chip into the motor cortex of his brain. Here, the chip picked up electrical signals from the part of the motor cortex that controls hand movements. The fuzz of brain activity is fed into a computer and converted into electrical pulses that bypass the injured spinal cord and connect to a sleeve that Burkhart wears on his forearm. From there, 130 electrodes send the pulses through the skin to the muscles beneath, where they control wrist and even separate finger movements. The patterns of the signals are tuned to produce the movements Burkhart thinks about making. It took time to learn how to use the device. Over 15 months, Burkhart spent up to three sessions a week learning how to control his hand movements. “Initially we’d do a short session and I’d feel mentally fatigued and exhausted, like I’d been in a six or seven hour exam. For 19 years of my life I took it for granted: I think and my fingers move. But with more and more practise it became much easier. It’s second nature.â€\x9d “The first time I moved my hand, I had that flicker of hope knowing that this is something that’s working, I will be able to use my hand again. Right now, it’s only in a clinical setting, but with enough people working on it, and enough attention, it can be something I can use outside of the hospital, at my home and outside my home, and really improve the quality of my life,â€\x9d he said. Burkhart performed the first movements using thoughts alone in 2014, but has since learned more complex actions and more precise control over his hand and fingers. Details of the latest results are published in Nature. “It was an amazing moment for the team,â€\x9d said Ali Rezai, a neurosurgeon at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, recalling Burkhart’s first hand movements. But at the time, his control allowed for only basic movements. “A few seconds after the amazement, we said OK, we have much more work to do here.â€\x9d The team set to work on turning the rough movements into precise, useful actions. Chad Bouton, who helped create the device, said the study marked the first time a person living with paralysis had regained movement using signals recorded from within the brain. “We think this is an important result as we try and pave the way for other patients in the future, not only those with spinal injuries, but also those that have experienced a stroke, and potentially even traumatic brain injury,â€\x9d he said. “We were not sure if this would be possible,â€\x9d Bouton added. “Not only were we able to find those signals in the brain and decipher them for individual finger movements, but we were able to link those signals to Ian’s muscles and allow that kind of movement to be regained. This is important for daily activities, such as feeding, and having the patient be able to clothe themselves.â€\x9d The researchers are now looking at a host of improvements that should make the system more portable and possible to use outside the hospital. Brain signals picked up by the implant could potentially be sent wirelessly to the computer for processing, and onwards to the forearm sleeve to stimulate the muscles. Another improvement could see more electrodes added to the brain chip, so more subtle signals can be detected and passed on to the patient’s muscles. “Ten years ago we couldn’t do this. Imagine what we can do in another 10,â€\x9d said Rezai. Nick Annetta, an electrical engineer on the team, said the team was working to make the system smaller and useful for a broader range of patients. “This could be applied to other motor impairments, not just spinal cord injuries,â€\x9d he said. “We think this is just the beginning.â€\x9d',
 'From Game of Thrones to Star Wars: the casting boss behind TV and movie hits Game of Thrones fans are hoping to find out on Monday whether Jon Snow is really dead. Nina Gold, keeper of some of the most valuable secrets in showbusiness, already knows. The casting director on Game of Thrones, Star Wars and Wolf Hall, Gold is the unseen force behind a string of hit TV shows and films. Casting directors are among the most powerful figures in TV and film, able to make or break careers, but their world remains a secretive one (albeit not quite as closed as the Faith Militant). Everyone knows what directors do, most people know what producers do, but how casting directors operate is a little more opaque. “It’s a bit of a mystery to me,â€\x9d laughs Gold. “It’s quite an ineffable sort of thing. It’s a lot about instinct and feeling, combined with analysis of people’s qualities and essences, and somehow marrying them up with the needs of the character.â€\x9d Bafta will attempt to put that right on Sunday when Gold becomes the first casting director to receive one of its special prizes at the academy’s TV craft awards. It recognises Gold’s involvement in an extraordinary number of hits in film (The Imitation Game, The Martian, The Theory of Everything) and on TV (London Spy, The Fall, Netflix’s forthcoming royal epic, The Crown). The role is rarely recognised in TV or film awards on either side of the Atlantic. “It’s incredibly unfair isn’t it?â€\x9d she says. “It’s the undefinable nature of what one is doing that is the problem, I guess.â€\x9d It was Gold who made household names out of John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, the young stars who play Finn and Ray in JJ Abrams’s Star Wars sequel, The Force Awakens. Gold will cast the young Han Solo in the spinoff origin film (will it be Taron Egerton? “I don’t think we have a new Han Solo yet. Not todayâ€\x9d) and knows what really happens to Jon Snow. Wasn’t Kit Harington’s long hair a dead giveaway? “It could just be for Doctor Faustus [in which Harington is starring on the London stage],â€\x9d says Gold. “He could be back in it with no hair. Anything could happen.â€\x9d She is “incredibly proudâ€\x9d of Boyega and his co-star Ridley. “Boy did they rise to the occasion,â€\x9d she says. “It’s an incredible achievement for two young actors to get into it and just own it the way they did.â€\x9d Gold says it was a “pinch yourselfâ€\x9d moment to be involved in the rebooted sci-fi saga, and happened to first meet Abrams on Star Wars Day (4 May). “It was all completely great and amazing,â€\x9d she adds. She also cast the first ever female villain in the Star Wars franchise, with Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones’ Brienne of Tarth) as chrome-clad stormtrooper Captain Phasma in the new film. Asked if when she cast Christie she was making a statement about gender bias in TV and film, Gold says: “To be honest that wasn’t a moment … we were just trying to think of somebody who would be good in the part. “I think everyone had assumed it would be a man and we suddenly thought Gwendoline would be great and she was. They were completely open to it and hopefully it will go further. “There are some instances when you say, ‘why does this character have to be a man?’, and if there’s not a really good reason then one should try to keep an open mind,â€\x9d she adds. “You can’t always get people to take you up on it.â€\x9d Diversity, or rather the lack of it, has increasingly become a focus of industry attention, not least the number of high profile roles going to public school-educated stars such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Damian Lewis. Gold has cast all three of them, in The Imitation Game, Theory of Everything and Wolf Hall respectively. “These things go in little phases, probably. On British TV we have a lot of period stuff which brings questions of class into play,â€\x9d says Gold. “The top British male actors of today, Dominic West, Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch and Damian Lewis are all Eton or Harrow. But then you’ve also got Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender – not English but we want him to be – and James McAvoy, they’re not that and they are also right up there and incredibly brilliant. “A few years ago it was Gary Oldman and Tim Roth and those people. I don’t know if it’s as massively significant as it’s cracked up to be.â€\x9d Game of Thrones has also been criticised for its lack of diversity. “I think we have cast Game of Thrones in the way that is true to the source material,â€\x9d is Gold’s response. “The books are very detailed about each family and the way they look and their individual cultures and dynasties.â€\x9d On the broader issue of black, Asian and minority ethnic representation across the industry, Gold says: “There is still a lot to be done but I do think it is changing. It has to start with the writing, which is becoming more diverse and open to diverse casting. Things are shifting.â€\x9d Gold cast her first project at Cambridge University when she was asked to find a bunch of friends with leather jackets to star in an AC/DC video. “I thought ‘this is absolutely brilliant and what I want to do’, and one thing led to another,â€\x9d she recalls. “I didn’t really have any plans, I was very immature at the time. I still haven’t got any plans past the end of this conversation.â€\x9d She went on to become a regular collaborator with film and TV veteran Mike Leigh and King’s Speech director Tom Hooper. Wolf Hall leads the nominations for next month’s Bafta TV awards with four, including a best actor nod for its Oscar-winning star, Mark Rylance. But it took a while to convince the former Globe artistic director to come on board the BBC2 show co-starring Claire Foy and Damian Lewis, and directed by Peter Kosminsky. “We had been trying to get Mark Rylance to do it for about two years and eventually he said yes,â€\x9d Gold says. “He’s just incredibly busy and likes doing his theatre. These are big decisions and his life is booked up very far ahead.â€\x9d • Nina Gold will be with the Bafta special award at this year’s British Academy Television Craft Awards on Sunday at The Brewery, London',
 'Nine things we learned from the Republican debate in Miami The 12th Republican debate took place in Miami, Florida, on Thursday night. Here’s how it went down: It was a civil affair. Ted Cruz bopped Donald Trump a bit for giving money to Hillary Clinton. But gone were the peppery attacks of debates past. The debate was policy-heavy. Think trade, H1-B visas, social security, Common Core, the Islamic State, Israel, Tiananmen Square, climate change, Cuba policy, Iran, veterans affairs … Trump confirmed that former candidate Ben Carson would endorse him in the morning. Cruz and Marco Rubio distanced themselves from Trump on the question of assassinating the families of terrorism suspects, which Trump has proposed. The other two said they would not do that. “If we nominate Donald Trump, Hillary wins,â€\x9d Cruz said. Trump suggested Republican rules for awarding the nomination based on a majority of delegates should be jettisoned. “I think that whoever gets the most delegates should win,â€\x9d he said. Neither Rubio nor Ohio governor John Kasich would admit the extreme narrowness of his path to the nomination. “Math doesn’t tell the whole story in politics,â€\x9d Kasich said. Rubio dismissed a human role in climate change: “Sure, the climate is changing,â€\x9d he said. “There was never a time when the climate was not changing.â€\x9d Asked about violence at his rallies, Trump said he did not condone it, but his supporters “have anger that’s unbelievableâ€\x9d. “They love this country,â€\x9d he said. “They don’t like seeing bad trade deals.â€\x9d',
 'New band of the week: Whitney (No 90) Hometown: Chicago. The lineup: Julien Ehrlich (drums, vocals), Max Kakacek (guitar), Ziyad Asrar (keyboards), Will Miller (trumpet). The background: Look what just blew in from the windy city. Whitney, a new band comprising familiar faces: Max Kakacek, guitarist with Smith Westerns, a band once hailed round these parts for their glam influences and “sloppy precisionâ€\x9d; and Julien Ehrlich, former drummer with “lo-fi yet luxuriant psych-soulâ€\x9d crew Unknown Mortal Orchestra. There are other musicians involved, including Ziyad Asrar from an outfit called Touching Voids (no, us neither), and apparently Jonathan Rado of Foxygen has had some input. They’ve actually been recording as a six-piece – two guitars, bass, keys, horns and drums – for an album which could be out as early as spring 2016. But it’s mainly Uhrlich and Kakacek’s show. Which means plenty of the former’s sweet soul falsetto and lashings of the latter’s sun-dappled guitar. Not sure where they got the name, but it’s not la Houston or indeed US sitcom star Whitney Cummings. One story has it that it comes from Ehrlich’s first kiss, or even “an old-ass dude living aloneâ€\x9d they dreamed up: “Whitney’s not living well,â€\x9d they imagine. “He’s very sad and distraught, but he has good times, too.â€\x9d They mainly write about breakups, but there’s one song about Ehrlich’s late grandad. Demos were initially recorded in a Wisconsin cabin, to give them the quality of lost recordings: think Bon Iver, with elements of folk and country, only given a Chicago soul makeover. If Curtis Mayfield fronted a stoner-rock band ... While the music is buoyant, lyrically we’re in bummed-out territory. “The subject matter isn’t happy, but it sounds really happy,â€\x9d Ehrlich offers, helpfully. No Woman opens with Rhodes keyboards, some sad trumpet and a wistful voice that skirts the perimeters of folk, country and soul. “I’ve been going through a change,â€\x9d sings Ehrlich in his disarming high register, like Kurt Wagner of Lambchop after being kicked in the cojones, capturing the stunned disquiet of those first moments of readjustment after – to quote the great Chicago bluesmen Hall & Oates – She’s Gone. “It’s about losing the love of your life and being thrown into an aimless journey because of it,â€\x9d furthers Ehrlich, choking back tears (we made that last bit up for effect – he might have been laughing for all we know). No Matter Where We Go is light, lachrymal boogie: there is a brightness to this rock, a translucence, suggestive of transcendence. The video, tellingly, is very sunshine-y. Orange Juice sort of stumbled on this crushing blend 35 years ago, but that’s OK. Southern Nights is a cover of an old Allen Toussaint tune, and it augurs well for that debut album that it could be a Whitney original. We like the maximal use of “da-da-dasâ€\x9d and the way, at one point, the guitar approximates the poignant ping and twang of a koto. Soul-country boogie from Chicago via Japan? Why wouldn’t you want to witness that first-hand? Well, you can, in London, at the Moth Club on 18 February. Dress code: old-ass hermit. The buzz: “The best band you haven’t heard yet.â€\x9d The truth: Houston, we don’t have a problem. Most likely to: Appeal to 2 broke dudes. Least likely to: Drink orange juice. What to buy: No Woman and No Matter Where We Go are available on Secretly Canadian. File next to: Lambchop, Curtis Mayfield, Orange Juice, Bon Iver. Links: facebook.com/whitneychicago. Ones to watch: J F L E, Let’s Eat Grandma, White Wine, Nisennenmondai, Carrie Rodriguez.',
 "Corey Lewandowski may be off the hook. But he didn't win Well, he didn’t lose. The Palm Beach state attorney has declined to prosecute Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who manhandled Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields on 8 March, allegedly bruising her in the process, after she tried to ask Donald Trump a question about affirmative action. There are no winners here. Not Trump, nor his people, nor the conservative press. Trump didn’t win. The Lewandowski incident was a sideshow, the first that didn’t work on any level. Until this point, outrages have merely focused the 24-hour media’s free-advertising on the candidate and made him appear like some relatable low-level maverick. But Trump and his people played this one wrong. Lewandowski and Trump both denied that the alleged assault happened, in spite of video footage and a cluster of journalists around the incident. You can’t gaslight a videotape. Ordinarily, who are you going to trust – me, or your lyin’ eyes? is a decent tactic to use against journalists when it comes to the trivial stuff: foreign, tax, social and environmental policy. You can make up junk about those issues because Beltway reporters will find some thinktank “scienticianâ€\x9d to substantiate a claim that, say, sharks eat gorillas in the jungle. Hey, they objectively covered both sides of the issue; crisis averted. But, perhaps emboldened by the fact that his insults of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly didn’t hurt him at the time, the Trump camp forgot that the one injustice journalists will not accept is one committed against their own. Those are real injustices, not just abstract things that happen somewhere else. There are real victims involved. Trump’s security had already been goony enough to merit comment, but it was relegated to bellyaching on Twitter or vapid thinkpiece comparisons to Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, and in any case hostility for the press is a conservative staple. (And still many of Trump’s rallies passed without incident, akin to a baby boomer concert.) Trumpian gooniness was still more a thought exercise than an immediate problem involving meat and bone. Lewandowski didn’t win either. He’d always seemed like a chronically aggro used car salesman. Now he seemed like one who’d try to sell you a Chevrolet reclaimed from the bottom of one of the Great Lakes by unbuttoning his jacket and resting his hands on his hips to reveal the 9mm in his holster before saying: “Now, what is it gonna take to put you in this primer-gray 1984 Citation?â€\x9d Lewandowski is now reportedly being downgraded within the Trump campaign hierarchy after the candidate had to waste time deflecting ugly attention and changing his story. His role as Prime Meathead is now more liability than menace. Breitbart Media didn’t fare too well either. If anything, the incident exposed their slavish devotion to the Trump campaign. Despite a founding legacy of lies and contempt, Trump put Breitbart Media in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether their candidate or their reporter was wrong. They chose the latter, because nothing adds dignity to drinking from the toilet like letting someone kick you in the rear-end while you do it. Underlying all this, of course, was the decades-long conservative escape-hatch excuse that the media lies about everything. What had once been a useful tool for wishing away anything inconveniently addressed by mainstream media – like recorded history – turned on its most frequent users. Breitbart was essentially forced to say: “Everyone in the media lies, including usâ€\x9d, while conservative journalism-ish outlets had to make the argument that everyone was lying but them. Ordinarily, this would make for some amusement for the mainstream media, but they didn’t win either. Years of quailing “gotta hear both sides!â€\x9d reporting created a space in which the Trump campaign and its adherents could claim that there was another side to a videotape of an assault. Every dead-soul ratings-humping segment on 24-hour media on which Trump was allowed to lie paved the way for this moment. Every gutless wad who decided that pushback with the truth was too much hassle or would lose viewers, every invertebrate meat sack who decided that every take deserved an audience and that facts could be counter-programmed sent us careening into this ditch. We’re in a place where Donald Trump and his feral bullet-headed stooge could claim something caught on tape didn’t happen because a lot of people decided a long time ago that objective reality is just the null outcome of two opinions colliding with each other mid-screen. The only person who won anything here was Michelle Fields, who, at the very least, won a moral victory. Too bad that, given the circumstances, she has very little reason to celebrate.",
 "Volkswagen's executive pay packages remain untroubled by emissions scandal If you think pay in top boardrooms in the UK has reached insane levels, try Germany, and specifically Volkswagen. After the huge emissions scandal, which could end up costing the firm a few tens of billions of dollars, the car maker’s supervisory board thought hard about pay and decided to carry on almost as if nothing had happened. Actually, that’s too generous. VW’s remuneration report reveals little evidence of any debate. The only glancing reference to the scandal is when the board says it accepted last week’s offer by management to withhold 30% of their performance-related pay. No explanation is offered for why 30% – and not 100% – was deemed appropriate. Add it all up and the VW board is barely less expensive than in 2014, when the company was still regarded as a beacon of engineering excellence. The 2015 tally was €63m; the previous year’s was €70m. Martin Winterkorn – the chief executive who resigned and thus “took responsibility for the irregularitiesâ€\x9d – got a €9.3m termination payment on top of a bonus-heavy €7.3m pay package. This is staggering when you remember that VW hasn’t even explained yet how 11m of its cars came to be fitted with cheat devices. The much-delayed report is still delayed. In the meantime, shareholders are offered morsels about “a group of persons whose identity is still being determinedâ€\x9d modifying software. Should the highly paid management have known what was under the bonnet? That crucial question is ignored. Even when the US clean transportation agency raised questions in May 2014 – more than a year before the scandal broke – VW reports that discrepancies were regarded as “a technical problem that did not basically differ from other everyday technical problems at an automotive companyâ€\x9d. Is that supposed to excuse inaction? Governance at public companies in the UK is riddled with complacency and conflicts of interest but it is hard to believe a FTSE 100 company, in similar circumstances, would get away with a remuneration report as supine as Volkswagen’s. Even some banking bosses were obliged to surrender their bonuses occasionally as their share prices crashed. At Volkswagen, it seems, restoring trust – the stock phrase that has trotted out since last September – means preserving boardroom pay. Weir Group’s gamble on remuneration fails to pay off What Volkswagen needs is some shareholders like Weir Group’s. A 72% vote against a pay policy sends a suitably robust message. This is a rare example of a board losing a binding vote on a forward-looking policy. Weirdly, however, it is possible to have an ounce of sympathy for Weir. Its pay committee seems to have recognised that standard long-term incentive plans, or LTIPs, often turn out to be farcical. They can end up rewarding mediocrity and rely heavily on chance factors, like competitors failing or the oil price rising. In place of an LTIP, Weir opted for “restricted stockâ€\x9d – essentially, just handing the executives a pile of shares and inviting them to maximise the value. It’s how the American companies do it, and Weir argued it hires a lot of Americans for its operations there. The problem with restricted stock, of course, is that they come with no performance conditions attached. The only safeguard against rewarding failure is the willingness of the pay committee to apply common sense. That ingredient seems to have enraged UK shareholders, who have sent a clear message that they do not want an import from the US. But what do they want? The Investment Association, representing £5.5tn of institutional money, wrote a blistering report last week saying the current approach to pay at UK listed companies is “not fit for purpose.â€\x9d It recommended a move away from “one-size fits allâ€\x9d thinking and even mentioned restricted stock for special cases. But the first company to try it has lost. The deep problems here are the sheer size of modern pay packages and the fact that nobody trusts remuneration committees to claw back awards. Weir won’t overcome those concerns in a hurry. It has landed itself in a fine mess – but it’s not entirely of its own making. No pot of gold in sight for RBS’s Project Rainbow branch sell-off Royal Bank of Scotland was asking for trouble when it used the name Project Rainbow to describe the plan to sell 300 branches under the orders of the European commission. As with real rainbows, the end is eternally glimpsed but never attained. The latest delay comes two and half years after RBS revived an old brand – Williams & Glyn – and asserted it would be seen on high streets “soonâ€\x9d. The latest dispatch says there is a “significant riskâ€\x9d that the legal deadline for separation or sale by December 2017 will be missed. The plea is complexity – again. The rewiring job doesn’t sound easy and, to be fair to RBS, it is attempting a stiffer task than Lloyds Banking Group did in similar circumstances with TSB. All the same, it’s ridiculous how long this is taking. RBS, having been told to sell in October 2009, may take eight years to shed 300 branches. It took the Americans the same time to put a man on the moon after JFK’s “by the end of the decadeâ€\x9d speech in 1961.",
 "Planning to flee Donald Trump's America? It might not be that easy “If Donald Trump wins in November, I’m moving to Canada!â€\x9d Now that Trump has become the Republican party’s presumptive nominee in this autumn’s presidential contest, the phrase is an increasingly common refrain. But how easy would it be to dump Trump for Justin Trudeau or another more attractive leader? The answer is not very, and it won’t even be an option for most. According to at least one poll, 28% of Americans have at least considered leaving the United States for good “for a country such as Canadaâ€\x9d if Trump is elected. Of those who said they’re considering fleeing, 14% rated the probability as “very highâ€\x9d. Google searches for the phrase “move to Canadaâ€\x9d spiked dramatically after the Super Tuesday primaries in March put Trump into the lead, hitting levels never before seen. If you’re very young and flexible, have in-demand skills, and really understand what it means to leave it all behind, or if you’re ultra-wealthy, leaving is possible. For most of the rest of us? It’s much, much trickier to actually move to Canada – or anywhere else – than to just utter the phrase. And if you do leave – well, brace yourself for the financial consequences. Let’s start with Canada, a country I know a little bit about since my parents were Canadian citizens living in the United States when I was born, making me what’s called “an accidental Americanâ€\x9d, a category I’ll get back to shortly – and a dual citizen by birth, at least according to the Canadians. (Americans don’t like dual citizenship much and prefer to ignore it altogether.) Out of curiosity, I decided to see whether I’d qualify for the Canadian equivalent of a green card. My fluency in French, the fact that I attended a Canadian university and have family in Canada help, but without a job offer from a Canadian company or skills in demand in Canada, I’d be rejected. Go ahead, see how you’d fare. Many Americans will find it tougher to win admission to Canada than they assume. Then, too, there are some Americans that Canada won’t want, including, sadly, those they feel will be too much of a drain on the country’s single-payer healthcare system. A university professor from Costa Rica, Felipe Montoya, recently was denied permanent residency in Canada because his son has Down’s syndrome. Even if we end up with Trump as our president in November, Americans can’t expect the same treatment Canada has offered refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries. National embarrassment does not a refugee make. Millennials probably are luckiest when it comes to seeking a Trump-free haven. Younger wannabe expats should look at the list of skills that are in demand. New Zealand’s immigration website has lists of high-priority job categories that will get your immigration application fast-tracked. If you’re younger than 30, you can get a one-year working holiday visa in either Australia or New Zealand. Germany has an “artist visaâ€\x9d program if you can prove you can support yourself through your writing, your design, art, music or other creative work. Older emigrants are best off either being wealthy and buying themselves a second citizenship or being lucky and having an Irish grandparent. Second, third and even fourth passports are becoming récherché accessories among the ultra-rich, and countries such as Malta are becoming accommodating in designing programs for them. Some require you to invest in real businesses; others just want you to keep funds on deposit. French actor Gérard Depardieu expatriated himself from his homeland to protest against not its leadership but its tax regime and became a Russian citizen. The ultimate long shot, if finances are no obstacle? Svalbard, the self-governing Norwegian territory whose residents carry guns to defend themselves against polar bears whenever they leave greater downtown Longyearbyen (population about 2,000), and where fresh vegetables are very scarce (as is daylight in winter). On the other hand, if you can support yourself financially, you won’t need a visa or residence permit. But beware of what you wish for. You may leave the United States, but the US won’t let you go so easily. Specifically, you may be residing overseas but the IRS insists that you keep filing tax returns. Nope, it doesn’t matter that you don’t live here any more, don’t have any income or assets here, or don’t even visit any more. All that counts is that you’re still a citizen. The US is one of a tiny handful of countries in the world to tax non-resident citizens on their worldwide income, and the only major industrialized nation to do so. So before you stomp off to live overseas in a huff, you might want to be aware of just what you’re signing up for: a lifetime of living under two tax regimes and (potentially) paying two sets of taxes. For instance, if you own a house in Canada, you won’t get the benefit of mortgage interest deductions (that’s Canadian tax policy at work). Under US law, you may find yourself paying capital gains tax when you sell it, even if Revenue Canada says you don’t owe them a penny. Few groups are more aware of just what’s involved than the “Accidental Americansâ€\x9d. One famous (former) member of this group is Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London. Born in the US, Johnson hasn’t lived here since the age of five. He initially simply refused to file US tax returns – or to pay US taxes on the sale of his London house. And then (after quietly paying the bill) he renounced his citizenship. Many haven’t lived in the US since their birth or childhood; some may not even have social security numbers. That doesn’t matter. They were born there, and if they haven’t relinquished their citizenship – a costly and cumbersome process – they have to keep filing tax returns and being aware that they can’t invest in some kinds of mutual funds that might be standard products in their home countries but might trigger big tax liabilities in the US. While the number of Americans who have relinquished their citizenship, like Johnson, hit a record last year, that number still only just approached 4,300. The reason is the sheer complexity involved, suggests Suzanne Shier, chief wealth planning and tax strategist at Northern Trust. The US doesn’t care that you left because you didn’t like the political regime, “they look at objective facts, and those facts have a tax consequence. Then the question is whether you are defined as a ‘covered expat’ who will have to pay an exit tax or not.â€\x9d Many ordinary Americans aren’t “covered expatsâ€\x9d – you’d have to be fairly wealthy, outside your retirement accounts and home – but just the paperwork proving it is daunting, and the costs of doing that paperwork can be intimidating. “And there aren’t many people who deal with expatriation,â€\x9d Shier says. You’d have to be committed to making it happen. Equally, there aren’t many people overseas who will work with expatriates. Try to find an accountant able to fill out a US tax return in Prague or Ottawa; even opening a bank account these days has become incredibly difficult. The Foreign Account Tax Account Compliance Act (Fatca), designed to root out tax evaders, has made it difficult for Accidental Americans to even open a routine bank account in their “home countryâ€\x9d. A growing number of Accidental Americans or long-term expatriates are getting letters from their banks threatening to close their accounts and take away their mortgages if they don’t prove, within 30 days, that they have renounced their US citizenship. It has just become far too costly for those banks to comply with Fatca, and as a result, American expats are becoming, in the words of one advocate for Accidental Americans, “financial pariahsâ€\x9d. Some of the recipients of those letters haven’t lived in the US since infancy and have never had a social security number, making it virtually impossible to do that. Some weren’t even born in the United States, but simply have a US parent – another way to acquire US citizenship “accidentallyâ€\x9d. But renouncing your citizenship isn’t without its consequences. Shier notes that if you support your child or an ageing parent with gifts, the recipients don’t have to pay taxes on those as long as you’re an American. Give up your citizenship, and they may end up paying gift tax on anything in excess of $14,000 a year. You’ll be a foreigner in “your ownâ€\x9d country, limited to spending only a certain number of days here each year (depending on where you now live and have citizenship). So, how does President Trump sound now? Or will you just fight even harder to ensure that come November, Canada will look a little less tempting?",
 'Author: The JT LeRoy Story review – the intriguing tale of a literary hoax This intriguing if sometimes exasperating documentary features intertitles in punky cut-out lettering, maybe in homage to The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. It is about a notorious literary hoax, from an era when misery memoirs were all the rage. Ten years ago, the bestselling young author JT LeRoy – supposedly the son of a prostitute, writing harrowing fiction avowedly based on his horrific childhood – turned out to be a woman called Laura Albert. But was that a hoax? Didn’t Mary Ann Evans claim to be a man called George Eliot? Albert was a troubled woman who had suffered abuse and found escapist release in phoning crisis helplines in assumed voices and fictional personae. She was also a talented writer and voracious reader, and through in-character fan phonecalls to authors, got an agent for her agonised faux-naïf southern gothic material, written by this mythical figure she’d dreamed up. The extraordinary twist came when Albert persuaded her sister-in-law Savannah Knoop to pose as the mysterious, reclusive author in wig and dark glasses for readings. Her cult following included celebrities such as Gus van Sant, Bono and Asia Argento, none too pleased to be hoodwinked, and Albert finally got a fraud conviction for signing a movie deal as “JT LeRoyâ€\x9d. It’s a strange story. Unlike James Frey’s fake memoir A Million Little Pieces from 2003, Albert’s “LeRoyâ€\x9d work was at least billed as fiction – though with the promise of being based on truth. The film is curious, featuring apparently genuine tape-recordings of phone conversations that “LeRoyâ€\x9d had with her acolytes and friends. She doesn’t say why she made secret tape-recordings, and isn’t asked. Are these recordings real? Or a reconstruction – yet another fictional construct? The key question is: how did Savannah feel about living a lie? Knoop is only interviewed very briefly. The rest of the time, it’s Laura Albert monologuing. She’s a little tiresome and narcissistic. I would have preferred some stronger questioning of her, and a closer look at the question of whether any independent literary merit survives.',
 "Ministers rejects Trump's call to appoint Nigel Farage ambassador British ministers rebuffed an unconventional call by Donald Trump for Ukip’s interim leader, Nigel Farage, to be appointed UK ambassador to the United States. In a response agreed across government, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, firmly said there was no vacancy for the ambassadorship, and Downing Street lavishly praised Sir Kim Darroch, the current British ambassador who was by coincidence in London briefing the UK National Security Council on the implications of Trump’s election. In a sign of the government’s unease at Farage’s elevated status with the Trump team, ministers held back from directly challenging Trump’s interference, or the president-elect’s judgment of the Ukip leader. Foreign Office ministers are concerned at the extent to which figures like Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, may be promoting Farage, partly to fuel populist forces in the UK and Europe. Donald Trump had tweeted on Tuesday night: Farage said he was very flattered by the president-elect’s tweet, adding it was “a bolt out of the blueâ€\x9d. Urging Downing Street to abandon protocol and take advantage of his connections, he tweeted: Deepening the divide between No 10 and Trump, Farage added: “At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. “The dislike of me, Ukip, and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country. I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position, with the president-elect’s support, to help.â€\x9d Although governments sometimes discreetly consult on the acceptability of a specific proposed ambassador, it is unprecedented for a president to state his preference in public, and to choose someone such as Farage who is determined to break up the entire EU, and has dedicated his professional life to weakening Theresa May’s Conservative party. The Foreign Office will find Trump’s behaviour at best irritating – since Johnson has expended political capital trying to ingratiate himself with the president-elect, including trying to persuade his European colleagues to put aside their doubts about Trump. The Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, Crispin Blunt, described Trump’s behaviour as extraordinary, saying the episode showed “in transition Trump has not got professional advisers around him who realise how gratuitously insulting it is to try to select the UK ambassador to the United Statesâ€\x9d. In the Commons, Johnson said hostility to Trump was premature and not in the British national interest, and insisted his administration could be judged only once in office. “The UK’s relationship with the US is the single most important geopolitical fact of the last century,â€\x9d he said, adding it was vital to be as positive as possible about the president-elect. He told MPs that any premature verdicts about Trump “could be damaging to the interests of this countryâ€\x9d. He added: “It is important for us in this country to use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as I’m sure they will.â€\x9d The Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Simon McDonald also continued to claim Trump would moderate his views and prove more malleable to UK policy positions once in office. He said: “One thing I have learned is that what is said in the campaign is different to what happens when the winner is in the White House. It is very important for us to judge the new president by his actions in office.â€\x9d He added the UK would be discussing Trump’s foreign policy positions, including on Nato, proliferation of nuclear weapons and trade before he finally took office, adding that Trump’s election means the UK was no longer at the back of the queue for a bilateral trade deal with the US. One of Farage’s closest advisers, Raheem Kassam, said: “The government has a choice to make – they can have a professional career diplomat that keeps the UK as close as other countries to the Trump administration, or they can choose Nigel and have the best access that goes beyond the Thatcher-Reagan relationship.â€\x9d But former diplomats lined up to kill off the idea of Farage acting even as an official go-between for the UK government and Trump. Andrew Cahn, a former UK trade envoy, said it was vital that ambassadors were professionals loyal to the government “with no other cards to play, however well connected they areâ€\x9d. Peter Westmacott, Darroch’s predecessor as British ambassador in Washington, said: “It’s a nice gesture to Nigel Farage but an unusual suggestion. Governments choose the people they want to represent the country abroad for good reason – their job is to look after the national interest. Kim Darroch is doing that very well. “Ambassadors need to be acceptable to host governments, not chosen by them,â€\x9d he added. “I don’t see No 10 tweeting who the president-elect should appoint as the next US representative to the Court of St James.â€\x9d Veterans of diplomacy and how it is practised in Washington said it put Darroch in a uniquely awkward position. “This makes his life difficult because a new elected president of the United States has voiced a preference for another person,â€\x9d said Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs during the Bush administration. “I don’t remember anything remotely like this … it’s a complete break with essential diplomatic protocol and a preposterous notion that you would publicly suggest one of the major political foes of the government should be appointed. It is rude to the British prime minister and puts her in a difficult position.â€\x9d At Foreign Office questions, some Conservative MPs also refused to hold back from criticism. The former health minister Dan Poulter urged Johnson to accept there “should be no place for anyone who expresses inflammatory and what sometimes could be considered to be bordering on racist views in representing this country in discussions with the United Statesâ€\x9d. Keith Simpson, the Tory MP for Broadland, praised Johnson while delivering an ill-disguised barb, saying he was relieved Johnson had ruled out Farage because “in this post-truth world, we might have assumed that he might have been sympathetic given they had campaigned together so remarkably on Brexitâ€\x9d. Johnson found himself in difficulties when pressed by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, to say if he agreed with Trump that climate change was “a hoax, invented by the Chineseâ€\x9d. Thornberry urged the prime minister to show “some moral backboneâ€\x9d and tell Trump when she visited him next year that he must not undermine the climate change deal agreed in Paris. Johnson responded that Trump was a dealmaker, and said the government would be taking a message to the White House about the importance of the Paris climate change deal.",
 'La Liga president attracted by Champions League breakaway The president of Spain’s La Liga has admitted he is considering proposals to form a breakaway competition to rival the Champions League because it represents a “greater opportunity to generate more revenueâ€\x9d. In July, the Dalian Wanda Group – which is owned by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin – revealed it had begun discussions with clubs to create a new tournament which would rival the current competition run by Uefa. Speaking to the Financial Times on Friday, Javier Tebas, who has been president of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional since 2013, admitted that while no agreement had been reached, Spain’s leading clubs could be attracted by the idea in the wake of new bumper TV deals for their counterparts in England and Germany. “If [European club competition] is reorganised as Wanda has set out, there is a greater opportunity to generate more revenue from audiovisual broadcasting,â€\x9d he said. Last week, Uefa announced that Europe’s top four leagues will have four automatic places in the Champions League group stage from the 2018-19 season onwards – a move that was supported by clubs in Spain and Italy. However, Tebas was critical of the changes and said they had made it more likely they could support a breakaway because key issues such as the more even distribution of broadcasting funds have not been addressed. “We’ve also become more interested in [Wanda’s] proposal since Uefa announced they will be reforming [the Champions League], without seriously consulting — in detail — their broader reform plans with the other national leagues,â€\x9d he said. “With our strategy, we will even overtake the Premier League in terms of international deals. Therefore, both Spanish and English football fans will be pleased, as they will both get the chance to watch their games across the world. So long as Uefa does not destroy our business.â€\x9d Wanda, which already owns a 20% stake in last year’s beaten Champions league finalists Atlético Madrid, paid $1.2bn last year for Infront Media, the Swiss company led by Philippe Blatter - the nephew of former Fifa president Sepp Blatter. The FT reports says they have been leading negotiations for a new tournament, with proposals including merging the Champions League and Europa League into one competition. “The idea of unifying the two tournaments is not a bad one,â€\x9d said Tebas. “But what is clear is we have to work something out with all the different national leagues and Uefa is not doing it.â€\x9d',
 '‘This isn’t acceptable’: outcry at state of NHS mental health care funding A cross-party inquiry by MPs into the funding of mental health services has received more than 95,000 personal submissions in an unprecedented display of anger over the state of the NHS. One woman who submitted testimony linking the lack of support to suicide rates said the failure of the system to respond to people in trouble was often “what pushes you over the edgeâ€\x9d. She wrote: “I’m scared my husband could become one of these statistics.â€\x9d A separate YouGov poll commissioned and crowdfunded by the campaigning organisation 38 Degrees found that 74% of voters believe that funding for mental health should be greater or equal to funding for physical health. The amount actually spent on mental health by the NHS last year, despite government pledges to establish parity, was just 11.9% of overall NHS spending. Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the public accounts committee holding the inquiry, said the scale of the response underlined the strength of feeling that mental health was being underfunded. “We shall question NHS England and the Department of Health on how they can meet the government’s pledges,â€\x9d she said. The poll findings come as a new report, to be published on Monday by the NSPCC, says NHS commissioners are failing to take abused children into account when planning mental health services. The charity says the government’s £1.4bn investment in children’s mental health services is not being deployed to aid children who need help after abuse. Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: “Often, it’s only when children reach rock bottom, regularly self-harming or feeling suicidal, that the services they need so desperately open up to them. This isn’t acceptable.â€\x9d Some 95,555 personal submissions on the care of children and adults have so far been made to the public accounts committee. One respondent, who lives in health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s constituency in Surrey, said that a lack of support had left her daughter isolated. She wrote: “My daughter has a longstanding mental illness that has caused her great tragedy and grief. She has not had sufficient help in the community over the last 10 years and feels isolated and insecure. She is a very vulnerable person and has gone missing several times, involving the police in intensive searches.â€\x9d A woman called Eve, from Bexhill and Battle, wrote: “I work in the NHS with children and young people. I know first-hand that all the services are struggling with numbers, and children often have to wait for over a year for treatment after an initial appointment.â€\x9d Dawn, from Sheffield, said: “I was able to see a counsellor on the NHS but only for a very limited time, not long enough to enable me to learn the skills I needed to help me cope day to day. “I was referred to a borderline personality disorder support group but this only ran during the day, which meant, as I work, that I could not attend.â€\x9d Earlier this year, a leaked report by a government taskforce painted a bleak picture of England’s mental health services, revealing that the number of people killing themselves was soaring, three-quarters of those with psychiatric conditions were not being helped, and sick children were being sent “almost anywhere in the countryâ€\x9d for treatment. Suicide in England is now rising “following many years of declineâ€\x9d, with 4,477 suicides in an average year. There has also been a 10% increase in the number of people sectioned under the Mental Health Act over the past year, suggesting their needs are not being met early enough. In some parts of the country, more than 10% of children seeking help are having appointments with specialists cancelled as a result of staff shortages. David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, said the response to the opening of the inquiry should be a wake-up call to ministers. “These figures reveal the deep divide between public opinion and the funding given to NHS mental health support by the government. “Almost 100,000 responses to a parliamentary consultation – nearly all raising concerns about the state of mental health services in the NHS – should sound the alarm to ministers. “38 Degrees members are sending a clear message to government: we need better mental health services, and mental health services need better funding.â€\x9d Ministers have agreed that more needs to be done and have committed £1bn extra a year by 2020. The government says this will help to treat a million more people annually.',
 'Obama talks Trump, Star Wars and Kendrick Lamar in YouTube interview For his annual video chat about the State of the Union address, Barack Obama sat down on Friday with three YouTube vloggers. The breezy, hour-long conversation covered topics including his new gun control measures, perceived police brutality and the rise of Donald Trump. He was also asked who would win a rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Obama spoke with sWooZie, Destin Sandlin and Ingrid Nilsen, who each have more than 3.5 million YouTube subscribers. The president said that though he had not yet seen the new Star Wars film, the 1977 original was his favourite of the series. Asked which character he related to most, Obama chose Han Solo. “He’s a little bit of a rebel,â€\x9d he said. If there was a rap battle between Lamar and Drake, he said, Lamar would be the clear winner. “I think Drake is an outstanding entertainer, but Kendrick. His lyrics! His last album was outstanding, best album of last year,â€\x9d he said. Obama had already declared Lamar’s How Much a Dollar Cost, from the album To Pimp A Butterfly, the best track of 2015. In the most internet-dividing question since “is this dress blue and black or white and gold?â€\x9d, Obama answered the “how should a dog wear pantsâ€\x9d question by picking the more sane, two-leg-only option. “This is a little too conservative … too much fabric,â€\x9d said the leader of the free world, in reference to dog pants with four legs. Sandlin, whose YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay often focuses on science, asked what characteristics an element named after Obama, called Obamium, would have. “I would want it to be stable,â€\x9d the president said. “I would want it to be a catalyst but one that didn’t get too hot or too cold. Hopefully it would be one that is useful to humanity, that we could actually use. And not just some shiny object to look at.â€\x9d The conversation was not only concerned with jokes aimed at winning over the kids. sWooZie talked about being a young black man who sometimes wears a backwards cap and said he regularly found himself racially profiled by police, citing a recent time when police demanded ID after he pulled over in his car to take a phone call. The president empathised. “I’m a black man who sometimes wears his hat backwards, and there have been times when I was younger when I was stopped for reasons I wasn’t always clear about,â€\x9d said Obama. However, he disagreed with sWooZie’s claim that police are just “bullies with badges … who are developing a Superman complexâ€\x9d and that killings of black men by police are on the rise. “It’s not that situation has gotten worse, it’s that our awareness is increased,â€\x9d said the president, referring to his own Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which last May recommended independent investigations into deaths caused by police officers. Asked by sWooZie if Obama was “embarrassed for the American peopleâ€\x9d, given the popularity of the Republican presidential frontrunner, Obama tried to hose down Donald Trump’s high poll numbers. “This early in the contest, a lot of times you’ll have people who are seen as frontrunners because they are noisy and get a lot of attention,â€\x9d he said. But the closer an election came, he said, “it’s a little less entertainmentâ€\x9d. “This is a little more serious, this person is going to have the nuclear code,â€\x9d Obama said. Nilsen asked Obama why women’s health products like tampons and pads were taxed in more than 40 states as a “luxury itemâ€\x9d, noting that most women do not regard having their period as a luxury. “Michelle would agree with you on that,â€\x9d Obama said. “I suspect it’s because men were making the laws when taxes were passed. I think it’s pretty sensible for women who live in those states to work towards getting those taxes removed.â€\x9d Obama also revealed that he carries around a selection of lucky charms and religious trinkets. On Friday his pocket revealed rosary beads from Pope Francis, a lucky poker chip from a biker in Iowa, a little Buddha from a Buddhist monk, a statue of Hindu monkey god Hanuman and a Coptic cross from Ethiopia. “I carry them around all the time,â€\x9d the president said. “I’m not superstitious, I don’t think I have to have them on me at all times. But it does remind me of all the different people that I’ve met along the way, and how much they’ve invested in me and their stories and what their hopes and dreams are. “If I feel tired or discouraged sometimes, I can reach into my pocket and I say, ‘Yeah, that’s something I can overcome because somebody gave me this privilege to work on these issues that are going to affect them. I’d better get back to work.’â€\x9d',
 'Europeans watch our referendum debate with fascination and fear View from Germany When David Cameron first promised a referendum on British membership of the EU if he were re-elected as prime minister, the idea baffled most Germans. They could not believe that the British could be contemplating leaving the EU. What future could they possibly think they might have outside Europe? Gradually, however, Germans have begun to take seriously the possibility that the UK might actually leave the EU – and they are worried. They still can’t imagine a future for Britain outside Europe, but most Germans also think that Brexit would be bad for them, too. Chancellor Angela Merkel supported Cameron in his renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with the EU while at the same time seeking to uphold the principles of freedom of movement and non-discrimination. Ahead of the crucial European council meeting in February, she told the Bundestag that keeping Britain in the EU was “not just in Britain’s but also in Germany’s interestâ€\x9d. What Germans fear most is that Brexit might lead to an unravelling of the European project. They worry that a British vote to leave on 23 June would strengthen the “centrifugal forcesâ€\x9d within the EU and prompt other member states to hold referendums of their own – or least seek to use the threat of one to renegotiate their relationship with the EU, as Cameron did. Germans also worry about the message sent to the rest of the world if one of the EU’s biggest and most important members opted out even as the rest of the continent struggled to solve the euro crisis and the refugee crisis. There would be an even greater sense than now that the EU is doomed. There are some Germans who see a possible upside. In particular, they hope that, without the EU’s most difficult member state blocking them or demanding endless “opt-outsâ€\x9d, France and Germany would be able to move ahead with further integration. Brexit might actually force such steps immediately in order to reassure the world about the future of the European project. Brexit could also simplify the EU in some ways. Some Germans think the increasing institutional complexity of the EU contributes to its lack of legitimacy. In particular, they would like all EU states to join the single currency. Brexit would leave Denmark as the only remaining country with a permanent “opt-outâ€\x9d from the euro. However, most Germans think Brexit would have much more important downsides. The argument you often hear is that, if the UK left the EU, Germany would lose a liberal ally on economic policy and be stuck with countries such as France that are perceived as more protectionist. It is sometimes also said that Germany benefits from the UK’s aggressive attempts to reform the EU on liberal lines, for example Cameron’s “competitivenessâ€\x9d agenda. This argument that Germany and the UK are like-minded countries is a little disingenuous, because Germany is not quite as liberal as is sometimes suggested. While it is a strong supporter of trade liberalisation beyond the EU, from which its export-driven economy benefits, it is also one of the countries that has blocked internal steps, such as the completion of the single market in services. Germany is not always aligned with the UK on other economic issues either. For example, even on the right, for example, there is support for a financial transactions tax, something that is anathema to the Tories. Meanwhile, some Social Democrats see the UK as a corrosive neoliberal influence on the EU and like to think that, without it, France and Germany could together create a more “socialâ€\x9d Europe, even though the UK has had nothing to do with the austerity Germany has imposed on the eurozone during the past six years. Perhaps the most interesting question is whether Germany would be more or less able to get what it wants were the UK to leave. At first glance, it would be more powerful simply because its relative weight – expressed, for example, in its voting weight in the European council or the number of seats in the European parliament it has – would increase. In fact, this is the reason that some officials from other EU member states say in private that this is precisely why they do not think it would be in their interests for the UK to leave. Part of the reason France softened its opposition to British membership of the EEC in the late 1960s was that it thought it might help balance West Germany’s increasing economic strength. But if Britain now left, none of the other four large member states – France, Italy, Poland and Spain – would be able to counterbalance German power. Without Britain, Germany would be Europe’s hegemon. Actually, this exaggerates the extent of German power. After all, Germany makes up only 28% of the eurozone’s total GDP – between them France (21%) and Italy (16%) make up a bigger share. This illustrates that Germany is not a hegemon at all – with or without the UK – but rather a “semi-hegemonâ€\x9d. In that sense, Germany has returned to the position it occupied in Europe between 1871 and 1945, except in geoeconomic rather than geopolitical form. The problem, though, is that this semi-hegemonic position leads to a perception of dominance and therefore resistance, in particular through the formation of coalitions. That has been what has happened in Europe over the past six years since the euro crisis began: southern states have opposed Germany on economic policy and eastern states have opposed it on refugee policy. In both cases, Germany has been accused of “imperialismâ€\x9d. Although a British withdrawal from the EU wouldn’t turn Germany into a hegemon, it could increase this perception of German dominance and with it the pressure to form coalitions to counterbalance German power. Paradoxically, therefore, Germany could actually be weaker – that is, less able to get what it wants – in an EU without the UK. Meanwhile, expectations of Germany would probably increase further. Although Germany has itself become much more Eurosceptic in the past decade, few Germans are demanding a referendum of their own. Even the Eurosceptic Alternative für Deutschland wants Germany to leave the single currency rather than the EU. Moreover, referendums are not part of the German political system and many are suspicious about such elements of direct democracy. In any case, leaving the EU is not in the end an option for Germany in the way it is for the UK. Germany is simply too central to the EU, which, after all, was created in part as a solution to the vexed “German questionâ€\x9d. The EU could survive a British withdrawal, but not a German one. Hans Kundnani is the author of The Paradox of German Power (Hurst) View from Sweden In Sweden, you would be hard pressed to find anyone – or at least anyone in a prominent position – who would use a milder term than “disasterâ€\x9d when referring to a possible Brexit. You will often find statements that Brexit would have even worse consequences for our country than the UK. “For Sweden it would be devastating, for the EU worrisome and for the UK really bad,â€\x9d says former finance minister Anders Borg about the threat of Brexit. “It would be worse for Swedenâ€\x9d, according to the headline of an editorial comment in Aftonbladet, Sweden’s biggest evening paper. “A catastrophe,â€\x9d says the current finance minister, Magdalena Andersson. The feeling is widely shared across the Swedish political landscape. It is echoed by the business world – never failing to cite Brexit as one of the darker clouds over the economy – and even the trade unions. Why the strong emotion? Well, of course there’s an economic case to be made. The UK is Sweden’s fourth largest trading partner. Danske Bank calculates that after Ireland, Luxembourg and Belgium, Sweden would be the EU country hardest hit if the British economy were cut off from the European economy (with a loss of up to 0.48% of Swedish GDP). The sheer uncertainty of whether we are heading for Brexit is one of the most commonly mentioned negative factors at any presentation of the year ahead, be it for the Swedish economy or for any major Swedish company. But there is much more at play than just economic worries. The UK does not seem to be aware of it, but Sweden rather feels it has a “special relationshipâ€\x9d with the UK. Andersson spelled it out in an opinion article in February: “The UK is simply one of our absolute closest allies in the EU,â€\x9d she said. Indeed, the prime minister, Stefan Löfven (a socialist), promised to do everything in his power to help David Cameron get a good deal in his negotiations with the EU earlier this year, so that the UK would stay. That Sweden feels this strong bond with the UK has something of a mystery about it. For a start, anyone would be excused for thinking that the fellow Nordic countries must surely be mentioned as Sweden’s closest friends more often than the UK. That never happens. There is a historic rivalry here that keeps getting in the way. Still, every attempt to enumerate the many areas where Sweden and the UK are such close allies invariably comes up with a rather short list. Free trade is always mentioned as the top (staunch defenders, both of us). Then comes the EU budget (we both would like to pay less). Third, we have common interests as non-euro countries (we both fear losing out). This amounts to a surprisingly short list for your “absolute closest allyâ€\x9d. Especially considering that the two overriding subjects in the Swedish political debate for years have been important societal issues where we do not seem to share any common interest with the UK. These are: the labour market (Sweden will insist on strengthening workers’ rights, no matter which government is in power) and migration (Sweden will defend remaining “openâ€\x9d and also defend giving equal rights to newcomers). Even so, there is an obvious sincerity in the Swedish conviction that the UK is very close to Sweden. Former prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said he felt that Cameron was a “personal friendâ€\x9d and the Swedish media would often describe them as “best buddiesâ€\x9d. Another former prime minister, Göran Persson, felt so personally close to Tony Blair that at press briefings at EU summits he would refer to him as simply Tony, as in: “Tony said to me…â€\x9d Yet another exformer prime minister, Carl Bildt, described his relationship with his counterpart John Major as “outstandingâ€\x9d. There are also linguistic and cultural factors that go a long way to explain the feeling of closeness and understanding. Swedish people tend to speak English more or less fluently but no other foreign language. For that reason they tend to read no foreign media other than British media. This is true for your everyday Swede and, of course, every Swedish politicians and most Swedish journalists. Thus, our window on to the world, to Europe, can often be from a British perspective. This, incidentally, has contributed to shaping the Swedish view of the EU and our ideas on whether the EU is costing too much, spending money on the wrong things or is hopelessly bureaucratic. All in all, maybe it is not illogical that we should end up thinking of the UK as our closest ally. A recent poll indicates that Swedish public opinion may be losing faith in the EU with only 39% declaring their trust in the institution in March this year, as opposed to 59% last autumn. Also, no fewer than two political parties in the Swedish parliament currently demand that Sweden follow in Cameron’s footsteps and ask for a renegotiation of our EU membership deal. One should not, however, make the mistake of thinking that Sweden would be tempted to follow the UK if it were to leave the EU. ou will find that tThe two parties seeking a new EU deal for Sweden are at the very extremes of the Swedish political map – one, the former communist Left party and the other, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. And the disappointment in the EU recently expressed by Swedes is probably influenced by the experience of seeing no solidarity from the rest of Europe when Sweden was overwhelmed by an influx of immigrants last autumn. Including, of course, from the UK. Also, any statement from Swedish politicians or business people about the gravity of the risk that Brexit constitutes will always be followed by the explanation for the worried: “… because it would be bad for the EU, it would endanger the European co-operationâ€\x9d. In Swedish politics, you will find much bickering about the EU but a deep conviction remains that Europe needs the EU and a small country such as Sweden, trying to make its way in a global context, needs the EU very much. It would take a political earthquake to convince Swedish politicians that Brexit would be a reason for Sweden to also leave. Sweden really, really does not want the UK to leave the European Union. Yet this does not mean that Sweden, if Britain did decide to leave, would be prepared to offer the UK a better farewell deal than would be in the interest of Swedish business and Swedish jobs. Because for all of the love that Sweden has for the UK, there is one country that Swedes love more. And that is Sweden. Ylva Elvis Nilsson is a political journalist based in Stockholm View from Spain These days Spain is very much focused at the moment on the first time since democracy was established in 1977 that there seems to be no way of forming a Government. Spaniards celebrated Christmas last year, not knowing who would be the country’s next prime minister, following inconclusive general elections in late December. Four months later, little has changed and everyone is waiting for this period of limbo to come to an end. So we have plenty of concerns of our own here. Brexit does, however, become an issue from time to time, with regard to the concessions that the European Union agreedwith the British with David Cameron for Britain in February. The deal offered by the EU did not come across here as being fair, and seemed like new privileges being granted to the UK, with unjust consequences for many Spanish people working in Britain and others yet to come. Suddenly, or so it seemed, a Spaniard – or any other European – could become a second-class citizen in the UK. (And London is a beloved destination for young Spanish workers and students who want to improve their English while earning some money.) Nevertheless, with the UK being the second largest economy of the EU, there was not much option but to agree to Cameron’s requests. Certainly this was the feeling among Spanish officials close to those negotiations, who said that they felt forced to agree to the EU agreement, to keep London in the club of 28. “This agreement undoes much of the potential resistance [in the UK] to voting to stay in the EU,â€\x9d said one of them. Others regret that everybody else in Europe had to suffer the consequences of an “internal crisis within the British Conservative partyâ€\x9d. But most want the UK to remain, and praised the British people and culture. In fact, 67% of Spanish people questioned said they wanted Britain to stay in the EU, according to a survey published last week by Kantar TNS Demoscopia. And 43% thought that if Britain voted to leave it would have a negative financial impact on the EU (34% believed it would not matter either way.) Interestingly, the more conservative the voter, the more keen they were for the UK to vote to remain: 80% in the case of those who support the Popular party, 73% in the case of centre-right Ciudadanos supporters, 67%, for the Socialists and 61%, for the leftwing Podemos party supporters. Spain is still suffering a deep financial and social crisis, with unemployment at more than 20%. And yet there has been no growth of anti-European sentiment in the hearts of the average person here, nor in the political parties. There is no Spanish version of Ukip or the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). On the contrary, while the secessionist government in Catalonia, presided over by Carles Puigdemont, plans to divorce from Spain by mid 2017, his coalition colleagues have repeatedly assured voters that this would not signal any intention to abandon the EU. Sure, many people in Spain blame Brussels for the austerity imposed in the name of Angela Merkel, but it is normally Merkel herself who takes the blame. The EU still symbolises progress, stability and having a say in the international community. Then, of course, there are the practical things beloved by the Spanish people, such as the Erasmus scholarships programme, and the freedom of travel, which is now in jeopardy. What really interests Spanish people about Brexit is the form rather than the content, that is, the fact and nature of referendums. We followed with interest events unfolding in the Scottish referendum. Now, the UK is celebrating another event where the population is being asked its opinion. Asking voters their views in a direct vote is a source of great debate here. It is the very reason that we have long debated the exact meaning of the “right to self-determinationâ€\x9d held by the Basque country and Catalonia: established in the constitution. The problem is that the parties do not agree what that right actually means. The government of Mariano Rajoy repeatedly denied Catalonia the right to hold a referendum, while the anti-Madrid sentiment there kept on growing. It ended with the celebration of a popular consultation promoted by the secessionist government. What’s more, the referendum formula is something that often appears in the negotiations, led these days by the socialist opposition leader, Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE. The party’s ambiguity on this issue contributes to the present horse trading involved in forming a new government. Both new parties at the table – Ciudadanos, the centre-right party of Catalonian Albert Rivera, and Podemos, the leftwing party of Pablo Iglesias, Podemos – take opposition views regarding a Catalonian referendum. Iglesias’s negotiation team keeps trying to include a legal popular consultation as part of a deal with PSOE, which has already signed an agreement with Ciudadanos, a coalition that does not serve anything if another big party does not join them. Britain’s EU referendum is a couple of days before the deadline by which our next general elections need to take place, if there is no deal on a new government within the next week. The referendum in Catalonia would certainly be an issue during the campaign, where some might cite the British example in self-determination issues. But the emergence of any party promoting Spain to abandon the EU is unthinkable. Maria Torrens Tillack writes for El Espanol',
 'Eleanor Friedberger review – emotionally direct and very human Whether singing alongside her brother in the Fiery Furnaces or as frontwoman of her own band, Eleanor Friedberger has always cut a singular figure, askew to her surroundings. The same is true at the Moth Club: festooned with lametta, the ceiling a sky of gold glitter, the room is more suited to gaudy cabaret turns than this heavy-fringed woman dressed in khaki and denim. There’s an earthy timbre to her voice, too, making her sound like a sepia reminiscence of 1960s Greenwich Village, albeit with 21st-century concerns: Scenes from Bensonhurst, she tells us, is about “being paranoid before Instagramâ€\x9d, while Does Turquoise Work? covers “being paranoid after Instagramâ€\x9d. She doesn’t say much between songs, but she doesn’t need to: the lyrics have a conversational tone, albeit more suggestive of the talking one does to oneself. And because it’s just her on stage with an acoustic guitar and some pedals for the odd wail of psychedelia, that intimacy is even more pronounced. Standing close to the stage feels like sitting in her bedroom, flicking through photo albums; each song assembles shards of memory that are vivid in quotidian detail – the colour of someone’s hair, the cut of someone else’s trousers – yet leave space for the imagination. “I couldn’t get her out of my head,â€\x9d she sings on When I Knew, “so we ended up mmm mmmm.â€\x9d There’s a line in Because I Asked You, from her latest album, New View, in which she mentions stage fright, and it’s clear she feels exposed up there – the more so when her fingers tangle over chords. Her last song, Sweetest Girl, clatters to a halt in the middle, and her natural disappointment unexpectedly crystallises what makes Friedberger so appealing: emotionally direct, she comes across very human, and as singular as we all are. At the Harley, Sheffield, 5 February. Box office: 0114-275 2288. Then touring.',
 "Mark Schwarzer: Leicester City's non-playing Premier League lucky charm Leicester City’s title victory has lent some weight to the theory that veteran Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer is a Premier League lucky charm. While the former Socceroos goalkeeper did not play a single league match for the Foxes this season, he became the first player to be involved in back-to-back title victories with separate clubs in the Premier League era. He is also the oldest player, at 43, to be in a Premier League title-winning squad. Schwarzer, who was with Chelsea last season before moving to Leicester in January 2015, does not meet the official criteria to qualify for a winner’s medal, which stipulate a player must have made at least five appearances to receive one. The veteran did not play a league match during Chelsea’s title run last year either, yet he still pocketed a medal after then-Blues manager Jose Mourinho decided to buy him a replica in recognition of his efforts from the bench. Schwarzer played numerous cup matches for both sides in the two-year period and is highly regarded as a mentor for younger goalkeepers. There has been no indication yet from the victorious Leicester camp as to whether Claudio Ranieri will follow suit this year and make Schwarzer the first player since Eric Cantona (Leeds United-Manchester United in 1992 and 1993) to win back-to-back top flight titles with different clubs. The keeper, who was understudy to Kasper Schmeichel this season, played a role in keeping Leicester in the top flight when he arrived, playing six matches in their run to fight off relegation. Schwarzer, who retired from national duties in 2013, helped the Socceroos end their World Cup finals drought in 2005 when he saved two penalties in a play-off shootout against Uruguay. His European club career included stints at Bradford, Middlesbrough and Fulham, before proving the lucky charm for Chelsea and Leicester. He featured for the Foxes just three times this season, against Bury, West Ham and Hull City in the Capital One Cup.",
 'Not so far, far away … first image revealed of Star Wars land The Walt Disney Company has released a first image of the Star Wars-themed land that will be built at Disneyland in California and at the Walt Disney World resorts. The 14-acre attraction is largest single-themed expansion in the theme park’s 60-year history, and work on its construction began in April. An opening date is yet to be announced. The press release posted to Disney Parks Blog says: Nestled between towering spires of rock, this thriving port contains a seemingly familiar architecture of markets, landing zones and buildings. Look closely and you may find hints of some of the thrilling experiences that are coming – like the Millennium Falcon peeking out of one of the cargo bays, marking the location where guests will get the opportunity to pilot the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Speaking last August, Disney CEO Bob Iger promised: “These new lands at Disneyland and Walt Disney World will transport guests to a whole new Star Wars planet.â€\x9d',
 "Jon Snow condemns 'abusive' and 'boring' EU referendum campaign The Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow has said he cannot remember a “worse-tempered or more abusive, more boring UK campaignâ€\x9d than that for the EU referendum. The veteran presenter, who has fronted the channel’s news programme since 1989, said the media’s coverage was “no way to run a chip shop, let alone an interesting and informative campaign for a vote upon which all our futures hangâ€\x9d. Writing in the Radio Times, he compared the campaign unfavourably to the “coherent and comprehensibleâ€\x9d precedent set by the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, saying it has been dominated by abuse and “intemperate challenging of facts by both sidesâ€\x9d. A report from Loughborough University this month found debate on the referendum had been dominated by Tory men and highlighted the narrowness of coverage, which it said had focused on the conduct of the campaign and personal rivalries at the heart of the government. Snow criticised the complexity of the question posed to the electorate, which asks whether the UK should remain or leave the EU, rather than a simple yes or no. He also criticised the “use of name-calling and politicians on both sides conjuring the views of dead leaders – who, from the grave, are in no position to dispute the claims made in their namesâ€\x9d. He said audience debates such as those on Channel 4 had provided some redemption, but “with so few weeks to go before the vote, I believe that the negativity, the bickering, the foul-mouthing, and particularly the wholesale abuse of facts by both sides have seen off most of our attempts to make the vote interestingâ€\x9d.",
 'Last Tango’s abuse reveals the broken promise of the 1970s sexual revolution The panic and terror on Maria Schneider’s face in the infamous “get the butterâ€\x9d scene in Last Tango in Paris, in which she is depicted being anally raped by Marlon Brando, is absolutely real, even if the rape is not. Those big cinematic heaves are not acting. “I was crying real tears,â€\x9d Schneider once said. She was being humiliated in real life and on screen and she knew it. For years, she made public what happened during the making of that 1972 movie. Brando and the film’s director, Bernardo Bertolucci, conspired to shoot the scene without telling her what was going to happen. It wasn’t in the script. In 2013, in a video interview, Bertolucci said he felt guilty for not telling her about the butter, then appeared to casually shrug off this abuse by saying he did not regret his decision to shoot the scene. Last month, a Spanish organisation uploaded this edited clip of Bertolucci to draw attention to gendered violence. As a result, the clip is suddenly causing outrage, with many on social media, including big Hollywood names such as Jessica Chastain, Anna Kendrick and Chris Evans, condemning this rape scene, directed without one of the actors’ consent. Schneider died of cancer in 2011, and in an interview years after making the film, she said she, “should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know thatâ€\x9d. She was only 19. Brando who was 48 must have known this was deeply unethical. Bertolucci must also have known this - but they simply lived in a world where men like them could, in the name of “artâ€\x9d, hurt and terrorise women. Bertolucci said in the interview he had no regrets apparently. Last Tango in Paris is a movie about male trauma, but it was Schneider who was left traumatised by it. In the years after the filming, she had a breakdown, made attempts at suicide and fell into drug addiction. She refused ever to do nude scenes again and couldn’t deal with the aftermath of the way she was treated and defined by that film. In her 40s she campaigned for better roles in the industry for women. Bertolucci remains revered. “I think you have to be completely free,â€\x9d he has said in interviews. “I didn’t want Maria to act her humiliation, her rage. I wanted Maria to feel, not to act, the rage and the humiliation. Then she hated me for life.â€\x9d Consent is the key word in this story. Schneider was not raped, as some have been saying. But she was frightened and powerless to stop what happened on the set. Her statements show the confusion. She felt “a bit rapedâ€\x9d. No one consoled her or apologised. And she couldn’t live with the consequences. Last Tango was hailed as revolutionary. The great New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael said the film “altered the face of an art formâ€\x9d and described it as the most “powerfully erotic movie ever madeâ€\x9d. It was based on a sexual fantasy of Bertolucci’s, with Brando’s character acting out the trauma of his wife’s suicide through emotionally and physically dominating a much younger woman. In the film, women are the props for male catharsis. Many critics also saw the film as liberating. But liberating for whom? With its brilliant Francis Bacon credits, Parisian backdrop and Gato Barbieri soundtrack, the film was peak 1970s avant garde. Aspirational almost. At the time, Schneider was held up as a boho role model: bisexual and beautiful, with her flowers, hats and furs. She represented freedom. Like so many women in the 1970s however, she was actually a victim of a sexual revolution played out largely for male pleasure. Young women were expected to desire free-wheeling sex: anonymous and dangerous in Last Tango; rewritten more kindly and from a female perspective by Erica Jong in her novel, Fear of Flying, in which she called this “the zipless fuckâ€\x9d. The reality of the sexual revolution, as we now know, was often an abuse of power that left women reeling, not quite sure what happened or who was to blame. Confusion and humiliation was far too often the price you paid to be sexually liberated. In the context of the well documented abuse of young women by great directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Stanley Kubrick, we can see why Schneider’s plight was simply ignored, even though it devastated her. When she spoke about it, nothing happened. Brando and Bertolucci are still considered untouchable artists. But it can never be forgotten. Bertolucci now calls this “a ridiculous misunderstandingâ€\x9d. But he sought to film the actual – not acted – pain of a 19-year-old woman. He did that. It was called art. It still is. He got away with it. This is truly disgusting. In his world, men act, women merely feel. “I wanted her reaction as a girl, not an actress,â€\x9d said Bertolucci. In the 1970s, consent was not a word or a concept I was aware of. But I fully understood violation when I saw it. That violation was planned, then celebrated. It may be late in the day to talk about this, but at least we are now. If only we could have done so when Schneider was still alive; if only we could have let her know we could hear her voice beneath her sobbing.',
 'Wake up, sheeple! Don’t trust the #RemainstreamMedia Name: The #RemainstreamMedia. Appearance: Lizards in human-suits. What are you on about? A cabal of London-based journalists desperately trying to warp the public view of Brexit. Is this like the neoliberal media conspiracy? No. They are rightwingers trying to divide the Labour party and make it look as if Bernie Sanders can’t still win. Ah. The #RemainstreamMedia, by contrast, are whinging lefties. The Leave campaigner Louise Mensch coined the term to decry the outrageous bias she sees against Brexit in the media, and now against its noble queen, Andrea Leadsom. But what if Brexit is a bad idea? Given the political instability, national humiliation, surge in racist attacks and damage to the public finances, isn’t that at least a possibility? You see? There you go. More media lies. The FTSE 100 has done fine since 23 June. That’s because it is mainly big international companies that make money abroad, and when sterling falls that income is worth more in the UK. Shares in the more domestic companies, the FTSE 250, are down the pan. Classic #RemainstreamMedia. Whatever. This all sounds very familiar … Perhaps you’re thinking of the Lamestream Media, a term made popular by Sarah Palin to describe reporters who suggested that she and the Tea Party were, you know … I remember. So who are Mensch’s enemies? The BBC, for taking too long to notice fraud on that big petition. Channel 4, for airing a scathing interview with “a former colleagueâ€\x9d of Leadsom’s at Invesco. Mensch thought the man should be “one disgruntled coworkerâ€\x9d instead. Did she explain her objection to his comments? No, she didn’t go into that. But others on Twitter have borrowed the term to point to other examples, such as interviews with Leave voters giving dumb reasons for their choice. How can the media be secretly controlled by a rightwing conspiracy and a leftwing conspiracy at the same time? Simple. One of them is nonsense. Or maybe both? Doesn’t vaguely balanced reporting always look like a conspiracy to extremists? Typical. From now on I’ll only take information from people who agree with me, so I know it’s true. Do say: “This is just the kind of pathetic attack that I’d expect from the Blairite scum/special snowflakes at the .â€\x9d Don’t say: “Wake up, sheeple! Agent Mensch is a classic false flag operation to make Brexit supporters look like deranged obsessives.â€\x9d',
 "Trump 'cornerstone is bigotry': Sanders and Warren take on Clinton's Ohio fight Senator Elizabeth Warren on Saturday said Donald Trump was “a man with a dark and ugly soulâ€\x9d on Saturday, unleashing some of her most stinging criticisms of the Republican nominee in a state where Hillary Clinton has recently struggled. Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, Warren said Trump “has more support from [the] Aryan nation and the [Ku Klux Klan] than he does from leaders of his own partyâ€\x9d. Her criticisms echoed a speech delivered by Clinton’s primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, earlier in the day. Speaking at Kent State, Sanders said: “The cornerstone of Donald Trump’s campaign is bigotry.â€\x9d The Clinton campaign dispatched two of its most popular progressive surrogates after a rocky week of polls showed Trump gaining on Clinton in Ohio, a critical swing state, and among voters nationally. Sanders and Warren were slated to make some half-a-dozen stops over the weekend. The senators stumped for Clinton as new polls showed that roughly a third of voters under the age of 35 plan to vote for someone other than Trump or Clinton. Only about 30% of such voters support Clinton, or half the number of young and millennial voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012. On Saturday, both senators touted the benefits of Clinton’s platform for young people before audiences of mostly college students. Sanders spoke about Clinton’s support for pay equity and raising the minimum wage, and about the large sums of money conservative donors such as the Koch brothers have fed into the election. Both senators reserved large portions of their speeches for excoriating Trump over his racist statements and insinuations of violence and the bigoted tone of his campaign. The events of this past few days supplied them with plenty of new material. This week, Trump’s long-time and false assertion that President Obama was not born in the US was thrown back into the spotlight after top aides said Trump had come to “believeâ€\x9d Obama was born in Hawaii. Trump, when questioned by the Washington Post, refused to say as much. “I’ll answer that question at the right time,â€\x9d he said. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.â€\x9d The Republican nominee finally acknowledged that Obama was born in the US at the tail end of an event on Friday. He also falsely stated that the “birtherâ€\x9d movement began with Clinton’s campaign in 2008. Warren’s remark that Trump enjoys more support from white supremacists than GOP leaders echoed Clinton’s recent statement that “halfâ€\x9d of Trump supporters are “deplorableâ€\x9d. “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,â€\x9d Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic. You name it.â€\x9d Trump and his team have sought to turn those remarks against Clinton. But Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, raised eyebrows when he refused to say whether he considered David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a vocal supporter of Trump, “deplorableâ€\x9d. “I’m not in the name-calling business.â€\x9d Pence said, “We don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of the people who think like him.â€\x9d In a response, Duke said he was gratified that Pence had stopped short of a full-on attack. Critics called Pence’s answer the kind of dog-whistling that has made the Trump campaign tick. “Donald Trump launched one racist attack after another against President Obama,â€\x9d Warren said on Saturday, to boos. “Only when his handlers tied him down and forced him did he grudgingly admitâ€\x9d that Obama was born in the US, she said. “Let me very clear about what the birther movement was,â€\x9d Sanders told his crowd. “What they were trying to do – led by Donald Trump – is to delegitimize the presidency of the first African American president we’ve ever had. That is what that effort was. What an outrageous, racist attack against the president of the United States.â€\x9d Now, Sanders continued, Trump “has told us we’re suposed to hate Muslims. He’s told us we’re supposed to hate Mexicansâ€\x9d. Sanders closed with an overture to young voters who didn’t like either candidate and planned to sit the election out, saying the election was too important for them not to participate. “I know, and you know, this nation has struggled too far and too long to overcome bigotry and discrimination,â€\x9d he said. “We are not going back.â€\x9d",
 "Sky 'fastest broadband' ad banned after complaint from BT Sky has had its claim that it offers the fastest broadband speeds in the UK shot down after BT lodged a complaint with the advertising watchdog. The media group ran a press ad claiming it offered the fastest broadband speeds in peak time, citing Ofcom research comparing it with rivals BT, Plusnet and EE on a 38Mb connection. BT challenged the claim, arguing it was misleading because the research by Ofcom was only on fixed-line performance, and did not include internet usage over Wi-Fi, which is very common. Sky replied that the ad was not misleading as it included a caveat that the claim was based purely on Ofcom’s report comparing fixed-line broadband, so wider performance claims, such as those for Wi-Fi, were not necessary. The ASA said, while the claim was accurate in relation to the parameters of the report, many people used Wi-Fi in their homes. “Consumers were likely to interpret ‘fastest peak-time speeds’ to mean the speeds they would receive in the home environment, including when they were using their devices wirelessly,â€\x9d said the ASA. The ad made a reference to Sky’s Wi-Fi-enabled set-top box, which the ASA said enhanced the impression the claim also referred to wireless internet speed, and the caveat that it was based only fixed-line performance was only included in a footnote. “Because the ad did not make clear that the ‘fastest peak time speeds’ claim related to fixed-line broadband performance only, and therefore did not include Wi-Fi performance, we concluded that the claim was misleading,â€\x9d said the ASA. “The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Sky UK to ensure that in future they made clear that speed claims related to fixed-line performance only, if that was the case.â€\x9d",
 "Donald Trump: I will release 'very, very specific' health report soon Donald Trump will release “very, very specificâ€\x9d results of a physical examination soon, the Republican presidential candidate said on Monday, a day after the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, was revealed to have pneumonia. “This last week I took a physical and I’ll be releasing when the numbers come in,â€\x9d Trump said in an interview with Fox News. Trump has so far released only a short letter from his personal physician, which the doctor in question subsequently said had been rushed. Clinton last year released a longer doctor’s note, written by the same physician who on Sunday released a statement saying that the nominee had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. “I hope she gets well soon,â€\x9d Trump said. “I really don’t know what’s going on. Like you, I say what I see. [Clinton’s] coughing fit was a week agoâ€\x9d – at a Labor Day rally in Cleveland – “so that was pneumonia also, I think it would have been, so something’s going on. I hope she gets well and gets back on the trail and we’ll be seeing her at the debate.â€\x9d Asked if he thought the Democratic National Committee was preparing a replacement for Clinton, and whether he was ready to contest an election against Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, Trump said: “No, I don’t think they’ll replace her. We have to see what’s wrong, we have to see what’s wrong. But whatever it is, I’m ready. “I think it’s an issue. In fact, this last week I took a physical and I’ll be releasing when the numbers come in. Hopefully they’re going to be good, I think they’re going to be good, I feel great, but when the numbers come in I’ll be releasing very, very specific numbers. “I’ve already done it but the report should be finished this week.â€\x9d Trump chose to focus his political fire on Clinton’s remark at a Friday fundraiser in New York that “to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorablesâ€\x9d. Trump said he had initially thought “it was not within the realm of possibility that she said itâ€\x9d and called the remark “the biggest mistake of the political seasonâ€\x9d. “It was said with such anger,â€\x9d he added. Clinton issued a statement over the remark on Saturday, in which she repeated that she had been being “grossly generalisticâ€\x9d but said she had been wrong to say a “halfâ€\x9d. On Sunday, Clinton left 9/11 commemorations in New York after an hour and a half, and was later seen in video shot by a bystander stumbling as she was supported into a car. Amid press confusion and reports of a “medical episodeâ€\x9d, she went to her daughter’s Manhattan apartment to rest. Her campaign initially said she had been “feeling overheatedâ€\x9d; Clinton emerged from the apartment to say she was “feeling greatâ€\x9d. “Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies,â€\x9d Dr Lisa R Bardack said in a subsequent statement, having examined Clinton at her home in Chappaqua. “On Friday, during follow-up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. “While at this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now rehydrated and recovering nicely.â€\x9d Clinton was ordered to rest and subsequently canceled a Monday trip to a fundraiser in California, although the campaign said she planned to appear by video instead. Trump is due to appear on the Dr Oz television show this week, to discuss the health of both presidential candidates. The candidate himself and his campaign surrogates have cast doubt on Clinton’s health and fitness for the Oval Office, based on a 2012 incident in which Clinton fell, a mishap attributed to a stomach virus, and suffered a concussion and a blood clot in the brain. Later testing showed the clot to have cleared completely. The release of health records – like the release of tax returns, which Trump has not done – is traditional rather than mandatory. In 2008, Barack Obama, then 47, released a 276-word report about his health. His opponent, John McCain, then 71, made available more than 1,000 pages related to his own medical history. A spokesman for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, said in a statement to the on Sunday: “Given Governor Johnson’s level of fitness and exercise, his medical records haven’t been much of an issue. We will discuss with him how and what information to release.â€\x9d",
 'In New York debate lead-up, Hofstra University students argue Clinton v Trump “Right now I’m thinking that I will be voting for Donald Trump,â€\x9d said Kyle Hover. “The idea of the Democratic party is more what I don’t really fit along with. Yeah, we do need social programs to help the people that need help, but they’re just running rampant in this country right now.â€\x9d Hover is not a rabid Trump supporter at a rally. He is an 18-year-old computer science major at Hofstra University, in New York – where the much-anticipated first presidential debate will be taking place on Monday night. You might not expect to find many Trump supporters at an allegedly liberal college, but the Republican nominee’s reach is extensive, despite his litany of offensive comments towards women, ethnic minorities and his various political opponents. “Those are part of the things I don’t agree with,â€\x9d Hover said, when asked if he too, feels that Mexico is sending rapists to the US, and if he agrees with Trump’s treatment of women. “I do feel that gender equality and racial equality are more towards the top of what I like to see brought out in a presidential campaign,â€\x9d Hover said. The 18-year-old did not find too many issues with Trump’s other remarks on the trail. A recent poll showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 56-20% among those under 35. This year millennials (broadly speaking, people born between 1981 and 1997) overtook the baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) as the largest generation in the US. Shanon Thomas, a 19-year-old women’s studies and criminology major, is among those planning to vote for Clinton. Thomas said she wanted to hear the former New York senator address inequality during the debate. “She will do a good job in bringing equality to this country,â€\x9d Thomas said. “That’s the only way we can get ourselves back to being great – as opposed to what other candidates think make America great.â€\x9d She was referencing the baseball hats that Trump has been wearing and selling as part of his campaign. Trump’s other business ventures have included a board game, vodka and meat. An 18-year-old political science major called Doreen, who asked that her last name not be published, said the candidates should focus on racial issues. “I think definitely things regarding police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, that definitely is something that needs to be talked about,â€\x9d she said. Doreen, who is African American, referenced the recent shooting of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, by a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I feel scared,â€\x9d she said. “Watching the video of what happened in Tulsa it’s kind of like that could have been anybody. “That could’ve been my dad, that could have been anyone in the world that I know.â€\x9d',
 'Twitter locks millions of accounts after passwords posted for sale Twitter has been forced to lock millions of users’ accounts after 33m purported account details were posted for sale on the dark web. The details, which were revealed and made available by security site LeakedSource on Wednesday, are thought to be gleaned from other sources, rather than a direct attack on the social network. Michael Coates, Twitter’s trust and information security officer, said: “We’ve investigated claims of Twitter @names and passwords available on the dark web, and we’re confident the information was not obtained from a hack of Twitter’s servers.â€\x9d Both LeakedSource and Twitter suggest that the database of records could have been created by combining information from other breaches or from password-stealing malware on user machines. Coates said: “In each of the recent password disclosures, we cross-checked the data with our records. As a result, a number of Twitter accounts were identified for extra protection. Accounts with direct password exposure were locked and require a password reset by the account owner.â€\x9d Twitter declined to state precisely how many accounts were affected, but the number is thought to be in the millions. The social network has already notified affected users via email. Those who did not receive the email who attempt to log into the social network will find their accounts locked. The action follows a string of high-profile Twitter account hacks, including Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, Katy Perry – Twitter’s most followed account – and the official NFL account. The recent breaches have been blamed on the reuse of usernames and passwords across sites. Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were reportedly compromised using login details gleaned from a hack of LinkedIn in 2012. Twitter advises the use of unique passwords as well as the activation of two-step verification, which requires verification of login attempts using SMS, Twitter app notifications or similar technology, to help protect their accounts. Twitter warns users they may have been hacked by ‘state-sponsored actors’',
 "Could Jill Stein's vote recount change the outcome of the election? In two days, Jill Stein raised more than enough money, more than $5m, to file for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, though her campaign is still seeking about $2m more to cover the associated legal fees. Results in these battleground states were narrow, with Trump winning by just 0.3% in Michigan, 1.2% in Pennsylvania, and 0.7% in Wisconsin. If Clinton had won all of these states’ 46 electoral college votes, it have would been enough for her to win the presidency. But the recount process is intensive, expensive and unlikely to change the outcome of the election unless widespread voter fraud is proven. Experts have been skeptical that is the case. In Wisconsin – where her team was due to file a recount motion by Friday afternoon – election officials would have to examine millions of paper ballots and the paper trails of the 5% of votes cast on electronic touch-screen machines. Wisconsin election commission director Michael Haas told local news that the commission was preparing for a recount, though it had not seen evidence of interference in the state’s voting system. “We don’t have any reason to suspect that any voting equipment has been tampered with,â€\x9d Haas said. Unofficial results showed Trump won Wisconsin by more than 27,000 votes. The state has never conducted a presidential recount, but Stein’s campaign said it would file a motion for a recount on Friday before the deadline to do so in the state. In Pennsylvania, there is no paper trail – a problem election observers anticipated ahead of the 8 November race. “The nightmare scenario would be if Pennsylvania decides the election and it is very close. You would have no paper records to do a recount,â€\x9d Lawrence Norden, the co-author of a report on voting machines, told the Los Angeles Times in late October. But because machines there are not connected to the internet, like those in Michigan, officials said they couldn’t be hacked. Across the whole of the US, about three-quarters of voters mark paper ballots that are counted electronically by an optical scanner, according to the nonpartisan group Verified Voting, which examines how new technology affects voting integrity. But some states, including Pennsylvania, rely almost entirely on touchscreen computer voting that does not produce a paper trail. The punch card ballots that resulted in the disputed hanging chads during the Florida recount in 2000 are no longer used. Trump was declared the winner in Michigan on Thursday by 10,704 votes, and the election director there insists there was no evidence of hacking. “It’s just conjecture, and I don’t think that serves anyone’s good purpose,â€\x9d said Chris Thomas, the longtime director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections.",
 'Councils must play a more pivotal role in health and care integration The number of people in the UK with complex needs who require both health and social care is increasing rapidly. In the south-east of England, for example, our population of over 75-year-olds (already the largest in England) is expected to nearly double to 1.5m in the next 20 years. Health and social care provision looks increasingly unsustainable financially and local government fears the sustainability and transformation plan (STP) process won’t solve the problem. The present system, with health services delivered by the NHS and social care by local authorities each working separately and meeting different pressures, can lead to inefficiency, delays, duplication and gaps in care. Real integration of health and care services holds the promise of providing seamless care, tailored to the individual’s needs and focused on outcomes rather than the workforce, organisational structures or the setting in which care is delivered. It allows patients to choose and control what care they receive, where and by whom it is provided by and places more emphasis on prevention. Integration has the potential to realise cost savings and dramatically improve the quality of care. The challenge is bringing together all tiers of local government and the NHS. These organisations have fundamentally different structures, cultures and funding arrangements, and these create significant barriers to working together in a seamless and successful way. Partners will need to break down cultural barriers and silos to focus on their strengths to deliver the best outcomes for individuals. STPs could offer a way forward but they are NHS dominated, so remain largely focused on “cureâ€\x9d. Local authorities feel opportunities are being missed for a more equal partnership that also draws on councils’ skills in delivering efficient, locally-tailored services that meet people’s needs and focus on prevention. South East England Councils (SEEC) members have identified eight solutions to common problems that will help us move towards successful integration: A common definition of integration must be established. This will need to be agreed by councils and the NHS but it must place paramount importance on the needs and preferences of the individual and provide clearly measurable goals and lines of accountability. Government programmes, incentives and guidance from different departments will need to be reviewed and aligned to ensure they all steer organisations towards achieving the nationally agreed definition and goals. Co-chairing of STPs and other initiatives by NHS and local authority partners is essential to ensure buy-in of all parties and to start to break down barriers. Health and care services must be available outside hospitals. Local authorities should have a greater role to play in delivering place-based services. For example, by providing community health alongside public health. Re-designing of jobs and qualifications is needed to focus staff on delivering seamless care and to bridge organisational differences. For example, new roles such as physician assistants could bridge the gap between nurse and doctor and also help respond to an expected shortage of GPs. Quality housing is essential for people with care needs. Local plans need to reflect demand for specialist housing. Such housing should also be exempt from the government’s benefit cap and proposed reduction in social rents. This would give housing associations the security to invest in homes for people with disabilities or care needs. A clear and consistent approach is required for sharing and comparing data between organisations and to measuring savings from preventative initiatives. Light touch guidance is needed to ensure delivery partnerships develop in a sustainable, accountable way. This will help resolve debates about whether governance or delivery should be the early priority. Some think good practice should come first – others think governance is required to ensure accountability and a route to resolving problems. In addition to these issues, the government will also need to recognise there are limits to the amount of cost-cutting and streamlining that can take place – the growing demand for services cannot be met from current budgets indefinitely. As we move down the path to health and social care integration, councils must play a more pivotal role. Their local knowledge and democratic accountability make them the best agency to deliver care that – as it focuses more on individual needs – will become increasing place-based. A greater focus on prevention will also highlight the significant role that adult social care, housing, public health, youth outreach and other council services play in preventing ill-health and reducing the need for hospital care – proving the case for increased funding in these areas. We need to break down the barriers to closer co-operation with the NHS and use local government’s proven experience of transforming services in the face of shrinking budgets, to create a new system of person-centred health and care services that are sustainable and fit for the future. Cllr Roy Perry is deputy chairman of South East England Councils and leader of Hampshire county council The and KPMG are holding a fringe debate on integration at the Local Government Association conference in Bournemouth this week Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.',
 'So Rose could have saved Jack in Titanic – so what, it still passes the fridge test Protests that fly in the face of popular opinion cannot help but benefit from celebrity endorsement. And this week, one particular group of aggrieved voices attracted much-needed validation from Kate Winslet, who is currently in the US to drum up support for her best supporting actress Oscar nomination for the film Steve Jobs. Admittedly, the group she got behind has been protesting in online chat rooms rather than in their local high streets or outside town halls. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the issue in question is not of vital importance. The contentious subject concerns the ending of James Cameron’s 1998 movie Titanic, in which Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) sinks to an icy death in the ocean while his sweetheart Rose (Winslet) clings to a door bobbing on the waves. Some fans have long claimed that there was room on that wooden raft for two. The charge is that Rose effectively sent him to his death – and turned him into a Jacksicle. With five simple words, Winslet has now confirmed those fears. “He could have actually fitted,â€\x9d she told the talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel. The prosecution rests. This is not the first time this has come up. Cameron was quizzed on the matter in 2012 by this newspaper. His response was withering: “Wait a minute, I’m going to call up William Shakespeare and ask why Romeo and Juliet had to die,â€\x9d he snapped. My sympathies in this matter lie exclusively with Cameron. Like him or not, he is a creative force, while fans tend to be destructive in their pedantry. He is an artist; they are nit-pickers. I’m no admirer of Titanic. The film’s use of a real-life tragedy as an eye-catching backdrop is exploitative at best. So the idea that Rose might have caused the death of a loved one simply to leave a little more elbow room in the hours before she is rescued makes this anodyne movie mildly interesting at last. But it’s unlikely to be the case. Jack had to die because the picture was constructed as a tear-jerker. Every fictional story needs its own internal logic on which real world plausibility cannot trespass. Objections will inevitably arise that could unravel this fictional fabric, and it is the filmmakers’ responsibility to keep those at bay for as long as possible. Mightier talents than Cameron have seen off challenges to their supremacy. The accusation is still sometimes heard that Orson Welles slipped up by making the whole of Citizen Kane pivot on the dying word (“Rosebudâ€\x9d) of an old man, without putting anyone in the same room to overhear him say it. Not so. Watch the whole movie and you’ll realise that the butler did it – or rather, heard it. Alfred Hitchcock had a term for niggling problems that are left unresolved in a movie: he called them “iceboxâ€\x9d questions. Opaqueness is fine (Vertigo is suffused with it) but if you skimp explicitly on vital information, the audience will be unforgiving. Asked why the psychiatrist unpicks every inch of the plot at the end of Psycho, Hitchcock said that not doing so would have upset “the icebox tradeâ€\x9d. That is, “the people who get home after seeing a movie, go to the icebox, and take out the cold chicken. While they’re chewing on it, they discuss the picture. In the morning, the wife meets the neighbour next door. She says to her, ‘How was the picture?’, and the wife says, ‘It was all right but we discovered a number of flaws in it.’ Bang goes your word of mouth!â€\x9d The director Jonathan Demme modified both the term and its meaning. Working with the screenwriter Ted Tally on The Silence of the Lambs, he advised him not to worry unduly over “refrigerator questionsâ€\x9d. Demme explained: “You know. You’ve just come home from a movie, you had a great time, you go to the refrigerator to get a beer, you open the door, and you say, ‘Wait a minute …’â€\x9d If a film has got the audience until they open the fridge, maintains Demme, then that’s all that matters. Given that it has taken almost 20 years for the clamour about the Titanic question to rise above the negligible, it’s fair to say that the movie easily passes the refrigerator test. An entire generation has been sired since it was first released. Political regimes have fallen and risen. I think Cameron can rest easy over his reputation as a storyteller.',
 'Middlesbrough on the ascent as Gastón RamÃ\xadrez helps them sink Hull Gastón RamÃ\xadrez harbours unhappy memories of Hull and will doubtless have enjoyed taking his frustrations out on Mike Phelan’s spirited but under-powered team. Dispatched to Humberside on loan by Southampton two years ago, the Uruguayan struggled with injuries and poor form, and it took a transfer to Teesside to help restore him to former glories. And RamÃ\xadrez, once again emphasising his importance to Aitor Karanka’s gameplan, headed in a winner to lift Middlesbrough four points clear of the relegation zone and towards mid-table security. It left an unambitious Hull, who restricted a dominant Boro to few clear-cut chances but created next to none of their own, second from bottom and heading into a bitter night with their future as unclear as the fog-shrouded roads leading south to Humberside. “We controlled the game,â€\x9d said Karanka, for whom it was only a third victory of the season. “It was a really good win, beating Hull was massive. They’re really well organised but we showed we were better than them.â€\x9d Phelan did not entirely disagree. “We were under severe pressure but I thought we defended well,â€\x9d the Hull manager said. “With better decision-making we could possibly have got a point.â€\x9d As the mist began rolling in from the Tees, a cagey opening filled with backwards and sideways passes was briefly enlivened when Ã\x81lvaro Negredo met Marten de Roon’s lay-off. Twelve yards out, the striker was slackly marked but, perhaps unwisely, he elected to shoot with the outside of his left foot when he seemed to have time to shift it on to the right. Unsurprisingly, the shot arced high over the bar. David Marshall, Hull’s keeper, has one of VÃ\xadctor Valdés’s old Barcelona jerseys hidden away in his garage. It is a souvenir from the night in 2004 the then youthful Celtic keeper was part of the team who won a Uefa Cup match against Barça, and he seemed minded to perform a few more heroics here. Having reacted well to save RamÃ\xadrez’s low 25-yard shot and then divert a similar effort from Adam Forshaw, he initially proved adept at it. Boro’s improvement in recent weeks has been largely attributable to Karanka’s installation of his other Barcelona old boy, Adama Traoré, wide on the right, and the winger’s demotion to the bench raised eyebrows. His place was taken by Viktor Fischer, who thought he had scored after turning the ball home following RamÃ\xadrez’s cross and Negredo’s headed flick only to see the effort rightly disallowed for a combination of offside and handball. No matter; Karanka’s players were very much in control. They appeared almost affronted when Hull finally escaped their half and looked unprepared for Adama Diomandé’s acceleration on to Markus Henriksen’s pass. Then, just as Diomandé, shaped to shoot, Ben Gibson slid in to retrieve the situation with a perfectly timed, brilliantly executed tackle. “Ben Gibson, he’s one of our own,â€\x9d chorused the Teesside crowd as Steve Gibson, the club’s owner and the centre-half’s uncle, looked on approvingly. Behind the smiles, Gibson Sr might have been a little concerned by Boro’s failure to translate superiority into goals, the moment when Fischer’s inviting delivery struck a startled Negredo on the side of the head seeming symbolic of their attacking travails. Significantly, that was a rare cross from a home player and maybe a few more would not have gone amiss. Possibly this dearth of centres was down to RamÃ\xadrez being used as much more of a playmaking No10 than a winger. It also had something to do with Fischer’s struggles to get beyond Ahmed Elmohamady but philosophy comes into it too; Karanka wants to play in a more between-the-lines way. On Monday, though, Hull’s five-man midfield made fluency difficult in the freezing air, though the game finally defrosted 15 minutes into a second half full of home dominance when a set piece rescued Boro. Fischer’s corner found RamÃ\xadrez totally unmarked at the far post and his glancing header defied Marshall. Industry personified, the Uruguayan deserved his moment. Phelan’s side immediately became more expansive after Ryan Mason and Jake Livermore were withdrawn and Tom Huddlestone and the young Jarrod Bowen were introduced. And after RamÃ\xadrez hobbled off with a minor injury, Hull suddenly prompted panic for Boro. Their new-found sense of adventure resulted in Valdés saving brilliantly from Diomandé in stoppage time. Connecting with Robert Snodgrass’s ensuing corner, the lone striker then poked the ball narrowly wide. Next Valdés directed a clearance straight at Snodgrass but he could not quite take advantage. “We don’t have great resources,â€\x9d Phelan said. “We know it’s going to be difficult – but this will not kill our sense of belief.â€\x9d',
 "The Comedian's Comedian: the podcast that gets inside funny people's heads “I basically find a comedian, find out how they write their jokes, find out if they’re depressed – if they’re not, tell them they probably are – and then work out what it is they’re after [in life].â€\x9d That’s how standup Stuart Goldsmith describes The Comedian’s Comedian, the podcast he created in 2012 – and he’s only half-joking. The show sees Goldsmith quiz some of the most successful comedians in the industry. But while he warms up with chat about career trajectory and comic voice, conversation soon turns to the very intimate details of his guests’ state of mind. For Shappi Khorsandi, that means talking about a recent breakdown. For Jimmy Carr it’s revealing how neuro-linguistic programming changed his life. And for Russell Howard, it’s answering “noâ€\x9d to Goldsmith’s favourite question: are you happy? The result is a podcast that offers a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of comedians’ minds. Goldsmith describes Howard’s admission as “very difficult for someone whose stock-in-trade is optimism and sunshineâ€\x9d; with this dichotomy of seemingly self-possessed comedians talking about the darkness in their lives, Goldsmith has stumbled across a formula that has made his show an endlessly riveting listen for both those in the industry and the rest of us watching from the outside. Goldsmith originally created The Comedian’s Comedian in response to the mystery surrounding the standup profession. “I realised I’d been a comic for five or six years, and I’d had no official training in it,â€\x9d he says. “I went to circus school, I trained myself in busking, I did a theatre degree, I felt like the eternal student who’d ended up doing something he’d never studied for.â€\x9d During a stint on a short-lived ITV stand-up talent show called Show Me The Funny, he realised nobody seemed to be asking how comedy was created. “They were asking questions that would try to manufacture rivalry between the contestantsâ€\x9d, remembers Goldsmith. “I just thought, what a missed opportunity, you’ve got 10 wildly different comics here, why don’t you ask us how we’re doing the thing that you appear to be interested in.â€\x9d At the same time Goldsmith was keen to improve his own performance, so approached the comic Simon Evans in the hope of paying for a masterclass. Evans instead suggested the pair discuss joke-writing over a coffee. As soon as Goldsmith left he realised that he had forgotten almost everything Evans had said, “so then I thought, I’ll bloody record thisâ€\x9d. More than 175 episodes later, he’s still recording. Despite his eureka moment, Goldsmith didn’t invent the comedians-in-conversation podcast: US comic Marc Maron’s WTF is the most famous example, while Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast is perhaps the best-known UK incarnation. But The Comedian’s Comedian is notably more revealing than its main rival. “Richard Herring’s podcasts are brilliant but he’s not interested in really finding anything out. What he likes to do is create humour out of awkward and surreal situations,â€\x9d says Goldsmith. Or to put it another way, one of Herring’s default questions is “Have you ever tried to suck your own cock?â€\x9d, whereas Goldsmith says his is about, “How do you cope, pause, how do you really cope?â€\x9d He views the podcast as a kind of therapy session that can actually help his guests. That said, analysis of standup, from joke-writing to the construction of a set, is still a big part of the podcast – and often it feels as radical as the soul-baring. It has long been frowned upon to pick apart jokes: somewhere along the line, EB White’s maxim that “analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of itâ€\x9d has become gospel. Yet Goldsmith and his guests regularly disprove that rule. Indeed, it’s heartening to hear people talk about comedy not as an ethereal moment of magic, but as a tangible thing that we can learn about. Goldsmith compares hearing something like Dara O Briain’s breakdown of his audience banter or Josh Widdicombe on how he punches up his weaker observational material to finding out the method behind a show-stopping Derren Brown move: “it didn’t ruin the trick, it made it better, because I understood the sheer elegance of the technique he was using. I think comedy is like that.â€\x9d Yet while Goldsmith is not stealthily killing comedy, it’s not an insult to say that the Comedian’s Comedian it isn’t exactly hilarious. “I say to them there is no pressure to perform or be funny and it’s just an intimate conversation about comedy and creativity.â€\x9d says Goldsmith – but not all comics are prepared to play along. Canadian one-liner comic Stewart Francis, for example, “was completely unable to stop doing shtick in front of the audience. Very, very funny, but five minutes in you can hear my heart break, and 10 minutes in hear me give upâ€\x9d. Despite the hefty amount of insight unearthed over The Comedian’s Comedian 200-odd hours, it feels as if Goldsmith is just getting started with his study of the medium. Where next for his podcast? “I sort of feel like it’s my life’s mission to do the perfect Simon Munnery interview,â€\x9d says Goldsmith of the pioneering alternative comic. “I keep putting it off because I don’t know if I’m good enough yet.â€\x9d Having contributed to the elevation of standup to something you can pore over without looking like a nerdy killjoy, Goldsmith is left with the anxiety that his comedy heroes might not be quite so involved. “My fear is that he’d go: ‘Oh, it’s just a joke,’â€\x9d he says. “No it isn’t. It’s far more than that.â€\x9d Comedy: it’s no laughing matter. New episodes of The Comedian’s Comedian are available on iTunes",
 'How Steve Hilton turned on his friend and ex-boss David Cameron It is barely more than a year since David Cameron was pictured bear-hugging a grinning Steve Hilton at the launch of the former Downing Street adviser’s new book, More Human. Hilton was tanned and dressed casually in a bright yellow T-shirt and orange trousers as he posed alongside the prime minister after returning from California in a blaze of media attention to promote his new ideas about transforming society. But it is hard to imagine the two men enjoying such cordial relations these days, after Hilton mounted his fifth attack on his former boss’s policies and manner of governing in the year since he returned from life as an academic in San Francisco. The subject of his latest critique is Cameron’s failed immigration target. Hilton has punched the remain campaign’s sorest bruise by telling the Daily Mail that civil servants warned years ago that the target would never be met without leaving the EU. Despite his sustained criticisms of Downing Street, Hilton was until recently described as Cameron’s “close friendâ€\x9d, his guru and sometimes even the brains behind his modernising agenda that stretched from hugging hoodies and huskies to the “big societyâ€\x9d. He was the subject of Westminster fascination in the early days of the coalition for his tendency not to wear shoes in the office and various outlandish policy ideas leaked by the Lib Dems before he headed off to America in 2012 for a sabbatical in academia. Such was Hilton’s reputation that he even earned a place in satirical history as the inspiration for the herbal-tea drinking spin doctor Stewart Pearson in the BBC’s The Thick of It. But after Hilton’s return from the US last year, it became clear he had political plans of his own that did not involve being cast in the role of an eccentric adviser still allied to his old boss. He started by telling the Daily Mail that he wanted Cameron to stand up for marriage and attacking an “insular ruling classâ€\x9d that controls the UK. By January, he had also attacked George Osborne for letting Google off the hook over its £130m back tax bill, despite his wife having formerly been a senior communications executive at the firm. He hit out at the ruling elites who were bullying Jeremy Corbyn and laid into the government for cosying up to a corrupt Chinese government last autumn. Relations have only soured since then. Those who know Hilton say he is a longtime opponent of the EU and centralised bureaucracy, so it was not surprising that he would come out for the leave campaign. Will Straw, the director of Britain Stronger in Europe, points out he is “so Eurosceptic he supported John Redwood’s leadership bid in 1995â€\x9d. But what has annoyed Downing Street remain campaigners so much is that Hilton has made a point of associating himself with the official leave campaign of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – two other friends-turned-adversaries of the prime minister. Rather than making his case from the sidelines, Hilton last week made a point of travelling to Norwich for a photo opportunity with Johnson in a move that appeared calculated to cause maximum irritation in No 10. He also made headlines by claiming that Cameron was at heart a Eurosceptic before he became institutionalised by his time in government. These claims give a clue as to the origins of Hilton’s disillusionment with the Cameron project – a feeling that the prime minister has abandoned his radical ambitions since entering No 10 and missed too many chances to shake off his own and the Tories’ elitist image. Gove, too, is known to view the remainers as dull, while the leavers – like Johnson and Hilton – are fellow travellers blessed with creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit. People who worked in No 10 during Hilton’s time there say there was a genuine closeness and affection between him and Cameron. But several advisers reported frustration at what they saw as Hilton’s impracticality and lack of ability to carry through his “blue-skyâ€\x9d proposals. Andy Coulson, the former communications chief who was later jailed over phone hacking, recalled recently in the Telegraph: “I would ask, ‘So how does that work then?’ If I got an answer at all, it was along the lines of, ‘It’ll be fine – just you see.’ That was mildly irritating, as it was my team who would have to get out and sell the latest product from Steve’s dream factory.â€\x9d Hilton’s rightwing, free-market ideas certainly infuriated Lib Dems who worked with him, as chronicled in David Laws’s book about the coalition. One Lib Dem former adviser said: “I was unfortunate enough to spend some time in Steve’s thought wigwam and it was not a pretty place. I remember him suggesting we should scrap maternity laws and invest in cloud-busting technology to improve the British weather. I certainly do not remember at any time him raising any points about the immigration policy he is now criticising.â€\x9d While Cameron has taken a while to rise to Vote Leave’s bait, Hilton’s latest attack over the sore point of immigration appears to have proved an annoyance too far for Downing Street. In a round of interviews on Tuesday, the prime minister slapped this down, saying his former adviser was “simply not rightâ€\x9d. In such a climate, it seems highly unlikely Hilton’s “sabbaticalâ€\x9d from No 10 will ever come to an end – unless he returns under another incumbent.',
 'Thousands who die with cancer spend last days in pain, study finds Nearly one in 10 people who died with cancer in England in 2014 spent the last 48 hours of their lives in pain, according to a survey. The findings from the National Survey of Bereaved People (Voices) equate to more than 12,500 people spending their last days without adequate pain relief, Macmillan Cancer Support estimates. The charity said a lack of support at home, including pain relief, means that people with cancer at the end of their life do not have enough choice over where they would like to be cared for and many are spending their final days in oversubscribed hospital beds against their wishes. “Quite simply, in the 21st century people should not be spending their final hours in pain in this country because the support is not there,â€\x9d said Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support. “It is tragic for the individual and distressing for family and friends who witness their loved one in pain.â€\x9d Macmillan urged the government to fix England’s “dismalâ€\x9d variation in the quality of end-of-life care by funding improvements recommended in an independent review of choice at the end of life published in February 2015. The review from the Choice in End of Life Care Programme Board concluded that a meaningful level of service improvement could be achieved for a relatively modest investment of £130m in social care and NHS commissioned services to deliver a national choice offer in end-of-life care. It recommended that every local area establish 24/7 end-of-life care for people outside hospital and for details of people’s choices to be held electronically in a palliative care coordination system. “The review of choice at the end of life published last year set out a comprehensive set of recommendations that would help improve the end-of-life care in England,â€\x9d said Thomas. “The government must fund and implement the recommendations of the review; we cannot carry on with the way things are.â€\x9d Macmillan has developed a care at home model in Midhurst, West Sussex, which includes clinical interventions from blood/blood product transfusions to IV antibiotics being provided at home or in a community setting. A team led by a consultant is responsible for the patient. Analysis by Macmillan, based on Office for National Statistics data, found that people with cancer who receive inadequate pain relief at home are twice as likely to die somewhere they did not want to, compared with those who received complete pain relief. Previous Macmillan research showed that 73% of people with cancer would prefer to die at home. Yet recent figures from the ONS showed that only 30% are able to do so. Ann Osborn, 63, from London, cared for her father when he was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in 2010. “My father wanted to die at home but there just wasn’t a way to make that possible,â€\x9d she told Macmillan. “Alone in the early hours of the morning, he would call me in agony and I was eventually given the liquid morphine to make him more comfortable. Near the end, he was scared. We couldn’t cope and had to put him in a residential care home. I appreciate people should have the choice to be at home but there needs to be better social support to make this happen.â€\x9d The 2014 survey was sent to approximately 49,000 people. More than 21,000 (21,403) returned the survey, of which 6,703 were from relatives and carers of people who died from cancer.',
 'The secret life of a midwife: I feel like I work in a factory, not on a maternity ward My decision to become a midwife came from a deep-seated desire to care for others and a natural curiosity about pregnancy and birth. The idea of being the one to welcome new life into the world seemed idyllic and heartwarming. Thirteen months after qualifying, I find myself in a position dreaded by most midwives. Notorious for its heavy workload and lack of staffing, the postnatal ward is my greatest challenge yet. It is mentally, emotionally and physically draining. In the first few days of a new baby’s life, mothers will be encouraged to stay on the ward, to get them back on their feet and ready to go home, as well as providing a last opportunity to recognise any medical or social needs. It is an extremely special time for families and as a midwife it’s a great privilege to be a part of this. However, the role is not quite as it should be. My day starts with a handover from the weary night staff. This involves getting a full run-down of each patient, what kind of birth they had, their medical history and what needs to be done for them that day. We split the workload between us, and as a young and relatively enthusiastic member of the team, I often get tasked with the most work. Our ward is split into bays, with four beds in each. We are assigned two bays per midwife, totalling a maximum of eight women and eight babies. That’s 16 bodies under my care; 16 bodies to be responsible for if something goes wrong. As the day goes on there’s lots to be done: monitoring first dirty nappies, supporting four-hourly feeds (by breast or bottle), vaccinations, checking blood test results and neonatal reviews, preparing paperwork, administering medication, organising discharge meetings – the list goes on. Each of these things often relies on someone else, be it a stressed neonatal doctor who is on call and covering the whole hospital, an obstetrician trying to stabilise a sick patient, or a busy pharmacist processing medication. Each patient is a different number on each of these waiting lists, and I have to keep track of them all. Simultaneously, you can be guaranteed that each bed that you “emptyâ€\x9d has the name of another patient already assigned to it, waiting to arrive from the labour ward. Often I feel like I work in a factory, not on a maternity ward. The sheer volume of mothers and babies we see means the only way to cater for them all is to keep them moving through the process as quickly as possible. If the labour ward gets full of postnatal patients, the antenatal ward gets full of women in labour and the whole place gets backed up. So, as the last link in the chain the pressure is on you to work fast and clear the beds. I often don’t take a break so that I don’t fall behind, and the harder you work, the more work you are given. Sadly, this comes at the expense of patients. I can get to the end of a 12-hour day, and realise that I’ve only actually seen and spoken to some mothers once. I’ve been so busy, with my head buried in the daily toil of the ward, that I haven’t had a chance to get to know them and really be there for them. This is not what I signed up for. I wanted to help, to make the experience of birth a memorable one. As well as pressure from colleagues, you have the added pressure from families, who want to go home as soon as possible and all feel they should be at the top of the priority list. Some get very angry that I’ve kept them waiting. I think this is the worst thing about my job. I hate feeling like I’m letting them down, that I don’t care about their needs or have forgotten about them. I try not to succumb to this pressure because if you rush, you run the risk of missing something important. Each day my aim is to make sure that every single mother and baby that leaves the hospital has everything they need to feel safe and well supported. It may not seem like it at the time but this single day of waiting will be a mere drop in the ocean of the rest of their life with their child. Weeks from now it will no longer matter. But if I forget something it could have long-term consequences. Not long ago someone didn’t give a mother an important antibody injection; she was sent home and refused to come back in to have it. Subsequently we had to send a midwife to her home to do it, leaving me and another midwife carrying the added weight of her workload. Had we not done this, her future pregnancies would have been at risk. More often than not I feel lost in the system and struggling under the weight of a crumbling NHS. We keep begging for more staff but no one listens. The staff we do have are slowly abandoning ship. What I would do for another pair of hands so I could spend a bit more time helping a mother breastfeed for the first time or teach a new dad how to change a nappy. Most families are understanding and can see I’m doing my best. I try to remain cheerful but have cried on many occasions because I can never please everyone. The time that I can spare I love to spend talking to the women and stealing the odd cuddle from a baby. The best part of my job is when you care for a woman who is clearly very anxious and scared, quite often after a traumatic birth, and after spending some time talking to her and supporting her, you manage to coax a smile. The other day I was lucky enough to have an hour helping a woman express breast milk by hand for her premature baby. Afterwards she looked up at me and said: “I like you, I LOVE you! Thank you, this has made me so happy.â€\x9d When someone says something like that you can’t help but beam with pride, to know that amid all the chaos you really have made a difference. • Are you a chef, a social worker, an undertaker? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here',
 'Trump cancels Chicago rally amid violence and chaos – as it happened Our live coverage of the extraordinary scenes in Chicago has come to a close but you can read the full report here by our reporters filing straight from the scene. Here is a quick summary of the day’s events on the campaign trail: • Protesters in Chicago have forced the shutdown of a Donald Trump rally before it even began. Heated scenes that simmered between anti-Trump demonstrators and his supporters at the University of Illinois Chicago Pavilion boiled over when the campaign announced he would not be appearing, citing safety concerns • Earlier a Trump rally in St Louis also gave rise to scenes of violence and disorder, with police making 32 arrests and at least one person left bloodied and needing an ambulance • Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, had to backtrack after comments at Nancy Reagan’s funeral that appeared to gloss over the Reagans’ troubling legacy in the fight against HIV/Aids • Bernie Sanders received a boost when a judge gave the go-ahead for 17-year-olds to vote in the Ohio primary On the streets of Chicago, scenes of violence and chaos unparalleled in the recent history of American political campaigning have unfolded since Donald Trump’s campaign announced the postponement of a rally in America’s “Second City.â€\x9d The cancellation of the rally due to “safety concernsâ€\x9d created unruly scenes inside the Chicago Pavilion of the University of Illinois and in the street outside. Scuffles and fights broke out between Trump supporters, protesters and police, and a number of arrests were made, including of at least one reporter. As mayhem took place in Chicago, Trump took to the airwaves to tell his side of the story, telling MSNBC: “It’s sad when you can’t have a rally. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?â€\x9d There is a long history of violence at Trump events. In the past week alone, an attack on a non-violent protester led to criminal charges against a Trump supporter and Michelle Fields, a reporter for conservative website Breitbart News, was allegedly assaulted by Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager. Trump has played a role in encouraging this culture of violence. When the Republican frontrunner appeared in St. Louis earlier on Friday, an event that featured more than 30 arrests, he complained “part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long [to kick protesters out] is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.â€\x9d Trump added “There used to be consequences. There are none anymore. These people are so bad for our country. You have no idea folks, you have no idea.â€\x9d The scenes of violence sparked condemnation from Trump’s top rival for the GOP nomination, Texas senator Ted Cruz. “A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment,â€\x9d said Cruz at a press conference. “The predictable consequence of [Trump’s comments] is it escalates. Today is unlikely to be the last such instance.â€\x9d In a statement, Ohio governor John Kasich echoed this condemnation. “Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.â€\x9d Political violence on the scale witnessed on Friday is rare in American politics. Famously, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago witnessed repeated clashes between the police and anti-war protesters culminating in what a federal commission called “a police riot.â€\x9d But the three-way conflict between Trump supporters and protesters with the police caught in the middle is something unusual and represents a disturbing trend in an election where many of the norms and mores of American politics have already gone by the wayside. In the meantime though, the protesters had outwardly succeeded in their goal for the evening. As one, Violet Ornelas, 28, gleefully proclaimed the : “If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes think he could handle Isis?â€\x9d Onetime presidential candidate and former speaker of the house of representatives Newt Gingrich believes that tonight’s events in Chicago are the result of fascism - liberal fascism, particularly. Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor John Kasich has released a statement regarding tonight’s events in Chicago, blaming the unrest on “the seeds of divisionâ€\x9d sown by the Trump campaign: Reporting live from the Chicago Pavilion at the University of Illinois, the ’s Ben Jacobs, Zach Stafford and Ciara McCarthy write that the scene of Donald Trump’s aborted rally is tense. Outside, more than a thousand protesters gathered, shutting down the streets. Chanting “We are not tiredâ€\x9d, they blocked a street intersection and set up a microphone and speakers. Police helicopters whirled overhead in an outbreak of political violence unprecedented, in Chicago at least, since 1968 Democratic National Convention. Trump, who repeated previous criticisms of protesters at his rally as “extremely dangerous and extremely physicalâ€\x9d, made the connection himself, telling MSNBC: “I think a lot of people said that it was wrong that we were really stopped from holding a rally. It didn’t have to be stopped. “But if we held it people would’ve potentially been hurt and I didn’t want to see people hurt. Chicago’s the home of some very very bad rallies. Just look back at the conventions here … people were killed.â€\x9d At the venue, one protester gleefully mocked Trump. Violet Ornelas, 28, told the : “If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes think he could handle Isis?â€\x9d Dramatic footage of an injured Chicago police officer outside of the University of Illinois: The Chicago Tribune captured this photograph outside of Donald Trump’s aborted rally at the University of Illinois’ Chicago branch tonight: “When will the first pro-Donald Trump murder happen?â€\x9d That’s what Lucia Graves wants to know. The notoriously anti-Trump New York Daily News has released a sneak preview of tomorrow’s woodcut: CBS News reporter Sopan Deb, who has been on the Donald Trump campaign trail, has been detailed while reporting in Chicago: An editor’s note on a CBS dispatch says: In the midst of reporting on this event, CBS News’ Sopan Deb was detained by law enforcement. We are awaiting more information on the circumstances and will continue to update our report. This was the reporter’s last tweet before he was detained: Donald Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he was glad he canceled his rally in Chicago: We’re very conscious of the fact that we don’t want anybody to be hurt ... Tonight, virtually nobody is even hurt. We made a very good decision ... We worked very closely with law enforcement and they gave us some really good advice. Trump also argued that the coverage of the conflicts has been biased against him: It’s a lot easier for people in life to be a liberal democrat. You have a double standard like nobody can believe. If conservatives and republicans ever did that to a liberal rally, it would be a national disgrace. It would be all over every paper for weeks. Trump further claimed that generally his protesters are the violent ones – not his supporters. “In some cases, they are being very violent ... I see it, because I’m making a speech. I’m on the platform. I’m able to see it. I see some people that are really bad. They’re bad dudes.â€\x9d If Trump supporters hit protesters, it’s usually self defense, he added: “When the punches are thrown back, it’s always their fault. It’s so unfair.â€\x9d Chicago police officials say they did not advise Donald Trump to cancel his rally, which attracted thousands of protesters. The AP reports: A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department says the agency never recommended that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cancel his campaign rally in the city. CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tells The Associated Press that the department never told the Trump campaign there was a security threat at the University of Illinois at Chicago venue. He said the department had sufficient manpower on the scene to handle any situation. Trump, speaking on Fox News, said his campaign met with security officials and they decided to cancel the event for safety reasons: It was so sad ... We were going to have a great rally. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have now both blamed Donald Trump for the violence that erupted at his Chicago rally. Rubio, speaking by phone to Fox’s Megyn Kelly, said: He most certainly in other events has in the past used some pretty rough language in encouraging the crowds ... He bears some responsibility for the general tone. Rubio also cast blame on the anti-Trump protesters, saying, “Clearly, this is an orchestrated effort ... It reflects very poorly on this country. I’m very sad for this country.â€\x9d He added: “This is Chicago. Protesters are an industry ... Chicago is kind of a hub for that.â€\x9d Talking to reporters shortly after, Ted Cruz said: A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment ... The predictable consequence of [Trump’s comments] is it escalates. Today is unlikely to be the last such instance. Cruz added: “We saw earlier today in St Louis over 30 arrested. That’s not how our politics should occur.â€\x9d He also took the opportunity to also blame the tensions on Obama, saying, “We’ve seen for seven years a president who often in times of crisis has sought to divide us ... on racial lines, on ethnic lines, on religious lines, on class lines. America is better than that. We don’t have to tear each other apart. Instead, we can work together.â€\x9d The ’s Zach Stafford received footage from Lindsay Brown, 31, of police clashing with protesters after they left the Trump rally in Chicago. Brown said: You could feel the anger the protesters had for the Trump supporters, who were openly racist and hostile to protesters ... People were energized from successfully getting the event canceled, but when they exited the area, they confronted Trump supporters shouting at them. From the Hugh Hewitt program, here are Ted Cruz’s comments on the chaos at Trump’s rally in Chicago: A candidate bears responsibility for the culture that is set from the top. The Cruz scene in a suburb of Chicago has quite a different tone than the Trump event: Ben Carson, the former presidential candidate who endorsed Donald Trump this week, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that the candidates need to discourage the kind of violence that broke out tonight in Chicago: There’s no question that those of us in leadership positions should be attempting to calm people down and teach people to respect each other ... That’s something we all need to be thinking about. Carson continued: “It’s going to be a huge problem for our country if we don’t do something about it now. A house divided against itself cannot stand.â€\x9d Shouting and scuffles are continuing to break out at a University of Illinois parking garage, the ’s Ben Jacobs reports: Here’s some footage from reporters Zach Stafford and Ben Jacobs on the scene in Chicago where protesters and Trump supporters continue to clash: Trump just told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that he suspects the protests and his decision to cancel the rally tonight could help him in the polls: Everybody tells me I get more votes. I don’t know. I didn’t do it for votes. I did it because I didn’t want to see anybody hurt. Trump said it appeared the conflicts were slowing down. “It looks like it’s breaking up very nicely, and I think the police have done a good job.â€\x9d Intermittent scuffles and fights are breaking out now between Trump supporters, protesters and police. Protesters have crowded the sidewalks and are overflowing into the streets, pushing at the barricades formed by police. Protesters formed a spontaneous human blockade of the parking garage where many rally-goers parked, creating a standoff between screaming Trump supporters in the multi-level garage and screaming protestors on the ground below. Speaking to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Donald Trump declared that “tremendous anger out there, on both sidesâ€\x9d was behind the cancellation of tonight’s rally in Chicago. “We had 25,000 people that tried to come in - supporters, all supporters,â€\x9d Trump said. “After seeing what’s on the show, I just think that it was a very good decision - I don’t wanna see people hurt.â€\x9d “I don’t use hate speech,â€\x9d Trump said in response to a question from Van Susteren about whether he bears any responsibility for the outbursts at his rallies. “There’s tremendous division in our country. I’ve seen it, I’m watching it, I’ve been witness to it, and something has to be done.â€\x9d But, Trump says, he’s not the one giving ammunition to his followers. “I represent a large group of people that have anger - they’re not angry people, but they have anger,â€\x9d Trump said. “This is very economic; this has a lot to do with jobs.â€\x9d “They haven’t shut down the rally at all, because it’s on television now, and it’s being seen by a lot more people,â€\x9d Trump said. “No, I don’t get scared. I don’t get scared,â€\x9d Trump said, after Van Susteren asked him if he was worried for his personal safety. Reporting live from the Chicago Pavillion at the University of Illinois, the ’s Ben Jacobs, Zach Stafford and Ciara McCarthy write that the scene of Donald Trump’s rally had been violent and chaotic even hours before its cancellation. The atmosphere in the building was tense long before Trump was scheduled to arrive. Violent incidents have occurred at and around a number of Trump rallies recently, including one in downtown St Louis on Friday afternoon. In Chicago, dozens of protesters, wearing shirts with slogans such as “Muslims united against Trumpâ€\x9d, were kicked out. Police walked up and down the arena stairs, holding sheaves of plastic handcuffs. Attendees grabbed signs out of each other’s hands while cursing and exchanging vulgar gestures. At least one section of young people was cleared out by police long before the event began. Finally, a half-hour after the event was scheduled to begin, the announcement came that Trump was not coming. The crowd immediately erupted. College students shouted “We shut it downâ€\x9d while loyal supporters of the Republican frontrunner shouted “We want Trumpâ€\x9d. In a phone call with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, presidential candidate Donald Trump told the host that he had his rally in Chicago cancelled because “I don’t wanna see people hurt or worse,â€\x9d but blamed the closure on anti-Trump protestors and told them to “get a job.â€\x9d “Look, it’s a two-way street,â€\x9d Trump said of physical violence at his rallies. “Frankly when the other side... when they get tough, it ends up being the front-page story.â€\x9d Telling Matthews that “some of these protestors are very dangerous people,â€\x9d Trump said that the reason protestors continue to come to his rallies is based on their economic concerns, rather than opposition to his platform. “We shouldn’t be restricted from having a rally here because of ethnic makeup,â€\x9d Trump said. “It shouldn’t matter.â€\x9d “We’re doing others, and up until this point we’ve had no problems,â€\x9d Trump said, insisting that he will continue to host rallies for his candidacy, “but this is a little bit of a different circumstance, and it’s a little sad that you can’t have a rally in a major city in this country. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?â€\x9d Protestor Violet Ornelas, 28, on Donald Trump’s cancelled rally: If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes him think he could handle Isis? The ’s Ciara McCarthy reports that the arena has been emptied at the site of the now-abandoned Donald Trump rally in Chicago: The ’s Ben Jacobs reports that the crowd in the Chicago Pavillion is now shouting “fuck Trump!â€\x9d The Donald Trump campaign has released a statement about the cancellation of tonight’s planned rally in downtown Chicago, calling the postponement a measure “for the safetyâ€\x9d of its attendees and urging protestors and supporters alike to “please go in peace.â€\x9d “Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date,â€\x9d the statement reads. “Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.â€\x9d A rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago for presidential candidate Donald Trump has been postponed at the last minute for “safety reasons,â€\x9d an unprecedented move from the Trump campaign after the tone of its rhetoric has drawn increased scrutiny. The scene inside the Chicago Pavillion, where the event was to be held, is chaotic, with opponents of the controversial Republican frontrunner mounting the stage and supporters of Trump getting in physical fights on the floor of the venue. Broadcasting live from the press area of the venue, CNN’s Jim Acosta declared on air “This is supposed to be American democracy, but what we have instead is total chaos.â€\x9d The University Village area of Chicago has been frozen by anti-Donald Trump protestors outside of the University of Illinois branch in the city. The ’s Lois Beckett reports from the scene at a Donald Trump rally in St. Louis earlier today, where violence broke out between protestors and Trump supporters: One of those supporters, Rudy Kelsey, 50, walked away from the conversation when one protester shouted that black people cannot be racist. “I learned that black people still feel very discriminated against,â€\x9d he said. “I told them them racism work both ways, and they said black people cannot be racist, and I said the dialogue’s over when you say that.â€\x9d Kelsey told the he had been discriminated against as a white man, because he was raised Amish. “My ancestors fled Europe because of persecution,â€\x9d he said. “My ancestors had their heads chopped off. They were burned at the stake and drowned.â€\x9d Growing up, he said, “we drove a horse and buggy instead of a car. We were Amish guys. We were the butt of every joke. My dad, he always raised us to be the best people that we could possibly be. Today I’m a successful self-made millionaire.â€\x9d Kelsey said he thought anyone could have that kind of success, “regardless of who you are or what your background is, but they obviously disagree with me very strongly out here. They say it’s still about color.â€\x9d While he was wearing a signed Trump hat, however, Kelsey said: “I’m not even sure I’m going to vote for him.â€\x9d He said he had come to the rally out of curiosity; either way he was “absolutelyâ€\x9d going to vote Republican. In a potential victory for Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, an Ohio judge has ruled that 17-year-old Ohioans can vote in the Buckeye State’s upcoming primary election. Ohio already allows all 17-year-olds to vote in congressional, legislative and mayoral primaries - as long as they will be 18 on Election Day - but the question of whether they can vote in a presidential primary had been unanswered. Nine Ohio teenagers filed a lawsuit over the interpretation of the law by Ohio’s secretary of state, which they claimed was an act of disenfranchisement. “Plaintiffs are entitled to a judgment that the secretary abused his discretion,â€\x9d judge Richard Frye of Franklin County said in his ruling, referring to Ohio secretary of state Jon Husted, a Republican who has vowed to appeal the ruling. “This last minute legislating from the bench on election law has to stop,â€\x9d Husted said in a statement. “Our system cannot give one county court the power to change 30 years of election law for the entire state of Ohio, 23 days into early voting and only four days before an election.â€\x9d “We will appeal this decision because if there is a close election on Tuesday we need clarity from the Supreme Court to make sure that ineligible voters don’t determine the outcome of an election. No matter the outcome of these disputes, I want 17-year-olds to know that they are eligible to vote on certain races and they should exercise that right,â€\x9d Husted added. The ruling, if ultimately successful, is a coup for the Sanders campaign, which enjoys high polling numbers among young voters. In nearby Iowa, Sanders won caucus voters under the age of 30 by a ratio of six to one - 84% to 14% - over competitor Hillary Clinton. The mayor of Miami Beach, one of the US cities most vulnerable to sea level rise, has criticized Marco Rubio after the presidential hopeful said that it’s not possible to “change the weatherâ€\x9d or the rising oceans through government regulation. Asked if he accepted the reality of human-induced climate change, Rubio said: “If the climate is changing, one of the reasons is because the climate has always been changing.â€\x9d Philip Levine, mayor of neighboring Miami Beach, said Rubio was “100% using the language of a climate change denierâ€\x9d and has overlooked the escalating problem of sea level increases for south Florida. “Unfortunately, Senator Rubio went to his usual talking points, fed to him by his donors in the sugar and energy industry,â€\x9d said Levine. “According to him, America shouldn’t be a leader in the greatest challenge of our generation. If he were around during World War II, he’d want us to sit on the sidelines and leave Britain to its fate.â€\x9d The ’s Ciara McCarthy has video of protestors being bodily removed from the location of Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Chicago. Four young Muslim men were forcibly escorted from the UIC arena where Donald Trump is preparing to speak at 6 p.m. The men were wearing T-shirts that said “Muslims United Against Trumpâ€\x9d under their sweatshirts. Authorities approached and asked them to lift up their outerwear, which the men did after authorities insisted. The men were escorted from the arena to cheers and chants of “USA! USA!â€\x9d from the nearby crowd. The men had previously waited in line to enter the arena wearing the handmade shirts before they said Secret Service agents asked them to get out of line and leave the area. The men returned to the line wearing sweatshirts over their t-shirts and were allowed to enter the arena. Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, has released an English campaign advertisement slamming Donald Trump for his rhetoric against Mexico. Castañeda originally made the call for prominent Mexicans to take a stand against Trump several months ago, but after a Spanish campaign video went viral on social media in the past several days he re-recorded the missive in English, adding on his own message: “I am not a rapist.â€\x9d Barack Obama has narrowed his list of potential supreme court nominees to three people, according to Reuters: Sri Srinivasan is is a US circuit judge of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia who was confirmed to his seat by a vote in the US senate of 97–0 in 2013. Merrick Garland is the chief judge of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who was confirmed by the senate in 1997. Paul Watford is a US circuit judge for the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit; he was confirmed in 2012 in a 61–34 vote. The ’s Sam Levin has more on Hillary Clinton’s swift about-face after lauding the Reagan administration’s response to the Aids crisis: “It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/Aids back in the 1980s,â€\x9d the Democratic frontrunner told MSNBC in an interview at the funeral, which was held at the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California. Clinton continued: “Because of both president and Mrs Reagan, in particular Mrs Reagan, we started a national conversation when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that, too, is something that I really appreciate. With her very effective, low-key advocacy … it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say: ‘Hey, we have to do something about this too.’â€\x9d Her comments in the interview flew in the face of how many longtime gay rights activists view the Reagans – as a couple who deliberately turned a blind eye to the Aids crisis, with devastating and deadly consequences. Live: Bernie Sanders speaks in Toledo, Ohio: Between Nancy Reagan’s death and her funeral, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence reached out in their own wimpled way to share their pain, their anger and, occasionally, their sympathy. The activists, in trademark Catholic drag, spent the Aids crisis fighting on behalf of infected friends and lovers – and for dying men they would never know. As much of the nation mourned the former first lady’s passing this week, their email anguish underscored the Reagan administration’s darker legacy. Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004, was president for nearly five years before he said the word “Aidsâ€\x9d in public, nearly seven years before he gave a speech on a health crisis that would go on to kill more than 650,000 Americans and stigmatize even more. In recent months, published reports have revealed an administration that laughed at the scourge and its victims and a first lady who turned her back on Rock Hudson, a close friend, when he reached out to the White House for help as he was dying from an Aids-related illness. “If there is a hell both Ronny and Nancy are Roasting,â€\x9d wrote one Sister. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has apologized for comments earlier today in which she implied that the Reagan White House “started a national conversationâ€\x9d during the Aids crisis. “While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS,â€\x9d the former secretary of state wrote. “For that, I’m sorry.â€\x9d Former secretary of state and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s comments on the morning of former first lady Nancy Reagan’s funeral have incensed Aids advocates who claim that the candidate is rewriting history. In an interview this morning on MSNBC, Clinton claimed that Reagan, along with her husband, fostered a national dialogue about the rise of the Aids epidemic. “Because of both president and Mrs. Reagan - in particular Mrs. Reagan - we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it,â€\x9d Clinton said. “And that, too, is something that I really appreciate, with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience, and people began to say, ‘Hey, we have to do something about this, too.’â€\x9d The Reagan administration’s legacy on the Aids crisis was, in fact, much more complicated than Clinton described. Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004 after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, was president for nearly seven years before he gave a speech on the health crisis - a speech in which he called for a now-rescinded ban on HIV-positive people entering the United States. The former first lady herself has been lambasted in recent years as documents have come forth showing that she turned her back on Rock Hudson, a close friend, when he reached out to the White House for help as he was dying from an Aids-related illness. On numerous occasions, the epidemic was even seen as a source of humor in the Reagan White House. At the centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty, the Reagans, seated, next to French president François Mitterand and his wife Danielle, were watching the evening’s entertainment, Bob Hope, give a series of one-liners. In the middle of his set, Hope quipped, “I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has Aids, but she doesn’t know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.â€\x9d As television cameras panned the audience for a reaction shot, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans, however, were laughing. “This is shameful, idiotic, false - and heartbreaking. There is nothing else to say about it,â€\x9d Charles Kaiser, author of The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America, told the ’s Martin Pengelly. Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which has endorsed Clinton, tweeted “While I respect her advocacy on issues like stem cell & Parkinson’s research, Nancy Reagan was, sadly, no hero in the fight against HIV/AIDS.â€\x9d More than three hours before the Republican frontrunner’s rally in Chicago, tension between Donald Trump’s supporters and protestors outside of the University of Illinois in the Windy City has already erupted into slur-laden screaming matches. In the above video, a black protestor screams “fuck you!â€\x9d at a crowd of would-be attendees of Trump’s rally, after which a volley of insults - “fuck off!â€\x9d and the N-word - is heard in response. The group’s apparent ringleader confronted the woman holding the camera and unleashed a diatribe against Islam and Trump’s detractors. Hey! Fuck Islam, Allah is a whore, Jesus is the most high god, and you bitches are done! So fuck you! Would-be attendees of a rally for Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis, Missouri, didn’t even make it inside the venue before clashes between the controversial candidate’s supporters and detractors became violent. At least a dozen protestors have been arrested or detained, according to the Riverfront Times, as a seemingly endless line of Trump supporters - or the simply curious - come into conflict with a growing number of protestors outside the venue. The St. Louis Police Department has intervened in conflicts between Trump’s admirers and opponents on both sides, detaining protestors and warning off aggressive supporters. Video: Trump insults Carson – a selection Though Ben Carson was repeatedly mocked by the media – incidents like his confused debate entrance made it all too easy – the retired neurosurgeon did have the support of many Republicans, writes US data editor Mona Chalabi: Just before he dropped out of the race, polling averages put Carson at 9% – slightly ahead of John Kasich and less than 10 percentage points behind Marco Rubio. So does Carson’s endorsement of Donald Trump count for more than the seven other politicians who have already done the same? You might not recognize everyone on Trump’s list of political endorsements. Here are the names so far: Representative Scott DesJarlais Representative Tom Marino Senator Jeff Sessions Governor Paul R LePage Governor Chris Christie Representative Duncan D Hunter Representative Chris Collins [...] From March to December last year, Carson was consistently showing positive net favorability in polls – hardly surprising given that he was in second place in the Republican race, behind Trump. But public appearances haven’t been great for Carson’s public image. For today’s endorsement to continue to carry weight, it might be best for Trump if this is the last thing Carson says for a while. Read the full piece here: Team Kasich issues a second, still edgy response to the backing of team Rubio in Ohio: Video: Obama jokes about Ted Cruz’s (former) Canadian citizenship at state dinner Rubio continues, saying a vote for either of his non-Trump rivals in Florida is in fact a vote for Trump: Don’t sell yourself short? The Real Clear Politics polling averages of Ohio have Trump up just 2.5 points on Kasich and the governor climbing fast. Rubio is way down in fourth place with single-digit support. To which we’re tempted to reply, in the voice of Bernie Sanders: Mi-chi-gan! Mi-chi-gan! Rubio stops short of telling Ohio supporters to vote Kasich. He also, incidentally, stops short of backing a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine: The Trump campaign has released a new statement denying that campaign manager Corey Lewandowski manhandled reporter Michelle Fields. It’s unclear who’s speaking in the statement. The statement links to a story on Breitbart, Fields’ employer, that questions whether it was Lewandowski who laid hands on her. The statement says there’s no evidence of the incident despite audio and video recordings and witness statements. The statement backs down from yesterday’s suggestion by the Trump camp that Fields was a craven attention seeker making up a story for attention. Today’s statement appears to leave room for the possibility that Fields was grabbed and hurt, and it does not engage in the attacks on Fields’ character that characterized the campaign’s response yesterday. It just calls Fields’ claim that it was Lewandowski who hurt her “entirely false.â€\x9d Rubio muses on his political future... and lunch: Kasich nets a big homestate coach endorsement. At the debate last night Kasich referred to “my beloved Buckeyes.â€\x9d The ’s Sabrina Siddiqui is at a Rubio news conference in Florida. On whether his supporters should back Kasich in Ohio: Rubio says it’s up to them. If the field in Ohio – which has 66 Republican delegates to give to the first-place winner and only the winner of its Tuesday primary – were to narrow, Trump’s prospects would narrow as well, polling indicates. The sitting governor might dominate Trump in a two-way race, for example. Here’s a video snippet from the Trump event Tuesday that could support Michelle Fields’ version of events. This is compelling food for thought. But Ted Cruz has just held a rally in Orlando. Not quite “out of FL.â€\x9d This is fun. Ohio and Florida, which vote on Tuesday, are both winner-take-all states. John Kasich might beat Trump in Ohio. Marco Rubio might beat Trump in Florida. But Marco Rubio very probably does not stand a chance of winning Ohio. And the same is true of Kasich in Florida. But what if the two pooled their supporters in their respective home states in an attempt to gang up on Trump? The Rubio team appears to have made a move to do just that: The failure of the National Review, the historically significant showcase for conservative thought, to sway ... anyone?... with its special January issue Against Trump may call into question the practical value of its presidential endorsement. In any case, that’s now been awarded to Texas senator Ted Cruz. “Ted’s the only one with a plausible path to stopping Trump,â€\x9d National Review editor Rich Lowry told Politico, “either by getting a majority himself or denying Trump a majority and finishing close behind and getting it to convention.â€\x9d Here’s the January cover with a link to the argument: Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields has filed a criminal complaint against Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in Jupiter, Florida, where she says Lewandowski hurt her at a Trump event Tuesday. Trump and Lewandowski denied the incident happened. Lewandowski called Fields “totally delusionalâ€\x9d and Trump said “she made it up, I think that’s what happened.â€\x9d Reports that Florida senator Marco Rubio won no delegates in voting Tuesday, including reports in this blog, were wrong. Last night Hawaii completed its count of 2,000 provisional ballots and determined that Rubio had come away with a single delegate from the state, the AP reports. He beat the skunk. There were 150 delegates at stake on Tuesday, in Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi. Next stop: Florida. (h/t: @consultreid) MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee is outside a Trump rally in St Louis, where protesters have faced off with supporters. Here’s our report at recent violence at Trump rallies: And here’s columnist Lucia Graves’ comment piece: Carson said he was supporting Trump to stop the Republican party from being torn “irreparablyâ€\x9d asunder. But what if the party sunders itself anyway, in an attempt to block candidate Trump at the national convention in July? “For the first time since the invention of social media and 24-hour cable news, a major party may decide its presidential nominee on the convention floor,â€\x9d writes politics reporter Ben Jacobs. But what exactly is a contested convention? In the dark ages of American politics, the elaborate politicking of a presidential primary was once condensed into a political convention. For decades, instead of a long public process during which candidates traipsed from Iowa to New Hampshire and onwards across the country for series of primaries and caucuses, presidential nominees were chosen in overheated convention halls and the smoke-filled rooms in adjacent hotels. However, as more states instituted primaries to select their delegates, a process that accelerated greatly in the 1970s, the conventions receded in importance. The last political convention to go to more than one ballot was the Democrats’ in 1952, when they nominated Adlai Stevenson. [...] The problems come in several forms. The first is that since conventions have been long thought to be vestigial parts of American politics, candidates’ campaigns are not fully prepared for the delegate chase – a full scale 50-state scramble. Campaigns have to take care to not just make the ballot in every state but to fill their slates of delegates with names and ensure that those delegates pledged to them are actual supporters and not what veteran Republican strategist John Yob calls “supporters in name onlyâ€\x9d, or Sinos. Read the full piece here. This seems important. Hey it’s Friday Here’s a summary of the nice things Ben Carson said about Donald Trump just then: “He’s very cerebral.â€\x9d “He is actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America.â€\x9d “There’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was.â€\x9d He’s “malleable.â€\x9d He’s “a much more reasonable person than comes across.â€\x9d Trump agreed with Carson explicitly about many of his, Trump’s, qualities: “I’m a big thinker.â€\x9d “I’m a very deep thinker. I know what’s happening, OK?â€\x9d Breitbart stands with its reporter against Trump. The company at first seemed reluctant to register criticism against Trump but then suspended a reporter who gave voice to skepticism over the incident. “Trump’s suggestion that Fields made up the incident Tuesday evening contradicts the evidence,â€\x9d Breitbart says. Carson is asked whether the “two Donald Trumpsâ€\x9d should concern voters. “There’s a different persona. Some people have gotten the impression that Donald Trump is a person who is not malleable,â€\x9d Carson says – a person who can’t take in new information and make wise decisions. “He’s much more cerebral than that, and a much more reasonable person than comes across.â€\x9d Carson blames the media for creating a fake Trump. Does this exculpate the media from the charge of being played by Mr Trump? Trump thanks the crowd and invites them to coffee and drinks outside. Carson is back. He says if party operatives succeeded at stopping Trump, it would “fracture the party irreparably and it would hand the election to the Democrats. “It’s not about me, it’s not about Mr Trump,â€\x9d Carson says. It’s about America. Carson is asked about Ted Cruz, accused of spreading a rumor that Carson had dropped out in advance of the Iowa caucuses. Did that play a role in this morning’s decision? Carson doesn’t answer directly. “I feel that Mr Trump is willing to do what needs to be done to break the stranglehold of special interest groups and the political class,â€\x9d he says. “I’ve completely forgiven him. That’s my duty as a Christian.â€\x9d Then Carson is asked what role God played in his decision to support Trump. “I prayed about it a lotâ€\x9d and got a lot of signals of which way to go, Carson says. These included people he hadn’t’ talked to in a long time calling him up and saying things like, “I had this dream about you and Donald Trump. It’s just amazing.â€\x9d Trump says Hillary Clinton does not have what it takes to fix US trade deals. “She has no business instinct. She doesn’t have the energy or the strength to get these deals made. You need strength and you need stamina.â€\x9d “The Republican party lost its way,â€\x9d Trump says. But he says he’s made something happen. “Call it a miracle,â€\x9d call it what you will. “We’re going to have Democrats for Trump,â€\x9d he says. He says his friends in Hollywood are all voting for him but won’t admit it. They like his stances on crime and the border, Trump says. “They’re liberal people but they’re voting for Trump.â€\x9d Then Trump starts hammering Ohio governor John Kasich, a rival. Whoever has the most delegates at the end of this trip should win... Ohio should be great to me... I think I’ll beat John Kasich. John Kasich has been an absentee governor. He lived in New Hampshire... Trump says Ohio “got luckyâ€\x9d with of oil discoveries and implies the economic vigor of the state is an accident, not tied to good government. Trump’s asked if he’ll ditch a planned debate on March 21 in Salt Lake City. “I didn’t know there was a next debate,â€\x9d Trump says. What does Trump think about reports that senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is advising colleagues with vulnerable seats on how to run away from Trump? “I’m sure that will change,â€\x9d Trump says. Trump says he would win Michigan in a general election and he might even win New York. “With me, I add a lot of states that aren’t even in play for anybody else,â€\x9d Trump says, mentioning the Rust Belt. “I will get states that are unbelievable, that are unthinkable for the Republican party.â€\x9d “I think we’ve had enough debates. I mean how many times do you have to give the same answer to the same question? Same questions, same people, same everything. I don’t think there’s any reason for the debates. I know they’re getting very big ratings. And by the way the Democrats aren’t getting ratings at all. Trump is asked about his call for the GOP to embrace his candidacy. “The Republican party should come together and embrace these millions of people that are coming out and voting.... there’s something happening that’s really beautiful to see.â€\x9d Like seemingly every Trump appearance, this one has turned into a news conference. Trump said the debate last night was “elegantâ€\x9d and “dignified.â€\x9d He says he’d leave the door open on accepting contributions during a potential general election campaign. Trump is asked again about the “two Donald Trumps.â€\x9d Q: Is the real Donald Trump your public persona or your private self? A: It’s an interesting question. I don’t like to over-analyze myself. I try to be who I am... I try to give a straight answer more than a politically correct answer. I answer truthfully... like the question on Islam... there is a problem. Trump said yesterday that “I think Islam hates us.â€\x9d “I want to answer questions honestly and forthrightly,â€\x9d Trump says. Q: Why are there two Donald Trumps? Is it a conscience thing? A: “I don’t think there are two Donald Trumps. I think there’s one Donald Trump,â€\x9d in direct contradiction of what he said 5 minutes ago. “I am a thinker... I’m a very deep thinker. I know what’s happening, OK?â€\x9d Trump blames violence at his rallies on protesters. “We’ve had some violent people at protests. These are people that punch. These are violent people.â€\x9d “We’ve had a couple that were really violent... a guy who was swinging, was very loud and then started swinging at the audience. And you know what, the audience swung back. “If you want to know the truth, the police were very very restrained.â€\x9d Islamic state question. Last night Trump said he would commit 20,000-30,000 troops to beat the perceived threat. “They’re going to get back real soon. We have to get rid of Isis. It’s going to be up to the generals. The generals are going to play their own game.â€\x9d We’ve got to get the right general, Trump says. Does he regret anything he said about Carson? “It’s a funny thing,â€\x9d Trump says. “I was thinking about that yesterday.â€\x9d He talks about polling last fall. The “one person that just kept sneaking up on me, I couldn’t lose him, was DR Ben Carson,â€\x9d Trump says. “I couldn’t lose him, I couldn’t shake him... and I hit him hard. .. but he handled it with such dignity.â€\x9d The difference was that people voted for Trump. Trump is asked whether he is making outreach efforts to Capitol Hill. “We have been called by the biggest people in politics, not only Republican politics.â€\x9d Trump says House speaker Paul Ryan “reached outâ€\x9d. “Terrific guy, I’ve always liked him, I’ve always respected him.â€\x9d “Many other people at the top top level... we’ve been contacted by many of the biggest people in Republican politics. They’re really reaching out to us.â€\x9d “Ben’s going to have a big, big, part,â€\x9d Trump says. “Maybe Ben doesn’t know that yet. But he’s going to have a big part.â€\x9d Trump’s asked whether he agrees with Carson’s view that there are “two Donald Trumps.â€\x9d “I probably do agree. I think there are two Donald Trumps. There’s the public version... but it’s probably different than the personal Donald Trump. “Somebody that is a thinker. I’m a big thinker.â€\x9d Trump now takes the lectern. He says he and Carson discussed education policy yesterday. “It was so right on. It was so good. I said Ben, congratulations, you just have to get involved with us on education.â€\x9d He makes it sound like a job offer. “Ben is going to get very much involved in that, and he’s going to get involved in health care where he’s an expert.â€\x9d But Trump says there was no job offer. “He just wants to help.â€\x9d “It’s such an honor to have Ben. He’s a friend, he’s become a friend and I really appreciate the endorsement.â€\x9d They hug. Briefly. Carson says a house divided against itself cannot stand and together the country will “ascend to a much higher pinnacleâ€\x9d than anyone expects. Carson’s speaking at a Trump event in Palm Beach. Trump is waiting in the wings. Carson’s standing behind a Trump-branded lectern in front of Trump’s usual backdrop of American flags. “There’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was,â€\x9d Carson says of himself and Trump. “I’m appealing to the media, as well. You’re part of America, too,â€\x9d Carson advises. He says the job of the media should be not to divide or sow conflict, but to unite. “Donald Trump talks a lot about making America great, but it’s not just talk – he means it,â€\x9d Carson says. “I’ll tell you why. First of all, I’ve come to know Donald Trump ... he is actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America.â€\x9d Carson says there are two Trumps. One you see onstage and a secret Trump backstage, who Carson says is “very cerebralâ€\x9d. “Some people said he said terrible things about you ... well first of all we buried the hatchet. ... That happens in American politics. “There’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was,â€\x9d Carson says. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Retired brain surgeon Ben Carson will endorse Donald Trump this morning in an appearance in Florida, Trump announced from the debate stage last night. Carson said on Thursday that it was important for the Republican party to get behind its nominee to ensure the defeat of the Democrats in November. Carson also said he believed that Trump was attracting new voters to the GOP. But some longtime Carson supporters expressed disappointment that a leader they had valued for his even temperament and Christian values would now get behind a candidate not known for either. “Let’s hope it is just a bad rumor, otherwise a lot of Dr Carson fans will be heartbroken,â€\x9d said old Carson friend and former campaign organizer Terry Giles in a statement to the on Thursday evening. (Read the full statement here.) Ever since the Carson endorsement plan was announced, those who care have busied themselves disinterring Trump’s greatest hits against Carson, including this one: In other news, Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, continued overnight to attack Michelle Fields, the reporter he is accused of physically assaulting this week. “You are totally delusional,â€\x9d Lewandowski tweeted at Fields. “I never touched you.â€\x9d Lewandowski’s account contradicts that of a reporter who witnessed the incident, an audio recording of the incident and a photo of her bruises. “Perhaps she made the story up,â€\x9d Trump himself said after the debate last night. “I think that’s what happened.â€\x9d But the new audio recording that emerged overnight added to the evidence that Fields was not lying but instead was manhandled by Lewandowski. “That was insane,â€\x9d Fields appears to say. “You should have felt how hard he grabbed me.â€\x9d “He literally almost threw you on the ground,â€\x9d Washington Post reporter Ben Terris appears to reply. Did you watch last night’s Republican debate in Miami? It was a staid affair, more reminiscent of action on the Senate floor (“I’d like to thank my colleague from Manhattan for that gracious speech and only would add these supporting points …â€\x9d) than a Republican debate hall. “If we nominate Donald Trump, Hillary wins,â€\x9d Ted Cruz warned. Read all about it here: There’s a lot more happening on the campaign trail – thanks for joining us. What’s on your political mind today?',
 "Listen to Rihanna's Work, featuring Drake: first track from new album Anti When Rihanna recently posted an image of herself listening to Anti, adorned in lavish Dolce & Gabbana leather rhinestone crown/headphone hybrid, intrepid fans attempted to gauge as much as possible from her expression. Did the icy gaze imply that her eighth album would be a provocative trap record in the same vein as BBHMM? Or was it a contemplative acoustic stare, the kind that someone listening to a song similar to the triple-denim dream FourFiveSeconds might give? The rumour is that fans will have to wait until Friday for the full album, but today Rihanna has broken her relative silence with the premiere of Work, a track which features longtime collaborator, reported ex-lover and all-round internet obliterator, Drake. From the four tracks lifted from the record so far, Anti is set to be as diverse as it has been long awaited. The glossy, modernist Work skewers elements of dub and dancehall: her voice is at times Auto-Tuned, and a distant sample of what sounds a little like Grace Jones’s My Jamaican Guy haunts its empty spaces. From Drake’s perspective, Work, co-produced by Boi-1da and PARTYNEXTDOOR, is a straightforward song about facing the labours of work before play, but Rihanna’s vocals sound a little more disappointed and dejected. A typically fated Rihanna love story, basically. Unfortunately for those who care not for paying money for music, the singer’s new track is only available from the paid-for streaming service Tidal, and iTunes at present. Take a listen to a sample below.",
 'Where’s the evidence that Jeremy Corbyn is to blame for Brexit? The immediate, if not necessarily underlying, reason why a majority of Jeremy Corbyn’s fellow Labour parliamentarians have lost confidence in his leadership is his performance during the EU referendum campaign. They reckon his allegedly lukewarm support for remaining in the EU made a significant contribution to the remain side’s defeat. During the campaign the Labour leader put his level of support for the EU at no more than “seven to seven and a half out of 10â€\x9d. Meanwhile, when the ballot boxes were opened, remain’s worst performances were often to be found in working-class Labour heartlands in the north of England and the Midlands. Unsurprisingly, Labour MPs put two and two together and pointed the finger of blame at their leader. Yet, in truth, there is little evidence that Mr Corbyn’s campaigning efforts – or those of any other Labour politician – made much difference either way to the willingness of Labour supporters to vote for remain. A split in Labour’s ranks was in evidence from the moment the referendum was called – and the picture simply did not change during the subsequent months of campaigning. This can be seen if we examine how Labour support for remain evolved in four polls that not only polled immediately before the day of the vote, but also both in mid-May, shortly before the onset of the official pre-election period on 27 May, and in mid-February, just as David Cameron was concluding his renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership and firing the referendum starting gun. Back in February these polls – from Ipsos Mori, YouGov, ComRes and Survation – reckoned on average that just under three-quarters (74%) of those who voted Labour in last year’s general election intended to vote for remain. In short, it was apparent from the very beginning that a substantial minority of Labour supporters were disinclined to follow their party’s recommendation to back remain. The early months of campaigning simply saw this pattern maintained. When these four polls were conducted in mid-May, again on average 74% of Labour supporters indicated that they would vote remain. When these polls produced their final estimates on the eve of polling day, support for remain among Labour supporters had eased back a little, but still stood at 72%. Moreover, this was against the backdrop of a marked drop in the overall level support for remain, a drop that was especially in evidence in polls conducted by phone, which account for three of the four polls examined here. Far from being especially marked amongst Labour supporters, it was amongst Conservative voters that the fall in support for remain during the campaign appears to have been heaviest. Earlier in the campaign our four polls suggested Conservative supporters would divide roughly 50:50 between remain and leave. In February 48% of them said on average that they would back remain, while in May the figure was 51%. However, by the time polling day was approaching support for remain had fallen back to 44%. Of course, if Labour had fought a more enthusiastic and effective campaign in favour of staying in the EU then maybe support for leaving among its supporters might have been whittled down. But it is also open to doubt whether many of the working-class “left behindâ€\x9d voters that formed the core of leave support would have responded to such efforts. In truth, if the finger of blame for remain’s defeat is to be pointed anywhere it is better directed at the prime minister rather than Corbyn. David Cameron failed to bring his party with him at all, and in the event that simply proved too much of a handicap for the pro-EU camp to overcome.',
 'Equity: how fictional tales of women on Wall Street shed light on reality “When is it my fucking year?â€\x9d The line you’re most likely to hear quoted from Equity, one of the summer’s most memorable movies – and one of the best movies ever made about Wall Street – is the actor Anna Gunn’s hymn of praise to the joys of money. “I really do like money,â€\x9d says Gunn, playing the role of investment banker Naomi Bishop. “Don’t let money be a dirty word.â€\x9d But while that call resonates – she tells a group of young women that it’s OK to be rewarded for being tough, talented and working twice as hard as the men around them – it somehow lacks the power and the energy of the challenge levied by a furious Bishop to her boss, the global head of equities at the investment bank where she works. He’s retiring. She wants his job, and knows she deserves it. The problem? Although she’s a superstar banker, Bishop has recently, inexplicably lost at the last minute to a rival bank. Now, all that anyone wants to talk about is what went wrong. She’s told: “You rubbed people the wrong way.â€\x9d What does that mean? Well, a bemused and annoyed Bishop finds out, it might have been that “I wore an awful dressâ€\x9d on one occasion. It has now been two decades since one of the worst cases of blatant harassment and discrimination against women on Wall Street hit the headlines. The “boom boom roomâ€\x9d was a real place, a basement party room at a branch office of Shearson Lehman (later Smith Barney) in Garden City, New York. What took place there, and at other Smith Barney brokerages, ranged from outright sexual assault to the kind of harassment that is almost mundane for women who work on trading floors, such as strippers showing up to celebrate birthdays. Adding insult to injury, many of the 2,000 or so plaintiffs in what – against the odds – became a class action lawsuit, earned lower salaries, saw commissions handed to male colleagues and weren’t given the materials they needed to prepare for exams. Smith Barney, now part of Citigroup, paid $150m to settle the claims. Along with other banks, it did everything it could to burnish its image as an attractive place for women to work. It hasn’t really worked, at least if you judge by Maureen Sherry’s new novel, Opening Belle, published early this year by Simon & Schuster. (It, too, will soon be a movie, starring Reese Witherspoon in the title role.) And there’s no reason not to pay attention: Sherry worked at Bear Stearns and has mined her own experiences for material. Sherry’s autobiographical heroine is Isabelle McElroy, 36, a highflyer at Feagin Dixon (a very thinly disguised Bear Stearns run by a very thinly veiled composite of Ace Greenberg, bald head and all, and Jimmy Cayne, although with a drug habit that carefully isn’t cannabis). After joining a group of unhappy women – the Glass Ceiling Club – and after a mysterious individual begins sending emails alerting all and sundry to the most egregious behavior at the firm, Feagin Dixon’s Greenberg/Cayne composite convenes a lunch meeting of all his senior women to discuss issues that concern them. The valiant Belle is the only one to speak up, however. “I don’t want to hear slut jokes all day long. I don’t want to work in a frat house. I want to be paid equally. I want my input on abnormal rates of risk we take to be heard.â€\x9d The examples Belle gives of what she endures precisely mirror those that Sherry herself described in an op-ed. Colleagues who uttered “mooâ€\x9d sounds when she used a breast pump after maternity leave, and one who drank a shot of her breast milk on a dare. A trader who supplied women on the desk with Band-Aids to cover their nipples when it was cold, because he didn’t want to be “distractedâ€\x9d. Instead of brooding over it all, or getting angry, Sherry advised her younger female colleagues on the importance of handling an important client making a pass at her without annoying him. She prided herself on thick skin. “We’re ambitious and we aren’t overly sensitive,â€\x9d a friendwarns her at one point. “They know how to work with us. The guys aren’t going to change. It’s too late for them. The women just need to deal with it.â€\x9d But do they? Or should they? While most of Wall Street’s senior women have indeed grown thick skins, they aren’t necessarily “dealingâ€\x9d with it. One woman, Megan Messina, received a bonus a third the size of a man with the same title and similar responsibilities at her employer, Bank of America. That seems to have been the moment when she asked herself when it was going to be her year: although her bonus was a lavish $1.5m, more than most of us can expect to earn in a decade or more, she says the bank’s “bros cultureâ€\x9d ensured she wasn’t taken seriously. Her first conversation with her new boss, according to a lawsuit she filed, included him asking her whether she colored her hair. Just how many gender bias cases does Wall Street want to settle? In 2013, Bank of America forked over $39m to women who had worked at Merrill Lynch, in the latest in a long string of discrimination cases involving women and racial minorities dating back decades. Many other cases are settled out of the public eye, through mandatory arbitration. But discrimination, whether it’s subtle (the result of a woman wearing a dress that somehow, inexplicably, a client dislikes) or overt (a woman being forced to share her commissions and clients with a younger man) is still a reality. So, too, is harassment. It’s also worth noting that when most of these women make it big, they don’t do so within big Wall Street firms. Maria Elena Lagomasino was chairman and CEO of the JP Morgan Private Bank, and became CEO of WE Family Offices, a global wealth management firm. Sallie Krawcheck became chief financial officer of Citigroup, then moved to Bank of America Merrill Lynch to head its asset management division. When the bank’s CEO, Brian Moynihan, eliminated her position – in spite of the fact that Krawcheck had produced profits for the then struggling bank – she moved on to acquire a professional women’s networking group that began as a Goldman Sachs alumnae organization, and now is launching Ellevest, a new investment platform aimed at women. Another high flyer, Blythe Masters, left JP Morgan Chase to launch her own blockchain company, Digital Asset Holdings. In Sherry’s view of the world, a few smart women on Wall Street’s risk committees might have prevented some of the mayhem of the financial crisis. In Equity, Bishop is the principled investment banker who wants to do what it takes to raise capital for her clients to get money from investors to entrepreneurs. Traders’ greed and her colleagues’ games bemuse her. Maybe, just maybe, all this will trigger a serious discussion about women on Wall Street, rather than more propaganda. It’s not likely to change attitudes on a day-to-day basis, but in this kind of environment, doing away with mandatory arbitration, so that the worst offenders can be publicly named and shamed in lawsuits, would be a fine start. Because at some point, it has to be their fucking year.',
 'Choir of Young Believers: Grasque review – rootless, post-everything pop Heady with the thick musk of Escada pour homme, the sophisti-pop groove of Grasque is a post-everything album: post-bedtime, post-genre, post-structure and post-definitely-irony. Jannis Noya Makrigiannis, frontman and principle songwriter of this Copenhagen group, creates soundscapes as indebted to the smoky 1980s melodrama of Careless Whisper as they are illuminated in the laptop glow of chillwave. Admitting himself that his music is “more like trips, or feelingsâ€\x9d than traditional songs, the group tune out of the orchestral-pop majesty of previous albums and replace such frivolities with the surreal art-pop favoured by Chairlift: all ambience and sensual serenity. There’s an oddly rootless sound to the record, too: tracks such as Serious Lover and Face Melting could be blasting out from a Tokyo karaoke bar or the chill-out room in a techno club in Ibiza; everything is amenable. Intangible and atmospheric, but not a lot to latch on to.',
 'Peter Vaughan obituary Peter Vaughan, who has died aged 93, was one of the most distinctive and menacing of character actors on stage and screen in a career spanning seven decades and ranging from West End comedy to Dickens and Our Friends in the North on television, to movies with Frank Sinatra and Tallulah Bankhead, and encompassing a string of unpleasant authority figures. With his bulky figure, small eyes and prognathous jaw, he usually played the type of character you would not want to bump into on a dark night in a darker alley, even though, in real life, Vaughan was known for his conviviality, kindness to animals and devotion to his family. For television audiences in the 1970s, he was a faux terrifying and hilarious Mr Big in Ronnie Barker’s prison comedy series Porridge: he ran the gaff as the glinting-eyed tobacco baron Harry Grout, who shared a cell with his budgerigar Seymour. And in the 80s, he was equally memorable as another, less amusing, Mr Big, Billy Fox, in Trevor Preston’s series Fox, for Thames TV, lording over the manor with his wife, played by Elizabeth Spriggs, and five sons, including Bernard Hill and Ray Winstone. More recently, and in his last job, he attracted a cult following as Maester Aemon Targaryen in HBO’s Game of Thrones. He played the centenarian blind sage, maester to the men of the Night’s Watch guarding the ice wall at Castle Black, for five seasons. In his last film, John Crowley’s Is Anybody There? (2008) he appeared – alongside Michael Caine, Sylvia Syms, Rosemary Harris, Leslie Phillips and Spriggs – as a first world war veteran in an old people’s home in the 80s. It had been a long journey for the only child of a bank manager, Max Ohm, an Austrian immigrant, and his wife, Eva (nee Wright), a nurse. Peter was born in a flat above the bank in Wem, Shropshire, moving with his parents to Wellington, then Uttoxeter, where he attended the grammar school. Showing a talent for drama, he was recruited at the age of 16 to the repertory company in the Grand, Wolverhampton, to play Simon the pie-boy in Sweeney Todd in 1939. He stayed, became an actor, and changed his surname from Ohm to Vaughan, though he never did so by deed poll. This early start in the profession, without formal training, was interrupted by the second world war. He served in the Royal Signals, eventually as an officer, in Normandy, Belgium and the far east, before returning to the Wolverhampton rep, followed by seasons in Macclesfield, Leicester and the Birmingham Rep, where he played Algy to John Neville’s Jack, Lally Bowers’s Lady Bracknell and Donald Pleasence’s Canon Chasuble; he and Pleasence became lifelong friends. When Vaughan married the actor Billie Whitelaw, nine years his junior, in 1952 – they met while playing in the same company in a London fringe theatre that year – Pleasence moved in with the couple as a lodger before embarking on several marriages of his own. Throughout the 50s Vaughan was busy in theatre while his television career took root. He appeared with the actor/manager Donald Wolfit in The Strong Are Lonely, an Austrian play about Jesuits in Paraguay, at the Haymarket in 1955, and a French comedy, Paddle Your Own Canoe, at the Criterion in 1958; the critic Harold Hobson eulogised Vaughan’s performance and said that the play never recovered after his exit. But his real breakthrough came when the actor Dudley Sutton, whom he knew, introduced him to the playwright Joe Orton in a theatrical drinking bar. Orton was scouting for a heavyweight heterosexual actor to play Ed, an ordinary-looking man who was interested in having sex with boys, in his forthcoming play, Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964). Vaughan fitted the bill perfectly, teaming in Patrick Dromgoole’s production at the Arts theatre with Madge Ryan as Kath, his sister, and Sutton as sullen, sultry Mr Sloane, shared object of their carnal attentions. Either side of that performance (Harry Andrews played Ed in the subsequent 1970 film), Vaughan performed Bottom at the Glasgow Citizens and his Gladstone opposite Dorothy Tutin in Portrait of a Queen (1965) at the Vaudeville. His marriage to Whitelaw, never easy (according, at least, to Whitelaw in her autobiography) ended in divorce in 1966 and he married, in the same year, the actor Lillias Walker, whom he had known for some time. Having made a film debut in Ralph Thomas’s The 39 Steps (1959), a remake of the Hitchcock classic, he played the first of many big screen police chiefs in John Paddy Carstairs’s The Devil’s Agent (1962), followed by the Boulting Brothers’ Rotten to the Core (1965), with Anton Rodgers and Eric Sykes; a British agent in The Naked Runner (1967), with Sinatra; and in Jack Gold’s The Bofors Gun (1967), with Nicol Williamson, Ian Holm and David Warner. Notable appearances in Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) and Karel Reisz’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) were followed by two great fantasy films by Terry Gilliam – Time Bandits (1981) and Brazil (1985) – in which his gift for manic extravagance was given full rein, playing an ogre in the first and a minister of information retrieval in the second. His theatre work was maintained in a wonderful, diabolically possessed performance as the nearly-cuckolded Fitzdotterel in Ben Jonson’s The Devil Is an Ass at the Birmingham Rep and the National Theatre in 1976. A friendship formed with Robert Lindsay while playing his girlfriend’s father in Citizen Smith (1977-79) on television led to a brace of imposing performances – Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard and Luka in Gorky’s The Lower Depths – in a company headed by Lindsay at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. Vaughan was a tetchy Aussie widower in Michael Blakemore’s tender production of David Williamson’s Travelling North at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1980 and a self-styled, crypto-fascist security guard in Alan Ayckbourn’s glorious Seasons Greetings at the Greenwich theatre, and the Apollo, in 1982. Thereafter, his theatre work was confined to touring in Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and Brighouse’s Hobson’s Choice until his final West End flourish in Harold Pinter’s superb 1996 revival of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, in which he played a racist bigot, Juror No 10. In the same year, he was the trade unionist Felix Hutchinson, father to Christopher Eccleston’s Nicky and succumbing to Alzheimer’s, in Our Friends in the North, the BBC drama serial set over three decades by the writer Peter Flannery. Many people would consider Felix his finest performance. It certainly ranks alongside his ex- ceptional turn – uncharacteristically quiet and intensely moving – as the old servant, father to Anthony Hopkins’s head butler, in James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day (1993); an accident with a tea tray he sends flying across the garden patio results in a demotion, by his own son, to mops-and-brushes duty. But he graced every film he was in, really, including Nicholas Hytner’s The Crucible (1996) with Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Scofield, in which he played Giles Corey; Christopher Hampton’s The Secret Agent (1996) with Bob Hoskins and Patricia Arquette; Bille August’s Les Misérables (1997) with Liam Neeson, the ninth screen version of that Victor Hugo novel before the screen musical came along; and Stephen Hopkins’s The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2003), with Geoffrey Rush brilliant as Sellers, Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland and Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick. Later in life, Vaughan and his wife lived on the Costa del Sol in Spain, but returned to live in West Sussex. In March he published a short book of anecdotal memoirs, Once a Villain. Vaughan is survived by Lillias and their son, David, and by two stepdaughters, Alexandra and Victoria, and four grandchildren. • Peter Vaughan (Peter Ewart Ohm), actor, born 4 April 1923; died 6 December 2016',
 'Building better mental health in cities from the ground up The frenetic, isolating nature of city life can be a day-to-day struggle for millions of people. An environmental cocktail of densely packed streets and homes, cramped and lengthy commutes and noise pollution as well as significant pockets of poverty and deprivation can take their toll. As a result, mental ill health and urban life are inextricably linked. With urban areas expected to house two-thirds of the world’s population by 2050 and some cities, such as in China, undergoing unprecedented expansion, the relationship between urban environments and mental health – and what to do about it – is rapidly coming to the fore. “Public health is an important component of the built environment, but all too often this focuses only on physical health,â€\x9d says Layla McCay, founder and director of the Centre for Urban Development and Mental Health. The thinktank was set up in 2015 to bring together researchers, policymakers and planners across the globe to push for urban space designs that create mentally healthier cities. Projects paving the way A well-designed urban space can have a positive influence on people’s wellbeing and help prevent mental health problems developing or becoming worse, according to McCay. “Mental health plays a huge role in the overall burden of disease around the entire world,â€\x9d she says. “It’s prevalent in every country. The statistics do tell us that people who live in cities have a 40% increased risk of depression, a 20% increased risk of anxiety and double the risk of schizophrenia.â€\x9d So far, projects paving the way have tended to be small. Examples include one in Sheffield, England, says McCay, where a green space parks initiative, the Improving Wellbeing Through Urban Nature project, is aiming to promote well-designed urban green spaces as a cost-effective way to boost mental and physical health. Another is the network of Dementia Friendly Communities across the UK. Urban living takes its toll There is a considerable body of evidence (pdf) internationally suggesting that urban living, especially poorly designed environments, can have negative effects on mental health. For example, substandard, overcrowded, damp housing has been proven to affect people’s capacity to cope, while the lack of something as basic as a play area can influence children’s wellbeing. Meanwhile, compared with non-urban areas, cities around the world have an increased prevalence of acute mental illnesses, as well as other problems such as stress and isolation. A recent report (pdf) from the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) in the UK concluded that cities becoming more crowded and the rising proportion of people living alone (up from 6% in 1972 to 12% in 2008) contributes to higher levels of loneliness, which is a risk factor for mental ill health. Another study, Poverty and Mental Health, published by the MHF for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation emphasised the adverse connections between mental health and deprivation, which tends to be most concentrated in urban areas. The report’s recommendations included that policymakers consider mental health as a core part of the urban planning process, saying it “should be promoted as good practiceâ€\x9d. The role of planners and architects It makes sense, McCay says, to take into account, for example, that improving street lighting and housing layout might reduce fear and anxiety about safety. The same goes for using urban design to produce plentiful open, green spaces (pdf) that encourage regular interaction in “pro-social spacesâ€\x9d and “a sense of communityâ€\x9d with the goal of reducing isolation. “[There] is a real opportunity for people who work in the planning, architecture and urban-focused professions to have an impact on mental health,â€\x9d she adds. Experts at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments at the University of the West of England (UWE), which works in tandem with the World Health Organisation’s international Healthy Cities Project, concur that urban planning could have a substantial role to play in cities being designed with mental wellbeing in mind. Sarah Burgess, senior lecturer in the department of architecture and built environment at UWE, says there is definitely momentum towards mental wellness becoming a greater priority for planners globally. She points to the popularity of happiness indices internationally and to initiatives such as Happy City in Canada, which promotes wellbeing as a legitimate goal of urban design, as examples of a growing appetite for new approaches. But when it comes to individual cities spearheading attempts to put mental wellbeing at the centre of planning strategies, Burgess concludes that they are rare. According to Daniel Black, an urban planner and fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre, while planning professionals and researchers are increasingly becoming advocates for prioritising mental health in planning decisions, there is still some way to go before decision-makers in governments catch up. “Mental health is still lagging behind,â€\x9d he says. “Even physical health is only beginning to get on the radar. How those in control of urban development are integrating health into development is negligible.â€\x9d Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.',
 "Smoking in movies: film-makers just can't kick the habit Smoking scenes still regularly occur in movies deemed suitable for children, despite significant evidence that they can cause adolescents to take up the habit. The data about cigarettes on screen is relevant right now because a lawsuit is seeking to ban tobacco appearances in youth-rated movies. In 2015, 47% of films rated PG-13 had at least one occurrence of smoking or tobacco use according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That figure has fallen since 2014 but the CDC still notes that “individual movie company policies alone have not been efficient at minimizing smoking in moviesâ€\x9d. To defend itself against the recent legal claim, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has said that prohibiting smoking imagery in films would amount to restricting free speech under the first amendment. In particular, the CDC calls out the Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox for having created 56% of the youth-rated movies in which tobacco appears. By contrast, Comcast and Viacom have made progress since 2014 according to the CDC. But some films are smokier than others. A 2011 study led by Stanton A Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, found that several films which contained scenes with cigarettes were still not being labelled as “smokingâ€\x9d films by the MPAA. Looking at the box office, Glantz found that the 134 top-grossing films of 2011 depicted nearly 1,900 tobacco “incidentsâ€\x9d (a definition that includes implied use of a tobacco product – for example if an actor is seen holding an unlit cigarette). These were particularly common in period movies like Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and Midnight in Paris (both rated PG-13, both of which had more than 50 tobacco incidents). But the research also showed that fantasy films aimed directly at children like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 contained plenty of tobacco scenes too. Last year, the World Health Organisation published a comprehensive report which looked at the link between smoking on screen and adolescents taking up the habit. They, like the US surgeon general and the US National Cancer Institute, reviewed empirical evidence and found a causal link between the two. That empirical evidence included several brain studies. In one, when participants were shown film segments that included right-handed adult smokers, their brains lit up in areas that are responsible for craving as well as those that are in charge of motor planning for the right hand. The findings suggested that, after watching actors smoke, participants were mentally preparing to light a cigarette too. Nationally, smoking rates have fallen. In 2014, 17% of US adults were smokers compared to 21% in 2005. But tobacco use is far from obsolete in the US. Every day, more than 3,200 people under the age of 18 will smoke their first cigarette, according to the CDC.",
 'Live screenings from regional stages, please Your correspondents are too quick to praise live screenings (Letters, 2 August). Live screenings may be a valid experience when I see overprovided and oversubsidised London audiences flocking to performances beamed from Newcastle, Wakefield, Truro etc, where costs are cheaper and where professional theatre is comparatively rare. The present arrangement is a stale excuse from so-called national companies to avoid their responsibilities to those of us for whom London is not accessible. Don Moore Garstang, Lancashire • What constitutes high quality? What if I don’t like opera (OK, I quite like Carmen) and only drink beer? Does that make me a northern heathen? Any road up, it’ll be reet when I see Gandalf and Jean-Luc Picard at’t Lyceum next Tuesday. No wine at the interval! David Elsom Sheffield • Maybe this hand-washing thing (Letters, 3 August) comes from the US. WH Auden criticised “the American habit of washing one’s hands after pissing, as if the penis were an object, too filthy for any decent person to touchâ€\x9d. Americans do seem particularly enthusiastic about it, often scrubbing up as if they were about to carry out open-heart surgery. Bev Littlewood Richmond, London • Regarding “Honestly, you really must come round for dinner soonâ€\x9d (30 July). I did once hear the Swedish language referred to as ordfattig (word poor). That apart, I loved Andrew Brown’s article and please do insist he drops round for supper – anytime. Deborah von Kohler St Austell, Cornwall • Samantha Cameron’s stylist and George Osborne’s aide are in line for OBEs on top of generous salaries (Report, 1 August). No award for Josh Coombes, a young barber who gives free haircuts to the homeless in Exeter, there no doubt thanks to Cameron’s and Osborne’s austerity measures. Sue Boulding Baschurch, Shropshire • So the is encouraged to drop titles and stick to the given name and surname (Letters, 3 August). An excellent idea. Quakers have been doing this for more than 350 years. Janie Cottis Wantage, Oxfordshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'Chelsea v Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened Read Dominic Fifield’s full match report here: That’s the end of an increasingly enjoyable game. Costa and De Gea embrace. Louis van Gaal is giving the fourth official the hairdryer, for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. That Costa goal surely ends United’s title challenge, and De Gea’s wonderful save might end Chelsea’s chance of being in Europe next season. Paradoxically, fans of both sides should be pretty happy tonight, because there was plenty to enjoy in their attacking play. Thanks for your company, goodnight! 90+6 min De Gea makes a brilliant save to win a point for United! Costa rumbled into the box on the left, came inside Smalling and drove a crisp shot towards the near post. It was going in but De Gea got down so smartly to tip it round the corner. 90+5 min Juan Mata is applauded off by both sets of fans as he is replaced by Ander Herrera. 90+4 min A lovely effort from Rooney, who beats Ivanovic on the left of the box and then floats a gentle chip over Courtois and onto the roof of the net. Courtois didn’t look worried, in fairness to him. 90+3 min Chelsea are pushing for a winner. Schneiderlin concedes a free-kick that is woefully overhit by Willian. Fabregas stabbed a straight, short-range pass towards Costa in the area. He was played onside by Borthwick-Jackson, who came across and slid in to challenge as Costa shaped to shoot from eight yards. Borthwick-Jackson got there first, but his sliding tackle only diverted the ball away from the grounded De Gea, and Costa was able to tap the ball into the vacant net with considerable glee. Costa has equalised! 90+1 min Depay wasted a promising break with an almost offensively sloppy pass towards Schneiderlin. 90 min There will be six minutes of added time, a result of the Zouma injury. 89 min Willian curves a free kick to the far post, where Costa gets above Blind but thumps his header over the bar from six yards. He should probably have scored, or at least forced David de Gea into a miracle save. 88 min Alan Smith, on Sky, says United would be deserved winners, and he’ll be thrilled to know that I agree. Apart from the 10 minutes before half time, when they were all over the show, they have controlled the game. They haven’t created that many chances, they never do, but they have had a lot of the ball. Until the last 10 minutes, anyway: apparently Chelsea have had 93 per cent of the possession in that time! Pick that stat out! 87 min “Wow!â€\x9d says Ezra Finkelstein. “Rooney didn’t score for United.â€\x9d I know! First time since 2009 I think. 86 min Another United substitution: Memphis replaces the goalscorer Lingard. 85 min United can’t get out of their third, never mind their half. 84 min The corner is a poor one from Willian. But the pressure is building, and Mata fouls Hazard 30 yards from goal out on the left. Another Willian free-kick... is cleared. 83 min Smalling is booked for a deliberate handball, just outside the box to the left. I’m not really sure he could have done anything to get out the way, but never mind. The free-kick is taken by Willian and headed clear by Martial. A few seconds later, Terry wins a corner. 82 min I wonder if Luke Shaw or Borthwick-Jackson can play anywhere else, because this kid is the most promising homegrown United youngster in a long time. His crossing is outstanding and he seems eerily composed for a 19-year-old. 80 min Lingard is booked for being a naughty boy. 79 min “De Gea,â€\x9d writes Mike Gibbons, whose brilliant book you should buy here. “This is Ronaldo 2008-09, without the histrionics. He’s going to do one, isn’t he? May as well enjoy him while we can.â€\x9d It’s so easy to get lost in the moment, and think that the best now is the best ever, but I can’t ever recall a goalkeeper with better reflexes than De Gea. 78 min Another good move from United is ruined by an overhit cross from Lingard. Van Gaal makes his first substitution, with Schneiderlin replacing Fellaini. 76 min Mikel leaves his studs on Carrick, who is booed by the Chelsea fans for experiencing consequent pain. Some refs might have sent him off, though it was one-footed – rather than two, like Flamini earlier – and he was probably in control of his body. 74 min Darmian’s low cross comes to Rooney, 14 yards out. His first touch controls it behind him, and as it bounces up he improvises to hook an acrobatic shot – not a volley – that is not far wide of the near post. Courtois had it covered I think. 72 min Another good save from De Gea. Fabregas does really well to slip away from Blind and Borthwick-Jackson on the right side of the area before smashing a rising shot towards the near post. De Gea is sufficiently alert to stretch and push it behind for a corner – from which, Terry’s scuffed shot is cleared off the line by Martial. It might actually have been going wide, I’m not sure; Martial was on the far post anyway. 70 min This is a good spell for Chelsea. Cahill gets in front of Fellaini at the near post, running onto Willian’s right-wing corner, but he mistimes his header and United survive. 68 min A fine save from De Gea keeps out Ivanovic’s brilliant volley. A cross from the right was headed up in the air by Azpilicueta at the far post, and Ivanovic – lurking six yards out to the left of centre like all good right-backs – welted a technically superb left-footed volley towards goal. De Gea demonstrated his peerless reflexes, stretching to tip it over the bar. DDG is indeed dead, dead good. 67 min Guus Hiddink makes his final chance, with Pedro replacing Nemanja Matic. 65 min If the scoreline stays like this, United will move within four points of City, five of Arsenal and Spurs and ten of Leicester. Martial almost makes it two, running clear onto Fellaini’s through pass, but Courtois plays sweeper-keeper to good effect. From the resulting throw, Lingard clatters a bouncing ball not far away from the top corner on the far side. Moments later, Borthwick-Jackson puts it another gorgeous cross but there’s only Rooney in the box. 63 min Blind is booked for shoving Costa over from behind, just outside the box on the right. It was a nice move involving Carrick, Martial, Mata and then Borthwick-Jackson, who fizzed a low cross into the box from the left. It ricocheted to Lingard, who was 12 yards out, facing away from goal and with Azpilicueta behind him. He kept his composure to take a touch and then smash a rising half-volleyed drive on the turn that gave Courtois no chance. That’s a really nice goal. Manchester United take the lead with a fine goal from Jesse Lingard! 59 min Play resumes, with Cahill on for Zouma. “It was Sharpe!â€\x9d says Scott Wightman. “Sorry. I got lost looking at this picture of Valbuena in action against Belgium the other week. IMHO Sharpe as the 5 is one of the great weird numberings because all of the virtues one traditionally associates with a 5 - physical strength, intense concentration, better without the ball at their feet - were absent from Sharpe’s (considerable) game. Zidane was a 5 but he genuinely could have played anywhere if he wanted to.â€\x9d 58 min Zouma is being moved very carefully onto a stretcher. I can’t remember the last time I heard a footballer scream as much as that. It brought to mind Syd Lawrence’s sickening injury for England against New Zealand in the 1991-92 Test series, though I should stress that there’s no suggestion Zouma’s injury is as bad as that. (Warning: this clip is definitely not for the sensitive) 55 min Zouma is in trouble here. He’s screaming with pain every couple of seconds, and a stretcher is coming on. He landed awkwardly as he cleared a loose ball, and it doesn’t look good. Gary Cahill will replace him. 54 min A Chelsea substitution: Oscar off, Eden Hazard on. 54 min “All I remember about numbers was that the tiny sticky-backed ones you could buy to attach to the back of Subbuteo players used a glue that consisted of the most unadhesive substance known to mankind at the time,â€\x9d says Kevin Porter. “I believe its modern application is to coat distressed ice-rinks.â€\x9d Oh my, I’d forgotten all about those. You could learn everything about the innate cruelty of life just by spending half an hour trying to number your Subbuteo players. 53 min Another chance for United. A cross from the right bounces off Martial, but he gets to the loose ball first and tees it up for Lingard in the D He shapes a curler towards the corner, and Courtois dives a long way to his left to make a fine save. 51 min “I used to love the exoticism of squad numbers when they were confined to international tournaments,â€\x9d says Martin Gamage. “Take the Holland team at the 1974 World Cup when the keeper, Jan Jongbloed, sported the number 8 shirt. It suggested that even the keeper had the ability to embrace total football, come over all Johnny Rep, and plant a wonderful shot into the opposition’s top corner.â€\x9d 50 min Two chances for United. First Blind reads the play to pick Costa’s pocket near the halfway line and find Rooney. He comes in from the left and hits a good shot that is beaten away by Courtois, diving low to his right. United almost score moments later when Martial comes infield from the left, easily away from Ivanovic, only to drag a decent chance wide of the near post from 10 yards. 49 min United have started the second half as they did the first, with lots of the ball. 49 min “I detest both teams,â€\x9d chirps Gene Salorio, “but I find Fellaini’s persistent fouling much more annoying than Costa’s thuggery. The latter is, sometimes, an amusing part of the spectacle. The former is just static.â€\x9d 48 min Mata’s curving cross from a narrow position finds Rooney in space 12 yards out, but he mistimes his jump and the ball loops into Courtois’ hands. It was an awkward chance because the ball was hit with pace by Mata. 47 min “I think it was Denis Law who first used the phrase ‘Twisted Blood’, in relation to what George Best, on his debut, left Graham Williams of WBA with,â€\x9d says Mark Power. “Although I’d hate to suggest that SAF allowed an unoriginal thought into his head ...â€\x9d I thought it was Paddy Crerand? I wasn’t saying Alex (we’re pals) invented it, just that he used it for the first time (to my knowledge) after that 4-1 win at Chelsea in October 1995. 46 min Peep peep! It’s only Ray Parlour’s autobiography the return of our old friend Ryan Dunne! “Re: numbers. I did always find it a tad off that Veron was given David May’s #4 shirt, but it’s amusing to imagine him asking what the previous occupier of the position was like and Fergie giving it the big sell (“aye he was a key part of the Treble success, just look at where the lad’s standing in the photosâ€\x9d etc).â€\x9d Half-time chit-chat “Is it decided?â€\x9d says Jeffrey Sisler. “Is Cahill definitely the #3 centreback for Chelsea? I miss his height in the box.â€\x9d Let me ask Guus and get back to you, I’m meeting him for a Flat White tomorrow. Peep peep! An adequate half of football comes to an end. See you in 10 minutes! 45+1 min Chelsea could have had a penalty there. Willian’s deflected cross came to Terry, 10 yards out. He hooked the bouncing ball towards goal, and it hit the hand of Blind before deflecting wide of the far post. Blind’s hands were up as he threw himself at the ball in the kamikaze/John Terry style, so you can understand why Chelsea were aggrieved. 44 min After a nice move involving Rooney, Mata and Lingard, Darmian sidefoots a diagonal low cross that somehow misses everyone and goes out for a goalkick on the far side. That was a beautiful cross. 43 min Willian finds Costa on the left. He tries to come inside Darmian, who knocks the ball onto Costa and out for a goal-kick. Costa doesn’t dispute the decision. I know. 42 min United have restored order with a bit of tiki-takanaccio. 40 min Oscar does the sour metres, tracking back to concede a corner when Lingard breaks clear on the right. It’s United’s 10th of the half. Blind swings it in and Fellaini, wrestling with Zouma, heads not far wide of the far post from 10 yards. Actually that come off his shoulder, not his abundant noggin. 39 min “On the topic of squad numbers, I hold their introduction into the Premier League as one of the causes of the current state where about a quarter of Anfield empties in protest well before the end of the game, and even Arsene Wenger is advocating splurging forthcoming television millions on players (and their agents and salaries),â€\x9d says David Wall. “They used to be just an additional treat to decorate international tournaments, but once they became common-place they then had to be followed by names on the back of shirts, for further ease of identification, and then you get the cult of the individual where a player signing a contract extension can be an item on the national television news without further explanation of the context or why it is significant (why anyone other than him and the club should care about his employment conditions). I wonder if a return to 1-11 numbering would roll back the tide.â€\x9d The only way to roll back the tide is to put the internet back in its box. We all know it, we just don’t know how to do it. Also: WAS IT LEE SHARPE? 38 min Diego Costa does his thing, bundling Borthwick-Jackson off and then stomping around with an affronted coupon. 37 min “This really has been a half of two halves,â€\x9d says Maher Sattar. “That’s all I have.â€\x9d It’s more than I got. 36 min Chelsea have been superb in the last 10 minutes and could easily have scored three times. 35 min Willian puts Borthwick-Jackson on his backside with a lovely feint and then sidefoots an inviting cross along the six-yard box. Darmian blocks Oscar at the near post and Azpilicueta at the far post can’t get there. 34 min Another chance for Chelsea, this time for Oscar. who picks up a return pass from Fabregas and sidefoots high and wide from a tightish angle, 10 yards out. 33 min “Surely, surely this is a United side that has improved and grown up and moved on from the one that huffed and puffed ineffectively only to be undone by one moment of Eden Hazard magic last season?â€\x9d says Thabo Mokaleng. “Surely?â€\x9d Have you been cryogenically frozen for the last nine months? 32 min Costa misses the best chance of the match. It was a neat move from Chelsea, involving Oscar and Willian. Oscar played a penetrative ball down the inside right channel to Costa, who ran away from Blind and then sidefooted a shot just wide of the far post from 15 yards. It wasn’t a sitter, though he probably should have scored. 30 min This is Chelsea’s best spell. Fabregas almost blunders straight through the defence, with the last man Smalling sliding it to challenge him. “Speaking of shirt numbers, do you think Chelsea will retire the no. 26, if Terry is set to leave after the season?â€\x9d says Konstantin Sauer. “After all, it’s not exactly one of the numbers regarded as ‘legendary’.â€\x9d I suppose. Might as well. 29 min Ivanovic gives Martial a taste of his own medicine, driving forward to win a corner. It’s swung out towards Matic, whose flicked header at the near post is caught acrobatically by De Gea. It was a comfortable save. “How often is Superjohn Terry going to fiddle with his CAPTAIN’S armband today?â€\x9d muses Adam Roberts. 28 min For all the unarguable competence of United’s passing, they haven’t created much. Mata has been busy but only Martial looks threatening. 26 min Chelsea get their first corner of the match. It’s swung in and headed over the bar by Costa, who makes a beeline for the referee Mr Michael Oliver to complain about the intrinsic unfairness of being Diego Costa. Blind was leaning on him a but, but, well, no. 24 min “No5,â€\x9d says David Wall. “It was Mike Phelan, wasn’t it.â€\x9d He used to wear No5, but I thought that was before squad numbers. Didn’t they come in for the second season of the Premier League? By which time Giggs was around and wearing No11, so Sharpe needed another number. I don’t know. Jeez, this is hot chat. 22 min It was a goal from Ryan Giggs on this ground that first leg Sir Alex Ferguson to use the phrase “twisted bloodâ€\x9d. Another United left winger, Martial, is starting to twist Ivanovic’s blood. He wins another corner, which leads to another corner, which leads to a third. Blind takes it and it so nearly falls to Fellaini six yards out. But it doesn’t, so let’s move on. 21 min Martial’s dangerous inswinging cross towards the abundant noggin of Fellaini is superbly defender by Terry (I think). 20 min It could be a long afternoon of the soul for Ivanovic against Martial, who looks the most dangerous player on the pitch. 18 min That’s a lovely save from Courtois. Martial moved infield from the left, ignored Ivanovic and then, from the corner of the box, smashed a fierce right-footed shot towards the far top corner. Courtois stretched high to his left to tip it round for a corner. 17 min “Afternoon Rob,â€\x9d says Simon McMahon. “Seeing as people seem to be asking questions in their emails today, riddle me this. Who do you reckon will be managing these two clubs in the corresponding fixture next season?â€\x9d Mourinho and Simeone. You have my word. 16 min A wonderful, Gascoigne-like surge through the heart of midfield from Willian eventually leads to Oscar hitting a fierce 20-yard shot that is well blocked. That was Chelsea’s best/only attack so far. 15 min “In the squad number era (better name than the Premier League era if you ask me),â€\x9d begins Scott Wightman, “Bruce was United’s original 4 and Pallister the 6, but who was the original 5? Clue: it’s not Ronny Johnsen.â€\x9d Was it Sharpe? 14 min “If I remember, didn’t Liverpool start the decline of proper numbering by putting the slight and nippy Craig Johnston in the 5 shirt, in the days when it was the preserve of large chaps who looked like they snacked on housebricks?â€\x9d asks Simon Cherry. Don’t forget Argentina 1978, who numbered their World Cup squad in the hipster style. 13 min A crisp low shot from Carrick, 25 yards out, is well held by Courtois down to his left. 12 min Mata and Rooney work the ball nicely to release Borthwick-Jackson, whose cross is blocked for a corner by Ivanovic. Borthwick-Jackson has started really well. Blind’s corner is headed clear to Rooney, who completely mishits a volley from 30 yards. 10 min Another corner to United down the right. Blind takes it short to Darmian, whose cross is headed out for a throw-in by Terry. United are all over Chelsea. 9 min United have started so well that you feel sure they are going to lose 1-0 despite having 68 per cent possession. 8 min The corner is cleared to Borthwick-Jackson, who drills a low 30-yarder straight at Courtois. An easy save. 7 min Another corner for United, who are the dominant side at the moment. Blind swings it in from the right and Costa slices it behind for another corner. 6 min “What club did Manchester United buy Darmain from?â€\x9d asks Dacre. “Also how much did they pay for him?â€\x9d Torino, £12.7m; oh and you should definitely wear the pink tie. 5 min Meanwhile, in Naples. 4 min United have started like the home side, with some confident passing. Lingard finds Fellaini in a good position down the right; his low cross towards Rooney is inadequate, but moments later a better cross from Borthwick-Jackson is headed behind for a corner by Zouma. The corner is played short, to no great effect. 3 min “Re: Tom Harp’s email,â€\x9d begins Harry Tuttle. “I‘m always a little disappointed to see No6 in midfield and No4 stuck in defence, if I’m honest.â€\x9d All we can ask is that you be honest. 2 min A decent early attack from United ends with Matic blocking Lingard and allowing the ball to run through to Courtois. 1 min Chelsea, in blue, kick off from right to left. United are in red. The players emerge from the tunnel, with John Terry feeling the love of Stamford Bridge. This, of course, will be his last game against Manchester United before he signs a one-year contract extension. An email “Some trivia for you. Scottish FA Cup, East Kilbride vs Celtic, latest 0-1 (HT),â€\x9d says Tom Harp. “East Kilbride line up with players wearing shirts 1 to 11. Playing formation 1-4-5-1. Goalkeeper is #1, defenders #2-5, centre-forward #9, midfielders the balance. When is the last time you saw that?â€\x9d It’s so funny you should say this, because yesterday my Saturday-league team played a 2-3-5-1 with the goalkeepers wearing #1-2, the defenders #3-5 and so on. Guus Hiddink and Louis van Gaal are chatting away on Sky. Here are the points of interest from their pre-match interviews: Arsenal moved up to third with a 2-0 win at Bournemouth. That means Manchester City are now fourth, and United are seven points off a Champions League place, for a couple of hours at least. Both sides are unchanged, so Eden Hazard stays on the Chelsea bench. You just haven’t earned it yet, baby. Chelsea (4-2-3-1) Courtois; Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta; Mikel, Matic; Willian, Fabregas, Oscar; Costa. Subs: Begovic, Baba Rahman, Cahill, Loftus-Cheek, Pedro, Traore, Hazard. Manchester United (4-2-3-1) De Gea; Darmian, Smalling, Blind, Borthwick-Jackson; Fellaini, Carrick; Lingard, Mata, Martial; Rooney. Subs: Romero, McNair, Varela, Schneiderlin, Herrera, Pereira, Memphis. Referee Mr Michael Oliver. This is where Twitter really comes into its own From the archive A typically brilliant piece from Scott Murray, including George Best managing to score at the Stretford End despite being the victim of a hit-and-run. In the 1.30pm kick off, Arsenal are leading 2-0 at Bournemouth. Get the latest news with Nick Ames’ MBM. Hello and welcome to live coverage of this Premier League contest between the teams in 13th and fifth place, also known as Chelsea versus Manchester United. It’s been an odd time for both clubs, a lost season while Jose Mourinho does the necessary to get what he really, really wants. Chelsea are unbeaten in 12 games since Mourinho was sacked in December. United are on a celebrated unbeaten run of their own – two matches, in which they have scored six goals, some of them beautiful. If they win today they will be able to rationalise that they are back in the title race. Not that it will be easy for them to do so. In the 1980s and 1990s this fixture was almost an away banker. Since 1999, however, United have won three and lost 11 of their last 20 games at Stamford Bridge. That’s not all that has changed about this fixture. For much of the last decade it was a title decider, and in one case a Champions League final; now it’s almost a mid-table clash. Kick off is at 4pm.',
 'Trump campaign faces biggest crisis yet after tax documents published Donald Trump was reeling from the biggest crisis of his campaign on Sunday, after the publication of documents suggesting the wealthy Republican nominee may have been able to escape paying income tax for nearly two decades. In a direct challenge to his claim to be a successful businessman and a champion of America’s hard-working middle class, the anonymously leaked tax returns reveal how Trump used aggressive accounting tactics and the failure of several businesses to claim a loss of $916m in his 1995 personal filing. Independent experts say under US rules, this could be large enough to legally shelter hundreds of millions in income from years of federal tax – despite Trump’s high-rolling lifestyle and criticism of others for avoiding tax. Trump did not deny the damning conclusions drawn by the New York Times, which first received the filing in a manila envelope said to have been sent from inside Trump Tower. But he threatened to sue the newspaper for what he insisted was “illegally obtainedâ€\x9d material. “The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained,â€\x9d the campaign said in a statement, “a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton campaign, the Democratic party and their global special interests.â€\x9d The editor of the New York Times recently said he was prepared to risk prison to publish Trump’s hitherto secret tax returns. The Times pointed out in its report that the documents it had obtained did not suggest Trump had done anything illegal. The veracity of the document was also confirmed by Trump’s former accountant, Jack Mitnick, who told the paper he had to manually input the figure in question because tax preparation software did not allow for nine-digit losses. Instead, the Trump campaign embarked on a damage control exercise on Sunday, dispatching surrogates to television talk shows to argue that Trump was clever to exploit the painful collapse of his past business ventures, several of which defaulted on creditors by declaring bankruptcy. “The reality is he’s a genius,â€\x9d former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani told NBC. “He did something we admire in America: he came back.â€\x9d New Jersey governor Chris Christie also told Fox News Sunday the story was “very goodâ€\x9d for the candidate as it showed “the genius of Donald Trumpâ€\x9d. The argument is consistent with an explanation given by the candidate himself, who claimed he was being “smartâ€\x9d when pressed by his rival, Hillary Clinton, on tax avoidance during their first presidential debate. In 2012, Trump berated people who don’t pay tax payers, writing: “Half of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling govt debtâ€\x9d. Yet the scale of the 1995 loss appears to confirm suggestions made by Democrats that Trump has refused to follow 40 years of tradition and publish his tax returns because they would show he didn’t pay any. “Trump is a billion-dollar loser who won’t release his taxes because they’ll expose him as a spoiled, rich brat who lost the millions he inherited from his father,â€\x9d Democratic Senate minority leader Harry Reid said on Sunday. “Despite losing a billion dollars, Trump wants to reward himself with more tax breaks on inherited wealth while stiffing middle-class families who earn their paychecks with hard work.â€\x9d The revelations follow a poor debate performance, sliding poll numbers and a week of distracting arguments with a former Miss Universe winner, whom Trump had called “Miss Piggyâ€\x9d in the 1990s. On Friday Trump falsely accused her of having a “sex tapeâ€\x9d only hours before reporters found he had made a cameo in a Playboy video. Many such embarrassments have failed to dent Trump’s popularity in the past, but the tax question goes to the heart of his claim to represent struggling US workers. Trump has proposed a tax plan that would cut taxes for all Americans, but analysis by the conservative Tax Foundation found it would disproportionately help the richest Americans, saving them millions. “You have middle-class people working longer hours for low wages, they pay their taxes,â€\x9d said Senator Bernie Sanders, whose battle against Clinton for the Democratic nomination drew on similar anger over inequality. “They support their schools, they support their infrastructure, they support the military, but the billionaires, no, they don’t have to do that because they have their friends on Capitol Hill. They pay zero in taxes,â€\x9d Sanders told ABC on Sunday. “So Trump goes around and says, ‘Hey, I’m worth billions, I’m a successful businessman, but I don’t pay any taxes, but you, you who earn 15 bucks an hour, you pay the taxes. That’s why people are angry and want real change in this country.â€\x9d In a statement, Trump’s campaign defended his record, saying he “is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally requiredâ€\x9d. “That being said, Mr Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions.â€\x9d The campaign offered no specifics about how much Trump may have paid in these taxes, or when.',
 "Police investigate tweet calling for someone to 'Jo Cox' MP Anna Soubry Police are investigating a tweet calling for someone to “Jo Coxâ€\x9d the Conservative MP Anna Soubry. The murder of the Labour MP Cox by an extreme rightwing terrorist raised concerns about parliamentarians’ security and the level of abuse they have directed at them. On Friday morning a Twitter user by the name of Michael posted: “Someone jo cox Anna sourby please [sic].â€\x9d Soubry, the MP for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, was a remain supporter in the EU referendum, like Cox. She replied: “Take it that wasn’t a spelling mistake. You’re a sad cowardly troll.â€\x9d The account has since been deleted but Soubry later posted a screenshot of the offending tweet, with the comment: “This is what has happened to our politics. Tolerance & free speech must prevail.â€\x9d She told BBC Nottinghamshire that she was “very disturbedâ€\x9d by the tweet and confirmed that she had reported it to Nottinghamshire police as well as the parliamentary authorities. She said the message was the second of two death threats she had received in a week. “Somebody had rung the office on Wednesday and made a number of threats to harm me in the same way that Jo Cox was harmed … so we reported that,â€\x9d she said. Soubry added: “It’s almost as if Jo was never murdered. “It’s surreal actually, that that terrible and dreadful event has almost been erased and we have gone back to the language, we have gone back to the way of doing politics which we all promised we wouldn’t after Jo was murdered. “The abuse on Twitter has gone back up again from almost all sides – from both the left and the extreme right – and it all needs to stop.â€\x9d There was an outpouring of support from across the political divide. The Westminster SNP leader Angus Robertson was among those who urged the police to investigate. Thomas Mair was last week sentenced to prison for the rest of his life for the murder of Cox. He repeatedly shot and stabbed her in an attack during the EU referendum campaign in June. While attacking her he said: “This is for Britain,â€\x9d “Keep Britain independent,â€\x9d and “Britain first,â€\x9d the court heard. A spokesman for Nottinghamshire police said: “We have received reports of threats made to an individual. “Nottinghamshire police takes reports of this nature very seriously and an investigation is under way.â€\x9d",
 '11 health innovations to drastically cut maternal and child mortality rates Achieving the ambitious target to end maternal and child deaths, enshrined in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), will require ingenuity. The good news is that 11 health innovations could save more than 6 million mothers and children by 2030, if they are invested in and used widely in 24 priority countries. When I began working in global health (at the World Health Organisation in 1990) 12.7 million children under five and 532,000 new mothers died every year. The challenge looked insurmountable. But in the two decades that followed, unprecedented global cooperation resulted in annual child deaths being cut by more than half, to 5.9 million in 2015, and annual maternal deaths to just over 300,000. As impressive as the progress has been, it’s not enough. The current rate of decline in maternal and child mortality will not get us to the ambitious SDG targets by 2030. We need innovative tools and approaches to accelerate progress. The 11 innovations modelled in our analysis, crowdsourced from experts around the world, are gamechanging health technologies and approaches that will have wide-scale impact, ensure healthier babies, protect mothers, and secure better health in the long term. 1 Injectable contraceptives A new formulation that combines a widely used long-acting contraceptive in an easy-to-use injection is already improving access to this life-changing intervention by allowing community health workers to bring the drug directly to women. Several countries are even studying the potential for women to self-inject, further empowering women and their choices. Modelling showed that this innovation, making long-acting contraception more accessible, could save more than 3 million lives – including women, newborns, and children – by helping women space their pregnancies in a healthy way. 2 Better pneumonia treatment Accurately diagnosing pneumonia in young children is very difficult. New tools to diagnose and treat the condition, including better respiratory rate monitors and portable pulse oximeters, can save many more lives from this disease, which is the leading infectious killer of children under five. 3 Kangaroo mother care There is so much we can do now to give newborns a better chance at a healthy life. Studies have shown that kangaroo mother care, or skin-to-skin contact between the newborn and mother immediately after birth, improves breastfeeding and thermal regulation of newborns, both critical for survival in low-resource settings. 4 Chlorinators for water treatment Beyond traditional interventions for mothers and newborns, we also need to ensure access to clean water. New technologies, like a chlorinator for community water treatment, are making the use of chlorine for disinfecting water easy and economical. 5 Antiseptic gel Chlorhexidine, a low-cost antiseptic, is a very simple gel that, if applied to the newborn’s umbilical cord, can prevent deadly infections. 6 Single-dose anti-malarial drugs Better drugs to protect against diseases like malaria are in the works, including a potent single-dose anti-malarial drug. 7 Neonatal resuscitators As many as one in 10 newborns need help breathing at birth, new, simple, neonatal resuscitators can help prevent deaths. 8 Low-cost balloon tamponade Women with postpartum haemorrhage can also be stabilised and treated by a balloon tamponade, a common tool in high-income countries. Recently, this tool has been adapted using readily available materials in low-income countries. Using the materials at hand, a healthcare provider can create a tamponade out of condoms and rubber tubing. Now simple low-cost kits and pre-assembled versions are available, that make this solution more accessible and effective. 9 Drugs to stop blood loss after childbirth New forms of the drug oxytocin are currently being developed and tested that could increase coverage because they won’t require skilled health workers to administer or refrigeration for storage. These innovations could help ensure this highly effective drug reaches and treats hundreds of thousands of women at risk of death from postpartum haemorrhage (or severe bleeding after delivery) each year. 10 Rice fortification For children who live in areas where rice is a staple food, we are seeing amazing developments in rice fortification, a process that enriches rice with vitamins and iron supplements. Better nutrition is at the core of better health and smarter ways to supplement staples and introduce foods with more nutritional value are essential. 11 New tests for a life-threatening maternal condition Preeclampsia is another danger that affects more than one in 20 pregnant women. It is associated with dangerously high blood pressure that can lead to seizures. New diagnostic tools to treat preeclampsia will help identify at-risk women so that they can receive low-cost treatment. How will these life-saving innovations be funded? Traditional donors cannot do it alone. Governments in low- and middle-income countries have a critical role to play and so do local entrepreneurs with the potential to take forward affordable solutions. The private sector and social impact investors, also want to engage. But all these groups need better data to assess what is available, what is coming soon, or where there is a gap that requires new ideas. To achieve the goal of ending preventable maternal and child deaths, the world must invest in new and emerging health innovations so that bright ideas turn into real solutions. The lives of millions of women and children depend on it. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter. Join the conversation with the hashtag #Dev2030.',
 'Julieta review: Pedro Almodóvar ties himself down with fractured melodrama Pedro Almodóvar’s intriguing, minor work Julieta is an adaptation of three inter-related short stories by Alice Munro from her 2004 collection Runaway: Chance, Soon and Silence. It elegantly revives Almodovár’s signature tropes and repertory cast favourites, circling around ideas of yearning, memory and loss. This is a movie which almost seems to happen at one remove from itself, unfolding as so many of his others in flashback, disclosed by letters and journals, a movie in which vitally important things happen off camera, including an extraordinarily painful revelation almost casually thrown away in the dying moments. It’s all about mothers, all about transformation, all about people in comas, or nearly in comas — that last idea being one which licenses the thrill of marital infidelity, while complicating it with poignancy and fear of death. Almodóvar’s visual palette is as rich and sumptuous as ever. His colours throb and pop. The film is about Julieta, a woman who has somehow been marginalised from her own life. In her stylish older years, she is played by Emma Suárez and as a beautiful young woman by Adriana Uguarte. In the present day, she seems happy and content, about to leave Spain for a new life in Portugal, with her new partner Lorenzo (played by Dario Grandinetti, from Almodóvar’s Talk To Her). But a chance meeting in the street shatters her calm. We discover that Julieta has an estranged daughter, AntÃ\xada, whom she hasn’t seen in decades, enduring emotional pain like grief. Now she discovers news that AntÃ\xada is still alive; she has been spotted on holiday with her three children: as well as everything else Julieta finds that she is a grandmother. In a newly enhanced state of anguish, she abandons her new relationship, abandons her new life in Portugal and sits down to write a long diary-slash-letter to AntÃ\xada, recounting her former life with AntÃ\xada’s late father Xoan (Daniel Grao), her complex friendship with Xoan’s on-off lover Ava (Inma Cuesta) and her tense relationship with the formidable and disapproving Marian, played by the unmistakable Almodóvar icon Rossy De Palma. This fraught dynamic creates the perfect emotional storm which is to be the key to Xoan’s fate — that an a real-life storm in which he takes out his fishing boat. This is an intriguing, painful story of almost melodramatic vehemence, but seen through a hall of mirrors. The Russian formalists used to say that the function of art was to put you a knight’s-move away from reality; Almodóvar delights in putting you a knight’s-move away from what is happening in his film. It is absorbing yet also sometimes disconcerting. The performances of from Uguarte and Suárez are open and generous: on camera, their faces deliver up emotion richly and immediately. The emotional lives of young Julieta and older Julieta are, appropriately, storm-tossed. They seem to be in the centre of a Hitchcockian thriller — Lorenzo at one stage ruefully compares his own behaviour to an obsessed character in a Patricia Highsmith novel. Almodóvar is brilliant at creating the mood of a mystery thriller, but with little or no intention of giving you the big reveal that you might expect. The mystery at the heart of the film is AntÃ\xada herself, played as an 18-year-old by Blanca Pares: it is a nagging, gnawing absence, and the structure of the film is a clever way of approximating that sense of loss and devastation. AntÃ\xada being gone from Julieta’s life is a kind of bereavement. Finally, we hear why AntÃ\xada felt the need to abandon her mother, but there is something frustrating and baffling in the fact that she is revealed to us only as reflected in the tormented memory-mirror of Julieta’s mind. This is not as richly compelling as other Almodóvar films, but it’s a fluent and engaging work.',
 "Sun's 'Brexit boost to shares' front page is a topsy-turvy take on the truth Spin and slant are hardly unknown in newspapers, but the front page of Wednesday’s Sun subjected the truth to such aggressive editing as to give a completely upside-down impression of what was going on in financial markets. A day after the newspaper’s front page editorial, beseeching voters to “BeLEAVE in Britainâ€\x9d, the tabloid put together a bizarre pastiche involving Remain’s dwindling poll lead, “nasty Euro mothsâ€\x9d and what a large sub-headline described as a “Brexit Rocket Boost to Sharesâ€\x9d. What makes this last item the stand-out in this bizarre brew is that the big financial story overnight had been the £30bn wiped off the FTSE on Tuesday, which was widely thought to be associated with the surging position of the leave camp in the latest polls. The “rocket-boostâ€\x9d claim was repeated and attributed to “analysisâ€\x9d in the text of the story on the front page, but only readers who pressed on to the bottom of the second column of the story on the second page got any indication of what this claim was based on, a Deutsche Bank research note which observed that European shares were set to tank by around 10% in the event of Britain voting leave, but also suggested that the slide in UK shares could be somewhat smaller, leading to a relative over-performance of around 5%. The “rocket boosterâ€\x9d then turns out to be not an increase, but a smaller decline than that witnessed elsewhere. And even that is a highly speculative suggestion. To highlight this figure after a trading session when the the London markets had been in freefall is a little bit like splashing on somebody predicting that Manchester United might win the league next year, the evening after they had suffered a five-nil defeat. The basis for Deutsche Bank’s prediction, by the way, was that Brexit would trigger such a run on the pound that UK exports would get cheaper, making them easier to sell. Dylan Sharp, head of PR at The Sun, suggested on Twitter that those “being snottyâ€\x9d about the Sun’s “rocket boosterâ€\x9d claim should “blame Deutsche Bankâ€\x9d. He added that the full original news report had included some details of Tuesday’s rout in shares. It did indeed. But in the print edition inspected by the this information did not make it into the front-page story.",
 "Boris Johnson calls for end to 'whinge-o-rama' over Donald Trump Boris Johnson has called on European leaders to end the “doom and gloomâ€\x9d about Donald Trump’s election victory and see the US president-elect as someone with whom they can build closer ties. Speaking after a phone conversation with the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, the British foreign secretary described Trump as “a deal makerâ€\x9d and called for an end to the “collective whinge-o-ramaâ€\x9d which followed Hillary Clinton’s defeat. The British government is hurriedly seeking ways to engage with Trump, a man several ministers had condemned during his election campaign, including Johnson, who had said he was “genuinely worriedâ€\x9d at the idea of a Trump presidency. One report on Friday claimed that the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, wanted to turn to Nigel Farage to liaise with Trump because the government had no links with his camp. The story in the Telegraph was, however, immediately dismissed by Downing Street, with a spokesman saying: “Dr Fox has no plans to talk to Mr Farage.â€\x9d A Ukip source said there was no truth to the report. Theresa May talked to Trump on Thursday afternoon, with the president-elect making reference to the close relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, a Downing Street source said. Trump “alluded to their relationship as a way to underline that he was keen to have a good personal working relationship tooâ€\x9d, the source said. Johnson said of his conversation with Pence: “We agreed on the importance of the special relationship and the need to tackle global challenges together.â€\x9d Speaking in Belgrade, where he had met the Serbian prime minister, Aleksandar VuÄ\x8dić, Johnson called for a sense of proportion in reaction to Trump’s success. “I would respectfully say to my beloved European friends and colleagues that it’s time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and collective whinge-o-rama that seems to be going on in some places,â€\x9d he said. “He is, after all, a deal maker. He wants to do a free trade deal with the UK,â€\x9d Johnson told reporters. “I believe that this is a great opportunity for us in the UK to build on that relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us, but also of great importance for stability and prosperity in the world.â€\x9d Jonathan Marland, David Cameron’s former trade envoy, said Trump’s victory was a “great opportunity to rebuild alliancesâ€\x9d. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the peer said: “Our relationship with America has been rocky in terms of trade recently because of the onslaught they had against our banks and against BP and I think business needs certainty. If Mr Trump can show there is a greater certainty and that he is open for business then I think it is very good for British business.â€\x9d He added: “Post-Brexit and post-Trump, both countries are going to be looking for allies with which to increase their trade. Both countries will be looking for quick-fix partners post these events and I have no doubt that Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland … will be looking very favourably on economic relationships with the UK.â€\x9d Farage has spoken jokingly about the idea of being Trump’s liaison with the EU in Brussels, but his allies say that while he would happily consider being an intermediary for the UK government, there is no realistic chance he would be asked. The Ukip interim leader is currently in Florida for a private event. In an interview with TalkRadio recorded before he was due to fly to the US, Farage joked about the idea of Trump sexually assaulting May. Imagining the two leaders meeting, he said: “Don’t touch her, for goodness sake,â€\x9d before laughing. Asked about the likely behaviour of Trump, who has been accused of a series of sexual assaults, which he denies, Farage added: “If it comes to it, I could be there as the responsible adult role, to make sure everything’s OK.â€\x9d",
 'Everton see off Middlesbrough as Barry scores on 600th Premier League game Everton have not always responded well to adversity in the past but there is steel running through the side under Ronald Koeman. They went behind to the most dubious of away goals midway through the first half but simply brushed the injustice aside, recovered within minutes and went on to claim a handsome victory. Everton now sit second in the table and have scored six goals in their last two games, though it must be said Middlesbrough, like Sunderland earlier in the week, do not possess the most resolute of defences. “Our start was not good,â€\x9d Koeman said. “We needed to be more aggressive with the pressing but we got there in the end and played some great football. We have improved a lot physically and we have brought in players with a lot of energy.â€\x9d Gareth Barry enjoyed an eventful evening as he made his 600th Premier League appearance, only the third player to record such a milestone after Ryan Giggs and Frank Lampard. The Everton vice-captain could have gifted Middlesbrough an opening goal when he lost the ball in front of his own penalty area, and was relieved when Gastón RamÃ\xadrez proved to be less sharp at shooting than dispossessing opponents. Six minutes later the visitors did take an unexpected lead, and Barry led the posse of Everton players moaning about it. In fairness he probably had a point, Ã\x81lvaro Negredo’s goal should not have stood. Replays showed the Boro striker headed Maarten Stekelenburg’s arm rather than the ball as the pair tried to claim George Friend’s cross from the left touchline, thus preventing the goalkeeper making a clean catch. Lee Mason did not have the benefit of replays, however, and awarded the goal, presumably on the grounds that Negredo only attacked the ball and did not appear to have committed any obvious foul. One imagines Barry was making the point a little too forcibly that in such situations goalkeepers are normally given the benefit of the doubt. In a way it was refreshing to find a referee unwilling to treat goalkeepers as a protected species, and possibly true that Negredo also deserved the benefit of the doubt, though had the referee had the opportunity to watch a replay he would have been forced to change his mind. If the occasion was turning a little sour Barry lost no time in making amends. A mere three minutes after going behind Everton were level, and it was Barry at the far post who provided the equaliser. VÃ\xadctor Valdés punched ineffectively at a Kevin Mirallas corner, succeeding only in pushing the ball against Negredo, from whom it fell to Barry to tuck away with a neat finish, though once again there was an element of controversy. Valdés might have dealt with the cross better had not Ashley Williams impeded the goalkeeper by going for the ball with a raised boot. Ross Barkley and Yannick Bolasie both went close for the home side once the scores were level before Everton hit two goals in quick succession to turn round 3-1 in front, a half-time scoreline that little in the previous 45 minutes had suggested. Séamus Coleman scored the first, accepting a short pass from Romelu Lukaku and coolly rounding Daniel Ayala in the Boro area to make his shooting angle easier, then in the final second of added time Lukaku himself added another. At least the striker claimed the goal, in reality it appeared he had merely stretched out a leg to Bolasie’s cross and made negligible contact. Bolasie had just as strong a claim to the goal, though Lukaku could claim with some justification that it was his action that had diverted the attention of the goalkeeper. Barry’s day become even more eventful with a booking at the end of the first half, after an altercation with RamÃ\xadrez. Boro became the second north-east team in a week to be floored by Everton’s ability to score bursts of goals, and the second half was basically a story of a team full of confidence passing the ball at will around a defence more interested in damage limitation. Barkley was conspicuous in most home attacks after his dressing down at Sunderland, clearly focused on correcting the impression that he gives the ball away too cheaply. There were occasions, in fact, when Barkley might have done better to release the ball a little earlier, though one determined run into the box after an hour brought a good save from Valdés at the foot of his left hand post. “Today was the Ross Barkley we like to see,â€\x9d Koeman said. “He’s not a young player any more, he needs to take responsibility. I was honest in what I said about him, but players are not stupid, they know when they have not played well.â€\x9d Barkley would have liked a goal to mark his rehabilitation, yet though always in control, Everton seemed to lose their attacking focus once Lukaku was withdrawn. Enner Valencia made his debut, without managing to decorate it with any contribution of note. “We lost our concentration at the end of the first half but apart from that Everton had to play well to beat us,â€\x9d Aitor Karanka said. “They are a good side, better than us. I think many teams night have lost that game by five or six goals to one.â€\x9d',
 "Brexit weekly briefing: we're going to be kept in the dark Welcome to the weekly Brexit briefing, a summary of developments as Britain edges towards the EU exit. If you’d like to receive it as a weekly email, do please sign up here. Producing the ’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism is expensive – but supporting us isn’t. If you value our Brexit coverage, please become a supporter and help make our future more secure. Thank you. The big picture So now we know (even if we’d long suspected it): we’re going to be kept in the dark. For the time being at least, the government is not going to be saying anything much about what its Brexit strategy will be, or how it is progressing. Pressed repeatedly in parliament last week on the question of whether its preferred Brexit deal would include full membership of the EU’s single market, prime minister Theresa May could not have been much clearer (or more non-committal): The new relationship will include control of the movement of people from the EU into the UK, and it will include the right deal for the trade in goods and services ... It would not be right for me or this government to give a running commentary on negotiations. In case there should be any doubt, she then said it again: It is about developing our own British model. So we will not take decisions until we are ready. We will not reveal our hand prematurely. And we will not provide a running commentary. Brexit minister David Davis went further, telling the House of Lords EU select committee that because the government did not want to give away its negotiating position he “may not be able to tell [parliament] everythingâ€\x9d – even in private hearings: I can entirely see accountability after the event, that’s very clear. [But] in advance, I don’t think it’s possible for parliamentarians to micro-manage the process and wouldn’t give us an optimum outcome for the country. In the meantime, tantalising glimpses of what Brexit might imply in practice continue to emerge. Like the possibility that British citizens may have to apply for permission – and pay – to visit the continent. The reported on Saturday that a planned EU visa waiver scheme based on the US ESTA system – which requires travellers to request advance authorisation to travel in exchange for a fee – could apply to British holidaymakers and business travellers after Brexit. Asked by Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning TV show whether this could indeed be the case, the home secretary Amber Rudd, said that yes, it could: I don’t think it’s particularly desirable, but we don’t rule it out because we have to be allowed a free hand to get the best negotiations. It’s a reminder that this is a two-way negotiation. The EU ... will be considering their negotiations with us, just as we are with them. Rudd also said the government was considering work permits for EU nationals in Britain as a possible way to control immigration. Meanwhile, it seems one or two members – specifically, the hardcore Brexiters – of the cabinet are not yet fully on-board with the prime minister’s instructions to keep schtum, refrain from provide running commentaries and avoid revealing the government’s hand. They also have a clear idea of the Brexit they want: hard, and fast. Davis needed putting in his place last week after he told MPs it was unlikely that Britain would stay in the single market. Downing Street said he was “expressing his personal opinionâ€\x9d. Similarly, the international trade minister, Liam Fox, drew fire when he said British business had grown “fat and lazyâ€\x9d and company executives would rather play golf than get out and clinch the new export deals the country will need. Downing Street also pointedly declined to endorse his opinion. Boris Johnson, finally, took the fairly remarkable step for a foreign minister of endorsing Change Britain, a new cross-party campaign of prominent pro-Brexit politicians (think Gisela Stuart and Michael Gove) aimed at pressuring the government into delivering on leaving the EU in the way they would like – namely gaining full control over “laws, borders, money and tradeâ€\x9d. (Change Britain, incidentally, ran into early difficulties after it quietly dropped one of the key pre-referendum pledges of its predecessor organisation Vote Leave: that Brexit could see an extra £350m a week spent on the NHS. Labour MPs instantly demanded the group “either admit it was a lie and apologise, or justify it and explain when it is comingâ€\x9d.) Further increasing the pressure on May, the former culture secretary, John Whittingdale, said in an interview with the Telegraph that the prime minister should invoke article 50 – setting in motion the formal two-year leaving process – within weeks, rather than waiting until next year. The view from Europe And the pressure isn’t just coming from diehard Brexiters: May met the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, to discuss the UK’s future relationship with the remaining EU-27. Hinting at rising impatience on the continent, he told her Britain should get on with leaving as soon as possible: “The ball is in your court.â€\x9d Emmanuel Macron, the former banker and economy minister who is having a tilt at the French presidency, also said Britain should get out soon. What’s more, he told the that the City’s crucial passporting rights – which allow UK-based financial institutions to sell across the eurozone – wouldn’t be preserved unless the Britain contributes to the EU budget and that no concessions could be made on freedom of movement to boot. The (in theory) pro-British Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Bloomberg he was urging his EU colleagues to make sure Britain doesn’t end up with a good deal: We need to be extremely careful that the side that leaves doesn’t get particular competitive advantages on its way out. We all want a peaceful divorce, but when you agree to part ways – and in this situation, only one side wants to part ways – we need to protect our own interests first. And to round off a great week, the European parliament – which will have to ratify any future Brexit deal – appointed “diehard Europeanâ€\x9d Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian PM, to be its lead negotiator alongside former French minister Michel Barnier for the Commission. Here’s what Verhofstadt had to say in July on the possibility of the UK retaining free market access while restricting freedom of movement: The European parliament will never agree to a deal that de facto ends the free movement of people, while giving away an extra rebate in exchange for all the advantages of the internal market. Meanwhile, back in Westminster The shock (perhaps) of the week was obviously David Cameron’s decision to resign as an MP, after stepping down as the prime minister who called the Brexit referendum the day after he lost it. Looking forward, away even from the direct squabbling over the balance of immigration versus trade and whether UK businesses are doing their bit, Brexit is arguably shaping the direction of British politics in other ways. For example, the decision of Theresa May to announce a return to new grammar schools, picking a potentially tricky political fight over what some see as a marginal issue, has been rationalised by some as the prime minister seeking to assuage the right of her party, which might be about to see some disappointments over what Brexit actually ends up meaning. There are also repercussions for Labour, with Owen Smith going further even than his previous promise to seek a referendum on the specific Brexit deal by suggesting a Labour government under him could one day reapply to join the EU. Jeremy Corbyn, widely expected to beat Smith in the ongoing Labour leadership battle, has dismissed the idea of a new referendum, while his aides have gleefully pointed out that not even Smith’s main trade union supporter, the GMB, supports this. That said, Corbyn’s own ideas on Brexit have caused some anguish in Labour, with disquiet among some MPs after their leader talked of the UK rejecting elements of the EU single market once Britain leaves the bloc. You should also know that: Britain’s economy will grind to a near standstill over the coming months as Brexit-related uncertainty triggers a slump in investment, the British Chambers of Commerce predicted. The UK music industry pleaded with politicians to protect its status as one of the world’s biggest exporters of new music, pointing to its huge contribution to the economy through the success of artists like Adele and Sam Smith. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has embarked on a series of meetings with top City figures to reassure them over Brexit worries, reportedly promising they would not be subject to post-Brexit immigration curbs. The founder of pub chain Wetherspoons, Tim Martin, had a good go at Cameron, FTSE 100 chief executives, the Bank of England governor, City economists, Goldman Sachs, the CBI, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD for their “entirely falseâ€\x9d economic predictions. Hate crime surged in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the second half of July – nearly a month after the EU referendum vote – according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, up 58% rise compared with the previous year. Read this Spoilt for choice for supplementary reading again this week. Nick Cohen is on coruscating form for the , arguing that the EU will never appease the “deluded Brexitersâ€\x9d: Instead of facing up to the scale of the uncertainty, today’s Conservatives kid themselves as their ancestors did in the 1930s. Listen to Conservative ministers and read the rightwing press and delusion is on display everywhere ... They don’t have a shred of evidence that the EU will appease us. Just a forlorn hope and an echo of voices from the time of the British appeasers. Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, has been analysing the implications of Brexit for trade with Peter Sutherland, the former founding director-general of the World Trade Organisation. In the Financial Times, he writes: Brexit will make a deep mark on British life. Most importantly, it will upend our trading relationships with Europe and the rest of the world. Only 15% of UK total trade is with countries that are neither members of the EU, nor covered by an EU trade agreement that is in force or under negotiation ... And where is the government on all of this? Not even at first base. Ministers must make their plans for Britain’s trading relationships clear as soon as possible. We are in the calm before the storm. Whatever form Brexit takes, it is going to be a rough ride. Raphael Behr in the tackles the thorny issue of immigration, arguing the Brexiters haven’t a clue what to do: The “points-based systemâ€\x9d was always a phoney offer. It was clever shorthand for “non-racist yet rigorous-sounding alternative to the status quoâ€\x9d chosen because it seemed meritocratic (points are earned) and culturally digestible (Australia is a friendly, Anglophone cousin country) ... Thus are we confronted with the Conservative Eurosceptics, tongue-tied but blinking smugly in the glare of referendum victory, holding a blank piece of paper where they should have answers on immigration. And in Prospect magazine, Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform demonstrates that in his remarks about Britain not needing to be a member of it, David Davis shows he really does not understand the nature and importance of the EU’s single market to Britain’s economy: He is plain wrong to contend that Single Market membership has no impact on UK trade with the rest of the EU. All the evidence suggests that the UK exports far more to the EU than can be explained by geographic proximity and income levels: the CER estimates that Britain’s membership of the Single Market has boosted British trade with the EU by 55%. Tweet of the week A pleasingly continental cracker, in my humble opinion, from the LRB bookshop:",
 'Liverpool put six past sorry Aston Villa as home fans turn ire on Lerner Liverpool performed to a backdrop of fans walking out en masse for a second weekend in succession though it was not inflated ticket prices that sparked the exodus this time but the sheer ineptitude of Aston Villa. No easy games in the Premier League? Nonsense. This was a surrender and Liverpool inflicted a St Valentine’s Day massacre from which the division’s bottom club may not recover. A team supposedly fighting for its life rolled over and died at Villa Park. To add insult to injury, the Villa defender and fan Joleon Lescott tweeted a photo of a top-of-the-range Mercedes S63 shortly after the final whistle, later claiming he had done so by accident as “it happened whilst driving and my phone was in my pocketâ€\x9d. The sense it left, however, is that he is detached and uninterested, just like Villa’s defending. Those fans not sent to the exits in despair turned their ire on the owner Randy Lerner in the directors’ box rather than Rémi Garde in the dugout. The French coach looked on helplessly as the nightmare of Villa’s heaviest home defeat since Ted Drake scored all seven of Arsenal’s goals in a 7-1 win here in 1935 unfolded. On the flip side, Liverpool equalled their biggest winning margin away from home in the top flight but Jürgen Klopp had too much respect for his opponents’ suffering to revel in the rout. He could take greater satisfaction from Liverpool demonstrating that, with Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho available, they do have armoury to punish weak defending. Sturridge opened the scoring on his first Premier League start under Klopp, James Milner, Emre Can, Divock Origi, Nathaniel Clyne and Kolo Touré all followed. Six different goalscorers and a multitude of faults for Garde to correct. No spine, no spirit and no quality. There is no way back for Villa on this evidence. Garde admitted: “As a manager that is probably the worst performance I have had. It is a very bad afternoon, a very bad defeat but we don’t have time to complain and moan. We have to be professional until the end. I will find 11 players for the next game who want to fight.â€\x9d He was hard pressed to find one . The defensive flaws that are ushering a grand club towards the Championship were quickly exposed, and under minimal pressure, as Liverpool established a comfortable lead without truly exerting themselves. The lack of leadership after Sturridge and Milner scored must have worried Garde as much as the feeble resistance that met two punishing crosses from the Liverpool left. Sturridge started the humiliation with a finish made simple by his intelligent movement. Liverpool worked the ball out to Coutinho on the left and when his in-swinging centre dropped between the static Lescott and Aly Cissokho the unmarked striker steered a header inside Mark Bunn’s near post. Lescott berated Cissokho for losing the run of Sturridge. Abdicating responsibility was a feature of the Villa performance. The visitors’ second came gift-wrapped nine minutes later. The cumbersome Jores Okore dispossessed Coutinho before conceding a needless free-kick with a slight push on the Brazilian. Milner swept in the set piece from a similar position to Coutinho’s cross for the opener, Lescott, Okore and Mamadou Sakho leapt to meet it, all three missed and the ball sailed beyond Bunn into the far corner. Villa’s play deteriorated rapidly thereafter with a procession of half-hearted challenges and basic errors enraging the home support. Garde’s team were abysmal. Once Gabriel Agbonlahor departed early in the second half, taking any semblance of attacking intent with him, they threw shambolic into the mix for good measure. Garde claimed Agbonlahor was suffering from vertigo. “Don’t you have to be high up to have that?â€\x9d came a biting retort in the press conference. Four Liverpool goals in 13 minutes provided an accurate gauge of the calamity that unfolded. Number three arrived courtesy of the pedestrian Micah Richards. The Villa captain was easily dispossessed by Can, who continued his run as the impressive Roberto Firmino drove towards the defence before squaring for the German midfielder who found the bottom corner from 20 yards. Number four arrived from Origi’s first touch after replacing Sturridge. Once again Villa lost possession, this time to Firmino deep inside the Liverpool half. Coutinho swept a glorious pass around Okore where the Belgium international raced forwards before beating Bunn. Two minutes later came number five, Clyne breaking clear of Jordan Veretout inside the area and converting his first league goal for Liverpool at the second attempt. Number six was appalling from a Villa perspective and a moment of sheer joy for Touré. The Liverpool central defender was stood still and unmarked as Jordan Henderson swept a corner over from the right. Touré did not have to move to convert his first goal in five years. Klopp said: “Having six goalscorers – I can’t remember them all now – is perfect for the boys because it is important that they all really feel it is important to work in this way, but it is not a day to sing songs for us. “You have to show respect for Aston Villa, a great club in a difficult situation. We came here and won the game, that’s important for us, but if someone wins 6-0 someone loses 6-0 and that is not nice. It is a good day for us but a hard day for Aston Villa.â€\x9d Man of the match Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool)',
 'Arsenal v West Brom, Chelsea v Bournemouth: Boxing Day football – as it happened One more post, with one more final score – Plymouth and Wycombe have indeed drawn 3-3 – and one more match report. Bye! They’re into four minutes of stoppage time in Plymouth. Wycombe have equalised! And some more: Here come the match reports: The big game in League Two is still ongoing, and Plymouth lead Wycombe 3-2 with about seven minutes to play. Doncaster have won, and would go top if Wycombe manage to equalise. The live blogs just keep on rolling today: Michael Butler is all over Hull v Manchester City here: Karl Robinson has won the Karl Robinson derby, his current side Charlton having beaten his former side MK Dons 1-0, away from home. Bury haven’t lost! They’ve ended their 12-game losing streak with a goalless draw at Fleetwood! Final scores: all the Premier League games have finished, and there’s not a draw among them: Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Everton, Manchester United and West Ham are the winners! GOAL! Manchester United 3-1 Sunderland (Borini, 90 mins) That’s another beauty! A right-wing cross is headed out to Borini, 23 yards from goal, who chests down and volleys perfectly into the top corner! Lovely! GOAL! Chelsea 3-0 Bournemouth (Pedro, 90 mins) Pedro’s shot from the edge of the area is deflected, and dribbles past a wrong-footed goalkeeper. GOAL! Leicester 0-2 Everton (Lukaku, 90+1 mins) Everton are going to win this one! It’s a long ball out of defence – Barkley I think, booting the ball out of his own penalty area – and Lukaku runs round Morgan, shrugs off his challenge, cuts inside and sidefoots past Schmeichel. This is true. Today’s red card offence was only marginally less terrible. GOAL! Swansea 1-4 West Ham (Carroll, 90 mins) Llorente pulled a goal back a couple of minutes ago, but before I can tell you about that Carroll meets a looping cross from the right with a crashing left-foot volley, and West Ham restore their three-goal cushion. GOAL! Manchester United 3-0 Sunderland (Mkhitaryan, 86 mins) That’s a super finish! He was a yard offside, but we’ll overlook that. It’s a cross from the right wing, and Mkhitaryan sends a flying backheel volley into the far corner! Phwoar! That’s your excuse for watching Match of the Day right there! Lovely, lovely goal. GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 West Brom (Giroud, 86 mins) West Brom hold out until five minutes from the final whistle, but that’s where their luck/organisation/time-wasting ends! GOAL! Manchester United 2-0 Sunderland (Ibrahimovic, 82 mins) That’s nicely done. With the visitors overcommitted in attack Pogba carries the ball at an understaffed defence, plays in Ibrahimovic and he waits for the keeper to commit himself before curling just inside the far post. GOAL! Burnley 1-0 Middlesbrough (Gray, 81 mins) A Victor Valdes howler! Heaton hoists forward a free kick deep inside Burnley’s half, Vokes flicks on, and Gray sends in a low first-time shot from the edge of the area. It should have been saved, and it looked like it had been – only for Valdes to let the ball dribble out of his arms and just inside the post! Cameo of the day: former Leeds striker Jermaine Beckford, who came on for Preston against Leeds in the 66th minute, and was sent off for kicking someone in the face a little under three minutes later. It was his first appearance since 3 December, when he was sent off against Preston. GOAL! Swansea 0-3 West Ham (Antonio, 78 mins) A tap-in for Antonio, who is all alone in the penalty area when a wayward long-range shot flies to his feet, and he pokes it into the net. “If you offered Pulis 38 nil-nils at the start of the season he’d take your hand off,â€\x9d says Sean Doyle. He remains on course for one this afternoon, and – pertinently – the game is currently being delayed while an obviously not-seriously-hurt Baggie receives treatment. Great chance for Bournemouth! Wilshere, who’s been superb, plays in Afobe, but instead of chipping the keeper, or shooting wide to his right, the shot is low and too close to Courtois, who saves. Reading have taken a 2-1 lead against Norwich in the Championship. Norwich have also had Jonny Howson sent off, conceding a penalty which is Panenkaed into the crossbar, bounces down and is lashed in by Garath McCleary. Twenty minutes to play, an for someone to give the world a genuinely compelling reason to spend their Boxing Day evening watching Match of the Day. Leicester have also made use of their substitutes: Mahrez and Ulloa have just come on, and the latter had a half-decent chance to score with his first touch, but Robles catches his header. Henrik Mkhitaryan is back: José Mourinho has just brought him on, to replace Jesse Lingard. Oooh! Victor Moses has a shot from just outside the penalty area, but it fizzes just wide of the post. “I’m not having this post-truth world we are entering and will fight for facts at every opportunity,â€\x9d counters JR. “It is absolutely no herring of any colour to say that the Baggies under Pulis engage in an absurd amount of time wasting. It is a fact that anyone who watches them play knows, and I say this as a Baggies fan.â€\x9d I believe JR: if there’s a way of defunnifying football, Pulis will probably encourage his teams to do it. GOAL! Leicester 0-1 Everton (Mirallas, 51 mins) Everton, who haven’t won away since September – and that was at Sunderland, who were basically a vending machine for points at the time, so doesn’t really count – are winning away! GOAL! Swansea 0-2 West Ham (Reid, 50 mins) Bob Bradley’s Swans go two goals down, as Winston Reid heads in a Payet corner at the near post. GOAL! Swansea 0-2 West Ham (Reid, 50 mins) Payet’s corner is headed in by Reid at the near post, and Swansea are two goals down. GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Bournemouth (Hazard, 49 mins) Hazard, who is on his way to another man of the match award (Wilshere having been the key competition in the first half), rolls in the league leaders’ second goal. Chelsea have a penalty! Hazard wins it, and will take it. Plymouth are now 2-1 up against Wycombe, where they’re only just in first-half stoppage time. Meanwhile this, from Charles Antaki: “I’ve not seen the latest David Attenborough series, but if the producers were looking for 45 minutes of an octopus – not a very creative octopus – pummelling away at a jellyfish, they could use footage from the first half of Arsenal-WBA. Not great telly, but nature is after all sometimes dull.â€\x9d “To be fair to Arsenal fans: I live in N5, I’m not from London and I’m at the Emirates on the boss’s Club Level seats as I normally go to the Etihad,â€\x9d writes Alex Sargent. “Point is, this isn’t a part of London that sees people coming back for Christmas, it’s one where people aren’t here. Most of my Arsenal ticket-holding friends are elsewhere visiting in-laws and can’t get here. So, in my view, it’s not as apathetic as the Mirror man thinks. Oh and WBA certainly here for nil each.â€\x9d “How do you know they’re secondary socks? Perhaps they’re tertiary, or even quaternary,â€\x9d writes Stephen Colwill. This is true. Slimani could be wearing any number of socks. The battle of the bottom two in the Championship seems settled before the break: Rotherham have just gone 3-0 up against Wigan. This from the Mirror’s man at Arsenal suggests it’s a theme: Our man in Leicester is not feeling entertained. “Time wasting by West Brom is a blue and white striped herring,â€\x9d writes Roy Allen as the players at the Emirates go in for half-time with the score at 0-0. “We all know what Pulis is going to do: he’s going to play a narrow back four with wingbacks as fullbacks and three midfielders in front. A back nine. That’s what’s happening. Arsenal have to do more than faff around in front of them. They need to play at pace, play vertical passes, take risks, take people on. Endless square passes in front of Pulis’s masses ain’t going to cut it. It just makes bus-parking easy.â€\x9d GOAL! Manchester United 1-0 Sunderland (Blind, 39 mins) Just recovering from a minor technical issue, so I can’t tell you much about this goal other than that it happened a few minutes ago, and was apparently good. From a short free-kick Burnley’s Boyd slams a piledriver goalwards, but it’s pushed away. In the big game in League Two, it’s now Plymouth 1-1 Wycombe. Jordan Slew has scored the goal. “About 30 minutes in and West Brom are looking in imperious time wasting form,â€\x9d writes JR, who is watching the action from Arsenal. “Dawson and Foster in particular are dominating possession averaging about 15 seconds at every dead ball. Yacob has chipped in by sitting down with a pretend injury. Neil Swarbrick doesn’t seem to care so the Baggies may have a chance at really shortening the game and escaping with a 0-0.â€\x9d Sock change! Islam Slimani calls on the physio, his problem eventually solved by him taking off his socks, revealing the fact that he was wearing more socks under his socks, and then donning a new pair of secondary socks over those socks. Bournemouth are playing well at Stamford Bridge, though. Jack Wilshere just went close, and a penalty appeal, following Matic’s challenge on Smith, has been turned down. Eden Hazard Rabona alert! The ball rolls to the Belgian 20 yards from goal and he sends a 20-yard rabona towards the top corner! It’s tipped round the post, and the whistle had already gone for a Bournemouth free-kick, but still. It’s going with form rather than league position at Plymouth, where Wycombe have taken the lead. GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Bournemouth (Pedro, 23 mins) From a short corner, the ball is back alone the edge of the area, then inside a bit, and finally nudged to Pedro on the edge of the area, who half-turns and shoots left-footed over Boruc and into the corner! At the other end, Lamine Kone fouls Mata inside the penalty area, but the referee waves play on. It’s a decent shot, from Van Aanholt, but De Gea saves. And Daley Blind has just been booked for hauling him back, giving Sunderland a decent shooting chance from the set piece. Anichebe has recovered, and played on for Sunderland. That’s Ayew’s first goal of the season. The venue might not be a coincidence: Alexis Sánchez lashes a shot wide for Arsenal from just outside the penalty area. “Ozil under scrutiny (again) today,â€\x9d writes Charles Antaki. “One slightly irritating thing which does’t help his case is his tendency, when losing a tackle, to seem to be more interested in drawing the referee’s attention to some infringement rather than, y’know, chasing after the ball and trying to win it back.â€\x9d GOAL! Swansea 0-1 West Ham (Ayew, 13 mins) A long, high cross into the box, a good knock-fown from Andy Carroll, a bit of a howler from Fabianski and a tap-in for Ayew. Now that’s an interesting question. Whatever, it’s not been an enormously popular protest: At Old Trafford, Victor Anichebe is receiving treatment to his left shoulder and looks in some discomfort. That could be the end of his afternoon. Arsenal have had a shot, but Xhaka’s effort from 25 yards sails well wide. I’m keeping an eye on all the Premier League games, which is another way of saying that I can’t really watch any of them, but for now I’ll concentrate on the games at Arsenal and Chelsea. I haven’t seen any chances so far, there or anywhere else. Except at Plymouth, where kick-off has been delayed by 15 minutes because if excessive queues. Peeeep! And they’re off! There are lots of players emerging from lots of tunnels. Action imminent. He thus becomes the only person in Leicester who looks less like Jamie Vardy than he normally does. The Boxing Day effect is a curious one. Watford, for example, haven’t won on Boxing Day since 1986*. That’s statistically implausible. Middlesbrough enjoy this time of year a little better. Doremus Schafer writes to inform me that the correct stat is that Watford haven’t won a top flight game on Boxing Day since 1986, which is no surprise at all. David Moyes does a very brief pre-match interview, as he’s asked if he’s enjoying his first managerial return to Old Trafford since he was booted out by Manchester United: I’ll tell you after the game if it was nice, but it’s always a great stadium to come to. It’s always going to be a tough game. Great tradition, great history. We know José’s team will be hard to play. Mahrez and Drinkwater are on the bench, at least: Remarkable scenes: Not content with giving away Jamie Vardy masks, Leicester have also been handing out mince pies! Here’s a news story on those Jamie Vardy masks: Olivier Giroud starts a league game for Arsenal for the first time this season. Leicester love giving their fans stuff. Last time I saw them they all got blue and white stripey hats, compared to which their Christmas present is a bit of a let-down. I’ll put all the top-flight teams in here. If there are any other line-ups you want, let me know and I’ll do my best. Arsenal v West Brom Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Xhaka, Sanchez, Ozil, Iwobi, Giroud. Subs: Ramsey, Lucas Perez, Ospina, Holding, Monreal, Reine-Adelaide, Elneny. West Brom: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom, Yacob, Fletcher, Phillips, Chadli, Brunt, Rondon. Subs: Olsson, Robson-Kanu, Morrison, Gardner, Myhill, McClean, Galloway. Referee: Neil Swarbrick. Burnley v Middlesbrough Burnley: Heaton, Flanagan, Mee, Keane, Ward, Arfield, Marney, Hendrick, Boyd, Gray, Barnes. Subs: Vokes, Kightly, Defour, Robinson, Gudmundsson, Tarkowski, Darikwa. Middlesbrough: Valdes, Barragan, Chambers, Gibson, Da Silva, Forshaw, Clayton, de Roon, Stuani, Negredo, Ramirez. Subs: Friend, Bernardo, Leadbitter, Rhodes, Guzan, Downing, Traore. Referee: Craig Pawson. Chelsea v Bournemouth Chelsea: Courtois, Azpilicueta, Luiz, Cahill, Moses, Fabregas, Matic, Alonso, Willian, Pedro, Hazard. Subs: Begovic, Ivanovic, Zouma, Loftus-Cheek, Batshuayi, Chalobah, Aina. Bournemouth: Boruc, Francis, Steve Cook, Brad Smith, Daniels, Arter, Gosling, Adam Smith, Wilshere, Surman, King. Subs: Afobe, Callum Wilson, Stanislas, Federici, Fraser, Mings, Ibe. Referee: Mike Jones. Leicester v Everton Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Wasilewski, Chilwell, Gray, King, Amartey, Albrighton, Slimani, Okazaki. Subs: Hernandez, Drinkwater, Musa, Zieler, Ulloa, Mendy, Mahrez. Everton: Robles, Holgate, Ashley Williams, Funes Mori, Coleman, Gana, Barry, Baines, Lennon, Mirallas, Lukaku. Subs: Jagielka, Deulofeu, Barkley, Cleverley, Valencia, Davies, Hewelt. Referee: Stuart Attwell. Man Utd v Sunderland Man Utd: de Gea, Valencia, Jones, Rojo, Blind, Ander Herrera, Carrick, Pogba, Mata, Ibrahimovic, Lingard. Subs: Martial, Smalling, Rashford, Romero, Mkhitaryan, Fellaini, Darmian. Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, Djilobodji, Kone, Van Aanholt, Larsson, Ndong, Denayer, Anichebe, Borini, Defoe. Subs: Mannone, Khazri, O’Shea, Love, Asoro, Honeyman, Embleton. Referee: Martin Atkinson. Swansea v West Ham Swansea: Fabianski, Rangel, Mawson, van der Hoorn, Kingsley, Cork, Britton, Routledge, Sigurdsson, Fulton, Borja Baston. Subs: Fer, Llorente, Dyer, Nordfeldt, Montero, Naughton, Fernandez. West Ham: Randolph, Kouyate, Reid, Ogbonna, Antonio, Noble, Nordtveit, Cresswell, Payet, Carroll, Ayew. Subs: Feghouli, Adrian, Fletcher, Fernandes, Quina, Pike, Rice. Referee: Andre Marriner. Rooney is injured, apparently, rather than unpopular. The team news is starting to trickle in now, and Manchester United have left Wayne Rooney out of their matchday squad. Some pre-match music, while we wait for the team news to roll in: four great tracks from 2016 (well, I like them anyway): Hello world! So, here we are then. Ye Tradionale Boxing Daye Fixtures, and so many questions to be answered. Principally: who’s been at the sherry? Who ate all the mince pies? Has the stadium DJ put away his festive Shakin’ Stevens records yet, or will you be subjected to one more spin? An afternoon of skill, drama, and goodwill to all men so long as they’re wearing the right colours awaits. Here, to kick things off, are this afternoon’s English Football League fixtures. And in the meantime, hello! Premier League Arsenal v West Brom Burnley v Middlesbrough Chelsea v AFC Bournemouth Leicester v Everton Man Utd v Sunderland Swansea v West Ham Hull v Man City (5.15pm) Championship Look out for: Neither Newcastle nor Brighton are in action this afternoon, so it’s all about the play-off positions, with the visit of Norwich to third-place Reading probably the pick. The bottom two, Rotherham and Wigan, face each other at the New York Stadium. Aston Villa v Burton A Barnsley v Blackburn Huddersfield v Nottm Forest Ipswich v Fulham Preston v Leeds Reading v Norwich Rotherham v Wigan Wolves v Bristol City Newcastle v Sheff Wed (7.45pm) League One Look out for: Karl Robinson returns to MK Dons, his six-year managership having ended “by mutual consentâ€\x9d in October. He’s already managed Charlton against them twice in the FA Cup. And on the subject of reuinions, Bradford City reject Josh Morris returns to his former employers in Scunthorpe colours, as the division’s top scorer. Bury head to Fleetwood having won none of 36 available points since September (at the end of that month they had won five in a row; they have now lost their last 12) Bolton v Shrewsbury Bradford City v Scunthorpe Bristol Rovers v Coventry Fleetwood v Bury MK Dons v Charlton Millwall v Swindon Oxford Utd v Northampton Peterborough v Gillingham Port Vale v Walsall Rochdale v Chesterfield Sheff Utd v Oldham League Two Look out for: Plymouth may be top of the table but their form isn’t great – they have won three and lost three of their last six league games – which isn’t something you could say of their opponents today: Wycombe have won their last six, and haven’t been beaten in the league for more than two months. With their two closest rivals both playing teams in the bottom half and out of form (albeit away from home) there could be new leaders today. Cheltenham v Barnet Crewe v Carlisle Grimsby v Accrington Hartlepool v Blackpool Luton v Colchester Mansfield v Morecambe Newport v Portsmouth Notts County v Doncaster Plymouth v Wycombe Stevenage v Cambridge Yeovil v Exeter Simon will be here soon.',
 'Goldman Sachs hired prostitutes to win Libyan business, court told Goldman Sachs bankers paid for prostitutes, private jets and five-star hotels and held business meetings on yachts to win business from a Libyan investment fund set up under Gaddafi regime, the high court in London was told yesterday. The allegations came at the start of a legal claim by the Libyan Investment Authority for $1.2bn (£846m) from the investment bank. Lawyers for the LIA are claiming for losses on nine trades that Goldman Sachs executed for the fund between January and April 2008. The LIA lost almost all its investment through the trades – one of which was the largest that the bank had undertaken in a single stock – while Goldman Sachs generated “eyewateringâ€\x9d profits of over more than $200m from the trades, Roger Masefield, a QC for LIA, said. The LIA, Masefield told the court, felt betrayed as the trades generated excessive profits for Goldman and were unsuitable for the LIA, which was staffed by individuals who had not been appointed on merit. Once the losses emerged, Masefield said one Libyan official described Goldman as the “bank of mafiosaâ€\x9d. The LIA was set up in 2006 to invest the country’s oil wealth as its status from a pariah state was being lifted. Masefield said it was a nascent sovereign wealth fund with limited abilities to understand the so-called jumbo and elephant trades. Goldman is disputing the claim, which was filed in 2014, and its lawyers will address the court on Tuesday. But in documents outlining its defence the bank said that the proceedings were not brought until after the trades had matured. “The LIA was the victim of an unforeseen financial depression, not of any wrongdoing by [Goldman],â€\x9d the bank said. In documents provided to the court, the LIA cited Goldman Sachs describing the sovereign wealth fund as having “zero-levelâ€\x9d financial sophistication and one individual having “delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camelsâ€\x9d. Masefield told the court that one former Goldman executive – Youseff Kabbaj – had been told to “stay a lot in Tripoli. It is important you stay super close to clients on a daily basis. Teach them, train them, dine them.â€\x9d Goldman agreed an internship for Haitem Zarti, the brother of Mustafa Zarti, the LIA’s former deputy chief, which the LIA argues was intended to influence decisions by the investment fund. According to the skeleton argument presented to the court by the LIA: “Mr Kabbaj took Haitem Zarti on holidays to Morocco on various occasions. Mr Kabbaj also took him to Dubai for a conference, with the business class flights and five-star accommodation being paid by Goldman Sachs. Documents disclosed by Goldman Sachs show that during that drip Mr Kabbaj went so far as to arrange for a pair of prostitutes to entertain them both one evening.â€\x9d The LIA said the internship “has been and may still be the subject of investigationâ€\x9d by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US. Goldman Sachs said it did not believe the internship influenced the LIA’s decision to enter into the trades. “The claims are without merit and we will continue to defend them vigorously,â€\x9d it said. Kabbaj - who claimed £22,000 for one trip - was not being called to give evidence for Goldman, Masefield said, reading out a settlement agreement between the bank and Kabbaj, who had been promised a $9m bonus by Goldman, but received $4.5m. The aim, Masefield argued, was intended to stop Kabbaj’s concerns about the trades being aired. Bloomberg quoted an email from Kabbaj in which he said: “Goldman Sachs or myself never paid for any LIA employee any improper entertainment...I am under a strong confidentiality agreement but I expect Goldman Sachs to correct the facts and protect my reputationâ€\x9d. Masefield told the court that Driss Ben-Brahim – at the time a Goldman Sachs partner – in July 2007 met the LIA’s Zarti on Saif Gaddafi’s yacht in Cannes. Ben-Brahim wrote after the meeting that he was nervous about the relationship and wanted clearance from a more senior banker. Later, according to court documents, Goldman executives spent €25,800 – including contributions from their own pockets – to charter a private jet from the same company that Colonel Gaddafi used to travel to Tripoli. Nine trades – on banking companies Citigroup, Santander and UniCredit, French electricity company EDF, utility ENI and German insurer Allianz – are the subject of the case. The LIA argued that the case was one of of “abuse of trust, undue influence and unconscionable bargainâ€\x9d. It added: “It most emphatically is not, therefore, as Goldman Sachs would have it, one of little more than ‘buyer’s remorse’; of a counterparty who like many others lost money as a result of the market crash in 2008 and now wants to rewind the clock.â€\x9d The case continues.',
 'Introducing Goveland: a bit like Disneyland, but definitely not in Europe Mikey has a dream. A dream where the sun always shines. A dream where children are seen and not heard. A dream where the Germans are festooning us with top of the range BMWs. A dream where the French are showering us with Cristal champagne. A dream where the Greeks are desperate to give us the rest of the Parthenon so that it can be reunited with the Elgin marbles. A dream where the Portuguese are sobbing because they can’t find anything to give us that we actually want. Mikey has a dream of a promised land. And that land is Goveland. Michael Gove had come to the makeshift headquarters of the Vote Leave campaign in Lambeth to share his dream with a lucky few. A dream that Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive, assured us that historians would be talking about for millennia to come. We lucky, lucky few. As the overheated office fell quiet, Mikey began to channel the wisdom of the ancients. “I want to take you on a happy journey,â€\x9d he said, his voice quaking with the power of revelation. “A journey where we will be in control. The remain campaign have said that a Goveland is a land of despair ruled by mad king Boris, a land where potatoes lie rotting in the fields, a land without electricity, a land where the City of London crumbles to dust and we are left to expire unmourned. “But I saith unto you that this is a lie. Goveland is a land of freedom, a land of hope and glory. A land other nations shall admire from afar. A land that will be just about perfect because we can choose which foreigners we want and which ones we don’t. A land a bit like Australia, only not quite so hot. Or large. Or so far away. A land a bit like Switzerland, only not quite so cold. Or mountainous. Or in the middle of Europe. A land unlike any other land. A land which even the Scots would get round to loving eventually. An island paradise.â€\x9d Mikey lowered his eyes and took a slug of water. Goveland was thirsty work. A few of the less trusting voices in the audience asked Mikey for a sign that he wasn’t guilty of the very same thing that he was accusing his opponents of, by peddling a whole lot of wishful thinking. They pointed out that every global economic organisation reckoned that Britain would be a great deal worse off if it embraced Govemania. “There are many who have come to bear false witness against Goveland,â€\x9d said Mikey. “But we must resist such scaremongering. All you need to do is believe.â€\x9d There would be no day of judgment if Britain were to free itself of an empire more corrupt than the Hapsburg, Romanov and Ottoman dynasties combined. All talk of triggering article 50, which would give the country two years to get its affairs in order, was just part of the processology associated with the ancien régime. Umpteen ambassadors – well, one who was a bit pissed – had assured him that every country would be falling over itself to offer Goveland new trade deals on far more beneficial terms. Everything could be wrapped up in half an hour over cocktails and a handful of Ferrero Rochers. “But this isn’t just about our green and pleasant Goveland,â€\x9d Mikey declared, as he approached his triumphant conclusion. “This is about the greatest day in the history of Europe. Once the rest of the EU has seen that the dark forces lurking in every corridor in Brussels can be cast out of their temples, the little peoples of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark. Poland ...â€\x9d Mikey scratched his head, desperately trying to remember the names of some other EU countries. “Verily even the Hun and the frogs will rise up against the power-hungry elites and become part of Greater Govelandia. Mikey paused, suspecting that there might be something a little wrong with the logic of every Goveland having a better trade agreement than every other Goveland, but decided against spoiling the moment. “A vote to leave is not just a vote to liberate a country; it is a vote to liberate the entire world. Rise up! You have nothing to lose but your MEP! My name is Goveymandias, king of kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.â€\x9d',
 "Justin Bieber: Sometimes I say the wrong thing … I'm not a robot Justin Bieber has tried to explain why he walked off stage during a gig in Manchester on 23 October. The star faced a backlash from fans after he asked them to stop screaming during his show at the Manchester Arena and then exited the stage. At the time, the star said: “You can scream as much as you want afterwards, but while I’m singing try and stay quiet.â€\x9d Now he’s explained his actions. Well, sort of. Posting a message on Twitter that has since been deleted, Bieber wrote: “People tend to want to shut you down. What I mean by that is … people try to twist things, some people don’t want to listen. But I simply feel like, if I didn’t use this platform to say how I truly feel, and if I didn’t use this platform to be the man that I know I am, and speak from what’s in my heart, then I’m doing myself injustice, and I’m not doing anybody in this audience any justice.â€\x9d He continued: “There’s going to be times where I say the wrong thing, because I’m human. But I don’t pretend to be perfect and I hope to god that, you know, I don’t say the right thing all the time, because if that was the case then I’d be a robot, and I’m just, I’m not a robot. There’s times when I get upset … times when I get angry, there’s times when I’m going to be frustrated. But I’m always going to be myself on this stage.â€\x9d For those who never suspected that Bieber was a robotic being, there was more rambling to come. Talking of the negative reaction to his stage exit, he wrote: “When people try to twist things and say, ‘Justin’s angry at his fans. He doesn’t want his fans to scream’, that’s not at all what I was doing. All I was simply doing was wanting people to listen; to kind of hear me out a little bit. Certain people … certain cities aren’t going to want to hear me out, and you know, sometimes it’s my job to just say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to try to force anything’. I just appreciate you guys tonight, listening to me and understanding, and rocking with me. You guys are truly amazing.â€\x9d Bieber plays Dublin on 1 and 2 November before his tour heads across Europe.",
 "Gennifer Flowers 'will attend' Trump v Clinton debate Gennifer Flowers, a former model who had an extramarital sexual encounter with Bill Clinton in the 1980s, has reportedly accepted an invitation to sit in the front row during Hillary Clinton’s presidential debate with Donald Trump on Monday night. Flowers herself appeared to confirm the report on Saturday, writing on Twitter: “Hi Donald. You know I’m in your corner and will definitely be at the debate!â€\x9d Nine years earlier, however, Flowers said she would support Hillary Clinton in her first presidential campaign. Speaking in 2007, Flowers said: “I can’t help but want to support my own gender.â€\x9d She added: “I don’t have any interest whatsoever in getting back out there and bashing Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d Her reported invitation to watch Trump do so in 2016 appeared to have its roots in a feud between the Republican candidate and Mark Cuban, a politically outspoken billionaire who has questioned Trump’s boasted worth. On Thursday, Cuban tweeted that he had “just got a front row seat to watch @HillaryClinton overwhelm @realDonaldTrump at the ‘Humbling at Hofstra’ on Monday. It Is On!â€\x9d On Saturday morning, Trump replied: “If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!â€\x9d BuzzFeed News then reported that Judy Stell, an assistant to Flowers, said in an email that though Flowers had previously declined invitations to public events because she did not want to be a sideshow, “Ms Flowers has agreed to join Donald at the debateâ€\x9d. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request from the for confirmation. Clinton was reportedly spending the weekend preparing for Monday’s debate, which will be held at Hofstra University in New York. Trump was scheduled to address a rally in Roanoke, Virginia, on Saturday evening. The New York Times reported that Clinton’s preparations include a staffer, Philippe Reines, playing Trump and pursuing expected lines of attack including Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions. Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Trump said that out of “respectâ€\x9d for Clinton he would not be “lookingâ€\x9d to pursue such attacks. “I don’t know what I’m going to do exactly,â€\x9d he said. “It depends on what level she hits you with, if she’s fair, if it’s unfair, but certainly I’m not looking to do that.â€\x9d Flowers came to national prominence in January 1992, when Bill Clinton first campaigned for the White House, with an allegation of a 12-year affair and tapes of conversations between the two. Clinton initially denied the claim, but admitted in a 1998 deposition in a sexual harassment suit that he had had a single sexual encounter with Flowers. Beginning in 1999, Flowers pursued a defamation suit against Hillary Clinton and two Clinton aides, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. It was dismissed.",
 'Teaching pupils to make sense of pornography Jenni Murray’s recent suggestion of analysing pornography in the classroom might raise some eyebrows, but with up to 60% of young people using porn to teach themselves about sex, she’s right that schools should not ignore it (Opinion, 17 October). The accessibility and lack of boundaries around pornography leave our children at risk of seeing confusing or upsetting images. Myths around dominance/submission, consent and sexual norms can skew ideas about relationships and gender, and unrealistic comparisons can damage body image. A school working with parents to promote healthy relationships and internet safety should certainly support its pupils to make sense of porn, offering practical help to encourage positive choices online and offline. Teaching about healthy relationships, consent and online safety begins in kindergarten, laying the foundations for the time when these topics become intertwined with pupils’ developing sexuality. As they mature, pupils benefit from a safe space in which to discuss broader questions. What pressures exist when considering a sexual relationship? What activities are you more likely to meet in a porn film than in real life? What are the different views found in society relating to pornography? What messages might porn give us and how might our relationships be affected? Schools should be seeking to empower young people to navigate today’s challenges. That includes understanding what porn is not: a manual for meaningful relationships. Sarah Griffiths Head of wellbeing, Dulwich College • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 "Will Finding Dory buck Hollywood's summer of sequel discontent? It all began with Allegiant, the third film in the Divergent series that made a star out of Shailene Woodley and a solid profit for studio Lionsgate, that was thought to have another Hunger Games-type YA franchise on its hands. The teen-skewing action pic opened in March. The previous two entries in the series were hits, causing the industry to think it could give Disney’s surprise smash Zootopia a run for its money. Instead Allegiant flamed out, coming in well behind the animated comedy, despite Zootopia being in theaters for close to a month. In the end, Woodley’s star power failed to overcome the bad reviews it received: Allegiant only grossed $110.6m worldwide (including a paltry $66.1m domestically), coming in well behind what its two preceding films made, and forcing Lionsgate’s stock to slide dramatically. The poor showing raised questions about the commercial viability of the upcoming fourth and final film in the Divergent franchise. It’s unlikely, however, that Hollywood could have predicted at the time that Allegiant’s disappointing performance portended bad things to come for the majority of tentpole sequels that would soon follow in its wake. Since Allegiant bombed, studios have watched in horror as sequels, expected to perform stronger than their predecessors, came in well behind expectations. “Sequelitis,â€\x9d a term used by the Hollywood Reporter’s Pamela McClintock in her recent article, Hollywood’s New Problem: Sequels Moviegoers Don’t Want, seems to have taken ahold of audiences. The sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Out of the Shadows, is just the latest summer blockbuster to underperform with its core fanbase, lagging well behind the 2014 reboot with a modest $35.3m opening (the first film earned $65.6m within its first three days of release). The week before, Disney’s long in the works sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, launched to even less with $26.9m, coming in a whopping 77% behind Alice in Wonderland. That same week, X-Men: Apocalypse trounced Alice with $65.8m – but even that sum couldn’t come close to matching the $90.8m that the previous X-Men film, Days of Future Past, made over the same timeframe in 2014. Worst hit, though, was The Huntsman: Winter’s War, a follow-up to 2012’s box office smash Snow White and the Huntsman, which limped its way to the finish line earning just $47.6m in the US, after opening in April to a dismal $19.4m during its opening weekend. Even Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising suffered, coming in over 50% below Neighbors at its debut, proving that comedies aren’t immune. Flopping isn’t the only thing all these summer films have in common – they were all also largely negatively reviewed. It’s therefore telling that Captain America: Civil War, the only sequel to receive rave notices this season, is also the only one to rake in a billion dollars. In 2015, the five films to hit or surpass that mark were all sequels. So far, the only other film to join the enviable club is Zootopia, which is itself a wholly original property. Still, Captain America, which is widely considered to be a third Avengers film despite its title, has failed to match the heights set by the first two films in the superhero franchise. Studios can console themselves in believing that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice serves as an exception to the trend, since it grossed $871.9m worldwide, eclipsing Man of Steel, which earned $668m in 2013. But as the film touted to launch Warner Bros’ ambitious Justice League cinematic universe, the failure to cross the billion-dollar line is a troubling kickoff for Warner Bros. The terrible reviews Zac Snyder’s film was lambasted with couldn’t have helped matters. As box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian affirmed to the Hollywood Reporter: “Sequels of late have fallen on rough times.â€\x9d “2016 has proven to be a very tough battleground, and the landscape has been littered with a series of sequels that have come up short, and thus call into question the entire notion of the inherent appeal of non-original, franchise-based content,â€\x9d he added. Pixar’s upcoming sequel to Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, is the film expected to buck Hollywood’s summer of discontent. Variety reports that the animated comedy is on pace to give the studio the biggest opening of its history when it opens on 17 June. Analysts are pegging it to a debut between $115m and $120m, ahead of Pixar’s biggest opener yet, Toy Story 3, which bowed to $110m in 2010. Should Finding Dory perform as predicted, it would blow past the $70m opening of Finding Nemo in 2003, and likely eclipse the $936.7m it made worldwide. Reviews have yet to hit for the pic, but given Pixar’s stellar track-record (save for Cars 2), Finding Dory should be in good shape. The jury is still out on how Independence Day: Resurgence will go over once it bows later this month. It could very well hit a retro nerve like Jurassic World did last summer and do massive business. Or it could perform on par with director Roland Emmerich’s last two blockbusters (White House Down and 2012) - and fail to crack the billion dollar ceiling. Whatever the outcome, this season has hopefully served as a wake-up call to Hollywood to produce more original content, and make sequels that do the originals proud.",
 'Babymetal: Metal Resistance review – genre mashup breaks all the rules Even given this decade’s ever-accelerating blurring of genres, Babymetal’s signature sound is a bewildering proposition. Their mix of speed metal’s whipsmart riffs and pummelling rhythms with dance dynamics topped with J-pop vocals, courtesy of teenage girls Su-metal, Yuimetal and Moametal, is not one for the purists (the existence of a shadowy svengali figure, Kobametal, doesn’t help on that score). And yet this high-speed collision of apparent opposites works surprisingly well. Their second album is a relentless blur of ideas and rule-breaking, with GJ! and Sis. Anger particularly strong. Wisely, they save their only two missteps for the end: power-ballad No Rain, No Rainbow is wearyingly formulaic, while the one foray into English lyrics on The One unpicks some of their exoticism with its platitudinous observations.',
 'Are you a doctor affected by low morale in the NHS? The General Medical Council has warned that poor morale among doctors could put patients at risk. As part of its annual report into the state of medical education and practice in the UK the GMC also highlighted what it calls a “state of unease within the medical profession across the UK as a result of increased pressures on health and social care servicesâ€\x9d. If you are a doctor, we would like to know what you think of the warning and what needs to happen to improve the situation. You can share your views with us using the form below – we’ll use some of the most interesting in an article on the site.',
 'Fifty Shades of Grey ties up five Razzies Fifty Shades of Grey may have been largely overlooked in the Oscar nominations, but it was a big winner at this year’s Razzies. The awkward adaptation of author EL James’s erotic novel nabbed five prizes at the Golden Raspberry awards, including a share of the year’s worst film award with the superhero flop Fantastic Four. Jamie Dornan picked up the worst actor award and his co-star Dakota Johnson took worst actress. The pair also pinned down the worst screen combo award. Fifty Shades also won worst screenplay. Despite failing to impress the critics, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film, which cost $40m to make, has taken more than $570m at the box office globally. It was Universal’s highest-grossing R–rated film globally, and also the UK’s highest-grossing 18-rated movie. Eddie Redmayne, who is up for best actor at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, took the worst supporting actor prize at the Razzies. The British star, who won the best actor Oscar in 2015 for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, won the Razzie for his turn in Jupiter Ascending. He is up for another best actor Oscar this year for his role in The Danish Girl. As well as tying for worst film of the year, Fantastic Four was given the worst remake, rip-off or sequel prize, and Josh Trank took the worst director gong. Sylvester Stallone, who is nominated in the supporting actor category at the Oscars for reprising his role as Rocky Balboa in Creed, was bestowed with the Razzies’ redeemer award, which lauds past Razzies recipients for recent work that has revived their careers. Kaley Cuoco won worst supporting actress for Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip. The winners of the 36th Razzies were announced on Saturday night at the Palace theatre in Los Angeles. The awards were launched in 1980 as a spoof of Hollywood’s awards season. The winners were selected this year by 943 voting members from 48 US states and 20 countries. This article was amended on 28 February 2016. An earlier version said that Fifty Shades of Grey did not win any Oscar nominations. It was nominated for best original song.',
 'Banks await decision on proposals to cap overdraft charges High street banks will learn this week whether regulators intend to press ahead with proposals to cap overdraft charges in an attempt to make it easier for customers to switch current accounts. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is due to publish provisional recommendations from its delayed investigation into retail banking on Tuesday. It will be followed by a month’s consultation before a final ruling. The watchdog is also expected to say whether it will want two banking price comparison websites set up. Besides a site for retail customers, an additional one for small businesses could be created under the auspices of innovation charity Nesta. Banks could be required to contribute millions of pounds to a prize fund for the development project. The CMA, which was criticised after a preliminary report in October for not taking bold enough measures to get customers a better deal, has calculated that account holders with an overdraft could save an average of £140 in annual charges if they moved their accounts. Those with larger overdrafts could save as much as £260. But bank customers with overdrafts find it notoriously difficult to switch. The watchdog announced its investigation in July 2014 at a time of heightened political debate about the banking sector. The dominant big four of Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays control 77% of current accounts, which generate £8bn a year in revenue. They control 85% of small business accounts. The investigation was supposed to conclude this month, but the timetable was delayed until 12 August to allow the CMA to look at options for overdrafts, one of the potential impediments to moving a current account. Among ideas already suggested by the CMA are Limiting the maximum monthly charges for an unarranged overdraft. Requiring banks to offer grace periods during which customers can take action to avoid unarranged overdraft charges. Requiring banks to send text messages to customers to warn them if they are going overdrawn. Forcing banks that make mistakes to suggest that customers could find better deals with rivals. The regulator has previously ruled out the radical option of breaking up the banks and has rejected calls from the smaller “challengerâ€\x9d banks to end the practice of free-in-credit banking, which they say puts them at a competitive disadvantage. TSB, spun out of Lloyds and now owned by Spanish bank Sabadell, issued a final plea ahead of the report’s publication for its idea of a “credit passportâ€\x9d and monthly bill to be introduced. The credit passport would be intended to make it easier for customers with overdrafts to switch bank, while the monthly bill would highlight the real cost of free-in-credit banking to customers. Paul Pester, the chief executive of TSB, said it was a “once in a generationâ€\x9d opportunity to encourage competition. “We want all bank customers to know what they’re paying for their banking; all customers – including overdraft users – to be able to switch easily; and all customers to be aware of their right to switch banks.â€\x9d The big four have already attempted to head off radical measures by setting up a current account switch service (Cass) in September 2013, which shifts direct debit mandates and regular payments to a new bank within seven working days. Before the seven-day pledge was adopted, it could take up to a month to switch accounts and the delay was regarded as one of the reasons customers hesitated to move. Data published in April showed that in the 12 months to the end of March just over 1 million customers switched their accounts, compared with 1.1 million in the previous 12 months. When the CMA’s provisional findings were published in October, Alasdair Smith, who is chairing the investigation, highlighted the government Midata scheme, which gives a breakdown of an individual’s data that can be plugged into price-comparison websites, as “a game-changing toolâ€\x9d.',
 'Lupita Nyong’o: ‘Art is political in whatever way you slice it’ Lupita Nyong’o is, rumour suggests, a nightmare. Difficult. Cold. Prone to making heavy demands. She also quite famously won an Oscar for her first film straight out of Yale School of Drama, just three years ago. So, you might expect a degree of monstrous entitlement, but the buzz spreading through the London film festival seems exaggerated, even by industry standards. Chatshow clips – Jimmy Kimmel and The Ellen Show, old episodes of Conan O’Brien and Letterman – offer no evidence of brattiness. “I don’t feel a need to be anyone but myself,â€\x9d she says of her reputation. The actor, who was born in Mexico and brought up in Kenya, is perched like a doll on the edge of a sofa when we meet: buttoned up in a full-sleeved and collared A-line Pucci dress that fans out across the seat, her legs crossed, hands folded on knees. I ask if there is a gulf between the public and private Lupita. She suppresses a small laugh. “I codeshift between my mother and father, let alone the industry and my home life. So, yeah, I think we naturally codeshift and that’s something I can’t deny I do, but the version of me … â€\x9d She finishes by waving at herself and tilting her head as if to say, “Yes, this is meâ€\x9d and “No, it’s not a grand act.â€\x9d Her new film, Disney’s Queen of Katwe, is billed as her first “properâ€\x9d role since 12 Years a Slave, though Nyong’o has been in a Star Wars film and The Jungle Book along the way. Queen of Katwe is a true story, directed by Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) and based on the life of unlikely teenage chess champion Phiona Mutesi, from the Ugandan slums of Kampala. “Mira Nair and I have known each other for a very long time,â€\x9d says Nyong’o. “I once worked as an intern for her, and our families are friends, but she emailed me to say she had the role written for me and would I please say yes to doing it? Less than 10 pages into reading the script, I sent an email: ‘I must make this film.’â€\x9d Nyong’o plays Harriet, a widowed mother of five, whose naggy, protective survival instinct has no truck with the do-gooding help – coach Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) – promising to change the lives of Phiona and her family. Harriet’s life is hard but it’s hers, thanks very much. Still, ‘Katwe is a feelgood triumph for the sporting underdog. “It’s an uplifting African story and we could do with more of those.â€\x9d In the crassest terms, think Cool Runnings meets Slumdog Millionaire, but with a lot of dramatic set pieces over chess boards. Stephen Colbert declared it his “favourite movie of the year so farâ€\x9d and said it made him weep, the New York Times reviewed it as irresistible, and Rolling Stone claimed it “hits you like a shot to the heartâ€\x9d. A harassed matriarch is not an obvious choice for Nyong’o, whose decisions have been deliberate and few, post-Oscars. She narrows her eyes. “The biggest gift or award the Academy has given me is choice. I am in a position where I don’t have to take on roles out of desperation or to help pay my bills.â€\x9d Nyong’o’s voice hovers between mannered plumminess and international school student. “I can choose the projects I can say something with. It’s not something I take for granted.â€\x9d It is not, I realise, that Nyong’o is haughty, more that she is atypical of her peers; she isn’t on a charm offensive, just businesslike: articulate and smart, clipped and polite. Does she worry about blowback for not conforming to expectation? Her first role post-Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, after all, was a play written by a university friend about the Liberian war. “I don’t have that rulebook. So I have no idea. That’s honestly my answer. Art is political in whatever way you slice it,â€\x9d she says, matter-of-factly. “It’s not something I shy away from. I grew up in a political family so it’s an environment I recognise.â€\x9d She frequently calls out Hollywood’s tendency to mark her as its proof of doing the race stuff right, but making her the exception and not a norm. This month, for the third time in as many years, she appeared on the front of the US edition of Vogue, which ran the coverline: “I want to create opportunities for people of color.â€\x9d It’s not the sexiest way to sell a fashion glossy, but Nyong’o is unapologetic. “Films inspire people to feel differently. A lot more can be done. We can be more empathetic when we realise how much more alike we are than how different we are.â€\x9d Does she feel a burden, as a black actor, to keep talking about the “issuesâ€\x9d? “But you see, I don’t like to fight the reality. The reason it is so acute is because of the stage we are at. When we are talking about inclusion in entertainment, it’s because entertainment isn’t inclusive and, until such a time as that becomes the norm, then this work has to be done.â€\x9d It is almost a betrayal to her generation that Nyong’o never utters a single “likeâ€\x9d, “uhmâ€\x9d, abbreviation or hesitation. “I feel an impetus to say something because this is a conversation that very directly affects me, and my career, and my role in the world. But I don’t belabour it.â€\x9d We, she says grandly, vaguely indicating us both, “need people like Tendo Nagenda [the Disney executive behind Queen of Katwe] in positions of power who see the world in a more prismatic way to make the changes we desire.â€\x9d The platform on which to speak out is one she won alongside her Academy gong as best supporting actress in 2014. It “stands out as the moment that changed my life,â€\x9d she says. For better or worse? “Ah. Just change in all ways, it’s the before-and-after moment.â€\x9d In the six-month run-up to the event, Nyong’o is said to have walked 66 red carpets; the elegant embodiment of style and grace, uniformly written up as fierce and flawless. “It was actually quite scary and discombobulating,â€\x9d she says slowly, loosening up her shoulders. Her relationship with celebrity felt confusing. “To have lots of men running towards me with cameras, to look back to see what they were running after, and –â€\x9d she stops to laugh – “it was me? It was very jarring. The one thing that made it all manageable was my intimate relationships because they have been constant. My mother still calls me to ask whether I’ve had my breakfast and that doesn’t change because I won an Oscar.â€\x9d Nyong’o is now 33. She and her younger brother (who photobombed that Oscar selfie, still the most shared image in history, and whom she called “my best friendâ€\x9d in her acceptance speech) seemed to take it all in their stride: meeting Beyoncé “in the Boom Boom Roomâ€\x9d, namechecked by Jay Z on We Made It, dinner with the Obamas, that sort of thing. How differently might she have coped if she had been in her early 20s? She lets out a big sigh and rolls back on the sofa. “Oh, God, I don’t even want to know. I still have friends who tease me about the same things they used to tease me about before. I am eternally grateful for that, this happened at a time when I knew who my day ones were.â€\x9d Nyong’o comes from a lifetime of privilege, and there has always been public interest in her family back in Kenya. She was born in Mexico because her parents were political exiles; her father is now a senator and secretary general of the Kenyan opposition party Orange Democratic Movement, and her mother worked as an editor and is now managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation. “My confidence comes from my upbringing,â€\x9d Nyong’o says. “My parents took time to instil a lot of values – patience, striving for excellence, not to compromise. Playing Harriet definitely taught me to appreciate the role a mother plays – that is a no-joke role. I spent a lot of time apologising to my mother for the unnecessary heartache I put her through.â€\x9d Such as? She cringes and her voice becomes softer with embarrassment. “I mean, kids are so entitled. So selfish! When you realise motherhood is a part of yourself running amok in the world, and you cannot help but worry your heart … â€\x9d She takes a sip of water and swerves from confessing any stories about rebelling. Instead, she talks about her mother’s determination to make her feel beautiful when, during her adolescence, her self-loathing had made her begin “to enjoy the seduction of inadequacyâ€\x9d. It is difficult to imagine now; Nyong’o, who looks as if she could have been sculpted by Rodin and has a lucrative contract as the face of Lancôme, knows her worth. But it echoes her speech about beauty, almost three years ago, at a Black Women in Hollywood luncheon, when she talked about a letter she had received from a girl who was desperate to use skin-lightening cream until Nyong’o “appeared on the world mapâ€\x9d. Nyong’o revealed that she prayed daily to God to lighten her skin and would dismiss her mother’s advice that “beauty does not feed you; you can’t eat itâ€\x9d, until the model Alek Wek inadvertently taught her: “Beauty was not a thing I could acquire or consume; it was something that I just had to be.â€\x9d It is why being ubiquitous – on screen or on magazine covers – matters to her, to help other girls feel validated. “I live in America and I am directly affected by the political situation,â€\x9d she explains. Has she ever been invited to work with any activist movement? “I don’t imagine I’m not involved in [Black Lives Matter] – I have a younger brother living in America, too, so obviously I’m affected. Obviously, I take these things personally. And I know what’s coming,â€\x9d she sing-songs and rolls her eyes. “Don’t ask me about Trump.â€\x9d • Queen of Katwe is released in the UK on 21 October.',
 '‘First step’ taken towards introducing safe standing in Premier League The 20 top-flight clubs have tasked the Premier League with scoping out the issues surrounding safe standing to inform a debate about whether it could be introduced in England. The move was described as “probably the first stepâ€\x9d towards safe standing by David Gold, a co-owner of West Ham and one of the more enthusiastic proponents of the plan. After discussing the subject formally for the first time on Thursday, amid signs of a shifting mood among the majority of Premier League clubs, league executives were mandated to conduct a fact-finding exercise. “Premier League clubs today held initial discussions on safe standing. Given that fan safety is of paramount concern clubs are understandably cautious and there was no overall consensus on the matter,â€\x9d said a spokesman. “This is a complex and emotive topic with a number of issues, varying from club to club, which need to be considered carefully before clubs can decide if they wish to pursue any changes, including legislative, that are required to allow them the option of safe standing areas in their grounds.â€\x9d A number of potential hurdles remain before the sort of rail seating commonplace in Germany and introduced at Celtic Park for the first time this season could be considered in the Premier League and Championship. Among them are the sensitivities around the Hillsborough disaster, with the Hillsborough Family Support Group remaining implacably opposed to any move that would allow standing in major English grounds. However, the Liverpool supporters’ group Spirit of Shankly has launched a consultation on the matter and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign has also said it supports a full debate of the issues. Those who support safe standing argue that it would not mean a return to the unsafe terraces of old but in fact should be safer than the current situation, where many fans stand in front of their seats in defiance of the rules. It is understood that the government believes the introduction of safe standing would require a change in the law but that it would involve relatively straightforward secondary legislation. At present, however, the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, is not minded to recommend any change. “The government currently has no plans to change its position and introduce standing accommodation at grounds covered by the all-seater requirement,â€\x9d said a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A majority of Premier League clubs are now believed to be in favour of trials, however, while Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have designed their new stadiums to be able to accommodate rail seating if it is allowed. The Premier League will investigate the full range of issues around the topic before reporting back to the clubs. “The clubs have tasked the Premier League with scoping out the safety, supporter, technical and legislative issues surrounding safe standing before any further discussions, based on the facts, can take place,â€\x9d said a spokesman. Any review is also likely to examine how the experience of introducing rail seating for almost 3,000 fans has played out north of the border, where Celtic introduced it this season. Delegations from a number of clubs, including Manchester City and Manchester United, are due to travel to Scotland to see it in action this season.',
 'Tony Barrow obituary As press officer and publicist for the Beatles, Tony Barrow, who has died aged 80, was a key member of the inner circle formed by Brian Epstein to steer the group’s rise to global stardom. Barrow coined the term “Fab Fourâ€\x9d, which was swiftly adopted by grateful headline writers, wrote sleeve notes for Beatles records and compered press conferences during the group’s world tours. Barrow was born into a middle-class family in the Merseyside town of Crosby. From an early age, his twin passions were music and journalism. The first record he bought, in 1951, was Winifred Atwell’s Black and White Rag, and he booked traditional jazz and skiffle groups for local dances. At Merchant Taylors’ school he edited an unofficial, hand-duplicated magazine, the Flash. One school report said that his written work was “suavely persuasive but short on factsâ€\x9d, which Barrow later remarked fitted him well for a career in PR. While still a sixth former, he began a record review column in the Liverpool Echo under the pseudonym Disker. Barrow later recalled stuffing his school cap into a pocket as he went to be interviewed by the Echo’s editor. The Disker column continued during Barrow’s studies at Durham University and his two years of national service, during which he ran a closed-circuit radio station at RAF Weeton. After leaving the RAF in 1960, Barrow joined Decca records in London as a staff writer. There, he received a letter from Epstein asking Disker to mention the as yet unknown Beatles in his Echo column. Barrow replied that for him to do so the group would need to have released a record, but offered to help organise an audition with Decca. The audition was unsuccessful, but after George Martin had signed the Beatles to a recording contract with EMI, Epstein offered Barrow the job of press and PR officer at his Nems company. Barrow’s introduction to the Beatles took place in a London pub, where John Lennon bluntly asked: “If you’re not queer or Jewish, why are you working for Brian?â€\x9d From that unpromising start, Barrow soon formed a rapport with the group, as well as Epstein’s other artists, including Cilla Black and Gerry and the Pacemakers. He evolved a media strategy that recognised the importance of telephone interviews with Britain’s provincial and regional newspapers and took account of the needs of Beatles’ fans by initiating an annual Christmas message from each member of the group, which was sent on flexidisc to all fan club members. When Beatlemania took hold on a worldwide basis, the phlegmatic Barrow was on hand to deal with crises such as Lennon’s unguarded remark to the London Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave that the group was more popular than Jesus, which resurfaced on the eve of their tour to the US in August 1966. Barrow arranged a press conference in Chicago at which Lennon apologised for the remark. Barrow also handled the retreat from the Philippines when the Beatles were deemed to have offended the president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, by failing to attend a reception. After Epstein’s death in 1967 and the Beatles’ decision to form the Apple company the following year, Tony Barrow set up his own PR firm to represent such acts as the Bay City Rollers and the Kinks. He also specialised in publicising European tours by American singers such as Andy Williams and the Jackson Five. In the 1980s, Barrow returned to journalism, and for some years he was editor in chief of publications for the Midem organisation, which holds annual trade fairs in Cannes for the music and television industries. He was the author of several books, notably his highly readable 2006 memoir of the Beatles years, John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me: the Real Beatles Story. Barrow is survived by his wife, Corinne ,and their two sons. • Anthony Frederick James Barrow, publicist and journalist, born 11 May 1936; died 14 May 2016',
 'Serie A’s challenge to Premier League’s fourth Champions League spot There is a bigger picture when Premier League sides return to European action in the next 11 days – the safety of England’s fourth Champions League place. Italy is close behind in Uefa’s list of coefficients that determines the number of places each country will have in the 2017‑18 season. England is third and has had four places since 2001 (including one, currently, via the play-offs) – but Juventus reaching the Champions League final and runs by Napoli and Fiorentina to the Europa League semi‑finals last season helped boost Italy’s one-year rating to 19.000, way ahead of England’s 13.571. Serie A’s five-season total is 69.272, compared with 72.659. Most points are awarded on the basis of two for a win and one for a draw across both the Champions League and Europa League, though there are sizeable bonuses for progress in the senior competition and meagre ones for the junior one. The overall points total is then divided by the number of entering clubs a country has. Is trouble brewing? England has an extra side remaining in the Champions League – Juventus and Roma are representing Italy – and three sides in the Europa League to Italy’s two. Also, last season was the only one in the past five when Serie A was superior the Premier League. But that always happened by comparatively small margins and English clubs need a good season of their own in both competitions to fend off the Italian challenge in the short- and long-term.',
 "From The Dress to the 'extinction effect': the internet obsession with brain teasers From widely shared optical illusions and brain teasers to the strange, blue-and-black phenomenon that was The Dress, it’s clear that the internet is infatuated with puzzles. The latest which seems to have captured collective attention is about choosing which box contains a car. Posted on Monday by the Daily Mail, the puzzle was found on Brilliant.org, a problem-solving site. The premise: there are three boxes and one has a car in it. Each box has a statement attached to it, but only one of the statements is true. The statement on Box 1 reads “The car is in this boxâ€\x9d. On Box 2: “The car is not in this box.â€\x9d Box 3: “The car is not in box 1.â€\x9d So which box contains the car? It’s similar to other puzzles, such as one called Evil King Berman and the Three Boxes. That one features a picture of “Fair Maiden Rowenaâ€\x9d in one of three boxes made of gold, silver and lead (making it vaguely reminiscent of the three caskets test in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice). The fascination with the car puzzle follows a slew of recent viral visual illusions. A photo of a girl’s legs left Twitter users scratching their heads, wondering if the legs were very shiny or splattered with white paint. It earned over 16,000 retweets and plenty of news coverage. A similar debate ensued over a 2013 photo of a man imitating a crying baby. When the photo resurfaced last week thanks to Reddit, many debated whether the man pictured was Bill Murray or Tom Hanks. A particularly challenging game of I-Spy took over the internet in July, after a woman uploaded a photo of a floral carpet and coffee table to Facebook. “Look for the cellphone,â€\x9d the caption read. The phone’s case is a close match to the pattern of the carpet, making it difficult to find. (Need a hint? Look near the table’s legs). A photo of gray lines on a white background with black dots that seem to move with the viewer’s eyes gained attention in September. Posted to Facebook by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a psychology professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, the image actually contains 12 black dots, even if you can’t see them all at once. Only the black dots within a person’s field of vision appear. The headache-inducing image is an example of the “extinction effectâ€\x9d and was created by the researchers Jacques Ninio and Kent A Stevens, according to Quartz. It was a variation on the Hermann grid and scintillating grid illusions. The Hermann grid is a famous illusion with a black background and a grid of white lines. When you stare at one intersection, the others all seem to be filled with grey. The scintillating grid is a variation of this, with a grey grid and black background. A white disk is placed at each intersection, making black dots seem to appear and disappear. The grid created by Ninio and Stevens places outlined circles at the intersections of a more complicated grid, which makes the circles outside the field of vision seem to disappear.",
 'Switching banks: nearly half of all Australians would consider move over climate change About half of all Australians would be likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending money to projects that contribute to climate change, according to polling commissioned by the financial activist group Market Forces. The findings came as more than 100 prominent Australian individuals and organisations signed a letter demanding that the big four banks stop supporting projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. Among the signatories are JM Coetzee, Charlotte Wood, James Bradley, Missy Higgins, Peter Singer and Jack Mundey, as well as unions, religious orders and conservation groups. Asked how important it was that their bank invest in companies and projects that don’t harm the environment and contribute to climate change, 74% of the poll’s respondents who were with the big four banks said it was at least “somewhat importantâ€\x9d, according to the Essential Research poll of 1,017 people. Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to switch banks if they learned their bank was lending to projects that harmed the environment or contributed to climate change. When the researchers drilled down into specific types of projects, respondents appeared very concerned. Forty-seven per cent said they were likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending to coal and gas export projects in the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area. And 48% said they were likely to switch if they found out theirs was lending to coal seam gas projects near agricultural communities. Respondents also overwhelmingly supported the big four banks’ decisions to support the goal to limit warming to “well belowâ€\x9d 2C. But 65% of people agreed that given their support of that goal, the banks should no longer lend to projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. In August Market Forces conducted research that found the big four banks had lent $5.6bn to fossil fuel projects and companies since they expressed support for the target. In the open letter, released at the same time as the poll findings, the signatoreis outline a number of actions that the banks must commit to in light of their support for the Paris agreement goal. “As you acknowledged late last year, the financial sector has an important role to play in holding global warming to below two degrees,â€\x9d they write. “However, we are concerned that you are not fulfilling this role, having failed to deliver policy and practical responses in line with the goal.â€\x9d They demand banks stop lending to projects that expand existing fossil fuel projects’ footprints or lifetimes and stop lending to companies that seek to expand the fossil fuel industry. They also call on banks to reduce their exposure to coal for power generation by 2020 and the rest of the fossil fuel sector by 2030, while scaling up renewable energy lending to at least $20bn by 2020. The signatories call that “a minimum level of action that would demonstrate you are serious about your intentions to support the two-degree global warming limitâ€\x9d. “It is on these actions that we will continue to judge and assess your credibility on climate change and we will have no hesitation in reporting to your customers and the wider public any failure to meet these minimum standards of action,â€\x9d they say. “You play too important a role and this is too important an issue for us to allow for anything less.â€\x9d The executive director of Market Forces, Julien Vincent, said the polling showed customers were aware the banks’ actions didn’t match their rhetoric. “These results show that Australians, especially customers of the major banks, endorse their banks taking serious action to avoid projects,â€\x9d he said. “We’re not just supporting it, we’re demanding it and will campaign until we get it.â€\x9d',
 'Shaun the Sheep Movie sequel on way, says Wallace and Gromit maker Aardman A sequel to the hit animated film Shaun the Sheep Movie has been announced. Bristol-based producer Aardman Animations said that work on Shaun the Sheep Movie 2 would begin in January 2017, with Richard Starzak back on board as director (though Mark Burton, who co-directed the first film, will not return). David Sproxton, co-founder and executive chairman of Aardman, maker of the Wallace and Gromit films, said in a statement: “The flock are very excited to be embarking on another big screen adventure – a rip-roaring comedy that takes them to even greater heights of lunacy.â€\x9d Shaun originated as a character in Nick Park’s 1995 Oscar-winning short A Close Shave, and then became the central figure in a highly successful TV series, Shaun the Sheep, which debuted on the CBBC channel in 2007. Shaun the Sheep Movie was released in 2015 and has taken more than $106m worldwide.',
 'Sea Hero Quest is of huge benefit to medical researchers. So what’s the catch? In tech circles, alongside words such as “scaleableâ€\x9d and “the gig economyâ€\x9d, you often hear the phrase “tech for goodâ€\x9d bandied around. Sometimes it’s a fairly innocuous but ultimately toothless concept, essentially denoting the idea that technology has the potential to be a driver for positive social change but not doing very much about it. Other times it can take on a more creepily utopian tone, suggesting that should the world more closely represent the shiny libertarian enclaves of Silicon Valley, the world’s problems would be solved. And sometimes – just sometimes – it does what it says on the tin. A new game, designed to test spatial navigation, appears at first glance to do just that. Sea Hero Quest, which involves navigating a boat through choppy waters, contains a diagnostic test for the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. The game has now been played by more than 2.4 million people – which the team behind the game say makes it the largest dementia study in history. It’s now set to be adapted for use in a clinical setting – data could be fed back to clinicians, allowing for earlier diagnosis, better understanding of how medication is working for a particular patient and a more accurate and precise measurement of a patient’s decline. It could even be incorporated into NHS programmes. This, it goes without saying, is initially incredibly attractive. Understanding and managing an illness or being alerted when you’re at risk simply through the daily use of an app sounds simple, easy and most of all useful. Could this not be a genuine use of tech for good, rather than the banal and empty proclamations often heard from CEOs and founders? In theory, yes. In practice: maybe not. As with any health data-driven project, it comes with stipulations. A recent study in Lancet Psychiatry suggested that data gathered on Facebook could provide a “wealth of informationâ€\x9d about mental health, with a series of language analysis and facial emotion recognition algorithms providing “insights into offline behavioursâ€\x9d. This, too, sounds great. Having your health monitored and managed through the passive use of technology you probably already use – what more could you want? But there are a number of concerns here: primarily, the safety of private health data. The addition of a private company in the latter study may make it feel different: a towering behemoth such as Facebook obviously feels more threatening than something set up for and run by clinicians. But to not have the same reservations just because the data was being sent to scientists would be incredibly naive. Science, much like technology, is often presented as objective, reasonable fact, without mentioning the very obvious caveat that it is conducted by human beings, who are often neither reasonable nor objective. Multiple studies about statistical analysis are useful to recall here – the results of such analyses may seem completely objective, but often reflect the preconceived biases of those conducting them. That’s not to say that would be the case with Sea Hero Quest, of course: just that the results of such research can be fallible. And it’s also important to remember that, should the Conservative party have its way, the NHS may be in the hands of several, separately operated and privately owned companies before too long. This adds further complications: who would have access to our health data? How would they use it? How would data be efficiently and safely communicated across different companies? Would their data protection processes be cohesive? Would they be meticulous enough to protect our most private, personal data? The idea of having your phone feed data to a central NHS database sounds great in principle, but these questions would need to be answered before that could safely become a reality. In an ideal world, tech would be utilised to help us to diagnose and treat illnesses: anything that can efficiently and effectively help people manage long-term or life-threatening conditions can only be a good thing. Similarly, the idea of a National Health Service that is genuinely innovative, that uses new ways to help people and that has a strong grasp on data security while it does so is incredibly appealing. Unfortunately, as with most utopian ideas, you’re left wondering whether it might just be too good to be true.',
 'New band of the week: Virgin Suicide (No 93) Hometown: Silkeborg, Denmark. The lineup: Martin Grønne (vocals, guitar), Terkel Røjle (guitar), Kristian Bønløkke (keyboards), Kristian Kyvsgaard (bass), Simon Thoft Jensen (drums). The background: We’re at the by:Larm music conference and festival in Oslo, Norway this week, where a lot of the new acts on offer are cool, sophisticated types in the smouldering vein of Lana Del Rey or FKA twigs, or electronic solo artists, or duos in thrall to Haim and Hot Chip. So we thought we’d choose as a new band of the week a five-piece from Copenhagen who look like Danish scallies, with their normcore bowl cuts and the sort of anoraks football lads wore at the height of Madchester. If you’d have seen them hanging around the Arndale Centre in 1989, you’d have thought: “Ah, there go Factory’s latest singing.â€\x9d The band – who met at school in the town of Silkeborg, in western Denmark, before they relocated to Copenhagen and formed Virgin Suicide in 2012 – sound quite “baggyâ€\x9d. That is obviously a very Manchester thing, but you can also detect the bright Scouse jangle of Liverpudlian guitar pop all over their self-titled debut album, which was co-produced and mixed in Los Angeles by Sune Rose Wagner of fellow Danes the Raveonettes. There is, as a result, a west coast haze or gauzy shimmer that helps frame these songs about a young man’s “inevitable quest to lose his innocenceâ€\x9d, as the band explain. “The album aims to reflect on our lust for love, sex, party, family, death and all the emotional contrasts you go through while finding your identityâ€\x9d – you can’t imagine Northside coming up with that. They’ve supported Glasvegas and the Charlatans live, and cite as influences everyone from David Bowie and Duran Duran (which you can’t hear at all), to the Smiths and Dusty Springfield (which you can). This is keening 1960s pop with some of the kick of 80s indie – Martin Grønne sounds as if he writes his songs wearing sunglasses and a turtleneck – although the production is glossy. The surface dazzle is deceptive: beware the grim portents amid the sunshine. Those descending basslines offer intimations of something wicked this way coming. Remember the band’s name. Self-cancellation is something of a motif – they sing about it on There Is a Glace Over My Eyes – but so is death in general: their 2012 debut single was called Killing Everyone You Know. Grønne’s creamy tones, despite the slightly anguished peal – imagine a boyband Brett Anderson – mean you can appreciate the music for its breezy pleasantness, or you can dig around to discover what lies beneath. What did they say before about their “lust for love, sex, party, family … and deathâ€\x9d? Their lust for it? That’s dark. And this is dreampop that might just give you nightmares. Enjoy. The buzz: “Roots in 60s rock with a touch of that slick Brit attitude of 80s janglepop.â€\x9d The truth: They’re baggy janglers with a pop sheen and a miserablist attitude. Most likely to: Paint a vulgar picture. Least likely to: Dream that somebody loved them. What to buy: Their self-titled debut album is released on 1 April. File next to: the Byrds, the Stone Roses, the Smiths, the House of Love. Links: Soundcloud/VirginSuicideMusic. Ones to watch: Drowners, Stealth, KAStro, Shock Machine, Gaika.',
 'Farage: Boris Johnson comments to blame for Trump snubbing UK Nigel Farage has redoubled his efforts to become irritant-in-chief to British ministers in the wake of Donald Trump’s election by suggesting their earlier criticisms of the president-elect could have meant he delayed speaking to Theresa May. A day after joking in a radio interview about the idea of Trump sexually assaulting May, Farage said disparaging words from Boris Johnson during the election campaign could have played a part in the delay. Trump and May spoke by phone on Thursday afternoon, but not before the winner of the US presidential election had talked to 10 other world leaders. Asked whether this was a worry for the UK, Farage told the Press Association: “Well, you have to face the facts that there are some very senior members of this administration who have said some very rude things about him.â€\x9d Pressed if the delayed call was connected to this, Farage said: “You’d have to draw your own conclusions on that. But this president is instinctively Anglophile.â€\x9d Farage criticised the earlier attacks on Trump by the foreign secretary, PA said. When he was still mayor of London, Johnson had condemned Trump for saying parts of the city were “no-go areasâ€\x9d for police, calling him “clearly out of his mindâ€\x9d. Farage is currently in Florida on a private visit. While some reports have said he hopes to see Trump, for whom he was a warm-up speaker at one campaign event, Farage said he has no plans for the two to meet. Speaking to to TalkRadio from Spain on Thursday before flying to the US, Farage joked about the idea of the US president-elect sexually assaulting May when he met her, saying, “don’t touch her for goodness sakeâ€\x9d, before laughing. Asked about the likely behaviour of Trump, who has been accused of a series of sexual assaults, which he denies, Farage added: “If it comes to it, I could be there as the responsible adult role, to make sure everything’s OK.â€\x9d He also claimed to be “the catalystâ€\x9d for the rise of Trump and referred to Barack Obama as a “creatureâ€\x9d and a “loathsome individualâ€\x9d.',
 'Brexit chaos could change the political map of Britain Good news had been in short supply for Lib Dems over the previous 18 months, so when some hugely encouraging data arrived at their byelection headquarters in Richmond last Wednesday morning, the reaction was one of excitement coupled with scepticism. Party strategists had just received the results of internal polling showing they had pulled ahead of Zac Goldsmith, the former Tory MP turned independent, with 24 hours to go until voting began. Goldsmith, a hardline pro-Brexiter who had quit the Conservatives over the decision to expand Heathrow airport, had won a 23,000 majority at last year’s general election and was still a popular figure locally. But if this data was correct his reputation would count for nothing and a party that came close to being obliterated at last year’s general election was on course for a byelection sensation to rival any in British political history. The small Lib Dem team led by campaign manager James Lillis studied the figures and wondered how to respond. One of the first rules of campaigning is never to appear too confident. Releasing them might give the impression that the party thought it had victory in the bag. But this was not proving to be an ordinary byelection in any sense and did not necessarily require stock responses. It had already broken all the rules. Over previous days Lillis’s team had amassed solid evidence that many thousands of voters were shunning traditional party loyalties and deciding their votes not according to their views on issues like Heathrow or the NHS – but in line with what they thought about the biggest issue of the day – Brexit. The Lib Dems had run their entire campaign in this wealthy part of west London suburbia, in which 72% of people had voted Remain on June 23, on an anti hard-Brexit message. “For the first time I can remember we were not the pot-hole party. We were promoting our views on the EU, on internationalism, tolerance, what sort of country we want to be,â€\x9d said one party insider. Tory Remainers had told them on doorsteps that they would vote Lib Dem because they disapproved of Theresa May’s hard Brexit approach. Labour supporters were doing the same wanting to send an anti-hard Brexit message. The Greens and Women’s Equality Party had not run candidates and instead had backed the Lib Dems, forging a fledgling progressive pro-EU alliance. A few Labour supporters had even campaigned for the Lib Dem candidate Sarah Olney. Despite all the positive feedback, the Lib Dems were far from sure. The mood was too unusual, too volatile. A decision was reached that they needed to instil confidence that the shift was real and they could actually win, so, departing from all precedent, they put out the data. “We had never leaked polling of this kind before,â€\x9d said an insider. “But because we had to overcome a 23,000 majority, probably the biggest barrier was simply that people didn’t believe we could do it. We needed to show that progressive voters were responding to our message that Britain should remain open, tolerant and united. It worked. In the last day Zac Goldsmith’s team just seemed to crumble. On polling day we were out from 5am delivering ‘good morning’ leaflets and were still out at 10pm knocking up our supporters. We got our vote out.â€\x9d In the early hours of Friday morning the grin on Olney’s face was so broad that at times she struggled to get the words out in her victory speech. She had overturned Goldsmith’s huge majority and beaten him by 1,872 votes. Brexit had changed everything. Labour, which had argued internally over to whether to field a candidate at all but eventually did, saw its man Christian Wolmar lose his deposit and receive fewer votes (1,515) than it had local members (1,600). Later voters began to explain why they had switched from Goldsmith to the unknown politically inexperienced accountant Sarah Olney. “It was a shame, really. Zac was always really diligent,â€\x9d said Susannah, a young mother who did not not give surname, on the school run in Mortlake. “But the Brexit stuff was the most important issue. Lots of people here still can’t really believe Brexit is happening. It was much harder to vote for Zac knowing he’d supported the people who got us here. It’s made a lot of people like me change our votes.â€\x9d Down the road in North Kingston, Andrée Frieze, who was the Greens’ candidate at the 2015 general election, said his party’s decision not to stand, and instead to back Olney, was a sign of how narrow party interests and loyalties were giving way to new alliances and a fight for what mattered most. “Brexit was absolutely the main issue on the doorstep here in Richmond,â€\x9d Frieze said. “Zac had been really popular, and if the Greens had run, this election would have felt the same as any other. But because we didn’t and explained why, people felt they could vote Lib Dem again. This wasn’t about the person, it wasn’t about the party, it was about the bigger picture. People told me that voting Lib Dem this time round – when people like me weren’t running – made them feel part of a team.â€\x9d This weekend all the main parties are grappling with the implications of the Richmond Park result. While it is an unusual seat, home to an uncommonly high number of well-heeled, well-educated Remain voters, and the election was triggered by the special circumstances of Goldsmith’s resignation, it has single-handedly revived the Lib Dems’ morale and sense of purpose as the anti-hard Brexit party. The question now is whether Brexit can have a similar transformative effect elsewhere. Tim Farron, the party leader, wasted no time in declaring that his party was “back in the big timeâ€\x9d. The Lib Dems are now eyeing up other seats in the south, and installing candidates where they have strong local roots and are second to the Tories, in case of an early general election or more byelections. They claim Richmond will not be a one-off and cite their success in David Cameron’s former seat of Witney, in Oxfordshire, where they leapfrogged Labour and Ukip into second place in October, as evidence that they are now the party of the 48%. For Theresa May and the Tories, despite their assertion that Richmond changes nothing, it is a warning shot that Brexit is shifting the landscape, in profound, if very different, ways across the country. May’s already wafer-thin Commons majority has been cut to just 14, and if more byelection losses were to follow, her ability to govern effectively would be called ever more into doubt. Today, a group of former Tory ministers and senior MPs warn that if the prime minister panders too much to anti-EU hardliners, the party will lose middle ground voters en masse as they did in Richmond, and risk defeat at the next general election. The tactical counter to that is that a soft Brexit will deliver ammunition to Ukip, under its new leader Paul Nuttall, particularly in the Midlands and the north where they pose a threat to both the Tories and Labour. For Labour the dilemmas are just as acute. They were never expected to do well in Richmond, but their miserable tally of votes there has sounded loud alarm bells nonetheless. The fear among Labour MPs is that the party led by Jeremy Corbyn, a lukewarm supporter of the EU but a keen advocate of free movement and defender of immigration, risks being trampled between a newly resurgent Lib Dem party in pro-Remain seats in urban areas and the south, and Ukip in Leave strongholds. As one senior Labour MP put it: “Our leader seems to be anti-markets and lukewarm about the EU on the one hand, yet gives an unqualified pro-immigration message on the other. It is the worst of both worlds electorally.â€\x9d Yesterday, in a speech in Prague, Corbyn said it was vital that parties on the left did not respond to the surge of rightwing populism by scapegoating refugees and migrant workers, again refusing to be allied to those in his party who argue it is a problem that needs addressing. Attention is now turning to another byelection this Thursday in the Tory-held Lincolnshire seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham, caused by the resignation of Stephen Phillips, a Brexit supporter who stood down because he thought parliament should be consulted more on the terms of departure. In this seat 62% of people voted for Leave. The electoral dynamics are therefore in many way the reverse of those in Richmond. The Tories have another huge majority (more than 24,000) with Labour second at the 2015 election and Ukip narrowly behind in third. The Tories should hold on. But the fear in Labour circles is that they could be overtaken by Ukip. After he was voted in as leader last Monday Nuttall declared that his ambition was “to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.â€\x9d Thursday is his first test. Last week, at the outermost edge of the constituency, a group of Labour activists made a lonely picket outside Grantham Hospital’s A&E unit, which is now closed overnight. They were joined for half an hour by Jon Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, and the party’s local candidate, binman Jim Clarke. Clarke says Labour should do well in this area but even the party faithful doubt his prospects. “Who knows if we can beat Ukip the way things are going,â€\x9d said David Taylor, a Labour member. “If people are voting Ukip, then we really need to look at what we’re doing as a party.â€\x9d Down the road in Sleaford, Jack Croll is campaigning for Ukip. “We’ll beat Labour,â€\x9d he says. “That’s easy. I don’t like giving money away, for a start. Do you? [He means to the EU.] The other issue, of course, is all this immigration. Where I come from it’s absolutely spinning with immigrants. That needs to stop.â€\x9d Victoria Ayling, a well-spoken former barrister and county councillor standing for Ukip, said local residents across the heavily rural constituency had had enough of the two main parties, and that even Clarke’s impeccable working-class credentials couldn’t save Labour here. For Theresa May, as for Labour, there are difficult if not impossible balances to be struck. Whichever line the Tories take on Brexit, part of their support base will be angered. Last week there were signs of May moving away from a hard Brexit – something that will please moderate Tories but alarm the right of her party. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, suggested as much when he said that the government might be prepared to pay into the EU budget in order to stay in the single market. Eurosceptics reacted with horror, saying there should be no backtracking and that voters would be appalled if money still went to Brussels to pay for a Brexit lite. Ukip piled in, saying the great betrayal was under way. This week 11 judges will begin hearing the government’s appeal in the supreme court over whether Parliament must approve the triggering of the Brexit process. If it is defeated the battle over Brexit will be fought out in parliament over the coming months. Already Brexit has altered the landscape as uncertainty prevails over the direction it will take. Back in Richmond a Lib Dem worker celebrated on Friday saying that his party, and perhaps Ukip, were the only ones with reasons to be hopeful amid the Brexit chaos. “We are the only ones who offer any clarity. The Tories and Labour are divided over Brexit and we are united. It is a big chance for both parties.â€\x9d',
 'The app to cure your loneliness: swipe right for your new BFF I’ve been talking about my app idea, “Tinder for friends!â€\x9d, for years. I wasn’t exactly first, given that apps for friendship were already in existence but that didn’t stop me from feeling thoroughly vindicated to read that this month dating app Bumble (which has the satisfying rule that only women can make the first move) had launched BFF. BFF is a feature within the Bumble app that allows people in need of a new hang to swipe through potential matches to find like-minded folk. What it really is, though, is a validation of the new ways we find people in a world that is increasingly connected, yet, often, never more lonely. Is it odd to swipe through a series of geo-located, aesthetically pleasing individuals to line up a coffee date with some random? Well, maybe. But as anybody who has been told that they should “get a hobbyâ€\x9d in order to “meet new peopleâ€\x9d, or has ever moved cities or countries can attest, it can be hard to make new friends as an adult once the student years are over. And anyway, courting a new friend is kind of like dating (“want to grab a coffee some time?â€\x9d or “what’s your relationship like with your mother?â€\x9d), just without the angst of vetting a potential life partner during happy hour and wondering whether you could, in fact, marry a man that neglected to mention on his online dating profile that he didn’t have any teeth. As Abby Green wrote in the Washington Post of her experience trying out BFF, perhaps the best thing about the app is the difference between looking for friendship and looking for love is that you have a few more gaps on your dance card. With friendship, we have many vacancies and can fill those spots with different types of people. But with romantic love, people are usually looking for one person, which means there’s a lot of pressure to present the best version of yourself on dates. There was no pressure to be this woman’s only friend – and that gave me the freedom to worry less about rejection and focus more about being myself. In what is shaping up to be golden time for the celebration of female friendship in popular culture – from Abbi and Ilana’s (mostly) platonic love affair for each other on the TV show Broad City, to Taylor Swift’s mega squad – the focus on actively finding new friends makes sense. It should be celebrated. Because apps for friendship speak to the way friendship has shifted – to become something valued and essential, something to seek out and something that comes in many forms. Like the friend that you met on Twitter because you were both live-tweeting The Bachelor, or the women whose aesthetic you admired on Instagram and asked out for a drink. These friendships have the same value as the friends you grew up with, or the ones that came into your life by default – and perhaps more so, because you chose them for their values, their opinions, their A-game #foodstagrams. Indeed some of the best women I know I met on the internet. I told them first when my sister died. I’ve sent them countless first drafts of articles and always valued their opinions. Women whose posts about their dogs and their babies and articles they loved, I have voraciously liked and retweeted. I sign up to their newsletters and read their latest blogs. Our interactions online are a kind of love language, and all those emails and long-running G-chats and double-taps add up to something. A friendship that is important if not rigidly defined. I don’t see my internet friends as much as I used to, we’re scattered all over the world, with different lives and other friends who fill in the gaps. But sometimes it might be more fitting that way; talking on the internet was how we met, it’s a connection that feels comfortable. But more importantly, it feels necessary. In a piece for the New Republic, Jenna Wortham said, “The Internet represents a broadening of the spectrum of relationships we can have.â€\x9d And that is something worth swiping for.',
 'The police chief battling cybercriminals from Russia and Ukraine Last Christmas Ian Dyson got a call from his bank. Was he really in a Travelodge, ordering takeaway pizzas? No, was his answer, he was at home with his family. Like millions of others, Dyson had fallen victim to card fraudsters stealing from his account. But Dyson is not like everyone else – he is the commissioner of the City of London police, with the job of protecting not just London but the whole country from fraud. And the depressing reality is, like so many other frauds, the criminals got away with it. Dyson is disarmingly honest about the explosion in online fraud and cybercrime, and what realistically the police can do about it. “Every month Action Fraud [the national fraud reporting service] receives 40,000 reports, half a million a year, and we know from the ONS stats that’s only a small percentage of what is going on. There were 3.8 million frauds and two million cyber offences. You cannot enforce your way out of this. It’s physically impossible.â€\x9d It’s partly because the perpetrators are abroad, with around half of all cybercrimes reported to Action Fraud originating overseas, says Dyson, citing Indian call centres and Russian and Ukrainian websites. The City of London police have a specialist officer permanently stationed in Wall Street, and worked with the Spanish police to swoop on 110 conmen operating a “boiler roomâ€\x9d fraud targeting elderly investors. But Russia? Do the London police receive any help from their counterparts in Moscow? “No, not at all. Ukraine is limited too. You’ll be aware of the limitations of some foreign jurisdictions.â€\x9d Another limitation is budgets. “Policing has taken a 20% hit in its budget so I’ve got to do what I can with what I’ve got,â€\x9d he says, while noting that virtually everyone else in the public sector has faced similar cuts. “You have to be realistic with the volumes [of crimes] you’ve got, [and] about the global nature of the crime issue. I cannot possibly sit here and say I am going to investigate every crime. You can’t. But policing has never investigated every crime.â€\x9d The 40,000 reports to Action Fraud every month are whittled down to ones where the police think there are “actionable leadsâ€\x9d. Some go up to the National Crime Agency or the Serious Fraud Office, some are pushed out to the other 43 police forces across the UK, while the City of London police tackle the rest. “There are 700 cases the City of London police are investigating at the moment. That’s me rather than ones disseminated to other forces. In the top 10 there is about half a billion pounds worth of fraud being investigated.â€\x9d What he dubs “CEO fraudâ€\x9d is the latest online crime wave City of London police are facing. It’s when a junior person in the finance department of a big company receives an email from the chief executive officer of the firm, asking him or her to move money from one account to another. The email is fake; somehow the fraudsters have hijacked the boss’s email account, or created one that is near identical. “One major company lost three lots of £250,000 this way,â€\x9d says Dyson, noting that the culture in some big businesses is such that junior staff are too nervous about confronting their bosses when they receive an email which appears to be from them. Dyson notes that the other worrying online crime wave is “mandate fraudâ€\x9d. You receive an email from your builder, who’s doing your extension, politely telling you he has changed his bank account details, and could the next £20,000 payment for the extension go into this account? Again, the email has been hijacked, and the householder hands over their life savings – never to be seen again, as banks do not take responsibility. Money has highlighted numerous sad tales of how people have been conned this way. Have online fraudsters caught the police napping? Did we put bobbies on the beat when we should have been investing in fighting online fraud? In a frank admission, Dyson says: “To be honest, who’d hold up a bank these days? Who would rob a bank now when you can make it all online in seconds?â€\x9d His office is just yards from the Bank of England, yet about the only robberies he sees are of betting shops, one of the last major cash-handling businesses around. He acknowledges that the public think that when they report an online crime, nothing seems to happen. “There is a public perception that PC Plod is losing the war against these highly sophisticated cybercriminals. It’s a perception I’m trying to address. “Last year 180,000 websites, phonelines and bank accounts involved in fraud were closed down following police intelligence. So disruption is a big thing… Your report, combined with hundreds of others could lead us to close down that website and prevent people from becoming victims of fraud. While you might not get your money back, it will go at least some way to stopping others [from being a victim].â€\x9d Disruption is a word Dyson uses a lot. He reckons the best approach for his force is to gain intelligence from the public and other government agencies, and use that to intervene before more victims are conned. It’s why he’s investing heavily in a new IBM project for Action Fraud that should turn it into the world’s most sophisticated anti-fraud intelligence system in the world. The quicker the police can see the signs, the more rapidly they are able to respond, he says. But the public have to do more: “The public have to shift their mindset around crime. The public have to understand we cannot enforce our way out of this, [given] the volume of crime, the fact that it is global and happening so fast, and that money can be moved so quickly. It has to be about prevention and protection.â€\x9d Don’t use “passwordâ€\x9d as your password, he says. If that email arrives asking you to pay the money into another account, ring the builder, he adds. There are many, many more simple measures the public can take, he insists. In September, the government will begin a public information campaign, which Dyson says will evoke the message of the 1970s “clunk-click, every tripâ€\x9d campaign to get the public to use seatbelts in cars. We need the same thinking when it comes to transacting online, he says. But shouldn’t the banks be doing more? Can the public really protect themselves from genius hackers determined to break into their accounts? Dyson is reluctant to criticise the big banks, though he says insurance companies have a much better record than high-street banks at cooperating in fighting fraud. The insurers have paid for 35 police officers in the City of London force alone to battle fake insurance claims and have had a string of prosecution successes. He would like the banks to be rather more intelligent when an elderly customer walks into a branch and demands to withdraw nearly all their savings when they have never taken out more than £100 before in one go. It’s usually because they are being conned. Banks may often fail to report a fraud, in part because of the odd way in which crime is recorded. When Dyson’s own card details were stolen, he was fully compensated by the bank. That means, according to Home Office rules, that the bank was the victim of the crime, not Dyson. “It’s something we are talking to the Home Office about,â€\x9d he says. Critics say that police fraud-busters are just not technically competent and resourced to catch cybercriminals. Dyson bridles: “I’d like to disabuse anyone of the view that they are all smart computer geeks, the archetypal spotted teenager hacking into US military computers. They are not. You have some people who are business people who before the internet would have been conning people out of investments. They are doing the same now but are doing it online. Then you have the people with a slightly smarter mate who have found a quick way to make money.â€\x9d The boiler room criminals in Spain are the type who were breaking into cars before the advent of the internet, he says. But in 33 years of policing, he says criminals are changing. They used to specialise in a line of business – armed robberies, drug dealing, etc. Now, Dyson says, everybody tries a bit of everything. Meanwhile, the police have their own geeks. Dyson says the City of London force have staff seconded to them from Google and Microsoft whose internet expertise is a match for any cybercriminal in Russia: “My guys will understand the forensic footprint of these crimes in the same way detectives are aware of forensic opportunities at the scene of a burglary.â€\x9d He is proud of his force’s work to fend off pension fraud, which was widely expected to balloon in the wake of the new pension freedoms, but has so far been suppressed by the police working with the pension providers. The force was also instrumental in stopping BT from keeping lines open after a phone is put down, a frequent tactic used by fraudsters to convince people who called back that they were speaking to their bank. More money would help, Dyson says. For every pound invested in fighting fraud “we are preventing about £60 worth of fraudâ€\x9d. Meanwhile he’s behind a pilot project in which private law firms will be hired by police to help seize the proceeds of crime and repay victims earlier. “We’re an innovative police force,â€\x9d he says. “The investment in the last 10 years was in neighbourhood policing and the visibility of police officers. We are shifting, in fairness, policing is shifting to deal with online.â€\x9d Unfortunately, as he looks out of his offices over the towers of London, while fighting fraud fills much of his time, there is another more serious threat. “My number one priority at the moment is counter-terrorism. We are quite a target-rich environment.â€\x9d How to protect yourself There were more than 5.8m incidents of cybercrime in the past year, enough to nearly double the headline crime rate in England and Wales, writes Patrick Collinson. The Office for National Statistics said last month that one in 10 adults have been victims of cybercrime and online fraud over the previous year in the first official estimate of the scale of scams, virus attacks, thefts of bank details and other offences. An initial ONS estimate in October last year put the annual figure at 3.8m, or 40% of all crimes. Costing an estimated £193bn a year, cybercrime is nearly as big as all other crime, such as home burglary, car thefts and violence against the person. The ONS added that the chance of being a victim is the same regardless of social class or whether you live in a deprived or affluent, urban or rural area. Meanwhile, the figures for crime excluding online offences dropped in the year, falling by 6%. The long-term trends in traditional crimes such as burglary, car thefts and criminal damage showed that the fall in crime since its 1995 peak had slowed down since 2005. The survey found there had been no change in the overall level of violent crime compared with the previous year. So what are the easy steps to protect yourself from online crime that Commissioner Ian Dyson recommends? • Never disclose security details, such as your pin or full banking password Banks and other trusted organisations will never ask you for these in an email, on the phone, by text or in writing. Before you share anything with anyone, pause to consider what you’re being asked for and question why they need it. Unless you’re 100% sure who you’re talking to, don’t disclose any personal or financial details. • Don’t assume an email or phone call is authentic Just because someone knows your basic details (name and address, even your mother’s maiden name), it doesn’t mean they are genuine. Fraudsters may try to trick you and gain your confidence by telling you that you’ve been a victim of fraud. Fraudsters can also make any telephone number appear on your handset, so even if you recognise the number or it seems authentic, do not assume they are genuine. • Don’t be pressured into a decision Under no circumstances would a bank or organisation force you to make a financial transaction on the spot; they would never ask you to transfer money into another account for fraud reasons. • Listen to your instincts If something feels wrong, it is usually right to question it. Fraudsters may lull you into a false sense of security when you are out and about or rely on your defences being down when you’re in the comfort of your own home. They may appear trustworthy, but they may not be who they claim to be. • Stay in control Have the confidence to refuse unusual requests for personal or financial information. It’s easy to feel embarrassed when faced with complex conversations, but it’s OK to stop the discussion if you do not feel in control of it.',
 "'Emergency brake' unlikely to lead to big cut in migration, say experts David Cameron’s “emergency brakeâ€\x9d denying access to in-work benefits for new European Union migrants is unlikely to lead to a large reduction in migration to the UK, according to expert analysis. Oxford University’s Migration Observatory says the key element in Cameron’s renegotiation package with the EU, under which newly arrived migrants will be denied access to in-work benefits for their first four years, is likely to affect only a small number of families. But the Oxford research also casts doubt on claims that the introduction of the “national living wageâ€\x9d will encourage EU migration mark. The migration experts say the incentive effect of the national living wage for EU citizens over the age of 25 is not clear cut, as it could reduce the availability of low-wage employment. “This would make it harder for EU nationals to find jobs,â€\x9d the Migration Observatory says. Its report says most EU migrants now claiming in-work benefits such as tax credits did not arrive within the past four years and so would not have been affected by the new “emergency brakeâ€\x9d restrictions had they been in place. The researchers say the data shows that roughly 10-20% of recently arrived EU adults were in receipt of tax credits in early 2014. They do not flatly contradict Cameron’s claim last November that 40% of recently arrived European Economic Area migrants were supported by benefits, but they do say the figure is higher than other available estimates, for various reasons including that it counts children as benefits recipients. They found that in 2015 19% of recently arrived EEA migrants reported receiving a state benefit in their own right, falling to 13% if child benefit is excluded. “More than half of EEA-born adults who reported receiving tax credits in 2015 were working full-time, and around 90% had dependent children (despite less than half of EEA-born adults overall having children),â€\x9d say the Oxford migration experts. This leads them to conclude that the impact of the emergency brake will be “concentrated on a small share of families with children – particularly minimum-wage workers with children and those in families without two-full time earners.â€\x9d They add that if the national living wage increases the incomes of these families, that would reduce their in-work benefits entitlement even without restrictions on welfare eligibility. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory, said: “Looking at reliance on welfare benefits overall, migrants from EU countries are actually not very different to people born in the UK. EU migrants are more likely to be working, and so use in-work benefits more than out-of-work ones, but the differences are not dramatic. “A large majority of recent EU migrants are not claiming benefits of any kind. That means that most migrants to the UK would not be affected by proposed changes to the welfare system. That said, some families with children would stand to lose several thousands in tax-credit income, and would still be considerably worse off even if higher minimum wages increase their incomes over the next few years.â€\x9d",
 'Cincinnati zoo deletes Twitter and Facebook accounts over Harambe jokes Cincinnati zoo has deactivated its social accounts after it asked the public to stop making memes about Harambe the gorilla. The animal was shot dead this year after a three-year-old child climbed into his enclosure. Since then, Harambe has turned into a source of humorous content online. Jokes about his memory have spread on all corners of the internet – including the mentions of Cincinnati’s zoo official social media accounts. In the past few months, their Twitter mentions have been filled with the following: Its Facebook page faced similar issues. This week, both were deactivated after Cincinnati zoo pleaded for the memes to stop. The zoo’s director, Thane Maynard, told the Associated Press: “We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe. “Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us. We are honoring Harambe by redoubling our gorilla conservation efforts and encouraging others to join us.â€\x9d Maynard’s account was hacked this month and taken over by messages dedicated to Harambe. There has been much theorising about why Harambe has become the meme of the summer. Some believe mimicking over-the-top displays of grief appeals to the internet’s sense of humour. Others believe it comes from a genuine place of anger about what happened to Harambe. Whatever the case, it remains to be seen whether deleting the accounts will stop the jokes. Harambe: the meme that refused to die',
 'Mary McAleese: leave vote could bring return of border controls The former Irish president Mary McAleese has urged the British to vote to remain in Europe, warning of the return of border controls in Northern Ireland and potential drift in the peace process. In her first intervention in the EU referendum debate, McAleese said it would be a major concern if Britain’s “formidableâ€\x9d voice were absent in future from the European project. Her warning came as the chancellor, George Osborne, was due to say that Northern Ireland would suffer a profound economic shock if Britain left the EU. The chancellor, who will begin a two-day visit to Northern Ireland on Thursday, will say that Brexit would lead to 14,000 extra people on regional dole queues and house values falling by almost £20,000. McAleese, speaking at an event organised by Irish builder Ballymore, which is urging its staff to vote to remain and closing its offices at 2pm on voting day to enable them to do so, said a vote to leave Europe would be a threat to the continent’s future peace. It could fuel further destabilisation of a political project that she said was born out of a desire for lasting peace after two world wars, she argued. McAleese accepted that Europe had become “facelessâ€\x9d and it was “difficult to lock in the heartsâ€\x9d of voters to this grand vision of peace and democracy, but that the debate over the EU should be used as the starting point for the next round of talks within the EU on its future shape. “When we joined the EU in 1973, we did not join a 43-year project, we joined … a project to turn our backs on the default position of war,â€\x9d she said. “This is a project for generations and centuries, we’re still in the startup phase,â€\x9d she said. McAleese, who was president for two terms and was considered one of the most formidable European leaders of her generation, said Britain had a formidable voice in Europe, a strong voice that counterbalanced the rightwing, anti-democractic undertones emerging in some quarters. “The absent voice would not be heard,â€\x9d she said. “The idea of the British voice being absent worries me,â€\x9d she added. On the future of Ireland, McAleese lamented what she said were false assurances by the leave campaigners that the open border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic would remain. She said the “chances of customs controls being reconstituted are probably greaterâ€\x9d, as they had been eliminated by EU laws and not by Anglo-Irish efforts. She said the common travel area that allows British and Irish citizens to travel between the two countries without passports would also come under pressure and she worried what effect that would have on the 600,000 Irish in Britain and the 300,000 British in Ireland. Frequently repeated claims by the leave campaign that the position would not change could not be determined by its leaders Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. “I don’t know that [to be true] and they do not know that,â€\x9d she said. “If Britain removes itself from the EU, the only land border between the UK and Europe will be the land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,â€\x9d she said. “The hardening of the border will send all the wrong signals,â€\x9d she added. On a two-day trip to Belfast and the border city of Newry, Osborne will also warn that the border with the Irish Republic “would hardenâ€\x9d if the UK voted to leave the European Union. “It is also inevitable that there would be changes to border arrangements,â€\x9d Osborne will say. Leave campaigners who suggest this is not the case are simply not being straight with people. On any level, that is simply not a price worth paying.â€\x9d',
 "Acute nursing: 'You never know what’s going to come through your door' Nursing in the acute sector – whether A&E, theatre or the ward – has changed “almost beyond recognitionâ€\x9d in the past few decades, says Mandie Sunderland, chief nurse at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust. “The fundamental care skills are the same, but the context in which we work has changed radically.â€\x9d This has led to increasing specialisation as well as advanced nursing roles. “We have nurses doing jobs that middle-ranking doctors would have done historically and they are doing them brilliantly,â€\x9d says Sunderland. The clinical career pathway now stretches all the way to nurse consultant. For Linsey Sheerin, clinical coordinator at the Royal Victoria Hospital’s emergency department in Belfast, the adrenalin rush of A&E nursing was what attracted her to the specialism 13 years ago. “I love the fast pace and the variety. You never know what’s going to come through your door.â€\x9d But it is not all about life and death decisions, she says: “Part of it may be sitting holding a patient’s hand or talking to the family when at their weakest.â€\x9d She also enjoys the shared camaraderie of emergency work. “It’s a team approach and we all work really closely together.â€\x9d Nurses are often the backbone of that team. “Behind every successful emergency department consultant there will always be several emergency nurses.â€\x9d Acute nursing skills are also increasingly evident in leadership roles that go beyond nursing. Neil Carr, chief executive officer of South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS foundation trust, qualified in the 1970s and rose to be a nursing director before becoming CEO in 2007. He believes his background has been invaluable. “If you’re grounded in the clinical disciplines you have served the right sort of apprenticeship,â€\x9d he says. When he began his nursing career, clinical opportunities were limited – the means to advancement lay mainly in management or education. “Now there are all sorts of opportunities that I could never have dreamed of – it’s very exciting.â€\x9d The nature of nursing has also altered, he says. Nurses are encouraged to deliberate and think, not just do. And they have a different, more equal relationship with patients. Looking to the future, Sunderland suspects the gap between acute and chronic care will become further blurred and that primary and secondary care will have to work more closely. At the same time nurses must never forget their roots and their bond with the patient: “We must not lose the things that make nursing special.â€\x9d Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.",
 'Rick Astley review – 80s icon returns unfeasibly intact With his trademark quiff, 1987 chart topper Never Gonna Give You Up and ubiquitous Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) production, Rick Astley was one of the most loved and loathed pop phenomenons of the late 80s. Then he jacked it all in after a tearful episode on the M4. In recent years, there has been a short-lived reinvention as a crooner and the subject of an internet meme: rickrolling. Now, he’s back as his old self, with quiff, lugubrious baritone and youthful looks unfeasibly intact. However, the powers that once controlled his career would never have let him get away with such torrential self-deprecation (“Nat King Cole’s version is way betterâ€\x9d, he says of When I Fall in Love), nostalgic double entrendres (“12 inch!â€\x9d) and Peter Kay-type cheeky banter. “Sway, you buggers!â€\x9d he commands as a middle-aged audience recreate SAW mania, before he dons spectacles and feigns amazement at the sights – including two ladies wearing cardboard cut-out Astley masks. In two hours, the music is all over the place, from copper-bottomed SAW hits to covers medleys to surprisingly good new soul stompers (new single Keep Singing) that give today’s Ricks – Sam Smith et al – a run for their money. We even glimpse Astley in unlikely guise of acoustic guitar-wielding protest singer, railing against corporate power. If things get rather cruise-ship soul revue at times, it’s impossible not to warm to the man from nearby little Newton-le-Willows, fluffed intros, forgotten lyrics (“I’m 50 for God’s sake!â€\x9d) and all. Beneath the tomfoolery he is touchingly sincere and after a riotously received Never Gonna Give You Up admits, “You made a middle-aged man very, very happy.â€\x9d A perma-grin never once leaves his face and seems to say, “I’m Rick Astley, for God’s sake, and I’m still singing to you buggers in 2016. Isn’t that a hoot?â€\x9d Indeed it is. At Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, on 4 April. Then touring.',
 "Sanders warns Michigan voters that Trump is 'dangerous and un-American' Bernie Sanders blasted Donald Trump as a billionaire who exemplifies a “corrupt American political systemâ€\x9d in the Vermont senator’s first visit to Michigan on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton on Thursday. At a local United Auto Workers chapter in Dearborn, the first of four campaign stops across the state, Sanders’ appearance on behalf of Clinton came several months after he eked out a shocking victory in Michigan’s primary election. But in his roughly 50-minute speech, Sanders stressed the importance of electing Clinton, declaring Trump’s policy agenda is “particularly dangerous and un-Americanâ€\x9d. The Republican nominee, Sanders said, differs from any candidate in modern history for one reason: “The reason Trump’s campaign is particularly dangerous and un-American is that he has made the cornerstone of his campaign bigotry.â€\x9d He continued, “This campaign, what Trump is trying to do trying to win votes by dividing us up, by insulting the Latino brothers and sisters, by insulting the Muslim community, by every day hurling insults at women.â€\x9d Sanders said the revelation of Trump’s 1995 tax returns released last week accomplished more in one day “than I have in a yearâ€\x9d to illustrate the “corruptâ€\x9d American economy. “In one day, we learned that a multibillionaire, a man who owns mansions all over the world … does not pay a nickel in federal income taxes,â€\x9d Sanders told a crowd of several hundred of supporters and union members. “And he’s proud of it.â€\x9d Sanders retorted with a warning for Trump and billionaires in the US: “Hillary Clinton is going to get elected and they’re all going to start paying their fair share of taxes.â€\x9d Clinton and Trump have made Michigan a priority in the race, with just under 35 days until election day. In August, the candidates made back-to-back stops in metro Detroit to unveil economic plans – with Trump proposing a vision that includes dramatically slashing taxes, while Clinton said her intention was to produce the largest investment in “good-paying jobsâ€\x9d since the second world war by rebuilding infrastructure across the nation. Sanders on Thursday slammed Trump’s economic proposals as a throwback to the mid-2000s, in the run-up to the housing crisis and subsequent economic recessions. “We do not forget what trickle-down economics was about,â€\x9d he said. “We do not forget the state of the auto industry eight years ago. We do not forget that 800,000 Americans a month were losing their jobs.â€\x9d The Trump campaign has prioritized the rust belt region, with a particularly intense focus on Michigan – despite the state having not voted for a Republican since the 1988 race. And in a new poll released on Thursday, Clinton opened up a double-digit lead. The poll showed Clinton’s campaign held a 43%-32% lead over Trump, shoring up support among women and African Americans. Last month, Trump also made a controversial stop at a black church in Detroit , where he was met with praise by some parishioners. Two weeks later, he visited the beleaguered city of Flint, where Trump slammed a black pastor who interrupted his speech at her church for delivering a typical stump speech. Trump called the pastor a “nervous messâ€\x9d and said “she had [it] in mind to interrupt him before she spoke.â€\x9d In a separate poll released last week, the Republican candidate polled at 0% in the Motor City. Sanders said Clinton aims to expand healthcare coverage in the US, on top of the millions that have since obtained insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act. “[Trump’s] response is to throw those 18 million people off of health insurance,â€\x9d Sanders said. “And I asked Mr Trump and I ask Republican leaders: what happens to 20 million people who lose their health insurance? How many of those people are going to die? How many of those people are going to suffer and become a lot sicker than they should have to be. And they have no answer at all.â€\x9d Sanders mentioned how, during his last stop in Michigan, he visited Flint, which has been rankled for more than two years by a water contamination crisis. “Children are being poisoned because we have an infrastructure that is collapsing,â€\x9d he said. Rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure would also be a main tenet of a Clinton presidency, he added. “We have got to create millions of decent-paying jobs in this country,â€\x9d Sanders said. “And what Hillary Clinton understands is the fastest way to do that is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our water systems.â€\x9d Despite the self-described democratic socialist’s proclamations that he will do everything to elect Clinton, supporters of Sanders’ energized campaign are still struggling to throw their support behind his former opponent. Polls in recent weeks have shown Clinton is struggling to win over young voters nationally from third-party candidates. Ymer Kosova, a student who lives in the nearby city of Allen Park, attended the rally on Thursday with two friends. Aged 18, he said he supported Sanders in the Michigan primary, and was “hugely disappointedâ€\x9d when the senator dropped out of the first presidential election he will be voting in. “He was genuine – and he’s an excellent person,â€\x9d Kosova said of Sanders. “He’s a role model for the future.â€\x9d Blake Myers, also 18, said he appreciated that Sanders sought to “get money out of politics and discussed climate change as an actual issue.â€\x9d The presidential debate last week was a huge disappointment, he said, as “there was barely any talk about climate changeâ€\x9d. Both said they are still uncertain about Clinton. “I’m not 100% sure,â€\x9d Kosova said. “Maybe, depending on how lucky I’m feeling at the polling booth.â€\x9d Standing nearby, Dave Nall, a semi-retired resident of the city of Riverview, said he hoped Sanders would implore his supporters to vote for Clinton. “We have to get Hillary elected president,â€\x9d Nall, 65, said. “There is no option here.â€\x9d Nall said he felt Sanders “put up a good fightâ€\x9d in the primary and pushed issues to the forefront that “probably needed to be brought front and centerâ€\x9d. “He challenged her,â€\x9d he said. “But, you know, they’re allies – they were competitors – but now they’re … on the same team. No two people ever see issues the same way.â€\x9d On Sanders’ young supporters, Nall said their resistance to backing Clinton’s campaign stems from the fact “they’re still kind of new to the processâ€\x9d. “They have to put their idealism to the side a little bit,â€\x9d he said. “I mean, don’t lose it – but the reality is, we got to get Hillary elected president. If we don’t get her elected president, your idealism doesn’t matter.â€\x9d",
 'Jeremy Hunt accused of politicising Paris attacks in doctors dispute Jeremy Hunt has been accused of trying to politicise the Paris terror attacks after it emerged his officials helped orchestrate a letter from the NHS chief medic questioning whether striking junior doctors would be available to help in the event of a major incident in the UK. Junior doctors were outraged in November when Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, wrote to the British Medical Association asking what would happen if a strike coincided with a terror attack on the UK. It has now emerged that Hunt’s officials were consulted on drafts of the letter and spoke of a plan to highlight his concerns in the media. They also asked for it to be as “hard edged as possibleâ€\x9d regarding concerns about the strike. The orchestration was condemned by Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, who said it was “trying to politicise the Paris terror attackâ€\x9d and the lowest politics he had seen in years. The exchanges, first revealed by the Independent, are likely to infuriate junior doctors still further ahead of the first in a series of planned strikes next week over changes to their contracts. They show the health secretary was given approval on the text of the letter and that it went through a number of revisions to ensure concerns about the possible impact of a major incident during the strike were hardened up. In the redacted emails, Bruce was told by an unnamed official: “I am sure then that [Jeremy Hunt] will be interested to see the proposed final product; my hope is that if you are happy to make these changes we will be able to get him over the line.â€\x9d Hunt agreed Keogh would not be asked to speak to the media on the day the strike was declared so long as his letter underlined his opposition to the walk out, it added. The letter was sent within a week of the Paris terror attack and published online on the day a strike by junior doctors was announced, which was later cancelled while further talks took place. It is understood that Keogh first raised concerns about contingency planning for the possible event of strike on the day of a terror attack and Hunt was keen for him to seek reassurances. After the letter was made public, around 3,000 junior doctors wrote to Keogh accusing him of using fears of a terror attack for “political purposesâ€\x9d and saying his concerns were “not in keeping with the inherent duty that junior doctors have to serve the publicâ€\x9d. Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb also raised concerns about political interference. He said: “This revelation raises serious concerns about potential political interference with the independent medical director of NHS England. “Jeremy Hunt must explain exactly who was involved in toughening up of language in this letter. My fear is that this will damage trust between the government and junior doctors still further. “We need a cross-party commission to look at how we secure the long term future of the NHS and social care, but Jeremy Hunt must now immediately get back around the negotiating table and resolve this dispute with junior doctors that are such an integral part of our NHS.â€\x9d Responding to the release of the emails, Keogh said that it was “entirely appropriateâ€\x9d that the NHS, the Department of Health and hospitals had “co-ordinated the operational responseâ€\x9d to the strike threat. A Department of Health spokesman said it was “completely right that the Department expressed a view on communication with the BMAâ€\x9d.',
 'Cheatahs review – dreamy psych-rock with stadium ambitions With the release of their eponymous 2013 debut, Cheatahs found themselves compared to 90s luminaries Dinosaur Jr and the Boo Radleys and associated with the emergent nu-gaze scene. But last year’s Sunne EP gave the first hints that the quartet might have struck on a new, otherworldly sound and the title track provides a salient start to their 60-minute set. Jangly guitars and hushed vocals – so low in the mix that they turn into a blur – create a disorientating dreaminess that turns urgent on Murasaki, a Japanese-versed song that draws on their literary and global influences. Formed in London but hailing from four nations – Canada, the US, Germany and England – the band unite for the psychedelic wall of sound at the heart of latest album, Mythologies. Bassist Dean Reid and lead guitarist James Wignall share keyboard duties and join with guitarist Nathan Hewitt to provide lush harmonies on Channel View. But although drummer Marc Raue spares little passion as he dives into each driving rhythm, his bandmates remain tightly controlled through each sprawling song. Synchronised head-nodding is as showmanlike as Cheatahs get. When the music’s as clever and majestic as the melodic swirl of Seven Sisters and splintering rock of The Swan, however, there’s no need for much else. Pop gold runs through every melody and even the ragged squeaks and shrieks of guitar that usher in the aggressive, prog-tinged Su-Pra can’t disguise Cheatahs stadium ambitions. They’ve certainly got the talent but they’re not quite ready for bigger stages yet, and a too-long wait for an encore sees a sparser crowd treated to the cascading tides of Signs for Lorelei. It’s “a song about a German mermaidâ€\x9d, Hewitt explains in a rare display of stage patter – but the band depart having left the labels firmly behind.',
 'Iceland Airwaves festival day two – the rappers come out in force, but rock steals the day For Iceland, 2016 is the year that rap broke. Noting that one of the themes dominating this year’s Iceland Airwaves festival is Icelandic hip-hop, an article in the Reykjavik Grapevine, amusingly titled Get Rich or Freeze Tryin, lists some of the acts worth looking out for. It has also coined the acronym Nwoihh, for the New Wave of Icelandic Hip-Hop. Day two kicks off with a variety of intriguing new rap acts, starting with Auður, who is said to perform “smudged R&Bâ€\x9d. He’s the Icelandic Weeknd, basically, only blond, offering a slight spin on the genre by strumming an electric guitar as he croons sadly about the sorrowful travails of the high life, like Ed Sheeran shambling uninvited into The Party & the After Party. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite have the charisma to pull off quiet depravity in the way Abel Tesfaye does, and he’s too keen to telegraph his moral dissolution by saying “fuckâ€\x9d every other word over his slow, torturous soul. “I wanna be alone tonight,â€\x9d he sings, and he probably will be. Lord Pu$$whip keeps things dark and brooding, with his take on eerie, codeine-groggy, grinding hip-hop. Through the stoned fog you can just about make out the phrase “motherfucking krónaâ€\x9d, and the success of this music beyond these shores is likely to depend on listeners’ preparedness to accept such parochial twists on rap’s established vernacular. Úlfur Úlfur, starring Arnar and Helgi, are the most highly touted of Iceland’s rappers. They make a smooth virtue out of the consonant-heavy language, helped by some catchy beats and slipping into English only for their between-song crowd interactions (“Make some noise!â€\x9d etc). For all the buzz around them, there is a lot of chatter as they play: maybe people are wondering aloud what the current plethora of rising rappers says about Iceland today. Raising more questions, and inviting a perfect storm of amazement and ridicule, are Krakk & Spaghetti, two pink-haired female rappers and a laptop operator, who apparently started out by competing in a contest to write and perform the worst song. In a brightly lit skiwear store, the hyperactive pair perform their set of fun-size novelty ditties, one of them wearing red trousers, the other in a purple parka so tacky you’d swear she was subversively trying to reclaim Icelandic white trash or something. In fact, they have a song called Hóra KapÃ\xadtalismans (Capitalist’s Whore). Then again, they have another entitled Spenfrelsi, which means Nipple Freedom, so it’s anyone’s guess. With their comically fast flow and squeaky cartoon voices, they’re pinky and perky, punky and quirky. “We’re all total buffoons,â€\x9d they declared recently. “And we want to add more silliness to the Icelandic music scene.â€\x9d Job done. As well as rap, there are a lot of polished, atmospheric electronic acts with powerful warbling female voices at this year’s Airwaves. Probably too many. It used to be a scarce resource, now there is the opposite problem: how to rise above this morass of accomplished “politetronicistsâ€\x9d? Still, the venue down by the sea is rammed for Vök, with their male/female configuration and pleasantly pallid xx/Poliça-style pop. Downstairs in a bar along the same road, Iris gives good bewitching over glitchy post-dubstep beats and goth-tinged melodies; aural dry ice suffused with Icelandic mythos. Over at the Harpa concert hall and conference centre, Iceland’s Bedroom Community record label has been joined by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for an evening of neo-classical music based on versions of the indie collective’s output. To these untrained ears, it just sounds like a glorious amalgam of Gregorian chants and strings of panoramic, cinematic sweep worthy of a Spielberg movie, all watched over by BC founder members Ben Frost, Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurðsson. Good sound, too – hardly surprising given the environs, a four-tiered building that makes the Royal Albert Hall look like CBGBs. Another auspicious venue is Reykjavik’s art museum, where Julia Holter is playing. Here, however, the high ceilings conspire against the generally excellent Holter in terms of acoustics. But her music is also let down by her supposed allies: the double bass and violin work, but the drums are plodding and the saxophone drowns out her light ululations. And her material, seemingly designed to take flight, is frustratingly tethered. Where Holter is experimental, Hannah Lou Clark is a husky alt-rocking throwback, in the nicest possible way: it’s actually something of a relief to hear a musician and a band without any electronics. With a mainly female outfit (save for the token bloke drummer), she plays a set that flits between 80s AOR and the Breeders/Belly/Throwing Muses 90s college-rock axis. The penultimate place I visit tonight is like Heaven – the London club, not the abstract paradise. Here, Belgium-based Congolese rapper Baloji – a tall, charismatic fellow in a wide-brimmed hat that makes him vaguely resemble a wild west preacher – does his thing, fusing ragga and funk. Grinning, pogoing and grabbing his crotch, he puts in a high-energy performance, eliciting some risque dancing from the crowd. After midnight, the Sonics – the godfathers of all that White Stripes-type pseudo-primitive rock action, and the only act name-checked more than once in the classic hipster mantra Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem – put on a great garage rock show. Their guitar menace is enhanced by their matching dark suits, white shirts and black ties: they look like the Hives’ cool granddads. Against a backdrop of 50s and 60s cult arcana – Russ Meyer movies, greasers on ton-up motorcycles assailing “the squaresâ€\x9d – they play a heady mixture of proto-punk and crude, minimalist R&B that’s so good it makes you realise they deserved that double mention in Losing My Edge. Paul Lester’s trip to Iceland was paid for by Iceland Airwaves.',
 'Twitter suspends 235,000 accounts in six months for promoting terrorism Twitter has suspended 235,000 accounts in the last six months for violation of its policies regarding the promotion of terrorism and violent threat, the company said Thursday, adding to 125,000 suspensions in the six months before that. In a blog post on Thursday, the company said that “there is no one ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the Internetâ€\x9d. “Butâ€\x9d, the post continued, “we continue to utilize other forms of technology, like proprietary spam-fighting tools, to supplement reports from our users and help identify repeat account abuseâ€\x9d. Salaam Bhatti, the national spokesperson for True Islam, a group which has partnered with Twitter in identifying extremist content, said: “This is a great step in the right direction.â€\x9d “Twitter [has become] a digital social media battlefield of some sort which is also a way of recruiting people. As we can see that the extremist groups are losing on the territorial front, so they’re going to social media again and again to recruit the youth.â€\x9d Daily suspensions were up 80% since the previous year, with suspensions spiking after major terrorist attacks, Twitter said, adding: “Our response time for suspending reported accounts, the amount of time these accounts are on Twitter, and the number of followers they accumulate have all decreased dramatically.â€\x9d The company did not immediately reply to a request for overall figures on how many accounts are suspended for any reason. “We have also made progress in disrupting the ability of those suspended to immediately return to the platform,â€\x9d the post read. “We have expanded the teams that review reports around the clock, along with their tools and language capabilities. We also collaborate with other social platforms, sharing information and best practices for identifying terrorist content.â€\x9d Twitter, which says on its site that it has 313 million monthly active users, has long struggled with controlling terrorism-linked accounts on its platform, especially with the rise of social media-savvy groups like Islamic State, who use Twitter to great effect for recruitment and propaganda purposes. In January, the US government held a meeting in California with Silicon Valley tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter, Apple and YouTube, to address extremism online. But Twitter has run into trouble when it comes to balancing its priorities. Most recently, the company came under fire for the disparity in how fast it took down content from the 2016 Olympics at the request of NBC, which holds exclusive US rights to the games, and in how fast it addresses racial and misogynistic abuse on its platform, such as that aimed at Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones in June. And in August, a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit that had accused Twitter of supporting Isis. The family of two men killed in Jordan filed the suit, saying that the social network was liable for allowing the group to sign up for an account. Judge William H Orrick wrote in his decision: “As horrific as these deaths were ... Twitter cannot be treated as a publisher or speaker of Isis’s hateful rhetoric and is not liable under the facts alleged.â€\x9d',
 'Kicks: sneaker violence gets its own movie The first shoes Justin Tipping bought using his own money were white Nike Air Prestos. They were so cool everyone wanted them – or so it seemed when 10 kids jumped him and walked off with his shoes. All Tipping had to show afterward was a bruised face. “The next day while I was walking through school, every other guy, even if I didn’t know him, took five seconds out of his day to walk up to me and say, ‘Oh you got fucked up, man’ and laugh at me,’â€\x9d recalls Tipping, who makes his directing debut with Kicks, released on Friday. When Tipping arrived at graduate school at the American Film Institute Conservatory, he was “trying to find my story, my American movie. I knew I wanted to look at issues surrounding masculinity and violence so I thought back to my own experience. “I thought back to getting stomped out and the aftermath and thought that moment was a good way in to explore why boys act the way they do, why there are these weird social hierarchies that exist and that have been there for generations,â€\x9d he says. At AFI, he earned a Student Academy Award for the short film Nani, which he co-wrote with Joshua Beirne-Golden; then they teamed up to write Kicks, a coming-of-age film that’s much more than a boy-meets-shoe, boy-loses-shoe, boy-gets-shoe-back story. A compelling mixture of the gritty and surreal, Kicks tells the story of Brandon, an undersized Bay Area teen caught between the dreams of childhood and the harsh actuality of adolescence. The film opens with Brandon talking over a slow motion foot chase ... and a floating astronaut only Brandon sees. This symbol of Brandon’s isolation and his desire for escape, is a recurring motif throughout the movie. When Brandon obtains the shoes he covets – Bred Ones (Black and Red Jordan Ones, a renowned shoe among sneakerheads) – he’s convinced his stature will grow. But like Tipping, he gets beaten up and robbed. (This being 2016, the aggressors also record the incident on their phones and post it online.) Humiliated and desperate to recover his shoes, Brandon and his two best friends undertake a classic hero’s quest. Their journey reveals the consequences of macho posturing and ultimately forces them to confront their values and those of their community. It feel like a quintessential urban American tale but Tipping draws from a wider array of influences. Growing up in the Bay Area, he loved mainstream movies – Steven Spielberg, John Hughes and Star Wars – while dreaming of becoming a rap star. (“Big mistake,â€\x9d he acknowledges.) In college, Tipping spent a semester in Rome and became entranced by Italian cinema; returning to the University of California at Santa Barbara, he switched from economics to film and media studies and says that for Kicks he drew upon his time in Rome as well as the French classic, The Bicycle Thief. Still, much of the movie is distinctly personal, such as the use of rap to bolster the narrative and, of course, the astronaut. “It took a lot to convince people,â€\x9d he says, because it would be expensive and time-consuming on an indie film. Tipping insisted it was essential to the film – “I would rather have made a different movie until I was able to make this with the vision I wantedâ€\x9d – and ultimately prevailed. Tipping also carefully tracked the script’s violence. The shocking first fatality transpires before a gun can be fired. “I did not want to Tarantino anything,â€\x9d Tipping says. “These are real issues kids are facing and if you glamorize it then it becomes disrespectful.â€\x9d The director wanted the audience to feel anxious even when no violence was occurring onscreen, to give a sense of the the toll taken by living in that environment. “I lived in constant anxiety when I was young.â€\x9d Tipping also strove to make Flaco and Marlon, Brandon’s murderous uncle, more than one-dimensional gangsters. “If I set them up as ‘that thug’ then they’re easy to dismiss,â€\x9d Tipping says. Instead both are depicted as trying, in deeply flawed ways, to be responsible and loving family men. “I think about the kids stomping me out and what happened to them that made them think it was OK to beat the crap out of anyone. It must have been more painful than anything I’d been through.â€\x9d Despite this thoughtful approach, the movie is rated R because the teenage boys talk like, well, teenage boys. Tipping contrasts it with Jason Bourne, which “has an execution-style scene every two minutesâ€\x9d, but is rated PG-13, “so they can show that in a high school but they can’t show Kicks there.â€\x9d Casting was crucial, especially since Tipping used relatively inexperienced actors with little rehearsal time on a low budget. He saw an instant connection between 13-year-old Jahking Guillory (Brandon) and Christopher Meyer (Rico) and CJ Wallace (Albert), both 17. “There was this natural dynamic where they treated [Guillory] like a younger brother and you could see he’d be bragadocious and wanted to be like them. It was raw and authentic.â€\x9d They gelled so well at the audition that Wallace, the son of the late rapper Biggie Smalls, took Meyer’s phone number, knowing they’d both get cast. “What you see is on the screen – those guys really became my best friends,â€\x9d says Meyer. Authenticity came easy for Guillory. “I was always the underdog, the smallest person in my neighborhood and with my long hair people teased me that I looked like a little girl,â€\x9d he says, although instead of using violence he’d prove teasers wrong as a local football and track star in Long Beach, California. Unlike Brandon, Guillory says he wouldn’t attack a bully to get his sneakers back. “I’d just tell the dude’s mom,â€\x9d he laughs. Wallace, raised to be polite and well-behaved, reveled in the chance to indulge in Albert’s “talk to any girl, say anything and believe everything. It was like a little escape for me to break all the rulesâ€\x9d. Tipping says the teenagers had a natural feel for what their characters would say. He allowed numerous takes, especially for Wallace. “He’d have us laughing so hard I’d say, ‘let’s do 10 more,’â€\x9d Tipping says. However, some humour was cut “otherwise the audience wouldn’t pay attention to the next sceneâ€\x9d. Wallace cites a deleted car chase “where I was going off like Chris Tuckerâ€\x9d that would have tilted the tone of the movie too much. The rookie director also knew how to draw emotions from his young cast. Before they started filming, Tipping asked Guillory to think about someone he’d lost – “my great-grandma was my best friendâ€\x9d – and then talked to him about it on set when Guillory needed to cry. Tipping had one final casting challenge: the shoes in question. “I spent weeks changing my mind – from Space Jams to red Toro Bravos,â€\x9d he says, although they were always Air Jordans, the original status shoe. Needing a timeless style, he finally chose Bred Ones ... but then needed a new pair – two actually, in case the star got scuffed up. “We were so strapped for cash, having spent 80% of our wardrobe budget on the astronaut costume so I dug deep into my own pockets,â€\x9d he says. While it’s “a little embarrassingâ€\x9d to admit, he’s basically the same shoe size Guillory was at 13 so he kept both pairs for himself. “Score for me,â€\x9d he says. “I have not been jumped for them yet.â€\x9d',
 'Jack Colback seals stirring comeback as BenÃ\xadtez’s Newcastle hold Liverpool A day to forget for Jürgen Klopp could ultimately prove one to savour for Rafael BenÃ\xadtez. Liverpool began the day under a cloud courtesy of Mamadou Sakho’s failed drugs test and Newcastle United’s stirring recovery from two goals down ensured they stayed there. Belief, character and a touch of fortune, all the ingredients required in a relegation contest, were evident as the visitors collected their first point on the road since 13 December. BenÃ\xadtez had asked his former club for a favour in his quest to preserve Newcastle’s Premier League status and the ex-Sunderland goalkeeper Simon Mignolet obliged. Liverpool were coasting at the interval to a fifth straight win in all competitions but Mignolet’s mistake allowed Papiss Cissé to reduce the arrears and, from nowhere, Newcastle had a fighting chance. They capitalised to close the gap on fourth-from-bottom Norwich City to one point and maintain the momentum that is building under their belatedly-appointed coach. “Maybe before the game Newcastle thought they could win at Anfield,â€\x9d said Klopp. “But now I would say they are happy with a point. Two shots on target, two goals. It is not too good to be honest but we have to accept it.â€\x9d The Liverpool manager may also have to accept whatever sanction is heading Sakho’s way for failing a Uefa drugs test after the Europa League tie at Old Trafford on 17 March. In purely football terms, and Klopp could not say much about Sakho given the defender has until Tuesday to respond, Liverpool’s resilience in his absence was not encouraging. Sakho sat in an executive box with his family as his team-mates eased into a two-goal lead in the first half. Any hopes Newcastle harboured of two encouraging displays at St James’ Park translating into improvement on the road were put on hold after 58 seconds. That was all the time it took for Daniel Sturridge to reassure Anfield in the absence of the injured Divock Origi and score his seventh goal in his last seven starts against Newcastle. BenÃ\xadtez was warmly serenaded by the Kop on his return to Anfield – it was not so easy last time he was in the opposition dugout as Chelsea’s interim manager – and he had just reciprocated with a wave when Liverpool were awarded a free-kick on the halfway line. Klopp’s team had gone long and early with two balls into the Newcastle area from the kick-off and the reason why was underlined from Alberto Moreno’s set piece. Sturridge had two defenders on his shoulders as Moreno’s ball dropped on the edge of the penalty area yet he was given space to control neatly, turn sharply and stroke a clinical left-foot finish into Karl Darlow’s bottom left-hand corner. The visitors’ gameplan to contain Liverpool with a 4-1-4-1 formation was damaged before it had been executed. Newcastle lacked the aggression or the confidence to react positively in the first half, their performance was far removed from Tuesday’s committed show at home to Manchester City, and Liverpool inflicted further punishment on their passive opponent with another fine goal on the half-hour. Dejan Lovren found Roberto Firmino in space and the stylish Brazilian released Moreno down the left. Liverpool’s full-back produced his second assist by picking out the unmarked Adam Lallana in the centre. From 20 yards, the midfielder swept a stunning finish into the top corner and three more points beckoned. Liverpool’s latest commanding display was not the only reason to suspect the contest was over. Their only concerns of the first half were slight knocks to Moreno and Lovren, neither serious, and referee Andre Marriner’s refusal to award a penalty for handball. Marriner was a late replacement for Martin Atkinson who reportedly suffered an injury on a Uefa fitness course. Newcastle had offered nothing, which made their second-half fightback all the more surprising and, for Klopp, galling. BenÃ\xadtez’s side were gifted a lifeline shortly after the restart when Vurnon Anita broke down the right and crossed deep into the Liverpool six-yard box. Mignolet rushed from his line but his fists made no contact with the ball, only with the unfortunate Lovren, and Cissé headed into the unguarded goal. Cissé should have levelled and left Anfield enraged when Sturridge was denied a penalty having been clipped inside the area. Marriner waved play on, Newcastle broke through Moussa Sissoko and the captain put the Senegal international clear on goal. The striker wanted too long on the ball, however, and could only pass back to Andros Townsend who blazed high into the Kop. Firmino tapped in from close range after Darlow saved from Joe Allen’s header but an offside flag came to Newcastle’s rescue. They capitalised from another attack down the Liverpool left. This time Townsend centred into the heart of the home penalty area and, though Cissé could not connect with a clean header, the ball dropped for Jack Colback to score his first away goal in over two years via a deflection off Lovren. After nine consecutive league defeats away from home, Newcastle’s away support revelled in the release long after the final whistle.',
 "Clinton and Trump join families of 9/11 victims at 'place of reverence' Presidential rivals Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump visited Ground Zero in New York on Sunday, for ceremonies marking the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. Their unusual appearance at the same event ended early, when Clinton felt unwell and left. Just two weeks before the first presidential debate and 58 days before election day on 8 November, the Democratic and Republican nominees were present to pay silent tribute to the almost 3,000 people who died in the attacks 15 years ago. Politicians are invited to attend ceremonies every year at the site where the World Trade Center was destroyed by two hijacked jets, but not to speak. The event centers on those who lost loved ones. Some of the families gathered to commemorate their relatives, however, cheered and clapped as Trump arrived. According to a spokesman for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum that now stands at Ground Zero, it was the first time the New York real-estate billionaire had attended the official ceremony. Trump, who was born in Queens, grinned as people waved, and posed so they could take photographs. Clinton, who in 2001 was the junior US senator from New York, arrived quietly, greeting some families on her way into the site, and did not prompt applause like her rival. Both candidates issued short statements about the need to mark the day solemnly. In Washington, Barack Obama observed a moment of silence in the White House and spoke at a commemoration of those who died in the attack on the Pentagon. People also gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into a field. In lower Manhattan, family members of those who died, New York firefighters who lost 343 of their colleagues, police officers and survivors gathered under overcast skies. It was humid and haze obscured the top of One World Trade, the skyscraper that now dominates the New York skyline, in contrast to the clear blue skies that dawned on the day 15 years ago that changed the course of history. In total, 2,977 people were killed. In Manhattan on Sunday, wives who lost husbands, children who lost fathers and mothers and other family members and friends laid flowers on the names of the dead that are engraved into the stone surrounds of two huge reflecting pools with waterfalls, constructed on the exact sites where the twin towers stood. The stage for the event sat between the two pools. A youth choir from Brooklyn sang the Star-Spangled Banner, to warm applause. A group of first responders in dress uniform held up the torn flag that was raised over the wreckage at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attack, before marching away to the sound of a piped band. Then the site went still, for a moment of silence at 8.46am, the time the first jet hit, near the top of the north tower. Monica Iken Murphy, 46, from New York, attended with her daughters Madison, 10, and Megan, eight. On 11 September 2001 her husband, Michael Iken, a bond trader, was working on the 84th floor of the south tower. “He called me that morning to tell me to watch the TV because a commuter plane had flown into the north tower, that’s what they thought had happened,â€\x9d she said. “But they could not see what I saw when I switched on the TV – the big, gaping hole in the other side of the north tower.â€\x9d He told her he was fine. Some workers had left the building but he and some others were trying to help a colleague who was quaking with fear and hiding under a desk. A few minutes later, he called again. “The last thing he said was, ‘People are jumping out of the windows’, then ‘I have to go’. But no-one thought the towers would fall. “He told me to start calling friends and family and that’s what I was doing when I saw on the TV the second plane hit the south tower. I froze, I could not believe what I was witnessing.â€\x9d The second plane hit the south tower about 20 minutes after the first impact. Michael Iken died when the tower collapsed, a short time later. His wife now comes to the site “as a place of reverenceâ€\x9d, she said, and because, like many relatives of those who died, she never received any remains. “But this is where these people took their last breath,â€\x9d she said. After the overcast start to the morning, the sun suddenly shone. Iken Murphy stepped into its rays. “When the sun comes out,â€\x9d she said, “I feel his warmth and a connection to him as if he is communicating with me or hugging me. Even if it’s raining, somehow the sun always comes out when I come down here.â€\x9d Ten years ago, she married a New York firefighter, Robert Murphy. She also met Clinton when she was campaigning to have the memorial to the victims built at the actual site of the World Trade Center, not nearby. Asked how she felt about Clinton and Trump attending the ceremony on Sunday, she said: “As long as they were not doing any of their politicking, that’s fine.â€\x9d After the first moment of silence was marked with the tolling of a bell, Jerry D’Amadeo approached the microphone to talk about his father, Vincent D’Amadeo, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center and was killed when Jerry was 10. D’Amadeo choked up as he recalled how many people helped him in the years since 9/11. He told those gathered that he had recently attended a children’s camp for those who lost family and friends in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in December 2012. “Suddenly I was able to be there for people and use my experience to help them,â€\x9d he said. D’Amadeo now acts as a visitors’ host at the museum at the World Trade Center site. Relatives began reading the names of the 2,753 who died at Ground Zero 15 years ago. Many others have died since 2001, from diseases contracted from breathing in the toxic dust and fumes that billowed out from the site. Jersey City police department corporal Phil Ferraino, 46, was leaving the ceremony in his dress uniform. He told the it was vital the world never forget the appalling loss of life suffered in the attacks. “This could happen again,â€\x9d he said. He was on a day off on 11 September 2001, but rushed to the World Trade Center and helped with frantic attempts to find anyone alive in the burning wreckage. “It was chaos,â€\x9d he said. A firefighter friend, Michael Weinberg, was crushed under a fire truck parked below the towers. They didn’t find his body for a week, Ferraino said. “Being here today brings back the pain of that tragedy,â€\x9d he said. “It’s less than it used to be. But you still feel it, absolutely.â€\x9d",
 "Emma Watson's new film makes £47 at UK box office Emma Watson’s first lead role post-Harry Potter has seen the star’s new film, a thriller set in Pinochet-era Chile, take only £47 at the UK box office in its opening weekend. The Colony stars Watson as a woman attempting to infiltrate a cult in order to rescue her husband (Daniel Brühl), who is being held in Colonia Dignidad, a religious community that, in real-life, was founded by Wehrmacht officer and Hitler Youth veteran Paul Schäfer. The film, which had a distribution plan built on home-streaming, was released on video on demand on Friday, the same day as a token release in three UK cinemas. It follows other titles, such as the Al Pacino thriller Misconduct, that expect to make more money from home streaming than traditional cinema distribution. Misconduct, released last month, made less than £100 in its opening weekend at cinemas. The Colony, which had its world premiere at last year’s Toronto film festival, was given two stars by the ’s Peter Bradshaw, who while highlighting its “exploitative dodginess [and] plot-holes the size of Saturn’s ringsâ€\x9d, did credit the film-makers for focusing on a rarely told story. “This movie deserves some points for addressing a little-known dysfunctional horror in Chile’s Pinochet era,â€\x9d he wrote in his review. Watson has spent her post-Potter career building up credits as a supporting actor. Standout roles since she played Hermione Granger include a turn in Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring as a light-fingered LA teen, playing best mate to Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and starring as herself in Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s apocalypse comedy, This Is the End. She next stars as Belle in Bill Condon’s re-working of Beauty and the Beast.",
 'Fears that EU measures against financial crime will be weakened Efforts to tackle tax abuse and financial crime are at risk of being weakened by new European council proposals that would restrict public access to key company information, civil society groups have warned. Only those with a “legitimate interestâ€\x9d should be able to identify a beneficial, or true, owner of a company in a European Union member state, according to a new draft text on the EU anti-money-laundering directive. Previous drafts have stipulated that beneficial ownership information should be made available to the public. The new text would allow individual countries to decide on their own definition of “legitimate interestâ€\x9d, potentially excluding the general public. There has been growing pressure for EU member states to publish their own registers of company beneficial owners after the publication of the Panama Papers earlier this year revealed how companies in tax havens can facilitate crime and tax fraud. The UK began publishing beneficial ownership data in June. Chris Taggart, of the financial transparency group OpenCorporates, warned that the weakened measures would constitute governments returning to “business as usualâ€\x9d less than a year after the Panama Papers. “We have seen the results of disclosing beneficial ownership information privately on an honour system and it’s obvious that this hasn’t been good enough to fight corruption, tax evasion and other financial crimes,â€\x9d Taggart said. “The case for a public, open beneficial ownership register is clear: we cannot crack down on financial crime if no one is watching.â€\x9d Henri Makkonen, an advisor to the Financial Transparency Coalition, described the new text as “a pretty horrible compromiseâ€\x9d, but said that strong support for greater transparency in the European parliament and European commission could result in stronger rules being adopted. Earlier on Tuesday, 80 British MPs backed an amendment that would force the UK’s overseas territories, including the British Virgin Islands, to publish data about the beneficial owners of offshore companies.',
 'Seven-day working for GPs costs more and doesn’t get results My practice started offering Saturday morning GP appointments as well as weekday slots from 8am. Previously, our surgery opened Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6.30pm with some evening appointments until 7.30pm. The Saturday slots are now offered as part of a group of local practices (on a rota basis) to all patients across the practices for routine pre-bookable appointments. There are many such pilots across the country – which started in 2013 as part of the then prime minister’s £50m challenge fund. Some, such as those in Greater Manchester, offered Saturday and Sunday urgent and routine appointments in addition to extended weekday access. Others, like ours, offer additional weekday and Saturday morning access for routine appointments only. The government has committed to another year of extended access despite dubious benefits of the first wave. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has cited lack of GP services as one of the reasons for A&E and acute admission pressures in hospitals. Indeed, studies have shown that seven-day GP access reduces attendances at A&E for minor illnesses but has little impact on emergency hospital attendances for serious medical conditions. A recent study from Greater Manchester showed that providing extended seven-day GP access to patients across 56 practices reduced A&E attendances for minor ailments by 26% (in comparison to 469 practices that provided routine access). This equated to savings of £767,867 through reduced A&E visits – however, this extended GP access scheme cost around £3.1m, which included evening appointments until 9pm on weekdays and both Saturdays and Sundays (across a range of times). But hospital visits for minor ailments form only a proportion of total A&E visits – this study showed that extending GP access led to only a small reduction of 3.1% in total A&E visits. So overall, the scheme cost three times more than it made in savings. There has also been further evaluation of the impact of seven-day access on medical admissions of elderly patients at weekends. In central London seven-day GP cover cut weekend A&E visits by 18% and weekend hospital admissions fell by 9.9% (mainly in elderly patients). But there have been many more disappointing outcomes from the extended access schemes with many areas discontinuing the pilots early or cutting their hours. In areas where extended opening hours are only offering routine appointments, like ours, cost-savings through reduced A&E attendances or emergency admissions is even more questionable since we are not seeing urgent or acute problems – it is the latter group of patients who are more likely to go to out-of-hours services or to A&E.   Nevertheless, NHS England has used some of this early data to extend the seven-day GP access services. In 2015-16, it invested £100m. At a time when both primary and secondary care is seeing unprecedented budget cuts and rationing of “unnecessaryâ€\x9d or even routine services, it makes little sense to waste money on weekend opening . The cost per total extended hour is up to £280, with practices needing to cover premises’ costs and reception, nurse and GP hours. Staffing these hours has been especially problematic for some areas that do not have enough GPs. Within my own practice, there is little appetite to work more. Until a few years ago I used to work GP out-of-hours sessions until it became difficult to manage these with a young family. As a partner in the hub of practices, I am doing the Saturday morning sessions. The 12 slots are booked by a mix of people, some of whom could come during the week. Expensive extended access is not likely to be sustainable, and my concern is where is this money likely to be diverted from? And should we not put it to the public to decide whether they would like seven-day provision or improved access within existing GP hours? Evidence suggests that improved access within existing, standard hours leads to a more effective way of reducing patients’ use of out-of-hours services than extending opening times. But this requires more GPs and more rooms to put them in. and better signposting so patients can see nurses, pharmacies and health care assistants rather than only a GP. It makes no sense to run services on a shoestring during the week, offering limited appointments to patients – because you are spreading staff thinly across the week. We should be offering more daytime appointments. This requires a commitment from the government to help primary care tackle its workload and funding crises, rather than persisting with its obsession of seven-day working.',
 "IFS says workers face 'dreadful' decade without real-terms increase in wages - Politics live Downing Street has hit back at the Institute for Fiscal Studies after it said workers face the longest period without a real-terms increase in wages since the second world war. Number 10 said these figures were misleading because disposable income figures show that people are getting better off. (See 4.28pm.) In a separate report the Resolution Foundation said that family incomes would grow for the rest of the decade - but by less than after the financial crisis and not for the poorest third, who will see their incomes fall. It said: We can look at the outlook for family incomes in the coming years, and it paints a grim picture. Our new income forecast brings together lower earnings growth, higher inflation, and tax/benefit changes. It shows that overall, the rest of this parliament looks set to be as grim as the last, with incomes growing by an average of 0.2 per cent a year, compared with 0.5 per cent a year between 2010-11 and 2014-15. While top earners were hit the hardest following the financial crisis, the big difference looking forward is that the biggest losers are lower income families, with the entire bottom third of the income distribution set to see incomes fall in the years ahead. Brexit could be halted if the British people decided the costs of leaving the EU greatly outweighed any benefits, Tony Blair has said in an interview marking his self-proclaimed return to political activity. George Osborne, the former chancellor, made more than £320,400 in a month from giving speeches to US banks, financial organisations and a university, his register of interests shows. Andrew Lansley, the former Conservative health secretary, has urged the government to invest more in social care. Speaking on the World at One, he said he was “disappointedâ€\x9d that Philip Hammond did not address this in his autumn statement. Lansley said: The next two years are going to be incredibly difficult. And I think the time is now for trying to put some measures in place to try and help health and social care through those next two years. Jeremy Corbyn has called for more money to be spent on hospitals, social care and mental health. Speaking ahead of Labour’s NHS campaign day on Saturday, he said the campaign had three elements. There’s three elements. One - hospital provision, under-funding of hospitals, waiting times and STP - sustainability and transformation plans, which are putting at risk a lot of A&E departments all around the country. The second element is social care, under-funding of social care, the need to improve social care and improve the way in which we treat care workers. They’re vital, valuable, very responsible and very well experienced people. They should be treated better and paid better. Third, there is a mental health crisis across the country. I feel very passionately about this, that’s why I have appointed a shadow minister at cabinet level just for dealing with mental health because I think as a country we have to face up to the crisis we’re in, fund it properly, but above all change the mood music as well. The biggest killer of under-50-year-old men is suicide from mental health conditions - that’s terrible. Nigel Farage has reportedly dismissed reports that he plans to emigrate to the US as “utter nonsenseâ€\x9d. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Number 10 has hit back at the IFS. It says that if you look at disposable income, not wages, then people are getting better off. These are from Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh. The IFS figures relate to earnings. Number 10 is talking about disposable income, a different measure that includes earnings, benefits and pensions, and looks at what’s left after tax and national insurance have been paid. Open Britain, the group campaigning to keep Britain in the single market, has put out a statement from Labour’s Chris Leslie saying the IFS analysis shows that the economic warnings about Brexit issued during the EU referendum campaign were accurate. He said: This is clear proof that the Brexit vote has made working families worse off. The irresponsibility of leave campaigners was breathtaking – they should now be admitting that economic warnings made during the campaign were not Project Fear; they were Project Fact. Their promises that Brexit would make Britain better off now appear naive and complacent. Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary, told BBC News this afternoon that he did not accept the IFS claim that workers face the longest squeeze on wages for 70 years. Asked about its analysis, he said: Well, actually, I’m surprised because wages are increasing, they’re increasing now, they’re increasing across the board and well above inflation. Yes, there was a period when they were absolutely static. But over the last two, two and a half years, wages hae been increasing and the forecasts all the way have been that wages will continue to increase. So I don’t recognise this dire prediction of no increase at all since the crash. He also said that he did not accept the forecasts from bodies like the IFS and the Office for Budget Responsibility about the impact of Brexit on the economy. My sense about this is that the UK economy is already confounding the forecasts. All the forecasts, from the IFS and from the OBR and everybody else, all said that we were going to see a downturn immediately after the Brexit vote. We haven’t seen that. The is growing faster than they predicted. We just saw the debt fall three days ago, when they predicted it would rise. So my sense about this is we are into territory where nobody really knows that the future holds. Duncan Smith is right about wages growing now, but he ignores the fact that they fell so far, in real terms, that they have not caught up with where they were before the crash. The Resolution Foundation makes the point today in this chart, in its autumn statement analysis (pdf) published this morning. Here is John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, on the IFS analysis. This lost decade for living standards is unprecedented in modern British history and is a damning indictment of the total, abject failure of the Tories’ economic policy during their six wasted years in office. The so-called ‘long-term economic plan’ has meant long-term decline in living standards for working people even as the super-rich and the big corporations are given large tax giveaways. Chancellor Philip Hammond promised action in the autumn statement for those ‘just about managing’. Instead he has betrayed them by continuing to slash in-work benefits, failing to raise the ‘national living wage’ to the level promised, failing to deliver more funding for our NHS and social care and now he’s threatening pensioners with removing the ‘triple lock’. Labour has different priorities and will prepare our economy for Brexit. Instead of cutting taxes for the super-rich and giant corporations, we will make sure our NHS is properly funded, support the pensions ‘triple lock’, and introduce a real living wage built on an economy that invests for the long-term so that no-one and no community is left behind. The IFS has now put up on its websites its distributional analysis slides (pdf). This one shows the impact of all tax and benefit reforms since the 2015 election. They are highly regressive. The gains in the autumn statement (the light green bars) were very modest, and came nowhere near compensating for the impact of the benefit cuts announced by George Osborne last year. And this shows the impact of the post-election tax and benefit changes on family groups. Pensioners have done best, especially wealthy pensioners. Working-age families without children were in the middle, and working-age families with children have done worst. And here are two more important charts from one of the IFS slideshow presentations (pdf). This one shows the impact the government’s benefit freeze was going to have on families with inflation forecast to grow at the rate expected in March. And this chart, or rather the dark green bars in this chart, show how the impact as got worse in the light of the new inflation forecasts. And here is the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg commenting on these figures. Here is a chart from one of the IFS slideshow presentations (pdf) showing debt as proportion of national income going back to 1700. It has been much higher before, but the two previous peaks were caused by the Napoleonic wars and the second world war. And here are some more lines from the IFS briefing. From my colleague Katie Allen From the Daily Mirror’s Jack Blanchard (This suggests the respondents to our ICM poll were on the money - see 12.52pm.) From ITV’s Carl Dinnen From PoliticsHome’s John Ashmore Here are the key points from Paul Johnson’s opening statement (pdf) at the IFS autumn statement briefing. Johnson said by 2021 wages would still be lower than they were in 2008 in real terms and that Britain has not had such a “dreadfulâ€\x9d period without earnings growth since the second world war. (See 1.14pm.) He said the expected rise in inflation meant the real value of the “national living wageâ€\x9d would rise by just over 20% during the course of this parliament, not 25% as expected. He said inflation also meant that “the real value of working age benefits like JSA [jobseeker’s allowance] that are currently frozen in cash terms will fall by 7.7% rather than 6.5%â€\x9d. He said Philip Hammond had effectively adopted Ed Balls’ spending plans. Rather than aiming for Budget balance in 2019-20 Mr Hammond will be happy borrowing 2% of national income, that’s about £40 billion, in 2020-21. Remember that at the last election the then Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, said he was aiming to balance the current budget by 2018-19, i.e. borrow just to invest. Keeping to that over the parliament would have allowed borrowing of just over 2% of GDP in 2020-21. To misquote Michael Heseltine, it wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that the new fiscal plans aren’t Osborne’s, they are Balls’. He predicted that the government would have to spend more money on health or social care. Strikingly [Hammond] responded not at all to calls for more money for either the NHS or social care. I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest he won’t be able to do that for much longer. He criticised the government for continuing to freeze fuel duty every year instead of simply abandoning the proposed annual increases. One of the more expensive measures announced was yet another freeze to fuel duty – the seventh year in a row this has happened. If the policy is never to increase fuel duty again, as seems to be the case, we should just be told rather than being told always that it will rise with inflation next year and then that never happening. This is turning into a really big problem both for the Treasury and for our approach to the taxation of motoring. He said the OBR’s forecasts were “noticeably more upbeatâ€\x9d than the Bank of England’s. Earlier this month the Bank projected growth of 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6% in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively. The OBR’s projections are for growth of 1.4, 1.7 and 2.1%. That’s quite a big difference. He said Hammond’s policy in the autumn statement amounted to “jam tomorrowâ€\x9d not “jam todayâ€\x9d. In the face of deteriorating forecasts Mr Hammond neither tightened fiscal policy nor followed his predecessor’s example of sticking with previous spending plans. He loosened by an annual £10 billion or so. And he loosened in a rather specific way, mostly by increasing planned capital spending. Given the choice between jam today in the form of more money in people’s pockets and jam tomorrow in the form of potential economic returns from greater investment, he went for jam tomorrow. He accused Hammond of being disingenuous about the increase in the insurance premium tax, arguing that the 12% rate was hard to justify. Mr Hammond wasn’t guilty of too many fiscal infelicities yesterday, but the way in which he announced the increase in IPT was certainly one of them. It is half the rate of VAT, he said, as if in explanation of the rise. Well, so it should be - in fact it should be lower. It’s only the value of the insurance – premiums net of pay outs – which one should think of as being VATable. That would imply an IPT rate much less than 10%, not more. He said the IFS backed the idea of scrapping the autumn statement, although he expressed scepticism about whether this would happen. We will also wait and see whether this really is the last Autumn Statement. We have been here before after all. Chancellor Kenneth Clarke also moved from a separate Autumn Statement and Spring Budget to a single Autumn Budget. That didn’t survive a change of occupancy at number 11. Here is the full text (pdf) of Paul Johnson’s opening presentation at the IFS briefing. Workers in Britain face the biggest squeeze on their pay for 70 years as a Brexit blow to the economy knocks wage growth and stokes inflation, according to an analysis of the UK’s government’s latest tax and spending plans. Picking over Philip Hammond’s autumn statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said real wages in the UK – pay adjusted for inflation – will still be below their 2008 level in 2021. Paul Johnson, the thinktank’s director said in his presentation (pdf): “One cannot stress how dreadful that is – more than a decade without real earnings growth. We have certainly not seen a period remotely like it in the last 70 years.â€\x9d The warning follows signs that the pound’s sharp fall since the referendum result is hiking the cost of imports to the UK and could soon be passed on to consumers. At the same time, experts warn pay growth could stall as companies grapple with politicial and economic uncertainty. On Wednesday, the government’s independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility, said the economy would slow next year and inflation would rise. In a separate analysis of the autumn statement, the thinktank, Resolution Foundation, said families faced a worse squeeze on their living standards over the next five years than they suffered in the wake of the financial crisis. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has just started the IFS’s briefing on the autumn statement. He says wages in real terms will still be below their 2008 levels in 2021. This is “dreadfulâ€\x9d, he says. Here is the key quote. However, the outlook for living standards has deteriorated rather sharply since March. The OBR is forecasting both lower nominal wage growth as a result of lower productivity, and higher inflation resulting from the exchange rate depreciation. Overall real average earnings are forecast to rise by less than 5% between now and 2021. That means they will be 3.7% lower in 2021 than was projected in March. To put it another way around half of the wage growth projected for the next five years back in March is not now projected to happen. On these projections real wages will, remarkably, still be below their 2008 levels in 2021. One cannot stress enough how dreadful that is – more than a decade without real earnings growth. We have certainly not seen a period remotely like it in the last 70 years. I will post a full summary of his statement shortly. Only a third of voters think the measures announced in the autumn statement will help the economy, an ICM poll conducted for the suggests. ICM carried out its survey online last night and, although respondents were generally positive about the measures in the autumn statement they were asked about, overall they did not seem very convinced that Philip Hammond’s policies would do a lot to help the economy. Asked if the package of measures announced by Hammond would be helpful or unhelpful to the economy, the results were: Helpful: 33% Unhelpful: 8% No difference: 35% Don’t know: 24% ICM also asked about six specific policies in the autumn. All received either majority or plurality support, but there were some interesting variations. The measure with the highest net support was increasing the “national living wageâ€\x9d by 30p an hour to £7.50. But the measure with the highest number of people both supporting it, and saying it would make a difference, was increasing the income tax threshold to £11,500 in April (a measure announced by George Osborne in March, but reconfirmed by Hammond yesterday). And the measure with the lowest net support was abandoning the 2019-20 budget surplus targets. Here are the net support figures for the six policies (percentage saying they are in favour, whether or not they think it will make a difference). Raising the “national living wageâ€\x9d - 82% Raising the income tax threshold - 79% Funding 40,000 new affordable homes - 73% Investing an extra £1.1bn in transport - 68% Not seeking any more welfare cuts - 53% Abandoning the 2019-20 budget surplus target - 49% And here are the same policies, but this time listed in order of people saying they support them and think the policy is sufficient to make a difference. Raising the income tax threshold - 42% (against 38% in favour, but thinking it won’t be enough to make a difference) Raising the “national living wageâ€\x9d - 34% (against 48% in favour/no difference) Investing £1.1bn in transport - 32% (against 36% in favour/no difference) Funding 40,000 new homes - 28% (against 45% in favour/no difference) Not seeking welfare cuts - 24% (against 30% in favour/no difference) Abandoning budget surplus target - 20% (against 29% in favour/no difference) ICM Unlimited interviewed an online sample of 1,317 adults aged 18+, online on the evening of 23rd November 2016. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. George Osborne made £320,000 in a few weeks from delivering speeches in America, the Press Association reports. The former chancellor, sacked from the government by Theresa May when she became prime minister in July, has been paid more than £80,000 a go for some of his recent speaking engagements. The figures, revealed in the latest register of MPs’ financial interests, show Osborne expects to receive payments of £81,174 and £60,578 from JP Morgan for two speeches delivered at the start of October - a total of seven hours work. Osborne signed up to the Washington Speakers’ Bureau after he left Government and he is due to be paid £80,240 from Palmex Derivatives for a speech in New York he gave on October 27 - which he recorded as a total of two hours work. Osborne also expects to be paid £69,992 by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) in return for a speech on September 27 and October 18. Meanwhile, the former chancellor is due to be paid £28,454 for a speech on October 17 from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The latest register of interests also show Michael Bloomberg paid for Osborne and his wife to attend a dinner for the former mayor of New York City in Paris. The value of the travel, accommodation and dinner in the middle of October was estimated at £4,086. Osborne has previously disclosed two helicopter trips in the register of interests: one in November 2015 to the Forest of Dean Conservative dinner and another to Ripon North Conservatives’ Summer Reception in July this year. Tony Blair has given a lengthy interview to the New Statesman. Here are some of the top lines. Blair says that he wants to help resurrect centre-ground politics. As the reported on Monday, he is setting up a new political organisation next year. In his interview he rules out a return to the political frontline himself, but he explains that he wants to help politicians who are challenging extremists. What I’m doing is to spend more time not in the front line of politics, because I have no intention of going back to the front line of politics, to correct another misunderstanding ... but in trying to create the space for a political debate about where modern Western democracies go and where the progressive forces particularly find their place ... I’m dismayed by the state of Western politics, but also incredibly motivated by it. I think in Britain today, you’ve got millions of effectively politically homeless people ... What I’m interested in doing is asking: what are the types of ideas that we should be taking forward? How do we provide a service to people who are in the front line of politics, so that we can provide some thinking and some ideas? The thing that’s really tragic about politics today is that the best ideas about politics aren’t in politics. I find the ideas are much more interesting in the technology sector, much more interesting ideas about how you change the world. He says that Brexit could be reversed. It can be stopped if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain-gain/cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up. And that can happen in one of two ways. I’m not saying it will [be stopped], by the way, but it could. I’m just saying: until you see what it means, how do you know? Explaining the two ways in which Brexit could be reversed, he goes on: Either you get maximum access to the single market - in which case you’ll end up accepting a significant number of the rules on immigration, on payment into the budget, on the European court’s jurisdiction. People may then say, ‘Well, hang on, why are we leaving then?’ Or alternatively, you’ll be out of the single market and the economic pain may be very great, because beyond doubt if you do that you’ll have years, maybe a decade, of economic restructuring. The Resolution Foundation thinktank has published its full verdict on the autumn statement. As my colleagues Heather Stewart and Jessica Elgot report, it is saying that the squeeze on living standards over the next five years could be even worse than it was during the financial crash. Here is there story. This is how it starts. Families face a worse squeeze on their living standards over the next five years than they suffered in the wake of the financial crisis, as Brexit slows the economy and Conservative welfare cuts bite, according to a new report. Analysis of Wednesday’s autumn statement by the Resolution Foundation thinktank suggests average earnings are set to grow only half as rapidly as in the austerity years after the economic crisis. At the same time, living standards will be undermined by higher inflation and ongoing welfare cuts. While the squeeze of the last parliament affected workers across the income spectrum, the foundation says low-paid households are set to be hardest hit over the next five years, because they are particularly affected by planned welfare cuts. And here is the full Resolution Foundation report (pdf). John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has also been giving interviews this morning. Here are the key points he has been making. McDonnell indicated that Labour wanted taxes to be fairer, but that it was not looking to increase the overall tax burden. We’d make sure that instead of giving tax giveaways to the wealthy and corporations, and ignoring the issue of tax avoidance and tax evasion, we’d make sure we had a fair taxation system. And in that way we’re not talking about increasing taxes or anything like that, what we are saying is that we use our resources more effectively. We will want to abide by the principles that you spend what you earn. They have given tax giveways on capital gains tax, on corporation tax, on inheritance tax to the wealthy in our community and also to corporations. And what we saw yesterday - they were cutting the universal credits that are going to be given to what they call Jams, the just about managing, people going into work, looking after their families, doing everything asked of them. So they’ve got the wrong priorities. He defended Labour’s decision to support a tax cut for people paying the higher rate of income tax. Labour is backing the government’s plan to increase the tax threshold for people paying the higher 40p rate of income tax. Asked about this, he said: There are large numbers of people earning above £43,000 who are in jobs like train drivers, like senior teachers and others who have been hit and do need protecting. If we are going to be doing redistribution we should be hitting those who are over [that level]. For example, our policy is 50p on £150,000, reverting to the original tax system we had some years ago. We have to recognise that the reality of those people on middle incomes and the pressures that they are under, particularly with regard to housing costs in certain parts of our country. He said Labour was committed to keeping the triple lock - the law that says pensions will rise every year by 2.5% or in line with earnings or inflation, whichever is higher. The Tories are committed to keeping this until 2020 but Philip Hammond, in his autumn statement, hinted that it could be dropped after that because it is too expensive. Asked if Hammond was right to review it, McDonnell replied: No, I would be very disappointed if he did [drop the triple lock]. Under the Labour government Gordon Brown wanted to tackle the issues around child poverty and pensioner poverty and that is what he did. He lifted people out of poverty at both stages of their lives, both children and older people ... If we can grow the economy, and we have a fair taxation system, we can afford it. (McDonnell was right to say the last Labour government did a lot to reduce pensioner poverty, but the triple lock was actually a coalition policy, not a Labour one.) He said the government’s failure to set out its Brexit stance was increasing economic uncertaintly. We can’t do these negotiations without openness and transparency. People need to know where is the government going and how is it going to get there. At least then you stabilise things and people will be able to settle down into serious negotiations and we will get the best deal. Until the government gets to that position, we are going to have these uncertainties and this speculation. He played down the significance of a picture showing many Labour MPs looking at their phones in the Commons chamber when he was responding to Hammond yesterday. He said: It doesn’t look brilliant but that’s what they do now and they have to think themselves. The new style in parliament at the moment is people are tweeting all the time. They’re doing a running commentary on what’s going on. It doesn’t look good, but that’s what happens. It’s interesting because everybody’s got these new handheld devices all the time, they’re tweeting all the time, but interestingly enough the general response to the points I was making was received quite well within parliament and outside. And it’s interesting – I’ve never seen this before and this is not me boasting – if you looked at the MPs opposite me and those behind, I held their attention. Even though they’re tweeting, they’re tweeting about what I’m saying. Here is a full summary of the main points from Philip Hammond’s interviews this morning. Hammond said the economic future was uncertain because no one knew what the outcome of the Brexit talks would be. When it was put to him that the government was at fault for telling the Office for Budget Responsibility very little about its Brexit plans, he said that the government had said what it wanted: the greatest possible access to European markets. But the outcome of the Brexit negotiations would not just depend on what the government wanted, he went on. The fact is, it is not about what we want the outcome to be. It’s going to be a negotiation. We are going to sit at the table with the representatives of the European Union. And nobody, at this stage, can be certain about what the outcome of that negotiation will be. That is what creates the uncertainty, whether you are a chancellor of the exchequer trying to forecast the public finances for a couple of years down the line or whether you are a businessman making an investment in a production line. He said the government was preparing for “a range of possible outcomesâ€\x9d from the Brexit talks. “That’s a sensible and prudent thing to do,â€\x9d he said. He defended the OBR, saying the government would be wrong to ignore its forecasts. Pro-Brexit Tories have criticised the OBR, saying its forecasts about the impact of Brexit on the economy are wrong. Hammond said it was important to remember that forecasting was not a precise science. But he said the government would be wrong to ignore what it said. Economic forecasting is not a precise science. And the OBR itself makes the point in its report that there is a very high degree of uncertainty around the report that they issued yesterday because of the circumstances that they are in. When it was put to him that this means he thinks the OBR forecasts should be taken with “a pinch of saltâ€\x9d, as the Telegraph claims this morning, he replied: I think we should look at what the report is projecting, we should certainly not ignore that, we should look at it as one of the possible range of outcomes that we need to plan for. The BBC’s Ross Hawkins has posted this on Twitter, pointing out that Hammond was right to say the OBR has acknowledged a high degree of uncertainty. He said the government was preparing for a possible economic slowdown next year. To me it makes sense, given the warning signals from the OBR report, to keep a little bit of firepower in the locker, to build a little bit of a reserve so that if there is a slowdown next year, we’ve got enough capacity to support the economy, to protect jobs, to ensure that the economy can get through any headwinds it encounters. He rejected claims that debt was out of control. When it was put to him that the government had lost control of debt he replied: It’s not out of control, it’s larger than we would like it to be. He rejected claims that the autumn statement contained nothing for “Jamsâ€\x9d, the families who are “just about managingâ€\x9d. When this was put to him, he replied: I don’t think that’s true at all. We are facing very significant fiscal challenges. Within the constraints that that imposes, we’ve tried to focus what firepower we do have on helping those who are ordinary working families who are hard-pressed to get by. Stopping the scheduled rise in fuel duty was an important step in that process. Reducing the taper in universal credit so that people in work on low wages are able to keep more of their wages. Recommitting to raising the personal allowance in the income tax system to 12,500 by the end of this parliament despite the fiscal challenges will leave everybody in this country better off. And of course a rise in the “national living wageâ€\x9d which will put 500 a year in the pockets of somebody over 25 working full-time on the “national living wageâ€\x9d. I think those are important steps forward. He rejected claims that the government was now adopting the spending plans Labour proposed at the 2015 general election. Labour would have exempted investment spending from borrowing rules, he said. He said his new fiscal rules included investment spending. He rejected claims that he ignored the NHS in his statement. When this was put to him, he replied: It is not true that it was not mentioned. If you read the statement, it absolutely was mentioned. As I said yesterday in parliament, it may have been my first autumn statement, but I’m not a complete rookie and I would not have failed to mention the NHS. He rejected the ideal of Nigel Farage playing any role in the government’s relations with Washington. Asked about this, he replied: If I ever need any advice from Nigel Farage I’ve got his number and I’ll give him a call. Tell him not to hold his breath. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will present his full verdict on the autumn statement at 1pm, but he was on the Today programme this morning. He admitted that economic forecasts were “always wrongâ€\x9d. But the Office for Budget Responsibility was more optimistic about the impact of Brexit than other bodies, he said. The broader point is that, yes, of course, forecasts are always wrong, and Robert Chote at the OBR has always been very clear about that, but they are made as the best you can do at the time. The actual forecasts that we have got from the OBR are in fact considerably more optimistic than those we have from most independent forecasters, and significantly more so than those we have from the Bank of England. We really don’t know very much about where we will be, certainly after 2019. Earlier I posted some of the main lines from Philip Hammond’s morning interview here, but I’ve taken them out because there is now a full summary here, at 10.05am. Q: You used to sell cars. How would you feel if you bought a car and it did not do what was promised. Do you owe the country an apology? Hammond says the government has created jobs and cut the defict by two thirds. When the facts change, the government must respond. He says he set out a responsible package with limited, additional borrowing. And that’s it. The interview is over. I’ll post a summary soon. Q: So this means people will just have to be prepared for having less money, because inflation will eat it away. Hammond says if sterling stays at the current level, and if importers pass on their costs, inflation will rise. But we don’t know if importers will pass those costs on. This is a work in progress, he says. Q: You chose to spend more money even though borrowing is forecast to go up. And you largely spent that money on what Labour used to call borrowing to invest. Hammond says the government chose to borrow an extra £23bn over the next five years and invest that in areas where it might improve the productivity of the economy. Q: So when you criticised Labour at the last election, you should have said you would copy their ideas. No, says Hammond. He says Labour proposed to exempt investment money from borrowing rules. The government is not doing that, he says. We have to live within our means. Q: The Resolution Foundation says people will be worse off in this parliament than in the last, because of rising inflation. Hammond says the OBR forecast suggests inflation will rise to 2.5% next year. That is higher than we have been used to, but not high by historical standards. And sterling has down, making imports more expensive. He says the government must keep the economy growing and raise productivity. There is no other way of protecting living standards, he says. Q: Isn’t the government contributing to this? The OBR asked about the government’s Brexit plans and was given two paragraphs from a Theresa May speech saying nothing. Hammond says the government wants the best possible access to the single market. But it will be a negotiation. No one can be certain what the outcome will be, he says. Q; So you must prepare for the possibility that the Brexit talks do not go well. Hammond says the government is preparing for a range of possible outcomes. The OBR forecast includes a range of outcomes. Q: Are you saying you don’t believe the OBR forecasts? The Telegraph says you take these forecasts with a pinch of salt. Hammond says forecasting is not a precise science. The OBR itself says there is a large degree of uncertainty. The government should not ignore these forecasts. It should include them in the range of possibilities for which it plans. It should not ignore the strengths of the economy. And it is right to keep something aside. Q: You seem to be distancing yourself from the forecasts. There is a wide degree of uncertainty, says Hammond. Q: So it may be tosh? Hammond says there are many factors causing uncertainty. Q: This is higher debt than after the oil crisis or the banking crisis. Some people say this is not just an economic failure, but a moral failure. That is what the Tory manifesto said in 2015. Hammond says the government has controlled public spending. It has generated nearly 2.8m new jobs. And the OBR says another 500,000 new jobs will be created this parliament. Q: But debt is out of control. Your manifesto said that was a moral failing. Hammond says debt is not out of control. But it is larger than the government would like. The government has to keep the downward pressure on borrowing. Nick Robinson is interviewing Philip Hammond. Q: Is it time to apologise for saying you would tackle the deficit when you haven’t? Hammond says the Tories inherited a budget deficit of more than 10% of GDP in 2010. It has come down by two thirds. There is more work to do, he says. As usual, the morning after the autumn statement, the chancellor and his Labour opposite number are doing a round of interviews. Philip Hammond will be on the Today programme shortly, and I will be covering his interview in full. Yesterday Hammond told MPs that the Office for Budget Responsibility thinks Brexit will cost the country £59bn over the next five years. Tory Brexiteers have dismissed this analysis, and Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said this was “another utter doom and gloom scenarioâ€\x9d. But last night David Gauke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, defended the OBR. He told Newsnight: We have an independent body that makes the forecasts and it is sensible for a government to work on the basis that that independent body has got it right. Hammond is likely to say much the same. We will find out in a moment. Later, at 1pm, the Institute for Fiscal Studies is holding a press conference to give its verdict on the autumn statement. As usual, I will be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan on posting a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrewâ€\x9d in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.",
 'Economics and talent drain contribute to Newcastle and Sunderland’s woes In this least predictable of seasons there have been only two things on which to rely: the ineptitude of Aston Villa and the slightly lesser ineptitude of the north-east. Perhaps Norwich City will end up relegating both Sunderland and Newcastle United, perhaps Swansea City or Crystal Palace will collapse and both will be saved, but at this stage the derby on Sunday feels like a relegation shootout, in terms of its long-term consequences potentially a more significant Tyne-Wear derby even than the 1990 play-off semi. Given the sense of despondency around both clubs it is realistic to fear that, unlike their last relegations, there would be no swift return. The imminence of the new Premier League television deal heightens the apocalyptic mood. There seems something grimly appropriate that this great clash of north-eastern powers should fall on the feast day of St Cuthbert, protector of the region. Behind the anxiety and the anticipation lies the perpetual question of why. Why should an area that has given so much to football from its origins (Charles W Alcock, first secretary of the Football Association, progenitor of the FA Cup and internationals, was born in Sunderland), where 40,000 crowds are the norm despite often dismal football, that has provided more England internationals per head of population than anywhere else, be locked always in a battle for relevance? In 1986-87 Peter Beardsley attended a talk-in at a social club. He was 26 and, in the season after his sparkling performances at the World Cup, his future at Newcastle had been the subject of much discussion. A member of the audience stood up. “Get yourself away, Peter,â€\x9d he said. “You’re too good for this club.â€\x9d The rest of the room got to their feet and applauded. On the one hand it’s a scene that speaks of a refreshing realism and generosity. Beardsley was a brilliant player and would leave at the end of that season for Liverpool, where he won two league titles and an FA Cup. But there’s also something devastating about the sense of acceptance of place. Newcastle finished 17th in the top flight that season (which was rather better than Sunderland, who were relegated to the Third Division for the only time in their history), but they also had in their squad the 20-year-old Paul Gascoigne. A year later he would be sold. A year after that Newcastle were relegated. A year after that England reached the World Cup semi-final with a team that included Beardsley, Gascoigne and Chris Waddle, who had been sold in 1985. This was the north-east I grew up with, a land where it never did to hope too much. (There is a paradox to the present situation for Sunderland in that, however miserable the eternal relegation struggles may feel, this spell of nine successive seasons in the top fight is their longest since they were first relegated in 1958.) Opportunities existed to be missed, as Sunderland lost in the Milk Cup final of 1985 and the FA Cup final of 1992. Success wasn’t for the likes of us. We Sunderland fans all knew the history. We could all recite chunks of both the BBC and ITV commentaries of the 1973 Cup final. We even came to resent it a little once the realisation set in that the only reason it meant so much was because for most of the post-war era we had been so crap. Because we also knew about beating Hearts for the first championship of the world in 1895, about nearly winning the Double in 1913 and about Raich Carter’s league- and Cup-winning sides of the mid-30s. But that was then, when Sunderland was a thriving industrial city (between September 1939 and the end of 1944 Sunderland produced 1.5m tons of ships, 27% of the UK’s total output; in 1938 the whole of the US had produced only 201,251 tons). By the 1980s the shipyards had gone, the mines had gone, the jobs had gone; of course the football had gone. Everything had gone. We looked at the rise of clubs such as Luton, Wimbledon and Millwall, at West Ham finishing third, and understood in some vague, nonspecific way that this was some inevitable consequence of Thatcherite economics: that the centre boomed while the periphery dwindled. Thirty years later it seems to be happening again. Money has become ever more important in football. London has more money than anywhere else, draws investment better than anywhere else and so, naturally, clubs from the capital and its surroundings have risen. Tottenham have joined Chelsea and Arsenal at the highest table. West Ham, as they prepare to move into the Olympic Stadium, may not be too far behind. Watford and Crystal Palace have played each other 100 times in the league; this season was the first in which they had met in the top flight. The north-east, meanwhile, struggles. It has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 8.6% and, with an average income of £345 per week, is in the lowest earnings bracket recognised by the Office for National Statistics. Necessarily that has an impact. Looking at median season-ticket prices, for instance, only Stoke charge less than Sunderland. Arsenal make more in match-day revenue in three games than Sunderland do in a season. Sunderland are the sixth most successful side in English league history in terms of titles won, 10th in terms of points won in the top division and last season had the sixth-highest average attendance. Yet they have finished in the top half of the top division only three times in the past half-century. In terms of titles won Newcastle are the eighth-best side in English history and ninth in terms of total points won in the top flight. Their average attendance was the third best in the league last season. In terms of history and support base both are significantly underperforming and, Newcastle’s dalliance with the top four under Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson aside, they have been for half a century or more. That’s why the economic argument, leading to a general sense of resignation or pessimism, seemed to me compelling. But when the Swedish magazine Offside asked me to look at the reasons for the north-east’s underperformance I found the view within the north-east is rather different. “It’s not that failure is hard-wired into the north-east,â€\x9d says Michael Martin, the editor of True Faith and a senior member of the Newcastle United Supporters Trust. He cites as examples the success of Durham in cricket (three County Championships and two one-day cups in the past nine years) and basketball’s Newcastle Eagles (seven BBL Championships in the past decade). Which is true, but of course it takes far less money to compete in cricket or basketball than in the Premier League – and even then, Durham, for all the advantages of having a Test ground, have had to be financially cautious, their success rooted in homegrown players. Harry Pearson, author of The Far Corner, a brilliant examination of the spirit of north-eastern football and its in-built nostalgia, points out that when money isn’t the major issue the north-east still excels at football. Six of the past seven winners of the FA Vase – and two of the losing finalists – are from the region. “It’s almost like we accept that as our level, or at least feel more comfortable there,â€\x9d he says. “I think the failure in the professional game has something to do with that – an innate inferiority complex. There’s always been a feeling that in order to succeed you have to leave.â€\x9d I left. I’m not even sure I thought about it: it just seemed like what you did after university. Of my eight closest friends from school only one still lives in the north-east. That’s not to say that you cannot succeed in the north-east but the mentality of looking elsewhere is undeniable. Between 1963 and 1987 north-eastern managers won 14 league titles, five FA Cups, five European Cups, three Uefa or Fairs Cups and a Cup-Winners’ Cup. But none of Harry Catterick, Don Revie, Brian Clough, Bob Paisley, Howard Kendall or Bobby Robson won anything with a north-eastern side; Bob Stokoe’s 1973 miracle stands alone (although Newcastle in 1969 won the Fairs Cup under the Doncaster-born Joe Harvey). Why that seam no longer yields the riches it once did is another question but, when it did exist, the advantages were enjoyed elsewhere. The foundations that might have led a club to prosper despite local economics were never laid. David Rose, the deputy chief executive of the Football Supporters’ Federation and a Sunderland fan, points to Everton as a club of similar stature that seem always to do better. Martin highlights Stoke, Swansea and Southampton as examples of smaller clubs who do better than Newcastle because of more enlightened management. “The two clubs are badly managed in different ways,â€\x9d says Mark Jensen, the editor of the Newcastle fanzine the Mag. “They’re incompetent but ours has been cynically done.â€\x9d And they’re right, of course, that Sunderland and Newcastle have suffered from poor recent leadership. Newcastle’s now apparently abandoned policy of signing only players under the age of 26 so they can be sold at a profit has been heavily criticised but Sunderland in the past five years, satisfying the whims of each passing manager and casting desperately against relegation, have signed 67 players. That not only makes it harder for players to feel a visceral connection to the club, it also breaks down the emotional bond between fans and players. “Are there any of them I’d be sorry to see leave?â€\x9d Rose asks. “Not really, no.â€\x9d It cannot be denied that both clubs have been hampered by poor leadership, but the fundamental point remains that the tighter the finances are, the better the leadership has to be for the club to prosper. The economics are against them as they have been since the end of the war. For one club, Cuthbert’s Day could mark the beginning of a very bleak period indeed. Failure stalks his domain.',
 'I’m a Democrat, but I fear the elitism overtaking the party I may believe in women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality and background checks for gun purchases, but I also took childhood naps each Thanksgiving under the watchful glass eyes of my cousin’s prized deer head mount. And I may now work in the white-collar journalism world, but I spent my formative summers wandering around my Illinois hometown’s “Bagelfestâ€\x9d, an homage to one of our community’s several factories and its working-class heritage. That’s all to say: the American electorate is complicated. But there is a narrow perspective that many liberals in my adult life use to paint the people from my hometown, and from the thousands of other places like it. In that painting, it’s just the people reached on landlines that admit they plan to support Donald Trump who actually do. And those Trump voters time and again are given a suspiciously similar face: white; male; blue collar. And then those less neutral descriptors: racist; sexist; uneducated. The first three are often shorthand for the second set. The Democratic party – and by that, I mean the party gatekeepers with power to wield media influence, which worked out great for the Brexit vote – are writing off those hardcore racists as an overblown minority that is making more noise than they can translate into votes. But overlooking “regular Joeâ€\x9d moderate voters like the ones who filled my childhood could be our undoing. My party has gotten cocky, and I fear that condescending mentality will lose us this election. Because for all of his divisive bluster, Trump has gotten one thing right time and again: small-town America is not doing great. Don’t get me wrong: I sure as hell won’t be casting a ballot for Trump this November. But I have watched this primary season unfold through a different lens than my very liberal coworkers and fellow New Yorkers, who live in a world that’s largely bounced back from the recession. Where my family lives, factories are closing. Schools don’t have enough money for teachers, and all of Barack Obama’s hope and change hasn’t done much trickling down in the last eight years. And just because the moderate voters living in these areas aren’t showing up at Trump rallies or plastering your Facebook wall with tirades about Muslims doesn’t mean they’re planning to support Obama’s heir apparent come November. That’s a hard truth for a lot of liberals with white-collar jobs and HBO subscriptions to process, but it’s a truth nonetheless. It’s a truth that is driving Trump fans who really do want to build a wall and “punishâ€\x9d women who have illegal abortions, but it’s a truth for millions of other middle America (yes, mostly white) voters who are overlooked once the primary race bunting comes down and the bandshells empty back out. Especially in this election, minorities are being courted by Democrats – and considering how many Trump lines they have to choose from, the sell is pretty easy. For everyone else, it’s a disconcerting binary: either you’re a racist homophobe or you’re obviously not voting for Trump, so great, we don’t need to even bother paying lip service to your concerns. Even if Clinton does win in a landslide, what I fear most is the elitism my party is embracing, and its ultimate cost. Some of the people I grew up with are racist. Plenty more are sexist. And a lot of these mainly white midwesterners ventured no farther than the state college. But those are descriptors that also work on plenty of the liberals I’ve met in Boston, Chicago, New York – they just keep those views to themselves while living in much more diverse places. And that lets them off the hook. It sets up that insidious dismissal of anyone who doesn’t live like them, who doesn’t think like them. The stakes for our country are too high to tip those voters toward Trump and then shrug as though that was a preordained result. I believe in the Democratic party’s ability to break barriers – it’s why I wore a “Hillary is my Homegirlâ€\x9d T-shirt to high school back in 2008. The last thing we need right now is more walls.',
 'Banking inquiry told it does not have powers of royal commission A parliamentary library paper has contradicted the claim by small business ombudsman Kate Carnell that her banking inquiry has the same powers as a royal commission. “Whilst the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman has powers to seek information, these powers are not as significant as those of a royal commission,â€\x9d the advice says. “The powers of a royal commission are underpinned by the criminal code so that criminal offences arise where a person fails to comply with a requirement of the royal commission. “In addition the royal commissioner has powers to apply for warrants to search property or to arrest a person. The ASBFE ombudsman has no equivalent power.â€\x9d The Greens treasury and consumer affairs spokesman, senator Peter Whish-Wilson, accused Carnell of giving cover to the banks and again called on the Coalition to set up the royal commission. “The small business ombudsman has been caught out doing a Wizard of Oz routine, pretending the powers of her inquiry into small business loans are the same as a royal commission,â€\x9d Whish-Wilson said. “Ms Carnell was quick to come out publicly against the need for a royal commission, well before she was given this new task. Ms Carnell needs to stop giving cover to the government’s attempts to avoid a royal commission and do her job by standing up to the banks.â€\x9d But Carnell said she was not trying to “pretendâ€\x9d her bank inquiry was a broad-based royal commission, given the terms of reference were very tight and she had 11 weeks to complete the inquiry. “It is clear what we are here for and we are not trying to pretend we are broad-based royal commission,â€\x9d Carnell told Australia. “We can subpoena people to turn up and do all the sorts of normal things that a royal commission can do, which in terms of this inquiry is all that is necessary to be used. I can’t believe the banks won’t turn up.â€\x9d Like a royal commission, her inquiry had no capacity to award compensation, she said. Both the Greens and Labor went to the election calling for a royal commission following a series of bank scandals involving financial advisers, life insurance products and rate-rigging allegations. While the National party senator John Williams has campaigned hard within the Coalition partyroom for a royal commission, the Coalition has moved to head off an inquiry with four separate measures. The government restored an amount of funding to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, announced it would compel bank executives to appear at least once a year before a parliamentary committee and then promised to establish a bank victims tribunal, though details have yet to be released. Most recently, the government set up the Carnell inquiry to look at a limited number of small business cases that arose from a parliamentary inquiry, noted for their “questionable treatmentâ€\x9d by the banks. Carnell’s inquiry will look at the adequacy of the law and consider whether regulations go far enough to protect small business customers. “We have royal commission powers in situations like this and we plan to use them; we will conduct hearings and will use the powers set out in our legislation to require banks to appear and to provide us with the documentation that we need to thoroughly conduct this inquiry,â€\x9d Carnell said when it was announced. According to the parliamentary advice, unlike the ombudsman, the powers of a royal commission are underpinned by the criminal code, giving it the power to summon witnesses to give evidence or produce documents. Failure to do so has a maximum penalty of $1,000 or six months’ jail. The ombudsman can require a person to provide a statement and specified documents – failure to comply is punishable by a $2,400 fine. A royal commission can obtain search warrants, while the ASBFEO has no equivalent power. A royal commission can also issue an arrest warrant for witnesses failing to attend under summons. The small business ombudsman has no equivalent power, nor has it power to allow for legal cross-examination. It is an offence when a person gives false or misleading evidence to a royal commission, punishable by a fine of up to $20,000 or five years’ jail but the ombudsman has no equivalent offence. A royal commission has a number of other offences, such as those relating to bribing witnesses, which have no equivalent offences under the powers of a small business ombudsman. Whish-Wilson said the government’s moves to avoid a royal commission had become farcical. “The Turnbull government refuses to face the reality that only a full-blown commission, with coercive powers to compel witnesses and evidence, can get to the bottom of cultural problems in the financial sector,â€\x9d he said. “Using a dispute resolutions body to stamp out financial wrongdoing misses the point. Any dispute resolutions body will focus on narrow interpretations of justice.â€\x9d But Carnell said her inquiry would recommend any new regulations that might be needed, and allow small businesses to tell their stories, in public if necessary. She said some customers might want redress, some “may just want the bank to say sorryâ€\x9d. “It also needs to be as user-friendly as possible and because they are small businesses, often with no money, they are not going to be lawyered up and nor should they be,â€\x9d Carnell said. “The banks will have lawyers but we have to make sure process is not intimidating.â€\x9d Labor’s financial services shadow Katy Gallagher said the Carnell inquiry was limited to the 23 individual matters it was asked to examine, rather than the systemic inquiry into the financial system that a royal commission would provide. Gallagher said a royal commission would allow a thorough investigation into past wrongs, allow victims’ stories to be heard and give recommendations to strengthen the financial system. “The Carnell inquiry won’t achieve any of these outcomes all of which are so badly needed,â€\x9d she said.',
 'Donald Trump withdraws pledge to support Republican nominee Donald Trump has backtracked on his much ballyhooed pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee as he deals with swirling controversy after his campaign manager was charged with assaulting a reporter. In a television town hall in Milwaukee with CNN on Tuesday night, Trump insisted he had been “treated very unfairlyâ€\x9d by the Republican National Committee and the establishment and revoked the commitment he signed in September. Although the Republican frontrunner previously hinted that he might do so, saying the RNC was “in defaultâ€\x9d, he had never explicitly revoked his commitment until Tuesday. The statement came as Trump stood by Corey Lewandowski, his embattled campaign manager, who was captured on tape forcibly grabbing a reporter for the right-wing website Breitbart after a press conference. Trump suggested that the reporter, who had been screened by the secret service in order to be allowed in the candidate’s vicinity, may have been carrying a bomb. Lewandowski’s arrest dominated the CNN town hall, which featured anchor Anderson Cooper questioning all three Republican candidates. Texas senator Ted Cruz, when asked if he would fire his campaign manager for the same behavior, replied “of courseâ€\x9d. John Kasich said: “I haven’t seen the video but they tell me the video is real and of course I would.â€\x9d Trump struggled with policy questions. While calling Nato “obsolete,â€\x9d Trump bemoaned the fact that the international alliance doesn’t deal with terrorism. Nato has taken a lead role in the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. He also said nuclear proliferation “is going to happen anywayâ€\x9d and seemed comfortable with Japan developing nuclear weapons. On domestic policy, Trump challenged conservative orthodoxy by stating education and healthcare were two of the three key functions of the federal government along with security. Both are controversial as many Republicans call for the abolition of the Department of Education as well as repealing Obamacare and severely limiting the federal role in healthcare. The Republican frontrunner was also chastised for his tone by Cooper, who compared Trump’s argument to that of a five-year-old, when he defended his jibes towards Ted Cruz’s wife. Trump was not the only candidate to leave the door open to not backing the GOP nominee in November. Ted Cruz who pledged in March to support the party’s nominee regardless, said of Trump: “I am not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and my family and I think our wife and kids should be off limits.â€\x9d This repeated previous statements that Cruz has made in recent days after Trump’s threat to “spill the beansâ€\x9d on his wife and accused the frontrunner of spreading lies about him in a supermarket tabloid. This was echoed by Kasich, appearing after Trump, who said: “I gotta see what happens. If the nominee’s somebody who’s hurting the country I can’t stand behind them.â€\x9d The Ohio governor had also previously pledged to support the party’s eventual nominee. Both Kasich and Cruz were asked if they had paths to victory. Cruz insisted that he could pick up the nearly 800 delegates he needed to win on the first ballot by noting “most of the races are winner-take-all or winner take mostâ€\x9d. The Texas senator said Trump had a ceiling and faced “a difficult time reaching over 50% of the voteâ€\x9d and dismissed Kasich as having “no path to winningâ€\x9d. Kasich, who insisted that the nomination would be decided by a contested convention, referenced the history of the Republican party. He noted that often the party’s nominee did not arrive at the convention with a plurality of delegates. Kasich took a firm stance criticizing Cruz and Trump for their policies towards Muslims in the United States. The Ohio governor sneered at Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, “raise your hand if you’re a Muslim, that doesn’t workâ€\x9d, he said, while also criticizing Cruz’s proposals to increase police presence in Muslim neighborhoods. Kasich quoted New York police commissioner Bill Bratton who described Cruz’s plan as “ridiculousâ€\x9d. He also was the only candidate to reference the Easter Sunday terrorist attack in Lahore when he said “when people in Pakistan die, we all die a little bitâ€\x9d. The candidates also were asked personal questions which they answered to varying degrees of effectiveness. When Trump was asked about the last time he apologized, his response was “oh wowâ€\x9d and he was left briefly speechless before recalling apologizing to his mother for using foul language and his wife for not behaving in a “presidentialâ€\x9d manner. Cruz said his biggest weakness is that “I am a pretty driven guyâ€\x9d while criticizing other politicians for “running around behaving like they are holier than thouâ€\x9d.',
 'Fat White Family: Songs for Our Mothers review – still testing the boundaries of taste Speaking to what’s left of the weekly music press, Fat White Family guitarist Saul Adamczewski offered his sales pitch for the band’s second album. “We’ve really tried to go to the extremes of what’s tasteful,â€\x9d he offered, “or even good.â€\x9d This is the kind of hyperbolic remark fame-hungry bands are wont to make in the middle of NME features that breathlessly detail their druggy excesses and establishment-baiting credentials: a jaded observer might suggest that the most surprising thing about it is that the NME still interviews bands, presumably as a sideline to its main business of running advertorial for computer companies and encouraging its readers to buy toiletries. But Adamczewski wasn’t exaggerating. Over the course of its 11 tracks, Songs for Our Mothers variously takes in fascism – there’s a track sung in German called Lebensraum, while the seven minutes of Duce achieves the not inconsiderable feat of being an even more incomprehensible song about Mussolini than the Scott Walker one that featured the erstwhile crooner punching a piece of meat – serial killers, domestic abuse and racist chanting, before concluding with Goodbye Goebbels, a lachrymose country ballad sung from the viewpoint of Hitler, reminiscing “about the good timesâ€\x9d with his minister of propaganda shortly before their suicides. This is all presumably intended either as a riposte to the way rock music’s capacity for furore-inducing transgression has become increasingly blunted – it’s perhaps telling that Adamczewski once plied his trade in the Metros, a wan, post-Libertines pop-punk band who dealt in precisely the kind of carefully scripted rebellious posturing that Songs for Our Mothers seems to mock – or as satire on the current climate of censoriousness, in which certain sections of the internet seem to be engaged in an endless search for things to be offended by. In a world in which someone appears to find almost everything, no matter how innocuous, “problematicâ€\x9d, here’s something so wilfully, relentlessly, self-evidently problematic as to boggle even the most libertarian mind. You don’t have to be the kind of person who spends their days forensically examining the lyrics of pop records in order to find something problematic to be horrified by the disgusting line in Satisified, where frontman Lias Saoudi compares a woman fellating him to a starving Auschwitz inmate reduced to “sucking the marrow out of a boneâ€\x9d. Whether it’s one or the other, or indeed both, it’s worth noting that we’ve been here before: Songs for Our Mothers fairly obviously exists in the shadow of Throbbing Gristle, and not merely because they pushed almost every disquieting button pushed here 40 years ago. You can hear echoes of their debut album, Second Annual Report, in the muffled production, and in the way the vocals are frequently distorted with electronic effect and buried within the mix, so the listener has to strain to hear them – as if trying to eavesdrop on something deeply unpleasant. It’s an influence Fat White Family openly acknowledge, just as they’ve previously noted their debt to the Fall and the Country Teasers – the promotional photographs for their single The Whitest Boy on the Beach were an obvious homage to the cover of TG’s 1979 album 20 Jazz Funk Greats – and there’s little doubt the old provocations still pack a punch. Even the critic from the Quietus, a website that staunchly supports Fat White Family, drew the line at Hits Hits Hits’ queasy puns about the violence meted out to Tina Turner by her then-husband Ike. Still, a jaded voice might contend, the big difference is that Throbbing Gristle’s taboo-busting was set to music so strange and groundbreaking that it spawned an entire genre. Songs for Our Mothers sticks closer to a lo-fi rock template – distorted guitars, primitive drum machines invariably set to a crawling tempo, bursts of electronic noise – with mixed results. Sometimes the juxtaposition of music and subject matter works. There’s an infectious, romantic sentimentality about the tune of Goodbye Goebbels that makes the song all the more unsettling, while Satisified sets its grimness to a weirdly effective cocktail of grinding synthesised bass, Casio keyboard drums and twanging guitar line, midway between the riff of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus and John Barry’s perky theme tune to Juke Box Jury. Blessed with some of the album’s most innocuous lyrics, The Whitest Boy on the Beach is just fantastic, a sickly sounding take on Giorgio Moroder’s brand of disco. Elsewhere, it feels a bit wanting. Fat White Family have always struggled to capture the power of their live performances in the studio, and there’s a chance that the lumbering din of We Must Learn to Rise and Duce gain potency on stage, but here they sound interminable and tediously flat: an endless racket featuring someone banging on vaguely about a fascist dictator, which is something anyone with even a passing knowledge of extreme music is going to have heard dozens of times before. Worse, there’s something a bit smirky about When Shipman Decides’ waltz beat, oompah brass and pub piano: it sounds like something you might hear in an “edgyâ€\x9d student comedy revue, which is surely not what they were aiming for. The question of what Fat White Family are aiming for is unanswered over Songs for Our Mothers, the confusion compounded further by Tinfoil Deathstar, which, amid all the willful amorality and nihilism, seems to take an oddly moralistic stance about sequestering yourself from the horror of the outside world with drugs. Whatever the album is trying to do – provoke, confront, horrify – it only partially achieves it. Some of it is genuinely shocking, some of it reminds you of that old Onion news story about Marilyn Manson going door-to-door trying to shock people. Some of it is viscerally thrilling, some of it just bores you stiff. Fat White Family clearly think rock music needs a bomb putting under it, and they’ve got a point. Yet Songs for Our Mothers feels like a bomb that only partially detonates.',
 'Hillary Clinton pushed to the limit as Cruz beats Trump in Iowa caucuses Hillary Clinton was given the fright of her life as veteran socialist senator Bernie Sanders pushed her to the limit in the Iowa caucuses, on a night of extreme drama in the first test of the US presidential election year. Ted Cruz, the maverick Texas senator, used his formidable ground game to beat the bombastic property tycoon Donald Trump into second place in the Republican race. And with Florida senator Marco Rubio enjoying a strong night in third place, the congested Republican field could yet be reshaped as a head-to-head between two Cuban Americans vying to become the first Latino president of the United States. Yet it was in the Democratic race where the closest of finishes caused high anxiety in the Clinton camp. With more than 99% of the precinct results in, Clinton led 49.9% to 49.6% over Sanders after seeing an apparently comfortable lead slip. The Associated Press and multiple outlets said the race was simply too close to call, though the Clinton camp claimed a narrow victory. Both candidates will now move on to New Hampshire buoyed up, Clinton with a “sigh of reliefâ€\x9d that her bid to be the first female president of the United States is alive, and Sanders believing that his revolution against the “billionaire classesâ€\x9d truly began in the snowy cornfields of Iowa. With half of the results in across the rural midwest state, Clinton appeared to be easing to victory, three points up on the Vermont senator, whose relatively ramshackle campaign seemed to be no match for her mighty political machine. But as the night wore on, Clinton’s lead shrank to two and then one point, until she was locked in a virtual tie with the 74-year-old whose passion has ignited a fervour among young Americans. Appearing onstage in Des Moines before the final tally arrived, Clinton hailed “a contest of ideasâ€\x9d and appeared battle-ready for the fight of her political life. She congratulated her opponent, saying: “I am excited about really getting into the debate with Senator Sanders about the best way forward to fight for us in America.â€\x9d The democratic socialist, though, has stolen some momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary on 9 February – and a prolonged fight appears inevitable, a far cry from what had been envisaged as a graceful procession toward the nomination for Clinton. By almost 11pm local time, the two Democratic rivals had both given what sounded like competing victory speeches. Sanders raised the roof as he told supporters: “While the results are still not known, it looks like we are in virtual tie,â€\x9d adding: “The people of Iowa have sent a very profound message to the political establishment, the economic establishment, and by the way to the media establishment.â€\x9d Largely written off by both the media and Democratic leaders, Sanders has been attracting huge crowds across the state since he first started campaigning here in the summer and made Clinton’s poll leads that reached as high as 32% all but evaporate. Late on Monday night in Des Moines, a crowd at Sanders’ victory party was watching him inch to within 0.2 percentage points down, to a tie on the television overhead, then back down to 0.2 points. Someone put on Sanders’ fight song – the Simon & Garfunkel anthem America. “They’ve all come to look for America,â€\x9d sang the throng. Speaking to reporters on a chartered plane flying to New Hampshire, Sanders called on officials to take the unusual step of revealing underlying voter totals. Delegates are awarded in the Iowa Democratic contest on a precint-by-precinct basis, irrespective of the state-wide vote for each candidate. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I know there are some precincts that have still not reported. I can only hope and expect that the count will be honest,â€\x9d he said. “I have no idea, did we win the popular vote? I don’t know, but as much information as possible should be made available.â€\x9d At the Clinton event, the former first lady, secretary of state and senator was introduced by retired Iowa senator Tom Harkin and his wife Ruth, both popular figures who endorsed Clinton last summer. Harkin embraced what he said was a “narrowâ€\x9d victory for Clinton, even as the results were still being counted. “Hey, folks, a win is a win!â€\x9d he exclaimed. Later on, Clinton’s campaign director in Iowa, Matt Paul, said there was “no uncertaintyâ€\x9d that Clinton had won. Clinton herself stopped short of declaring victory as she took the stage, flanked by husband Bill and daughter Chelsea, before a crowd of roughly 700 supporters. “Wow, what a night, an unbelievable night,â€\x9d she said. “Now, as I stand here tonight breathing a sigh of relief – thank you.â€\x9d At times the cheers so deafening they drowned out Clinton’s words. It was an outright celebration, however narrow the result, of a candidate who eight years ago suffered a bruising defeat in the same state at the hands of Barack Obama. This time, she will head to New Hampshire having hit her stride – campaigning laboriously for every vote. Last time she slipped to third in Iowa behind Obama and John Edwards. As midnight approached, with 50 of the 1,683 precincts still to declare, Clinton led 49.9% to 49.6%. However, rumours began to circulate that some of the results were in dispute and that the Democratic party had failed to staff 90 caucuses, raising the prospect of an ugly clash between the Clinton and Sanders camps. In the Republican contest, it was a predictably chastening night for Jeb Bush, the candidate with all of the money and the presidential lineage who has been diminished by the taunts of Donald Trump saying he is “low energyâ€\x9d. Bush barely registered, in sixth place at 2.8% behind retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in fourth and libertarian Rand Paul in fifth. But the Republican night belonged to Cruz, who called it “a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa and all across this great nationâ€\x9d, vowing that the Republican nominee for 2016 “will not be chosen by the Washington establishmentâ€\x9d. If the taming of Trump was a surprise – Cruz picked up the most votes ever in a Republican Iowa caucus – there is also a warning from history. In the last seven contested national caucuses, they have chosen the eventual nominee only three times. Donald Trump gave a rare display of humility during a brief speech at a hotel in West Des Moines. “We finished second and I want to tell you seriously I am honoured,â€\x9d he said, making a point to “congratulate Tedâ€\x9d. After months of crowing about how he was destined to win, he immediately moved to reframe expectations, saying that he had been warned “do not to go to Iowa. You could never finish even in the top 10â€\x9d. “We’re just so happy about the way everything turned out,â€\x9d he added. However, the mood at Donald Trump’s party in western Des Moines went from subdued when it emerged he had been pushed into second place by Cruz, to outright downbeat when it became apparent he had been almost tied by third-place Rubio. A defiant Rubio echoed the words of Barack Obama in 2008 when he took the stage at his caucus night party in Des Moines. “So this is the moment they said would never happen. For months, they told us we had no chance,â€\x9d Rubio told a raucous crowd inside a ballroom at the downtown Marriott. “They told me I needed to wait my turn. They told me we had no chance because my hair wasn’t gray enough and my boots were too high,â€\x9d he said, referring to a minor media storm about his Cuban heel boots. “But tonight, here in Iowa, the people of this great state have sent a very clear message after seven years of Barack Obama we are not waiting any longer,â€\x9d he added. If Rubio can lead the establishment crowd in New Hampshire, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Jeb Bush will be all but done and he may come through the middle as a youthful alternative. Cruz is deeply unpopular in his own party and Trump is diminished if not yet vanquished. “Ground game, ground game, ground gameâ€\x9d was the reason that Cruz’s Iowa’s co- chair Matt Schultz gave for his candidate’s triumph. Cruz staffers had long been supremely confident that they had the resources on the ground to triumph and felt confident that they had done everything right. Unlike Trump, their candidate had visited all 99 counties and built up what was universally acknowledged to be the best field organisation of any candidate. The mood at the Cruz party was jubilant. A cover band played rock and country music as attendees slowly started to grasp their achievement in winning the caucuses. The crowd’s enthusiasm barely flagged as Cruz spoke for about 25 minutes to the assembled audience at the Elwell building on the grounds of the Iowa state fair. In an interview on caucus day, Cruz’s state director, Bryan English, told the that their organisation “was a modelâ€\x9d. “It’s an organic process … go straight to people, meeting them where they are, in twos, threes, and fives, then dozens, hundreds and thousands … It’s not through paid media, not through direct mail, but through person-to-person relationship building.â€\x9d The two casualties of the night were Martin O’Malley, who dropped out of the Democratic race, and Mike Huckabee, who suspended his Republican campaign.',
 "The Birth of a Nation's reception compromised by director's rape trial Following a rapturously received debut at the Sundance film festival in January, Nate Parker’s slavery drama The Birth of a Nation seemed set on a sure trajectory to success and awards nominations. Now that road seems less certain due to a rape allegation and trial from the actor, writer and film-maker’s past. On Friday, two of Hollywood’s top trade papers, Variety and Deadline, posted interviews with Parker, in which he directly addressed the circumstances in which he was tried for rape while at college in 1999. During his sophomore year at Penn State University, Parker and his roommate Jean Celestin, who shares credit with Parker for The Birth of a Nation’s story, were charged with raping a female student while she was unconscious. Both men were suspended from the wrestling team, and Parker later transferred to a different college in Oklahoma. Parker, who had had an earlier sexual encounter with the victim that both said was consensual, was acquitted of the charges in 2001; Celestin was initially found guilty. He then appealed the verdict and was granted a new trial in 2005 – but the case never came to court after the victim decided not to testify again. Although there was no retrial, the case led to a lawsuit filed by the Women’s Law Project against the university over its treatment of sexual assault. That suit was settled with a cash sum and a vow to review procedures for sexual assault cases at the school. Court documents show that the woman said she was harassed by Parker and Celestin after she reported the incident to the police. She dropped out of college and is said to have attempted suicide. On Tuesday, Variety carried an interview with the woman’s older brother Johnny, who said that she had killed herself in 2012. Her death certificate, obtained by the paper, stated that she was suffering “major depressive disorder with psychotic features, PTSD due to physical and sexual abuse, polysubstance abuse …â€\x9d The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, had had a child since the trial. Whether or not Parker, who has five daughters, knew that his accuser had died, is unknown. He did not mention the woman’s death in his interviews. He had told Deadline: “I stand here, a 36-year-old man, 17 years removed from one of the most painful … moments in my life. And I can imagine it was painful for everyone.â€\x9d He called on women “to stand up, to speak out when they feel violated, in every degree, as I prepare to take my own daughter to collegeâ€\x9d. The intention behind the director’s agreement to interviews, well ahead of the film’s release on 7 October, was clear: distributor Fox Searchlight, which bought the film for $17.5m at Sundance, sought to quell the potential controversy that could hinder the film’s awards prospects by having Parker face the legal matter head-on. He brought his six-year-old daughter to the Variety interview, and invited Deadline to his home, scattered with “remnants of the five daughters who live with him all aroundâ€\x9d. Fox Searchlight issued a statement to coincide with the two interviews: “Fox Searchlight is aware of the incident that occurred while Nate Parker was at Penn State. We also know that he was found innocent and cleared of all charges. We stand behind Nate and are proud to help bring this important and powerful story to the screen.â€\x9d Parker told Deadline that this would mark the last time he would talk about the case while promoting The Birth of a Nation. “I will not relive that period of my life every time I go under the microscope,â€\x9d he said. However, the topic is unlikely to go away as Parker promotes the film. Provocatively named after DW Griffith’s notoriously racist 1915 film, which lionises the Ku Klux Klan and depicts black Americans as savages, Parker’s film centers on the story of Nat Turner, a former slave who led a revolt in 1831 to free African Americans in Virginia. Variety reported on Monday that Fox Searchlight was having second thoughts about its plan to have Parker attend screenings for the film – which features a rape scene – in churches (Parker is a devout Christian) and on college campuses around the country. Though the intention was for Parker to discuss issues of social justice raised by the film, each appearance runs the risk of the case being brought up in a public forum. The film company is also considering not granting new interviews with Parker from now until the film screens at the Toronto international film festival in September. Sources told Variety that Fox Searchlight wasn’t aware of the allegations before buying the film – and had only learned about it after the deal was struck. Neither profile addressed the alleged comments made by Parker while promoting the 2014 romance Beyond the Lights, when he reportedly said he would not play a gay character in order to “preserve the black manâ€\x9d. In his interview last week, he did, however, tell Deadline he was an LGBT ally, saying: “The black community is my community, the LGBT community too, and the female community. That is my community. That’s me, it’s who I am.â€\x9d Johnny, the brother of the woman who accused Parker of rape, told Variety: “His character should be under a microscope because of this incident. If you removed these two people, the project is commendable. But there’s a moral and ethical stance you would expect from someone with regard to this movie.â€\x9d He added: “I don’t think a rapist should be celebrated. It’s really a cultural decision we’re making as a society to go to the theater and speak with our dollars and reward a sexual predator.â€\x9d Parker’s character seems destined to come under increasing scrutiny as his film airs in cinemas around the world. It will be released in the UK at the end of the year.",
 'Val Kilmer: Michael Douglas apologised after throat cancer scare Michael Douglas has apologised for the incautious remark in which he claimed that fellow actor Val Kilmer was suffering from the same form of throat cancer that had affected Douglas. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Kilmer wrote: “Michael Douglas wrote me a nice note apologizing for suggesting to the press overseas, I ‘wasn’t doing too well …’ and was grateful to hear I am doing well. He’s a classy guy.â€\x9d Douglas had originally sparked widespread alarm by stating during a Q&A in London on 30 October that Kilmer, with whom he had worked on the 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness, was “a wonderful guy who is dealing with exactly what I had, and things don’t look too good for himâ€\x9d. Kilmer denied the story two days later, writing: “I love Michael Douglas but he is misinformed … [I] have no cancer whatsoever.â€\x9d',
 'The Pearl review: fascinating trans subjects let down by documentary The Pearl is a film that arrived right on time. Thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, television shows such as Orange is the New Black and Transparent, and films including last year’s indie crowd-pleaser Tangerine and Oscar winner The Danish Girl, the transgender movement is in the spotlight in a way that it’s never been before. A documentary following four middle-aged transgender women in Pacific north-west logging towns, The Pearl paints an illuminating portrait of lives seldom given a presence onscreen. But though the subjects and their stories are inherently fascinating, the film-makers, Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca, rather bafflingly can’t seem to make out a worthy film out of the material. There’s Nina, a pizza delivery person who identifies as trans, but who struggles with how to convey her true self to her wife of nearly 40 years. Amy, the eldest of the lot, loses her wife of many years and opens her home to fellow trans people seeking support. Finally, there are Krystal and Jodie, two former brothers who now identify as sisters. The film starts with the group convening for a trans convention, and tracks their separate journeys from there. Dimmock and LaMarca take a vérité approach to their documentary, choosing to have the women’s everyday actions speak for themselves, rather than through confessional on-camera interviews. With the occasional voiceover, the four discuss what led them to transition, but they’re rarely afforded the chance to open up about the battles they no doubt face in embodying their true selves. Amy especially receives the short end of the stick. The film-makers have her tease her past living as a married man, but gloss over whether her wife, now deceased, was supportive through her predicament. Nina vaguely alludes to her partner’s awareness of her struggle, but we never see them together. When Nina’s mother arrives toward the end of the film to meet her Nina for the first time, their discussion is admittedly involving – it’s the rare instance where The Pearl plays it simple, and lets a truthful moment resonate. But most of the documentary is needlessly confusing because of the abstract way the film-makers tell their subjects’ stories. With no buildup, Amy appears in a hospital bed in Bangkok, following sex reassignment surgery. The scene should be cause for celebration. Instead, it registers as a shock because of its abrupt presentation. During a discussion after The Pearl’s premiere at the True/False film festival, the four trans women proved to the audience how engaging and moving they could be. They shared more in 20 minutes of talking than the documentary captures in more than an hour. They deserve to have their voices heard, and not simply muffled by The Pearl.',
 'We need social care that’s fit for purpose A great start to your focus on the NHS, with some words from the people actually providing the service, showing their amazing dedication to the ethos of the NHS as a caring organisation (The workers, 18 January). But that last phrase shows one difficulty: the NHS is, or should be, just one part of the whole social care structure of the country. The truth is that many of the patients the NHS is dealing with should not be in hospitals at all; as Rob Hinchliffe, the vascular surgeon at St George’s put it, the NHS is “keep[ing] frail people alive for longerâ€\x9d. Most of these people do not need urgent medical care and should be out in their homes and communities. To achieve this, we need a properly integrated and fully funded social care system, not the present situation where most of these functions are dumped on local authorities while this lousy government puts massive pressure on their budgets. Much of this social care is being provided by private companies, most with a strong focus on their profits, hence the decisions made last year when several care home companies simply walked away from the problem, leaving elderly and vulnerable people with little or no support. You reported last November that half of the UK’s care homes could close due to a £2.9bn shortfall of funding, but I haven’t heard of any efforts by George Osborne to deal with this issue. The NHS itself, even under current funding pressure, is incredibly efficient and, more importantly, highly effective in getting people’s problems dealt with and back on their feet. So the real target should be getting this government to fund the whole social care network properly and to stop fiddling with the NHS. The Tories wasted their first five years on Andrew Lansley’s completely unnecessary reforms of the NHS, with the same track now being followed by the equally ignorant Jeremy Hunt Do not let the Tories get away with this utter failure to address the wider picture and instead wasting energy attacking the NHS, while neglecting social care and forcing councils to cut budgets at the same time. They are failing the whole country. David Reed London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 '‘A sense that white identity is under attack’: making sense of the alt-right The appointment of Breitbart Media’s executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, as Donald Trump’s campaign CEO has been greeted as a turning point in that presidential bid, and perhaps in conservative politics in America. We have been told that it “marks the official entree of the so-called ‘alt-right’ into the Republicans’ top campaignâ€\x9d, and that Trump’s election strategy “now resembles the alt-right dream of maximizing the white voteâ€\x9d. Hillary Clinton will address Trump’s alleged turn to the alt-right in a speech in Nevada this Thursday. But what is the alt-right? It is new, difficult to pin down, and hard to understand. But it’s important to try to get a handle on who is involved, what they believe, and what their possible influence might be on the immediate future of rightwing politics. A movement that lives and breathes – and taunts – online The alt- (or alternative) right has surged as a (so far) mainly online movement, occupying positions beyond the pale of many conservatives. It has no centralised organisation or official ideology – it has been described as “scattered and ideologically diffuseâ€\x9d. The alt-right has been involved in fleeting street protests, but its online activities are well-organised and relentless. It recruits by opposing progressive ideas about gender, sexuality, and especially race and immigration. Adherents congregate on message boards like 4chan and 8chan, comment on websites like the Right Stuff and American Renaissance, and lurk on Twitter, where they taunt progressives (or “shitlibsâ€\x9d) and mainstream conservatives (“cuckservativesâ€\x9d). The association with Breitbart comes from the efforts of Milo Yiannopoulos to appropriate and popularise the term. At the height of his Twitter-driven notoriety, Yiannopoulos wrote a manifesto introducing the tendency to mainstream conservatives. But are Breitbart and Bannon really a part of the movement? Some of its most hardcore activists say no. Race realism and ethno-nationalism: what the alt-right believes Richard Spencer, who coined the term “alt-rightâ€\x9d in 2008, says he intended the term to describe a diverse, heterodox group whose members were “deeply alienated, intellectually, even emotionally and spiritually, from American conservatismâ€\x9d. They were disillusioned at the end of the Bush presidency by Republican policies on war and immigration. They sought to draw on currents like the European New Right to transform what they saw as a moribund conservative movement. He and others connected with the succession of websites he edited – such as Taki magazine and alternativeright.com – wrote extensively, focusing the alt-right into a more definite ideology, with increasingly hardline ideas about race. Spencer says that the term is still flexible, but affiliation has some minimum requirements. “Someone who is really alt-right recognises the reality of race, and the fact that race matters, and that race is an essential component of identity.â€\x9d Shane Burley, a journalist and researcher who has covered the far right extensively, says that Spencer’s orientation “is clearly under the umbrella of what we would call fascismâ€\x9d. Spencer’s so-called “race realismâ€\x9d underpins theories of racial hierarchy, and the idea that it has a basis in biology. Related ideas of “human biodiversityâ€\x9d attempt to buttress the notion that race is destiny, and the primary organising category of society and history. Radix is full of articles that link race with IQ or crime. This revival of previously discredited scientific racism is another recurring feature of alt-right thought. Burley says that the very fact that these ideas were once so thoroughly discredited opens up a gap for them to be promulgated again. “Right now the arguments against their race and IQ position are less well-known, so they have the ability to plant the seed in the public imagination. “Almost all of the studies that they cite are marginal, construct-sweeping theories on the basis of very little data, and don’t demonstrate the causal links that they claim for them.â€\x9d Other adherents emphasise their desire for racial separatism. Mike Enoch, from the site the Right Stuff, a major hub for the dissemination of alt-right materials, says: “The core principle, in my view, is ethno-nationalism, meaning that nations should be as ethnically and racially homogeneous as possible.â€\x9d As for Breitbart, Enoch thinks that it “is the closest thing to sympathetic to our position that is out there in the mainstream, and there may be some people that share our views that work there, but the official editorial line of Breitbart is not alt-rightâ€\x9d. Chip Berlet, a veteran researcher of the far right and the coauthor of Right-Wing Populism in America, says that the idea of ethno-nationalism is derived from the European New Right. It’s the claim that “every ethno-religious nationalist group has the right to its own homelandâ€\x9d. This willingness to make open racial appeals is reflected in another fundamental claim on the alt-right that, as Spencer puts it, is the preponderance of “Jewish power and Jewish influenceâ€\x9d. This antisemitism dovetails with other kinds of conspiracy thinking – in the last week, alt-right Twitter accounts have been pushing the claim that Hillary Clinton is hiding serious health problems. Berlet says antisemitism has “always been a dividing line on the US rightâ€\x9d, separating the fringes from more mainstream groups, and “rightwing movements in the US have been obsessed with conspiracies since the Salem witch-hunts and the anti-Masonic scares. Nativist movements have always embraced the motif of subversion. It’s normal for them: it makes them into heroes who have exposed a plot.â€\x9d ‘A sense that white identity is under attack’ Perhaps the most potent element of alt-right activism is the effort to build a sense of a specific white identity, and to claim that this identity is under attack. “Anti-white animus in society at large is palpable,â€\x9d says Spencer. Demands for diversity in the workplace mean “less white males in particularâ€\x9d. More openly extreme alt-right accounts on Twitter talk about immigration in terms of “white genocideâ€\x9d. This sense of injured white identity is what defines the alt-right, according to Dan Cassino, a Fairleigh Dickinson University political scientist and the author of a new book on Fox News and American politics. “The founding myth of the alt-right is that the disadvantaged groups in American politics are actually running things through a combination of fraud and intimidation. By doing this, they’re actually oppressing white men.â€\x9d The “original sinâ€\x9d of current American politics, according to Cassino, is that neither liberals nor conservatives have a very good answer to the question of what is to be done about “the people who get screwed overâ€\x9d by economic policies. If these sentiments are growing, it may mean a larger and more receptive audience for the more radical message of the alt-right. Adherents claim that the movement is expanding. Spencer does not have solid figures, but claims to have seen many new faces at his events, including young people who have been “redpilledâ€\x9d – or racially “awokenâ€\x9d – in the last year. Enoch claims that the Right Stuff’s suite of podcasts gets more than 100,000 listeners a week. It may be that a growing audience for these ideas is pulling Breitbart in a more hardline direction. Spencer calls Breitbart “alt-right liteâ€\x9d, and says that its fundamental populism has led them to tentatively begin to express ideas similar to his. Berlet says just because Bannon is not a card-carrying member of the alt-right does not mean that progressives should be relaxed about Trump’s erratic and intermittently fascist-sounding campaign. Berlet does not think that American politics has been in such a dangerous place vis-a-vis the far right for almost a century. For him, the parallels between the Trump campaign and the alt-right are “the most important pushback against having a multicultural and pluralistic society since the 1920s Klanâ€\x9d.',
 'US investors ploughing billions into palm oil, claims report Some of the US’ leading institutional investors, including pension funds, are potentially fuelling environmental and social harm by ploughing billions of dollars into the palm oil industry through opaque financial arrangements, a new report claims. Large investment firms are lagging behind commitments made by consumer brands such as Nestlé, Unilever and McDonald’s by failing to identify whether they are investing in palm oil, which palm oil companies they are involved with, or to hold them accountable over deforestation and land grabbing, the Friends of the Earth US (FoE) report states. Burgeoning demand for the cheap vegetable oil, increasingly from China and India, is putting pressure on rainforests that are cleared to make way for the crop. According to the FoE report, BlackRock, the Vanguard Group, JPMorgan and Fidelity Investments have almost $13bn in holdings in palm oil between them. In the report, FoE claims that pension funds CalPERS and TIAA-CREF also have investments of more than $100m each in palm oil activity, with overseas land and agriculture “widely perceived as low-risk asset classesâ€\x9d for investor portfolios. Joe DeAnda, a spokesperson for CalPERS, said: “We don’t have anything specific to palm oil – as such holding[s] are likely de minimus in the portfolio.â€\x9d However, DeAnda says CalPERS has an extensive and detailed investment policy, which includes environmental considerations like climate change. TIAA-CREF did not wish to comment. Jeff Conant, senior international forest campaigner at FoE, said: “Investments in palm oil producers and other companies that drive tropical deforestation and land grabbing are largely hidden in the portfolios of asset managers and institutional investors [...] who generally have no processes in place to deal with companies that commit human rights and environmental abuses.â€\x9d “Investors need to undertake greater due diligence and ask some obvious questions, such as ‘does the company I’m investing in have legally acquired permits for land?’, ‘does it have the consent of local people?’ and ‘what is its financial structure?’ US companies should show leadership – if they do, others will follow. But it’s fairly new territory for them.â€\x9d US investors are under no legal obligation to consider the potential environmental harm of overseas palm oil activity, even though many have voluntary policies on issues such as climate change. JPMorgan will no longer finance new coal mines due to concerns over climate change, while a CalPERS shareholder resolution in May demanded that Rio Tinto explain the climate risk of mining. Land-clearing for palm oil is considered a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The situation is complicated by the fact that many investors hold palm oil assets through index funds – a type of fund that automatically selects companies to invest in based on fluctuations in a market index. The result is that complex financial instruments can mask much of the money flowing to land clearing in Indonesia, Malaysia and parts of Africa because those investing are not making active decisions about what they’re investing in. FoE and As You Sow have developed a new database where members of the public can search for the name of their fund to see what palm oil holdings, and the value of the assets, are in the portfolio. Asked why BlackRock does not have a policy on palm oil and if any action would be taken against unethical companies, spokesperson Ed Sweeney said: “Third party index providers determine the companies that are included in passively managed mutual funds and ETFs [exchange traded funds]. BlackRock manages about $1.8tn in passive strategies on behalf of our clients [and] approximately $200bn in investment strategies for our clients that utilise screens to align clients’ portfolios with their values.â€\x9d Nicole Kennedy, a spokesperson for JPMorgan, provided a link to the company’s environmental and social policy framework, which outlines the procedures that JPMorgan requires for transactions that involve palm oil production. Steve Austin, a spokesperson for Fidelity, said: “It’s our longstanding practice not to discuss specific fund investments or investment decisions. We respect everyone’s right to choose how they invest their moneyâ€\x9d. The Vanguard Group is yet to reply to the ’s request for comment. Several banks including Santander and Rabobank have taken a stand on palm oil, although HSBC, which says it is committed to supporting the “legal and sustainableâ€\x9d growth of the industry, has been previously accused of bankrolling rainforest destruction. Some investors have also responded to what they say is growing public pressure over palm oil, spurred on by disasters such as last year’s forest fires in Indonesia, which covered much of the country, Singapore and Malaysia in a thick, acrid haze. In June last year, for example, at least 80 investors managing more than $5tn in assets put their name to a letter criticising the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for “lagging behindâ€\x9d commitments made by some consumer brands. At the time, the RSPO – which aims to improve the sustainability of the sector – responded to the letter saying it acknowledged the importance of the issues raised: “We are, and will continue taking all constructive comments on board. We are confident that with a commitment to continuous improvement and with the support of all committed players we will be able to truly achieve our vision of market transformation.â€\x9d The RSPO has since produced new, stricter standards. California-based Sonen Capital, one of the signatories of the letter, said that most investors are dangerously removed from what occurs within companies in their portfolios. “Palm oil isn’t a new issue, it’s been cooking for a while and now asset owners are taking a look under the hood, they aren’t always liking what they are seeing,â€\x9d says Will Morgan, director of impact at Sonen Capital. “We’ve got a much greater sensibility on climate change and even conflict minerals, but on palm oil we are really playing catch-up, which is terrible because the destruction is already underway. The policies around palm oil are woefully inadequate. “The directive is to maximize returns [...] That’s a perfectly reasonable goal, but if you add an asterisk that adds ‘without ruining the planet or people’s lives’, most investors would agree with that.â€\x9d Morgan believes there needs to be “definitive guidelinesâ€\x9d within the investment industry around palm oil, similar to those that have helped reduce unsustainable logging. These rules would be formulated and overseen by a third party, with regular audits and removal of companies from portfolios that breach these standards. Investors need to be made aware of the potential harm caused by palm oil operations and there should be an independent third party, other than the RSPO, that accredits palm oil suppliers, Morgan added. This article was amended on 29 July 2016. A previous version referred to the RSPO as an “industry-driven groupâ€\x9d. It was further amended on 2 August 2016 to refer to the launch of RSPO’s new standards aimed at improving sustainability.',
 'UK construction sector output better than expected in August Construction activity recovered in August, reversing most of the slump seen in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. Output fell for a third month, but the pace of decline slowed markedly. The construction PMI (pdf) from Markit/CIPS jumped to 49.2 in August from 45.9 in July. The reading was better than the 46.1 figure expected by City economists. The 50 mark separates growth from contraction: anything below indicates contraction. Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit and author of the Markit/CIPS Construction PMI, said: “The downturn in UK construction activity has eased considerably since July, primarily helped by a much slower decline in commercial building. Construction firms cited a nascent recovery in client confidence since the EU referendum result and a relatively steady flow of invitations to tender in August. “However, the latest survey indicates only a partial move towards stabilisation, rather than a return to business as usual across the construction sector. There were still widespread reports that Brexit uncertainty had dampened demand and slowed progress on planned developments, especially in relation to large projects.â€\x9d New order volumes continued to fall during August, which contrasts with the three-year run of sustained growth seen before May. Mike Chappell, of Lloyds Bank commercial banking, said: “The past month has seen a number of the bigger players in the sector report robust results with a relatively upbeat outlook, suggesting there may have been less negative impact from the EU referendum result than was originally feared, at least at the top of the market. “The order books of larger firms, many of which benefit from diversified revenue streams, appear to be in good shape, while several have either increased or restored their dividends. That said, anecdotal evidence indicates those further down the chain – such as mid-tier contractors and SMEs – are less bullish and more likely to adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ approach.â€\x9d Chappell said businesses would be following closely the various data to better gauge the health of the economy. “Firms are also thinking about the chancellor’s upcoming autumn statement when they will learn whether their hopes of an increase in infrastructure spending are to become a reality.â€\x9d The improvement in construction comes a day after the equivalent survey for manufacturing showed a strong bounceback in factory output and new orders in August, suggesting manufacturers quickly shrugged off the shock of the Brexit vote in June. Consumer confidence also recovered somewhat last month after taking a huge plunge in July, according to market researchers GfK. The Bank of England took action in early August to restore confidence among businesses and households and ward off a recession. It cut interest rates to a new record low of 0.25% and expanded its programme of bond purchases.',
 'Digital natives can handle the truth. Trouble is, they can’t find it The late, great US senator and sociologist Daniel Moynihan famously observed that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts, and most of us nodded approvingly at the time. It neatly summed up our idealised notion of democratic discourse. So it’s entirely unsurprising that so many people are discombobulated to discover that apparently Moynihan’s maxim no longer applies. If nothing else, the Brexit vote and US presidential campaigns provided ample evidence of that. “Factsâ€\x9d became propositions that people felt ought to be true, even if they weren’t. I’m a bit suspicious of the current despairing rhetoric about how we have moved into a “post-truthâ€\x9d society. First of all, it carries an implication that there was once a political golden age when “truthâ€\x9d really mattered. And secondly, it implies that establishing truth is a straightforward business – if only we could put our minds to it. Both of these propositions are, to put it politely, implausible. Which brings us back to the problem of “fake newsâ€\x9d – believed in some quarters to have had an impact on the US presidential election. Facebook has – rightly, because of its size and scope – been taking most of the heat from the resulting firestorm, but until recently seemed to regard the whole thing as a PR problem rather than something more fundamental. This is standard Silicon Valley operating procedure by the way: always try to deny responsibility in order to escape the tedious obligations that go with it. And of course for Facebook, there is the additional problem that its business model currently tends to favour fake news because – as a BuzzFeed analysis showed – it gets “sharedâ€\x9d more and sharing is good for the bottom line. Or, as Frederic Filloux put it with brutal clarity: “Facebook’s walled wonderland is inherently incompatible with newsâ€\x9d. Watching the Facebook boss squirming on the fake-news hook provides a sharp vignette of the Silicon Valley elite: stratospheric IQ combined with childlike naivety. Now that it has dawned on him that this might be a really serious problem – especially under a president who isn’t overawed by the aura of tech companies – there are doubtless lots of project teams working frantically within Facebook to find a solution to the fake-news problem. This week we’ve seen interesting evidence of one approach they are trying – surveying their users to see how good they are at spotting spoof stories. According to the Verge tech news website, in one case they are shown a tweet from the Philadelphia Inquirer boosting a story about the local baseball team sacking a peanut vendor known as “Pistachio Girlâ€\x9d for her involvement in “white identity politicsâ€\x9d. The headline on the tweet reads “Pistachio Girl has been fired from her Citizens Bank Park jobâ€\x9d. (Citizens Bank Park is the team’s stadium.) The survey question was “To what extent do you think this link’s title uses misleading language?â€\x9d on a five-point scale from “not at allâ€\x9d to “completelyâ€\x9d. Another user was shown a different link and posed a different question: “To what extent do you think this link’s title withholds key details of the story?â€\x9d If Facebook thinks it can outsource the detection of fake news to its users (and thereby avoid accepting editorial responsibility) then Stanford University has some bad news for it. Over the past 18 months the university’s history education group has been testing the ability of 7,800 “digital nativesâ€\x9d (ie at middle school, high school and college students) in 12 states to judge the credibility of online information. The results, in the words of the researchers, are “dismayingâ€\x9d, “bleakâ€\x9d and “a threat to democracyâ€\x9d. The students were duped again and again. They couldn’t tell fake accounts from real ones, activist groups from neutral sources or distinguish ads from articles. More than 80% of middle-school (11- to 13-year-old) children thought that “sponsored contentâ€\x9d was a real news story. They were suckers for professionally produced and attractive web pages, and a fluent and polished “aboutâ€\x9d page was enough to persuade many that the site was authoritative. And when asked to evaluate the trustworthiness of information on two websites, one published by the 66,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics, established in 1930 and publisher of the journal Pediatrics, the other by the American College of Pediatricians, a conservative fringe group that broke with the main organisation in 2002 over its stance on adoption by same-sex couples, more than half of the Stanford undergraduates in the study concluded that the second group was “more reliableâ€\x9d. So: back to the drawing board, Mr Zuckerberg.',
 'Letter: I featured in the first documentary Peter Morley made – in 1947 I went to the same progressive boarding school as the film-maker Peter Morley and featured in the first documentary he made, in 1947. The film was dedicated to Anna Essinger, a far-sighted Jewish educationist who fled to Britain with many of her pupils six months after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. Peter and his siblings fled with their father at much the same time and naturally came to a school, Bunce Court, near Faversham in Kent, where the pupils and most of the staff spoke their native language. Wartime evacuation took them to Shropshire, and I arrived there after my mother had wanted to move me as far from bombing as possible. To this day I have no idea what she knew about the school but I spent most of the war years at Trench Hall, near Wem, speaking German. I was eight years younger than Peter so we never overlapped educationally, but we later became firm friends. His first film, Once Upon a Time, featured the school and was shot on a German 8mm camera which he had “liberatedâ€\x9d from the ruins of a Berlin house while he was serving with the occupying British army. It was, of course, silent, so he used captions to spell out the eccentric history of an establishment that had virtually no domestic staff, where the pupils did all the household chores and gardening (we grew much of our own food) and where many of the teachers were eminent Jewish “enemy aliensâ€\x9d who had been released from internment on condition that they stayed in their jobs for the duration of the second world war. I was in the largest class – eight pupils. Setting the pattern that recurred throughout his professional life, the film won Peter his first award, a special commendation from the magazine Amateur Cine World. He had completed his military service as one of the security team guarding the 1945 Potsdam conference. One evening he was summoned by Winston Churchill, who complained about the excessive noise generated by the British sentries’ hobnailed boots. Peter was apologetic but could offer no solution given the state of rubble-strewn Berlin. To his astonishment Churchill growled: “We’ll see about that.â€\x9d The great war leader then promptly ordered a transport plane to be flown to London to secure rubber-soled boots for each sentry. When Peter was planning his award-winning coverage of Churchill’s funeral in 1965, one of his research staff discovered that south bank dockers intended to dip their cranes in salute as the funeral vessel passed them. Peter swore everyone to deepest secrecy and made sure he had a camera in that position. That footage has been repeatedly seen round the world ever since.',
 'E-stonia: the country using tech to rebrand itself as the anti-Russia It’s not often that a European head of state uses the “radical postmodernist philosophyâ€\x9d of Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard to bash a hostile superpower. But then Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia’s defiantly erudite president of nearly 10 years, is no ordinary head of state. Ilves is trying to reinvent Estonia as the brightly lit antithesis of Russia, and in today’s confessional age of Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks and the Panama Papers, claims he is baking transparency and accountability into a new kind of digital civic operating system. Ilves is known for his controversial opinions on everything from Snowden and internet privacy to cyberwarfare and Vladimir Putin’s postmodernist state, which have apparently, transformed the 63-year-old into a “regional sex symbolâ€\x9d. Aivar, my Uber driver, chatters enthusiastically about Ilves as his grey Volvo sedan drops me outside Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn. “Enjoy our president. He’s quite a character.â€\x9d An imposing 18th-century baroque jewel, Kadriorg was built in the Estonian capital by Peter the Great for his wife, Catherine. The tsar, however, would not have been amused by Ilves and his outspoken criticism of Russia. Ilves greets me in his trademark checkered bow tie. The problem with Putin’s Russia, Ilves insists, is that the truth has been entirely devalued. Quoting from Peter Pomerantsov’s 2015 Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, the Estonian president says that “all truths have become equivalentâ€\x9d in contemporary Russia. According to Ilves, the country is being run by postmodernists such as Putin’s chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, a “big fanâ€\x9d apparently of Baudrillard, who stage-manages Russia as if it was a murky reality television show. The result, Ilves says, is the death not only of truth but also of trust and accountability – the core currencies of a modern democratic state. Thus the proliferation of Russian troll factories that churn out anonymous comments that are poisoning the internet. There is nothing small, charmingly or otherwise, about Ilves. If, as Marshall McLuhan suggested, we now live in an electronic global village, then the Swedish-born and American-educated Estonian president, with his nearly 70,000 Twitter followers is a kind of global village elder, dispensing his own cosmopolitan brand of personalized wisdom to anyone that will listen. But it’s not all bluster. Much of his presidential tenure, as well as previous roles as foreign minister, ambassador to the US and a member of the European parliament in the post-Soviet era, has been focused on making Estonia less village-like, on coming up with a grand idea that would enable this little Baltic republic to punch above its analog weight on the world stage. Ilves came up with this grand idea a quarter of a century ago. When Gorbachev pulled the Soviets out of Estonia in 1991, Ilves asked himself a simple question about the future of a country that had been brutally occupied by its eastern neighbor for a half-century. “What do we have?â€\x9d Ilves asked himself about a country not much larger than Israel with a population less than half that of Silicon Valley. His answer was equally simple. What the 1.3 million Estonians had, Ilves concluded in 1991, was technology. He recognized that the Soviets, despite their appropriation of most of Estonia’s wealth, had bequeathed a decent educational legacy, especially in mathematics. Estonia’s future, Ilves thus imagined a quarter of a century ago, was hi-tech, especially personal computers and the internet. Ilves – a trained psychologist with degrees from Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania – is also self-schooled in computer science. He proudly recalls learning to program as a 13-year-old schoolboy in New Jersey and being among the first geeks to own Apple’s iconic 2E personal computer. By 1993, he was already arguing that Estonia “should computerize all schoolsâ€\x9d and by 1997 had championed putting all Estonian schools online and establishing publicly funded internet centers around the country. Size matters, Ilves figured about Estonia’s new role in a post-cold war, multipolar world. In the mid-90s he claims to have “reverse-engineeredâ€\x9d Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work, the 1995 bestseller arguing that information technology would undermine large-scale industrial production. What he calls his “backward readingâ€\x9d of Rifkin led him to recognize the importance of Estonia’s miniature physical size in creating a substantial post-industrial economy, where a small, tightly knit hi-tech workforce of perpetually pivoting entrepreneurs could reinvent Estonia as the original startup nation. Yet despite its multibillion-dollar success stories – including Skype, Playtech and more startups per person than anywhere else in the world – Estonia isn’t just “E-Stoniaâ€\x9d, some Baltic version of Silicon Valley or Israel. The little Baltic republic – with the counterintuitive Ilves at its helm – is actually building something more ambitious than just another tightly knit ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors and technologists. Estonia is pioneering a model for a democratically transparent 21st-century networked society – the opposite of Putin’s opaque virtual reality show – by giving everyone a digital license plate. “Our goal is to make it impossible to do bad things,â€\x9d he explains. “Six billion lanes, and nobody has a license plate except the Estonians.â€\x9d Is Estonia becoming a 21st-century panopticon? That is Ilves’ grand – one might even say baroque – idea. Under his presidency over the past 10 years, Estonia has pioneered a series of technological reforms to not only bring everyone online but also to create a national database. The system is built around the online ID card, introduced in 2002, in which its citizens’ information – from healthcare records to tax filings to educational qualifications to real estate documents – is stored in a seamlessly integrated national database. But what about privacy in this database of its citizens’ intentions, I asked. Surely he’s creating a kind of 21st-century panopticon, a digital remix of Jeremy Bentham’s 18th-century “simple idea of architectureâ€\x9d where people could be watched in everything they did? “Our obsession with privacy is misguided,â€\x9d Ilves – who is, of course, anything but indifferent to 20th-century Big Brother surveillance regimes – insists. The Estonian system, he explains, is based on “trustâ€\x9d. While the national database can be accessed by the authorities, he stresses, the citizen has to be notified when their records are observed. So if the system hasn’t been built on Blockchain technology, it nonetheless operates on Blockchain-like principles – creating a data system that can’t be altered with notifying both the authorities and citizens. This is what Ilves calls a “Lockean contractâ€\x9d between digital citizen and the government. The 21st-century networked sovereign, he says, is the guarantor of what he calls “data integrityâ€\x9d. While the government can’t access our data without our knowledge, the citizen no longer has any anonymity in this system. So everyone – from government to police to tax authorities to the citizens themselves – are transparent. Ilves sees this accountable system, the antithesis of Vladislav Surkov’s opaque Russian reality television show, as being the essential foundations of a social contract for our networked age. It will, he believes, encourage responsible use of the internet. It may even flush out the trolls. Rather than privacy from the state, the real concern, Ilves insists, is the integrity of data. Instead of worrying about somebody else knowing our blood type, we should be worried when they start “fiddlingâ€\x9d with that data to change our blood type. Snowden ‘harmed the EU privacy debate’ This focus on data integrity is why Ilves is much less concerned with Snowden’s NSA revelations than either last year’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack in which the data of 21 million people was stolen, or with the ongoing fight between Apple and the FBI over a back door to the iPhone’s data. Ilves believes that paranoia over the Snowden revelations “harmed the debateâ€\x9d about privacy in the EU. The NSA, he quipped, wasn’t “mining the deep packets of Bohemian poets sending emails to their girlfriendsâ€\x9d. In contrast, the OPM and Apple cases are both about trust. Giving the authorities a blanket and unverifiable back door on the iPhone, for example, means that citizens can no longer trust either their government or Apple. Trust, then, particularly trust of both government and an accountable legal system, is the heart of the matter. That’s why Ilves co-chaired Digital Dividends, a World Bank report published earlier this year which focuses on the need for developing nations to build the foundations of an accountable legal system first if they are to develop a thriving digital sector. The Estonian model of digital development is “scalableâ€\x9d, Ilves says, although he acknowledges that its political side is much easier to build in a small country like Estonia. But, in light of the revelations from Snowden and other whistleblowers, can we ever really trust the system – even in a tiny country like Estonia? So what exactly does the Estonian secret service do, I ask Ilves as our interview comes to a close. “Track down Russian spies,â€\x9d the Estonian president answers nonchalantly before detailing the “brutalâ€\x9d postwar occupation of his country and Soviet destruction of 10m books between 1945 and 1946. While he acknowledges that the threat of cyberwarfare has receded since the big cyberattacks in 2007 and that some of the contemporary paranoia about the Russian cyberthreat is “hyperventilatedâ€\x9d, he doesn’t dismiss the threat of another occupation. After all, while Ilves might be able to make it “impossible for people to do bad thingsâ€\x9d in Estonia, this guarantee doesn’t extend to what people do in Moscow. That’s why, Ilves explains, the Estonians are digitalizing all their indigenous books and shipping the data out of the country. “And that’s why,â€\x9d he adds, smiling grimly, “we are in Nato.â€\x9d',
 'The party’s over for young people, debt laden and risk averse It’s bad news for the drinks industry, but it’s mainly bad news for people who think each generation is more feckless than the last: the number of drinkers among 16- to 24-year-olds has dropped sharply. All kinds of drinkers are dying out: the steady drinkers, the binge drinkers, the drinkers-in-training, the social drinkers the bus stop drinkers – the lot. In a study by the Office for National Statistics, less than half of young people reported drinking anything in the previous week, compared with two-thirds of 45- to 64-year-olds – many of whom are in all likelihood under medical advice to please cut it out, or at least do the nation the favour of lying about it in surveys. Various theories are floated: changes in religion and ethnicity, changes wrought by social media, student loans – which we’ll return to. But a report compiled by the Demos thinktank last year found health to be the most common reason given for this abstemiousness. Health has got to them all, like a cult: they are also less likely to smoke, and the evidence of our own five senses gives us young people in hordes jogging, climbing, journeying eternally from one institution of wellness to another, serious-faced in Lycra, taking responsibility, counting footsteps, living the dream. They must look at previous generations, the lad and ladette (read “beerâ€\x9d) culture of the 90s, and wonder who on earth we thought we were. There’s plenty to apologise for about the fin de siècle, and it can’t all be blamed on Tony Blair, whatever his biographers tell you. It was the end of ideology, the decade sincerity died. Feminists went underground, too postmodern (also, in fairness, too drunk) to explain that just because Margaret Thatcher was a woman it didn’t mean she was a passionate advocate of gender equality; and “girl powerâ€\x9d was a poor substitute for female emancipation. The legions of the “post-ironicâ€\x9d never had to account for their vapid agenda or explain the meaning of the term, since it would have been deeply passe to expect one. I say “theirâ€\x9d; I mean “ourâ€\x9d: there must have been postmodernism refuseniks, but I wasn’t one of them. It was a creed of puckish underachievement, personal debt, slacking and loafing, with authenticity rejected in favour of acerbic cynicism. The epic hangovers of its breakfast show DJs made national news. It was, paradoxically, both trivial and destructive. But we never went jogging. Measuring your own recovery time, having a personal best: these were the niche concerns of the elite athlete, as irrelevant to the general youth population as blood doping. It would have been considered vain to the point of alienation to prioritise your workout over your social life. That may be a modern question for new media to answer: that as everyone is ever more on display standards of physical perfection are driven inexorably, needlessly, upwards. But, crucially, we were without this mantra of personal responsibility, in which everyone must constantly strive towards self-sufficiency and self-improvement. It wasn’t because we hadn’t heard of it or didn’t understand it, or because Nike didn’t exist or British Military Fitness hadn’t been invented. We all remembered Thatcher’s fascination with the “vigorous valuesâ€\x9d (energy, adventurousness, independence) over the “softer virtuesâ€\x9d (humility, gentleness, sympathy). We had lived through the 80s, the decade in which self-sufficiency reached such an ugly apex of valorisation that it had its own, completely erroneous, catchphrase: greed is good. We understood the fault line between those two visions of society: the one in which you parade your morals with rigorous self-discipline and concrete, measurable ambitions versus the one in which both morals and ambitions were for losers – and chose the second. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the first. Underpinning this new seriousness, this new competitiveness, is a very grave set of circumstances: student debt will change for ever the way 16- to 24-year-olds live, and will continue to do so until we find another way to finance education. I don’t think debt has a particular bearing on alcohol budget but it drives behaviour in more profound ways: people can still afford a pint, but they can’t afford to fall behind. To embrace risk, to have a sense of freedom and possibility, a faith in failure as a learning curve, an interest in activities – drinking, say, or chatting – whose productivity can’t be measured, perhaps because they aren’t productive at all, is plain illogical when you’re living in the economic conditions of this generation. Under the guise of saving them from the burden of the national debt, we have as a society saddled each one, individually, with impossible personal finances, from life-altering debts to career-changing rents and scant or, at the start, nonexistent wages. The solution is possibly not, at this stage, to get them all drinking more. But we should recognise in trends like these the fact that conditions for this generation are worse. The reasons are systemic, have nothing to do with personal responsibility and cannot be answered by fitness, however extreme. The drinks industry seeks to solve the conundrum of the monastic twentysomething by “premiumisationâ€\x9d (getting them to spend more on the few drinks they will buy). We have to understand it as a challenge broader than the market, recognise that all of our welfare is all of our business and, out of penance for the decade that made fellowship a joke, show some solidarity now.',
 'On the faultline: New York fracking ban leaves state divided as primary looms For seven years, fracking roiled New York. Back in the summer of 2007, when the gas industry started knocking on doors in Delaware County, a faultline ran right through the home of Mark Dunau and Lisa Wujnovich. In 2014, the state announced a ban, but that faultline still runs through local and national politics, and even through the Democratic presidential primary. Activists fear Hillary Clinton’s pragmatic approach is too soft on fracking, and support her rival Bernie Sanders’ call for a national ban. Clinton supporters, meanwhile, have begun to worry that opposition to fracking would weaken her in a general election. For some, the issue has always been personal. At his organic vegetable farm in Hancock, New York, Dunau recalled his enthusiasm about leasing parts of his 50-acre lot to be fracked. In 2007, nobody knew much about fracking – the process of injecting fluid into shale rocks to fracture them and release natural gas – but a friend who was making money in the industry told him it was fine. “Why am I giving up free money?â€\x9d he figured. His wife’s response, however, was swift: “Over my dead body.â€\x9d They ended up in the office of a mediator in nearby Oneonta, where Wujnovich explained that the industry violated her core values. “I know Lisa,â€\x9d Dunau says, “so I was like, ‘This will never work.’â€\x9d On the drive home, they hit two deer. They read it as a message from the land: they wouldn’t sign a lease. Dunau dropped the issue to protect his marriage – his wife, a poet, has since penned verse comparing fracking to the rape of a daughter. (“Are you Marcellus Shale’s mother? I’ve got a deal you can’t refuse …â€\x9d) But he also did some research. By early 2008, when Dunau learned gas companies had refused to disclose chemicals that went into fracking fluid, he was convinced the practice wasn’t safe. His wife welcomed him to the club. “For me, and for many women I knew, it was like: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’â€\x9d she says. “It never had to be so cerebral with me. But with him, we had to go cerebral.â€\x9d The couple’s story can be seen as a microcosm of what happened around the state. After a flurry of lease-signing in 2007 and 2008, the government stepped in. By the fall of 2010, the assembly had approved a fracking moratorium. In 2014, after a re-election campaign in which his opponent ran to his left, governor Andrew Cuomo cited health risks and announced a complete ban. The ban was perhaps not surprising in a state with environmental bona fidesdating back at least as far as Teddy Roosevelt. Just across the border, Pennsylvanians moved in the opposite direction. Josh Fox, the film-maker behind the anti-fracking documentary Gasland, considers Western, Pennsylvania a case study in harm. He argues that environmental and health concerns aside – and he has many – fracking will give few people as much money as their land is actually worth, because it becomes useless once drained of its gas. “The myth that this makes people richer is exactly that,â€\x9d he says. Fox isn’t alone. Cuomo’s ban enjoys a 55% approval rating, and the decision is even more liked by Democrats. But some in New York still feel left behind. Chris Ostrowsky, a housing contractor who works in and around Binghamton, said that while he doesn’t see fracking as a cure-all for the area’s problems, he does think it would provide a much-needed “shot in the armâ€\x9d. “With everything, there’s a risk,â€\x9d he said. “Get in a car, it could crash, but you don’t stop driving every day.â€\x9d Ostrowsky owns 85 acres in the city of Conklin, about 20 minutes south of Binghamton. He’s more worried about other things, like what he sees as the loss of godliness in American politics. He likes Donald Trump, he said, because he “does his own thingâ€\x9d and the “Make America Great Againâ€\x9d message resonates. It means a return to the era of Reagan. “You can’t even go to the bathroom without standing next to someone of the opposite gender,â€\x9d Ostrowsky says. “We’re becoming the minority,â€\x9d he added. “If someone wants to be gay or a lesbian, fine. Just don’t make me accept it.â€\x9d Others, like Aaron Price, a native of nearby Windsor and the director of a number of documentaries (one sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute) about the gas industry, still hope to reverse the fracking regulations. “People hoped it would be the next big thing. Instead, it was the next big delay.â€\x9d ••• Few who support the industry share his optimism two years into the ban. But the disenchantment described by Ostrowsky and others is being capitalized on by Trump – potentially dangerously for Democrats. Campaigning in Albany on Thursday, the Manhattan businessman bemoaned the ban. While Pennsylvania was experiencing an economic boom fueled by gas drilling, he said, people in rural New York had been left behind. “It’s a terrible situation, and New York is in deep trouble,â€\x9d Trump told a local radio station. “As you know, we didn’t take advantage of our energy situation, and now it’s very late because the prices are so much lower. “And you look at Pennsylvania, right along the [state] line, they have machines all over the place and people driving around. You know the expression – they are driving in their Cadillacs. And on the other side of the line, which is just an artificial line, and people are literally in poverty. It’s just so incredible and we never took advantage.â€\x9d The lament over lost opportunity has appealed to the angry, disillusioned white people who have become Trump’s base, and may help him win the New York Republican primary. On the Democratic side, the candidates are singing a very different tune. At a rally in Binghamton earlier this week, Bernie Sanders not only praised the ban – he also called for it to go national. “What you have done is proof to the world,â€\x9d he said, “that when people stand up and form a grassroots movement of environmentalists, public health advocates, farmers, working families and religious leaders, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.â€\x9d At the debate in Brooklyn Thursday night, the Vermont senator drove the point home, attacking Clinton for her support of fracking and natural gas production while she served under Barack Obama. “When you were secretary of state, you also worked hard to expand fracking all over the world,â€\x9d he said. Clinton has sought to carve out an identity as a pragmatist, and argued that countries like China need natural gas to wean off coal and dirtier forms of energy. For Wes Gillingham, cofounder of the environmental group Catskill Mountainkeeper, the Sanders campaign echoes the fight to ban fracking in New York. “They said Bernie can’t win but he’s winning,â€\x9d Gillingham said, “and he’s winning on the fracking issue, which years ago we were told we can’t win.â€\x9d Though many hoped Sanders and Clinton would find common ground here, they have clashed more than ever, and the issue threatens to divide Democrats at large. Green activists have vowed to bring thousands of protesters to the convention in Philadelphia to press for a nationwide ban. Even if Sanders does not win the nomination, the primary fight could push Clinton far enough left on the issue to leave her exposed against Trump. He and other proponents of the fossil-fuel industry have already exploited the rift to remind voters about the potential wealth drawn from the earth. ••• Mark Dunau isn’t particularly worried about the general election – yet. When I visited, he had recently returned from the Sanders rally in Binghamton. Despite his excitement, though, he said: “Should Bernie lose, there’s no doubt I’ll be voting for Hillary in the general.â€\x9d Dunau and Wujnovich live in a converted dairy barn, built in the 1800s. The area used to be full of such farms, but they said no one could survive as a dairy farmer anymore. The economy has worsened in the last 30 years: the number of bars and grocery stores have dwindled, and the diner where they celebrated their son’s first birthday is closed. Just over the border in Pennsylvania, Keith Brant, 52, lives with his wife and four children. A fifth-generation farmer, on a farm established in 1867, he is doing what his neighbors deemed impossible: operating a profitable dairy farm. He agreed that making a living isn’t easy, noting that milk has sold at the same rate for years while the price of feed has gone up. To supplement his meager income, Brant has leased his 600 acres to Southwest Gas. A pipeline runs past the back of his house, dividing his land, and three of the eight wells he signed off on are installed. It’s not a dream scenario, but he’s getting by, with each well providing an estimated $6,000 a month – some of which the gas company withdraws in fees he did not expect. “I don’t want to get greedy, I just want to keep going,â€\x9d he says. A registered Republican who will be voting for Trump despite some reservations, he sometimes worries about water quality. But so far he hasn’t had any problems, and he’s happy that he can make money off his land – unlike neighbors across the state line. Back in New York, Dunau estimates he has lost as much as $100,000 by not signing a fracking lease, which would have amounted to free money since the industry was never able to build anything in New York. But, he adds, he has never looked back. He and Wujnovich are making a fine living selling produce, mostly cooking greens, to a handful of restaurants in Manhattan. While some extra money would be nice, there are things he cares about more. “I’d rather be on the right side of history and I think I am,â€\x9d he says. “Thanks to my all-seeing, all-knowing wife.â€\x9d',
 'RBS pays share bonuses worth £17.4m to top management team Royal Bank of Scotland – the bailed-out bank which recently reported its eighth consecutive year of annual losses – has handed its top management team future bonuses in shares worth £17.4m. The bank, 73% owned by the taxpayer, also released bonuses already earned worth more than £5m to the top management team, including the chief executive, Ross McEwan, who took the helm in October 2013. The £17.4m of share awards were announced to the stock market less than a fortnight after RBS reported a £2bn loss for 2015 – taking the total losses to more than £50bn since its 2008 bailout when taxpayers pumped £45bn into the bank. McEwan, who was promoted from running the retail arm of RBS to replace Stephen Hester, has attempted to defuse rows over pay by ending the practice of handing annual bonuses to his top management team. Even so, members of the team are still receiving bonuses handed out in previous years and being awarded shares through three-year performance plans. The £17.4m of shares awarded to McEwan and his 10-strong management team are based on performance over three years and will not be released until 2020 and 2021, when the executives will find out if they are paid in full. McEwan, who was paid £3.8m in 2015, was handed shares worth £2.6m as part of this long-term share plan. The London Stock Exchange announcement shows that two executives – Mark Bailie and Chris Marks – each received almost £1m of shares through annual bonuses handed to them in previous years when they worked in the investment banking arm of RBS. They were both awarded £2m of shares under the long-term bonus plan. Shares in RBS are trading at 229p, well below the 502p at which taxpayers break even on their stake and below the 330p at which George Osborne sold off the first tranche in August at a £1bn loss. Campaigners for a tax on financial services at the Robin Hood Tax campaign compared the RBS bonuses with the 1% pay rise for NHS workers. “Once again different rules seem to apply to the banking sector who, eight years on, have yet to pay the price for their part in the financial crisis. The government must step up and stop this special treatment for the City,â€\x9d David Hillman, spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign said. RBS notified the stock market of the share awards on Tuesday just 10 minutes after rival bailed-out bank Lloyds Banking Group confirmed the scale of payouts to its management team. Lloyds, in which taxpayers continue to have a stake of just under 10%, revealed last month that its chief executive, António Horta-Osório, and his 10 top managers were receiving awards of shares worth £20m. The chancellor wants to sell off much of the remaining stake in Lloyds to the public but was forced to postpone the sale because of the slump in shares during January’s stock-market rout. However, the shares have recovered some of their losses but are trading at about 71p – still below the 73.6p at which taxpayers break even. In Lloyds’ annual report it said there could be market volatility before and after the EU referendum on 23 June.',
 'UniCredit shares fall sharply after European bank stress tests Italy’s biggest bank, UniCredit, has borne the brunt of lingering anxiety about the country’s banking sector, seeing its shares fall sharply following the EU-wide banking health checks. The 9.4% drop in UniCredit shares, which were being closely monitored by the Italian Borse on Monday amid heavy trading, followed Friday’s publication of stress tests on 51 banks across the EU. In the European Banking Authority tests, UniCredit recorded a capital ratio of more than 7% after the stress test applied a hypothetical shock to global growth, interest rates and currencies. Although well above the legal minimumof 4.5%, it left Unicredit as one of the five weakest out of the 51 banks tested. The deterioration in its capital ratio was not on the scale of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) – Italy’s third largest bank – which announced a rescue package on Friday aimed at funding at least €5bn worth of capital, after the stress test showed that its entire capital base would be wiped out under the adverse scenario. MPS was the worst-performing bank of any bank tested. Shares in MPS, regarded as the world’s oldest bank, were among the few to rally after the stress test results as its rescue operation appeared to alleviate pressure on the Italian government to intervene. Even so, questions remained about how easily MPS could find investors willing to stump up €5bn when its existing stock market value was less than €1bn. The focus had been on Italian banks ahead of the stress tests, which overall showed that the EU’s banking sector could weather a shock to the markets. The pan-European banks share index was off just 0.6%. Antonio Patuelli, president of the Italian Banking Association, welcomed the results, saying: “The credibility of Italian banks has now been strengthened.â€\x9d The MPS rescue was viewed as positive. Tomas Kinmonth, fixed income strategist at ABN Amro, said: “It could be suggested that the prime benefit of the EBA 2016 stress test is that the Italian institution [MPS] is now significantly stronger.â€\x9d Portuguese and Greek banks were not big enough to be included in the tests, which also focused on banks in Ireland, Spain and Austria as well Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche, whose capital ratio fell below 8% under the test. Analysts at Capital Economics said: “Among the eurozone countries, Ireland’s and Italy’s banks stood out.â€\x9d Moody’s said: “The stress test results highlight major differences in the relative strength of banking systems across the EU. The system-level results reflect the relative weakness of banks in Austria, Ireland and Italy. The key drivers are elevated credit risk of cross- border activities for the Austrian banks, and domestic market pressures for the Irish and Italian banks.â€\x9d The stress tests impose a series of scenarios on the capital bases of banks recorded at the end of 2015 and give results for three years later, without allowing the management of the banks to try to raise capital by selling off businesses. Shares in UK banks Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland slipped around 2%. Barclays’ capital ratio fell to below 7.5% under the stressed scenario, while RBS took the third largest hit of any bank to its capital under the test. RBS’s capital position would sink by seven percentage points to 8%. Moody’s said this was in part caused by “litigation and restructuring chargesâ€\x9d faced by the bank, which is 73% owned by the UK taxpayer. Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, said the results for UK banks were a “non-eventâ€\x9d as they will be subjected to Bank of England tests later in the year. RBS publishes its half-year results this Friday, while Barclays reported a £2bn half-year profit last week.',
 'Live music booking now Since emerging three years ago, members of the PC Music collective may have failed to become world-conquering superstar acts in their own right, but their jarring pop is finally reaching a global audience via chart-topping proxies. Sophie has worked with Madonna, Hannah Diamond (pictured) and Charli XCX recently collaborated on a song together, and now Danny L Harle (whose Broken Flowers has had a fair amount of Radio 1 airplay) is working with Call Me Maybe’s Carly Rae Jepsen. PC Music’s Pop Cosmos (Scala, N1, 19 May), their first London event in six months, sees Diamond and Harle – along with AG Cook, Felicita and GFOTY – play nicely together … Fresh from four nights at London’s Forum this week, Wolf Alice continue spreading their credible indie rock by joining Fall Out Boy as support for Biffy Clyro at the band’s Glasgow Summer Session (Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, 27 Aug) … Lastly, Hackney trio Hælos, who deliver a trip-hop sound that is rougher and harsher than the original – will embark on a UK tour in support of their recently released debut album (29 Apr-4 May, tour starts Night & Day Cafe, Manchester).',
 'The view on Taiwan: Trump should handle with care No one exactly expected the Chinese to seize a United States underwater drone in the South China Sea on Friday. But Beijing has so far proved rather more predictable than the president-elect of the US. Since Donald Trump sought to rattle its cage by sharing a phone call with Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen and questioning the “one-Chinaâ€\x9d policy which has underpinned bilateral relations for decades, it has responded in ways familiar to China-watchers: careful official statements of displeasure, sabre-rattling in a populist state-owned tabloid, and a series of actions which could be coincidental but send a convenient message. Those include the first live-fire exercises by China’s aircraft carrier group, the warning that a US carmaker could face fines for monopolistic behaviour, and the scooping up of the oceanographic survey ship’s drone. It has so far moved with caution. But the risks created by Mr Trump’s behaviour are real and substantial. In reality, Taiwan has been self-ruled since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) fled there at the end of the civil war in 1949. But the three-cornered relationship has long been governed by polite fictions. The US acknowledges the belief that there is only one China; Taipei and Beijing have said there is only one China, but how one interprets that is a matter of deliberate ambiguity. These diplomatic acts of imagination are peculiar: Washington has security ties with the entity which it does not recognise diplomatically, to protect it from the one it does recognise. But they have smoothed Sino-US relations and stabilised cross-straits relations. The US role has essentially been to help maintain the status quo should either side try to veer away. Under the previous KMT president, Ma Ying-jeou, cross-straits ties grew quickly, bringing economic benefits but also concern: while few on Taiwan want formal independence, many more were concerned about Beijing’s influence. China did not want the election of the Democratic Progressive party’s Tsai Ing-wen, and appears to have made itself felt in significant but deniable ways – tourist numbers are down and Taiwan was not invited to this year’s meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, despite attending previously. But it has not, for example, repudiated the agreements signed with Mr Ma. The experienced Ms Tsai has so far played a careful hand and has indicated her desire for good relations. But there is always a risk that action by Beijing and domestic political pressure might push her further. There is a reasonable case to be made that the US should be more vocal in supporting Taiwan, a thriving democracy overseen by the only woman ever elected to top office in Asia without a political dynasty behind her, to discourage Beijing from trying to disturb the present balance. Advocates say that China’s growing military power means that challenge should come sooner not later. But that does not appear to be what Mr Trump is doing. Putting aside the possibility that he is acting on whim – this call appears to have been well-planned – there are three theses about the president-elect’s intentions. The first is that he is bringing his business tactics to diplomacy, seeing what advantages he can accrue by throwing his weight around and being unpredictable. The second is that he plans a “reverse-Nixonâ€\x9d, cosying up to Moscow while encouraging it to distance itself from Beijing. His advisers are hawkish towards Beijing, and the Sino-Soviet relationship has always been one of convenience rather than love, scarred by deep suspicion and repeated separations. Taiwan could become a stick to beat China, using the sinophobia he embraced in his campaign to bolster his popularity in office. But while Beijing fosters and manipulates popular nationalism, it does not control it and must also answer to it; Taiwan is an issue on which both leaders and people feel extremely strongly. There is a profound risk of destabilising the region, and of miscalculations and missteps escalating the situation. Even if that peril is avoided, the long-term future of Taiwan matters much more to Beijing than Washington. Beijing is likely to react angrily and seek to punish the US – but will find it even easier to punish Taiwan. That leads to the third possibility: that Mr Trump wants to use the island as leverage – as he suggested explicitly, tweeting that “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other thingsâ€\x9d. But Taiwan deserves better than to be used as a cudgel or a bargaining chip.',
 'Senior Tory calls on government to overhaul internet abuse laws Britain needs better internet laws to stop online abuse that may be creating a nightmare for society in future, Maria Miller, the Conservative former culture secretary and equalities minister, has said. The senior Tory MP, who now chairs the Commons women and equalities committee, said the government needed to wake up to some of the problems the internet was creating, from vile abuse on social media to easy sharing of violent explicit images among young people. Miller successfully pushed the government to create a new offence of revenge pornography in 2014, outlawing the distribution of a private sexual image of someone without their consent and with the intention of causing them distress. In the same year, ministers quadrupled the maximum six-month prison term for internet trolls targeting people with offensive or threatening material to two years. The time limit for prosecutions has been extended to three years. However, the MP argued the laws around abuse and harm on the internet could be updated further and internet companies could do more to act against threatening and abusive material online. “We need better laws and we need better enforcement. Government needs to stop allowing internet providers from hiding behind arguments about the protection of free speech,â€\x9d she said. Miller said people had tried to talk her out of trying to get the law changed to create a specific offence of revenge pornography, some by saying it was already illegal. “It was quite clear after talking to victims and the police that the complex set of existing and sometimes overlapping legislation made it difficult for the police to take meaningful action,â€\x9d she said. Her concerns echo those of Stephen Kavanagh, the chief constable leading the fight against digital crime, who earlier this year called for new legislation to tackle an “unimagined scale of online abuseâ€\x9d that he said was threatening to overwhelm the police service. Kavanagh, who heads Essex police, said: “There are crimes now taking place – the malicious use of intimate photographs for example – which we never would have imagined as an offence when I was a PC in the 80s. It’s not just the nature of it, it is the sheer volume,â€\x9d he said. He spoke to the two days after the England footballer Adam Johnson was found guilty of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl, having groomed her via a series of WhatsApp messages. “No police chief would claim the way we deliver police services has sufficiently adapted to the new threat and harms that the internet brings,â€\x9d Kavanagh told the at the time. He said new offences such as revenge porn were welcome, but the law overall was too piecemeal. The reported on Monday that Google, Facebook and Twitter were talking to grassroots organisations around the world to organise a global counter-speech movement against the violent misogyny, racism, threats, intimidation and abuse that flood social media platforms. The tech firms are reaching out to women’s groups, non-governmental organisations and communities in Africa, the Americas, India, Europe and the Middle East as the scale of abuse online continues to increase. Miller said she thought part of the problem was an incorrect “philosophy in government that the internet does not create new offencesâ€\x9d and a failure among some internet companies to flag up criminal behaviour online. “The problem is rooted in the fact that many internet companies won’t acknowledge that they can challenge, and should stop, criminal behaviour, saying they are just like the postal service and can’t help that people use their services for criminal activity, that it’s not their problem. It is their problem and we need to sit up, take notice and realise that we are creating a nightmare future.â€\x9d Some of Miller’s concerns about online abuse chime with those of Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP and former leadership candidate who backed a Reclaim the Internet campaign in December against “sexist abuse, misogyny, racism and violent threats onlineâ€\x9d. Miller said: “I recently did an interview on Australian television about gender fluidity. You have to delete some of it but I retweeted one of the vile comments that I received and said: ‘Do you think this is an appropriate way to behave?’ I got back a lot of vile abuse. “People are unleashing their inner venom in a way I just do not think is healthy for society. We have got to have an honest debate about this. Too many people in government are saying it is all about freedom of speech and it is not. “Threatening, homophobic, racist, sexist abuse online can actually stifle debate, lead to censorship – with some individuals not willing to say things that might provoke abuse.â€\x9d The former cabinet minister has wider concerns about explicit material being viewed by children at the click of a button, which has prompted her to campaign for compulsory sex education in schools. While some will argue that taking down websites is the thin end of the wedge towards the erosion of free speech, she said: “I think the thin end of the wedge is that a 10-year-old can view pornography at the flick of a switch. I don’t think that is right. And there is still little policing of very abusive websites.â€\x9d The ’s The web we want series launched on Monday to explore the darker side of online comments and efforts to foster better conversations online. It has included research on the ’s own below-the-line comment threads.',
 'Who should Woody Allen choose to join Miley Cyrus in his new comedy series? Hannah Montana And Her Sisters, anyone? Miley Cyrus last week announced her new acting role with suitable gravitas on Instagram: “Fuck yeah! Stoked to be in Woody Allen’s first series!!!!â€\x9d The twerking, hammer-licking 23-year-old popstrel will star in the veteran director’s as-yet-untitled 60s-set TV comedy, which starts shooting in March and will air this autumn on streaming service Amazon Prime. We helpfully suggest 10 other unlikely names Allen could cast – and the roles they could play… Justin Bieber Woody’s clearly in the market for former tweenyboppers keen to show they’re all grown up, so the Canadian pop chipmunk should be next on his hit list. Bieber’s got acting experience, courtesy of CSI and Zoolander 2, so could don specs to play a neurotic young Allen archetype, with added six-pack and bulging Calvins. Beliebers would boost ratings, too. Jessica Raine Broadcasting law dictates that any TV period drama must feature the star of Call the Midwife, Wolf Hall, Partners in Crime and Jericho. Compulsory hat-wearing also applies. Danny Dyer Having shot four films in our capital, Allen’s something of a Londonphile. Who’s more quintessentially cockney than the “pwopah nawtyâ€\x9d landlord of the Queen Vic? Dyer could be Allen’s no-nonsense East End psychiatrist. “Jog on, Freudians. Get yer feet off my couch, you nuttah.â€\x9d Serena Williams There’s a tennis scene in Annie Hall and Woody used the sport as the backdrop of Match Point. He’s the ideal man to supervise Serena’s acting debut. As long as they don’t have much screen time together – 4in taller in flats, she’d dwarf him. Milhouse from The Simpsons Already an established TV star and is built in a lab (OK, an animation studio) to play the young Woody. Davina McCall Just so they could call it Crimes & Miss Davinas. Jeremy Clarkson He’s an Amazon Prime colleague of Woody’s these days. The former Top Gear loudmouth could play a villainous millionaire who punches our hero in a hot food-based fracas. Shouldn’t be much of a stretch. Peppa Pig As Allen ages, his ingenues get younger. The cartoon pig has a way with a witty one-liner, would open up merchandise opportunities and is pretty much Mariel Hemingway in porcine form. Cue a romantic montage of Peppa and Woody jumping in muddy puddles. Joseph Fiennes “It don’t matter if you’re black or white…â€\x9d Joseph Alberic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes from Salisbury has just been cast as Michael Jackson in a TV drama. If he can play the King of Pop, surely he can play anyone. Mia Farrow That would be surprise casting. It’d be even more jaw-dropping if Farrow played a love interest of roughly Woody’s own age.',
 'Goldstone review – a masterpiece of outback noir that packs a political punch Cinema itself began with the western: 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, which most scholars believe to be the first film to tell a fictitious story. But although Australia has no shortage of rugged outdoors people and harsh picturesque terrain, Australian cinema never had an equivalent style of film-making. The closest we’ve come is western-ish productions such as The Story of the Kelly Gang, Likewise, as much as vision of an Akubra-wearing gumshoe detective might appeal, down under noir films were never a thing. In the 1940s and 50s, when guys like Humphrey Bogart wooed dames and dry-gulched cronies, Australian cinema was languishing, or just about to: it produced on average just two features a year from 1952 to 1966. In the magnificent, big-thinking Goldstone, which played opening night at this year’s Sydney film festival, writer/director Ivan Sen combines two genres we never really had, to make one film no Australian should miss. It is a “spiritual sequelâ€\x9d to 2013’s Mystery Road, meaning the protagonist is the same but it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone story. In his own drunk-as-a skunk way, weeping pathos from his pores thanks to another exemplary performance from star Aaron Pedersen, the protagonist – detective Jay Swan – is like Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, riding into town to upset the status quo. Authorities who run the titular out-woop-woop place, including the mayor, Maureen (Jacki Weaver, again in frozen-smile stink-eye mode), have some kind of racket going on. Exactly what it involves will be revealed in time. Suffice to say the last thing they want is a brave outsider upsetting their ecosystem of corruption. In vintage noir fashion, it all begins with a girl. And like virtually any western, it is – save for a couple of prickly supporting characters – a male-oriented affair. Sen paints a picture of a viciously sexist society where women, in particular sex workers, are stripped of their rights and their identities, and traded like commodities. Swan visits Goldstone to track down the whereabouts of a missing young Chinese woman. In the first scene he is behind the wheel and pissed as a fart. The horse Swan rides into town on is the back of a divvy van, after being apprehended by young local cop Josh (Alex Russell). When Maureen visits Josh at the pub, wielding a freshly baked cake, you can tell by the serpentine hiss in Weaver’s voice that he ought to pay attention. A new mine-expansion project is under way, she explains, and it’s worth serious bucks – hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s a slight complication though: it requires “blackfella approvalâ€\x9d. Swan is the recipient of numerous lines like “keep your head downâ€\x9d and “don’t rock the boatâ€\x9d, which you just know is going to have the opposite effect. A pasty David Wenham, donning a tie with a short shirt and rolled-up socks, is the boss of a mining company in nearby Furnace Creek. Tom E Lewis is the head of the clearly corrupt local Aboriginal land council. But the easy-to-pigeonhole supporting characters (the conniving mayor; the corrupt businessman) primarily serve as reference points for the two leading men to define themselves; the focus of the film remains on them. The presence of mobile sex worker Pinky (Kate Beahan), with her sumptuous retro-pink caravan, provides a great albeit brief counterpoint to most portrayals of sex workers who need to be rescued. Perhaps a second “spiritual sequelâ€\x9d could follow her story. As the stakes inevitably increase and Jay and Josh’s frenemy relationship leads to a degree of collaboration – the former goading the latter for allowing awful things to happen on his watch – Sen dishes out action with unerring patience. By the time a car chase scene arrives, it has the weight of an already great film behind it. There’s a shoot-out too, but every shot matters and every bullet counts; your body can almost register the impact. Sen’s cinematography (in addition to writing and directing his films he also shoots, edits, scores and sometimes produces them) avoids the kind of orange-baked, hot, gluggy glaze popularised after 1971’s Wake in Fright. Goldstone’s colour grading is sharp and crisp, its visual makeup – replete with seamlessly integrated aerial drone footage – grandiose, but wired in small details. It’s a gorgeous film to watch, but a better and bigger one to think about. The key to unlocking this hugely ambitious genre hybrid – a classic Australian film and a masterpiece of outback noir – is understanding that Goldstone is a country, not a town, and its name is Australia. Sen’s environmental messages arrive at a time when coal seam gas exploration is a key election issue; meanwhile, corruption allegations involving mining companies and land councils make it clear the story cannot be brushed aside as mere fiction. Opening images of sepia-toned photographs from the gold rush are crucial. The social and political commentaries underpinning Sen’s story paint a picture of a nation that has always, since settlement, prioritised money over land, and has never understood – as Midnight Oil might have put it (before its lead singer became part of the problem) – something as precious as a hole in the ground. Goldstone belongs to a suite of Australian films that contemplate land ownership in memorable ways, from 1932’s On Our Selection to 1950’s Bitter Springs and even 1997’s The Castle. But it has more weight than any of them, because the film’s spiritual roots hark back to the traditional owners of the land. In a small but moving role David Gulpilil plays a man who cannot be bought; his soul is connected to the ground and the sky. When Josh suggests to Jay there is no point rebelling, because when the dust settles the dirt of corruption will remain, Jay takes solace in his belief that at least the dirt will be a little thinner. People change but the system remains more or less the same, Sen seems to be saying. But in that “lessâ€\x9d there is something special, even sacred: the bit in life that says there’s something worth fighting for. What a lot to think about; what a hell of a film. • Goldstone opens nationally on 7 July',
 'Facebook wins appeal against Belgian privacy watchdog over tracking Facebook has successfully overturned a decision that blocked the social network from using its so-called datr cookies to track the internet activity of logged-out users in Belgium. This is the latest twist in the long-running case that saw the Belgian Privacy Commission (BPC) demand Facebook stop the use of some cookies that allowed it to track users outside of Facebook. A court ordered Facebook to “stop tracking and registering internet usage by people who surf the internet in Belgiumâ€\x9d in November. Facebook appealed on the grounds that Belgium does not have the authority to regulate the social network because its European base of operations is in Dublin, Ireland, and won. The Brussels appeals court also threw out the BPC’s claim that the case was urgent and required expedited procedure. A Facebook spokesperson said: “We are pleased with the court’s decision and look forward to bringing all our services back online for people in Belgium.â€\x9d The BPC said: “Today’s decision simply and purely means that Belgian citizens cannot obtain the protection of their private lives through the courts and tribunals when it concerns foreign actors.â€\x9d The case, brought by the Belgian privacy watchdog in June 2015, accused Facebook of indiscriminately tracking internet users using its datr cookie when they visited pages on the site or clicked “likeâ€\x9d or “shareâ€\x9d, even if they were not members of the social network. It claimed that tracking users without their permission contravened European privacy law. Facebook claimed the datr cookie is used to protect users as part of its security systems, preventing user accounts being hacked. The BPC said it would look into launching a final appeal with the court of cassation, which can throw out previous judgments but not deliver new ones, and has previously overruled the court of appeal on matters of jurisdiction over foreign companies. Facebook is chipping away at privacy – and my profile has been exposed Mark Zuckerberg tapes over his webcam. Should you?',
 'Watching sad films boosts endorphin levels in your brain, psychologists say Tyrannosaur, Breaking the Waves and Schindler’s List might make you reach for the tissues, but psychologists say they have found a reason why traumatic films are so appealing. Researchers at Oxford University say that watching traumatic films boosts feelings of group bonding, as well as increasing pain tolerance by upping levels of feel-good, pain-killing chemicals produced in the brain. “The argument here is that actually, maybe the emotional wringing you get from tragedy triggers the endorphin system,â€\x9d said Robin Dunbar, a co-author of the study and professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford. Previous research has found that laughing together, dancing together and working in a team can increase social bonding and heighten pain tolerance through an endorphin boost. “All of those things, including singing and dancing and jogging and laughter, all produce an endorphin kick for the same reason - they are putting the musculature of the body under stress,â€\x9d said Dunbar. Being harrowed, he adds, could have a similar effect. “It has turned out that the same areas in the brain that deal with physical pain also handle psychological pain,â€\x9d said Dunbar. Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Dunbar and colleagues describe how they set out to unpick whether our love of storytelling, a device used to share knowledge and cultivate a sense of identity within a group, is underpinned by an endorphin-related bonding mechanism. To explore the possibility, the researchers split 169 participants into groups composed largely of people they did not know, and showed them the traumatic drama Stuart: A life backwards which is based on the true story of a disabled, homeless drug addict and alcoholic. A control group of 68 individuals was shown, two documentaries back to back - one on natural history and the other on the geology and archaeology of Britain. Before and after seeing the films, participants were asked to indicate through various scales their mood, together with their feelings of belonging towards other members of their group. A number of participants were also asked to complete an exercise to gauge their pain tolerance - the wall-sit test, involving squatting with their back against a wall for as long as possible. With increased levels of pain tolerance linked to the release of potent pain-killing chemicals known as endorphins, the test offered scientists an indirect way of gauging changes to endorphin levels in the brain. “What one wants to know is does your response to one film change in a different way to your response to the other,â€\x9d said Dunbar. The results reveal that those who watched the traumatic film had, on average, a strong negative change to their mood, while those who watched the documentaries showed only a slight change in both positive and negative markers, which the researchers attribute to boredom. They also found that, on average, the pain tolerance of those who watched the traumatic movie increased by 13.1%, whereas those who watched the documentaries experienced a decrease in pain threshold of 4.6%. The upshot is that the traumatic film boosted pain thresholds by nearly 18% compared to the “controlâ€\x9d scenario. What’s more, those who showed an increase in pain tolerance also had increased feelings of group bonding, despite their mood becoming less positive. But not everyone showed an emotional response to Stuart: A life backwards. Some viewers showed a decrease in pain threshold, together with no change in their social bonding. “This is probably true of everyday life - some people get very moved emotionally by some event that happens while other people look blankly on and say ‘what is the fuss?’â€\x9d said Dunbar. While further research is needed to look at a wider range of films and other influences, such as musical scores, Dunbar says the results suggest that watching traumatic films increases endorphin levels in the brain, boosting pain tolerance and increasing the sense of bonding with others in the group. Prof Sophie Scott, group leader of the speech communication neuroscience group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, said it was striking that traumatic films, like laughter, appear to produce a social bonding effect. “It suggests that it not simply [with] positive emotions that you have this bonding effect - maybe there is something about a shared emotional experience which is really changing how your endorphins are being taken up and making you feel closer to people,â€\x9d she said, adding that exploring the effects of anger or disgust could help to tease apart whether the effect was down to particular emotions, or rather the sharing of them. But Scott, who wasn’t involved in the research, said she isn’t convinced that Dunbar and colleagues have discovered the foundations of our love of storytelling. “Stories are everything for humans - if we can fit something into a story we will do. We understand things better if they fit to stories, we remember things better if they fit to stories,â€\x9d she said. “I don’t know if you are going account for that simply with shared emotions.â€\x9d',
 'Ugandan president stops to make roadside phone call. Twitter explodes The Ugandan president has become a meme sensation after being photographed making an important phone call while sitting on a portable chair at the side of the road. Yoweri Museveni was on his way to a public engagement in the south west district of Isingiro when his motorcade ground to a halt, a padded foldout seat appeared and he relaxed into a 30 minute chat. Or at least that’s what the photo posted on Facebook by his press secretary appeared to suggest. It did not take long to reach the consciousness of Ugandans on Twitter (#UOT), who spent the next few hours frantically speculating about who could be on the receiving end of such an important call. Who was he talking to? Could it be that he was trying to stop opposition leader Kizza Besigye being released on bail? The politician, who is Museveni’s most formidable opponent, had been imprisoned for two months on treason charges after he denounced February’s elections as a sham and declared that he was in fact the winner. Or maybe the photo was a carefully choreographed PR stunt to distract attention from anything Besigye had to say? Maybe it wasn’t politics but Museveni had experienced one too many connection dropouts and decided that there was no time like the present to fix Uganda’s mobile signal? Or maybe he’d just got round to downloading Drake’s latest album? #M7challenge As the meme multiplied some Ugandans questioned whether they should be following presidential protocol by finding a outside spot to sit and chat, challenging others to do the same using a hashtag inspired by Museveni’s nickname M7. Although some attempts seemed more opportunist than others. Others didn’t seem to care too much about who was on the other end of the call but clearly enjoyed imagining the 71-year-old president, who has been in office since 1986, in alternative surroundings. But who brought the chair? And as the meme merry-go-round continues, it remains unclear who provided the chair.',
 'Man climbs Trump Tower in New York City using suction cups A 20-year-old Virginia man seeking an “audienceâ€\x9d with Donald Trump used large suction cups to scale the outside of Trump Tower on Wednesday for three hours, reaching the 21st floor before being hauled through a window by police. The climber – a young, white male with long brown hair and muttonchops – wore a backpack and used a harness and rope stirrups to fasten himself to the side of the 58-story Manhattan skyscraper, above Fifth Avenue. The man used four suction cup-like devices, each with ropes attached for him to stand on. The building’s windows were apparently too dirty for the cups to attach to, as he frequently stopped to clean the windows before attempting to attach to them. Police officers smashed windows and broke through a ventilation duct in an attempt to block his progress. Officers also lowered themselves toward him using a window washer’s platform. For a long time, the climber played a slow-motion cat-and-mouse game with officers, eluding them by methodically working his way across the facade and the angled corners of the building. The chase ended dramatically just after 6.30pm. As a crowd gasped on the street below, two officers leaning far out of a window frame where the glass was removed grabbed the climber’s arm and backpack, and in a flash yanked him from his dangling stirrups. He went through the opening head first, his legs pointed skyward. Police had deployed large, inflated crash pads at the scene, but it was unclear whether they were positioned close enough to where the man was climbing to offer any protection if he fell. He was speaking with officers through the holes cut in the side of the building. When would-be rescuers smashed a window above him, he ducked to avoid big shards of glass that fell. They collectively inhaled as he was pulled inside. “I’m so disappointed,â€\x9d a young man said. Others sadly lamented that they missed it. Police blocked off much of 56th Street, the south side of the tower, where the man was climbing. The crowds pressed together in the heat and humidity and spilled onto Madison Avenue. With smartphones and cameras raised, they documented the strange occurrence on Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook Live. In offices nearby, some watched from the windows. “I gotta get this shit on camera. This is hilarious,â€\x9d one man said. Others wondered if the climber – whom many were calling Steve – was getting tired. Another yelled “Make America great againâ€\x9d. Others offered their own theories on why the man was doing this. “It’s gotta be a protest,â€\x9d a man said. Some disagreed. “I think it’s just a daredevil,â€\x9d said Carolyn Gatchell, a nurse from New Hampshire. “I think it’s ironic because it’s a Trump building. I’m anxious to see what he has to say about it.â€\x9d Gatchell and her husband, Bill, in town on vacation, were at the Empire State building when they saw helicopters near Trump Tower so they headed down to check out what was going on. “I think it’s innocent – not a terrorist or anything,â€\x9d Bill added of the climbers’ motivation. The day before, police said, the climber posted a video on YouTube entitled: Message to Mr Trump (why I climbed your tower). “I am an independent researcher seeking a private audience with you to discuss an important matter. I guarantee that it’s in your interest to honor this request,â€\x9d he said in the video. “Believe me, if my purpose was not significant, I would not risk my life pursuing it. The reason I climbed your tower is to get your attention. If I had sought this via conventional means, I would be much less likely to have success because you are a busy man with many responsibilities.â€\x9d NYPD assistant chief William Aubrey said the man, who was not named by police, told officers the same thing after he was safely inside the building. “At no time did he express that he wanted to hurt anybody,â€\x9d Aubrey added. The tower is headquarters to Trump’s Republican presidential campaign and his business empire. Trump also lives there, though he was in Virginia on Wednesday afternoon and was headed to Florida for an evening event. Kathy, a Trump supporter from Sunnyside, was visiting a friend nearby when she saw the crowds. She said she used to work in the building but not for Trump and was concerned for the safety of former coworkers who might be there, as well as Trump. She was relieved to find out that he was away . “People want to be around him,â€\x9d she said of Trump. “They will glom onto anything like him. Look how much attention this guy is getting.â€\x9d About 20 police officers funneled curious onlookers out of the street so cars could pass unhindered down Madison Avenue. Those who moved across the street could still see the building where the climber was approaching an open window and police.',
 'NHS leadership needs to give staff a powerful voice in any system change Inevitably the NHS reform drive got caught up in the party conference crossfire. Diane Abbott, in her last few days as shadow health secretary, attempted to rebrand sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) as “secret Tory plansâ€\x9d, while prime minister Theresa May made the ludicrous assertion that the government had given the NHS “more than its leaders asked forâ€\x9d, conjuring up an image of NHS England trying to work out what to do with all the extra cash. But clinicians as well as politicians are becoming increasingly vocal on the current round of reform. The Royal College of GPs is getting angry over the obsessive focus on sorting out hospital deficits rather than transforming care. At their annual conference this week, college chair Maureen Baker accurately pointed out that if there is insufficient investment in general practice, system transformation simply won’t happen, and the whole process will have been in vain. NHS England has expressed concern about the lack of clinical involvement in drawing up local plans. At the recent NHS Expo, chief nursing officer Professor Jane Cummings revealed that she had had “mixed responsesâ€\x9d when pushing for nurses to have a greater role in STPs, and urged healthcare professionals to make their voices heard. The RCN backs the drive for patients to increasingly manage their own care, but has warned that the only way to do that effectively is to listen to patients and clinicians. In many areas this did not happen before the plans were submitted to NHS England. The extraordinary speed with which the plans are being put together is causing concern. Last week Julia Simon, who has just finished as the head of commissioning policy at NHS England, went so far as to claim there were “a lot of lies in the system about the … benefits that will be delivered; it’s just a construct, not a realityâ€\x9d. She described the speed as “madâ€\x9d and “shamefulâ€\x9d. NHS England is rushing the process for a reason. As NHS Improvement chief executive Jim Mackey made clear from his first days in the job, it would be a calamitous failure for the NHS to push the Department of Health over its parliamentary spending limit. The possible consequences are far greater than simply NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens losing his job; it could lead to a fundamental change in the relationship between frontline health services and government. Despite Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s determination to keep a personal grip on the health service, and despite the numerous weaknesses in the current structure, the NHS does at least have a meaningful degree of autonomy from direct Whitehall control. Busting the spending limit runs the serious risk that this would be reversed, to the detriment of the whole system. But NHS England and NHS improvement need to balance the need for quick action to stabilise the finances with acceptance that the only way to deliver the transformation they seek is for it to be led by clinicians as much as managers. STPs are focused on structures and process, but as thousands of pages of visions and plans that have come to little over the years demonstrate, documents like these are ultimately worthless without clinical buy-in and leadership, because they all depend on clinicians taking different decisions with their patients on the best way forward. The frenetic pace of the STP process gives the erroneous impression that, at least for the most advanced areas, it will all be over by Christmas. In reality, this is just the beginning of many years of work to change the culture of the entire health and care system. Once the immediate panic over getting financial plans in place has subsided, the NHS leadership needs to focus relentlessly on giving staff a powerful voice in system change. Clinicians need to be empowered and supported in making the improvements that they know are needed, while also being challenged to develop their thinking around crucial areas such as building services around the needs of the patients rather than the institution. Either clinicians start to lead this, or it will fail. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'What do Germans think about Brexit? They pity us On Sunday night, I was watching Hungary play Belgium in a rowdy beer garden at Tempelhofer Feld, once a military airfield, now Berlin’s largest public park. Germany had just won their match against Slovakia 3-0, and men on their fourth pilsner were noisily reliving the highlights. But when the news came on at half time, the entire garden suddenly fell eerily silent. “It’s a topsy-turvy worldâ€\x9d, the news reader said. “From Brussels’ point of view, Great Britain is out of the EU … but suddenly London is not so sure.â€\x9d Jaws dropped around my table. One person banged his head on the table in mock despair. As great as the shock at Thursday’s result may have in been in the UK, it is greater still in Germany. In Britain, some had seen it coming, and at least half the country must have been looking forward to it. But in Germany the leave vote blew away the foundations of what people believed the British character to be. For months, whenever I had tried to tell fellow Germans that a British vote to leave was entirely possible and even likely, they calmly assured me that this could not be the case. Britain was the home of pragmatism, of common sense – did I not know? Historical experience has shaped that German notion of the British national character. In his essay Gardens in Wartime, the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig contrasts how the outbreak of the first world war triggered a fever of flagwaving and patriotic chanting on the streets of Vienna, with how calmly Londoners carried on pruning their hedges when news of the war against Hitler broke in 1939. The British were meant to be immune to all the neurotic romanticism that had played havoc with the German-speaking people’s imagination in the 20th century. But on Thursday that nation of supposed pragmatists made a decision that seemed fuelled by some wildly idealised notion of “sovereigntyâ€\x9d. A people admired by many Germans as essentially cautious, sceptical, small-c conservatives had flamboyantly gambled with their economic future. Until the feeling sets in that Britain has gambled with Europe’s future too, most Germans don’t hate the Brits for what happened – they pity them. A couple of Germans will have raised a glass to the British flipping the bird at the EU establishment on Thursday night. But politically that sentiment has been voiced only in minority fringes, such as the Anti-capitalist Left group of the German Left party, or the wilder edges of Alternative für Deutschland, the party that was founded on an anti-euro ticket in 2013 and has since grown on the back of populist anti-refugee messages. When a colleague and I interviewed the AfD’s deputy leader, Alexander Gauland, in his Potsdam offices a few weeks ago, we were struck not only by his strategic concerns about the economic consequences of Britain leaving the EU behind, but also his deep-rooted Anglophilia. Gauland, often referred to as the “thinker-in-chiefâ€\x9d behind the populist right party, wears tweed jackets, has written a book on the history of the House of Windsor and used to drive an original Mini even after the car was remade by BMW. His parliamentary office is adorned with portraits of British parliamentarians such as William Gladstone, William Lamb and the Duke of Devonshire. The intellectual motor behind a party orchestrating a revolution against Germany’s “political eliteâ€\x9d, I realised, nurtures a deep nostalgia for the British elites of yesteryear, of a world in which people read Country Life by the fireplace at their family pile. That is how deeply myths of Britishness are hardwired into Germany’s cultural memory. When commentators try to calculate the negative impact that Brexit will have on Britain, they tend to talk mainly of exports and imports, financial markets and military muscle. People have so far talked little about the asset that most normal Europeans most admire most about Great Britain: the soft power that comes with cultural clout. Even those Germans who complain that Britain was never truly part of the European family anyway will concede that most of their compatriots don’t know who the French equivalent of James Bond is, or the Polish Mick Jagger. An arch-federalist friend put it like this: “Britishness is all pomp and circumstance and no substance. Look at the Queen’s birthday, or Cameron’s whole mission to reform the EU – it’s all empty, all just show. But my God, are they brilliant at it.â€\x9d British soft power used to be like some magical balloon animal: seemingly made of thin air but strangely flexible and resistant. The question is whether Brexit will burst that balloon. As the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev has recently argued, it is not just British soft power but the very idea of soft power that has, during the refugee crisis, gone from being every liberal democracy’s most sought-after asset to being seen as a source of vulnerability. But given the image of itself that Britain has projected over the last month, I wonder if German students, creatives and businesspeople will still be as keen to flock to the UK as they have been in my lifetime. What if the much-hated “metropolitan liberal eliteâ€\x9d who couldn’t make a difference at the referendum votes with its feet instead and moves to other open-minded cities around Europe? On Friday evening, once the shock had sunk in, the German foreign office pointedly tweeted that its staff were off to “an Irish pubâ€\x9d to get decently drunk. It felt like a hint of things to come.',
 'Renting hell in New York City: how my hoarder landlady ruined my life For five years, I lived on the most beautiful block in the five boroughs of New York City, occupying two full floors of a brownstone on a tree-lined street in downtown Brooklyn. It was the kind of block where the gingko trees turned the evening light gold every October, around the same time families dressed up their stoops with jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Think the idyllic exterior of the Huxtables’ house from the Cosby Show. Think the hood of Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It – a black creative mecca before the onslaught of gentrification ran every black person out of it. If my street was picture-book worthy, the house itself was not. I lived in a pre-war building and it chilled me to consider that when it was built, my ancestors were chattel slaves. The facade was crumbling, the iron fence was falling apart. When glass had broken on the front parlor windows, my landlady had replaced them with cheap plastic. But the house was near many subway lines, the most cutting-edge arts venues, and the best dining in the greatest city on the face of the Earth. For all of this, I paid just $1,000 a month for some 2,400 square feet across two upper floors – the kind of bargain which is the stuff of New York legend. To get the apartment, I made a two-part devil’s bargain. First, I had to accept that my landlord was a compulsive hoarder who didn’t want to get rid of things that were trash, if not Level 4 biohazards. She held on to everything as if her life depended on it (and psychologically, it did). And second, I would have to take care of her animals when she went out of town a few weeks each summer. She had a mangy mutt named Timmy*, nearly blind with cataracts and six cats (one had a leg missing, and another only had one eye). Honestly, I thought I could manage the situation. And regardless, my apartment was going to be so big and so clean. I’d have nine rooms and two bathrooms all to myself. I could fill it with tasteful second-hand mid-century furniture. I could have a full-sized Christmas tree each winter and I could have a boyfriend and cook with him. I could even put up friends and family in one of the guest rooms (that’s guest rooms, plural). Besides, living upstairs from a hoarder wasn’t so unusual. According to a 2013 article in Scientific American, “Between five million and 14 million people in the US are compulsive hoarders.â€\x9d Hoarding seems like a logical symptom to appear in a world sick from consumer capitalism, after all. I could deal with it. I was wrong. ••• I had met my landlady through friends of friends from my hometown. She was a white woman who had become a Sai Baba Hindu in the 1970s and had an inappropriate sense of her connection to Indian culture. She was older and looking for a tenant who’d shovel her walk when it snowed and help out here and there. I knew she was kooky, but the first sign that something was seriously wrong didn’t come until I called her when she wasn’t home and her outgoing message breathlessly referred to her blind dog: “Thank you for calling Timmy Enterprises. We are not in right now, please leave a message for Timmy after the beep.â€\x9d That alone should have tipped me off. She also had pictures of her dog all over her house and referred to him as “my soulmateâ€\x9d. I had thought taking care of her pets would involve walking her dog and feeding her cats when she went out of town. But periodically, she’d call to “avail myself of your mortuary servicesâ€\x9d (said in a breathless faux Victorian accent that convinced me I was living in the upper quarters of Grey Gardens). The cats often brought “giftsâ€\x9d –dead birds, mice, crows and rats – which I was expected to dispose of. Sometimes, there was a feline carcass to contend with. “I think Muffy* has died,â€\x9d she said one morning through sobs. I wasn’t quite sure how she could not know if her cat was dead or alive, but it turns out she had thrown a blanket over the poor dying animal. “I was worried she might die during the night, and I can’t bear to look at anything dead!â€\x9d She then left the room and yelled, “OK, can you see if she’s dead and if so, put her in a bag so we can bury her in the backyard?â€\x9d When I lifted the blanket, Muffy’s eyes were bulging out of her head and her tongue was sticking out of her mouth like she was being strangled. It was as if the Kitty Grim Reaper had slipped his bony hands around her neck and Muffy, abandoned by her caretaker under a blanket, had left this world screaming, “DEATH, DON’T TAKE ME!â€\x9d Once my landlady knew her cat was safely out of sight in a bag, she said she wanted to watch Muffy’s burial. Digging into the hard earth, my $1,000-a-month apartment started seeming more expensive than the bargain I thought it was. And I should have started looking for a new place when I hit a flat rock with the shovel and my landlady took it from me, thinking it was slate and saying through tears that she could make a “cheese plateâ€\x9d out of it. ••• Over the years, I noticed that most of my landlady’s few friends stopped visiting her. I also grew increasingly concerned for those animals, who had no choice to live in such squalor. When I tried to bring it up with her, she admitted she hadn’t vacuumed in ages because the vacuum cleaner was broken. But, when she had taken it to a repair shop to get it fixed, the owner “rudely told me to get it out of his shop because it smelled like cat piss!â€\x9d. Which it did – like her entire house. When Timmy finally died, she changed her outgoing message: “Timmy Enterprises is now closed,â€\x9d she said in a voice that sounded suicidal. “Our founder and CEO has died. Please leave a message after the beep.â€\x9d (The blind mutt was soon replaced by a deaf shih tzu named Maple Mandy*.) ••• The day of my landlady’s 70th birthday, I got the phone call that would change my life (and which would have ended my landlady’s if I hadn’t answered). It was from one of her few friends she hadn’t alienated. “Please go downstairs and check on her,â€\x9d she begged me. “I think she is dying! And she won’t go to the emergency room!â€\x9d There was no answer when I knocked downstairs so I let myself in. Her apartment was worse than I had ever seen it before. Stepping over animal feces, I followed the sound of moaning to my landlady’s bedroom, where I found her sprawled on a pile of trash, with several mangy cats roaming over her body. She was grasping her abdomen, which was swollen and looked like it was going to burst. In the dim light from a spartan naked bulb, I could actually see roaches and spiders crawling over the mass. My landlady was clearly in pain but didn’t want to go to the ER. She had not been to a doctor or taken any western medicine in 41 years. I suspected she was on the verge of dying and insisted she go. She refused. Our argument grew heated, and I called her friend and described what I was seeing. My landlady became terrified that I would call 911 and that paramedics might see inside her house; it was then that I realized I was one of very few people who had been in her home in a long time. We compromised: a friend agreed to drive us to an urgent care facility. The car ride was traumatic – she moaned like a dying animal, screaming that she would never go to an ER. But when the urgent care physician quickly recognized that she was was within hours of dying, they threw her in an ambulance for the nearest hospital. Having not been to a doctor in four decades, she had no insurance nor medical history to help the medical staff. The doctors quickly diagnosed her with a condition which, if not treated, can kill someone – and she’d already been having symptoms for a day and a half, hoping chanting and herbal tea would fix it. I decided to postpone a surgery I was supposed to have myself to attend to her instead. She was hooked up to a ventilator and had a tube shoved down her throat. Unable to talk, she wrote on a pad that she wanted me to be her healthcare proxy and I accepted. What followed was a terrible meeting with her, a patient advocate, and the hospital attorney to go over her end-of-life and do-not-resuscitate directives. Eventually I tracked down her estranged brother in the midwest, who had no interest in coming to help. So over the course of a week, her friend and I held ice to her forehead and dabbed moisture on her lips to try to keep her mouth from drying out. For days on end, fever racked her body, and infection threatened to kill her. I worried constantly about her and, selfishly, also worried about what was going to happen to me. Long term, she’d left no will and had no heirs, so I could be out on the street. Short term, it was winter, the oil was almost out of the furnace, and I had to figure out how to pay for a new delivery. The hospital’s social worker had begun to assess her case, too. My landlady was facing weeks in the hospital and months of recovery: did she have a caretaker and a safe environment? Her friend and I bluntly told the social worker that the house was a biological hazard. Between the animals, the feces and the bugs, the house would kill her. ••• I took Maple Mandy out for a walk the next day, and when and I bent over to pick up after him I recoiled in horror: his poop was moving, writhing with dozens of pink and white worms. The turd looked like Medusa’s head. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. I immediately took the dog to a vet, who explained that Maple Mandy needed to be dewormed, that he was probably living in a vermin-infested home, and that there was no point in taking him back to that environment until it had been fumigated. I slapped my credit card down to board him and get him human-priced treatments at the animal hospital – then went to see my landlady at the human hospital. Fortunately, the social worker had just been to visit and had put the fear of God in her. Given her age, the social worker had explained, and given she had no family to care for her, the hospital would have to do a home inspection before she would be released. If it was as bad as it had been described to her, the social worker said, my landlady might be deemed unable to care for herself. Animal Control could remove her pets and she could be placed in a city facility. This news had snapped my landlady into a rare moment of clarity. “I can’t believe I let the house get that bad,â€\x9d she said. “I knew it was bad, but I can’t believe I didn’t see how bad it really was.â€\x9d I seized the moment for an intervention. I told her that she was abusing her animals through neglect. That they were filled with worms. That I couldn’t let her go back there. And then she begged me: “I’ll give you the money,â€\x9d she said. “You’ve got to get the house professionally cleaned, before they inspect it so I can go home.â€\x9d She gave me a few thousand dollars, told me to call someone in her church to help hire cleaners, and said, “The house has to be clean.â€\x9d ••• It was a descent into madness, and I am afraid I went a bit mad along the way, too. I went about it, with the help of about a dozen paid professionals who said it was the most disgusting apartment they had ever cleaned. Everyone wore gloves, goggles and masks. Despite all those cats, there was an infestation of mice between the floorboards, along with fleas, roaches, spiders and spider eggs. We started with one of two fumigations. We then took all items that could be salvaged (papers, jewelry, books, utensils, tools) and put them in clear plastic 30 gallon bags so that my landlady could sort them and put them away when she returned. There were about 100 of these bags. Everything cloth had to be sent to an industrial cleaner for washing; much of it had to be run through twice. I personally picked up all the cloth from the floor, and I filled some 30 gallon bags, weighing about 1,500lb in total. But perhaps the most horrid place was the kitchen. There were hundreds of roaches inside the refrigerator. There were moths and mice feces in dry food containers. There were canned goods that were more than 10 years past their expiration dates. Her box of teas (which, I’m afraid, I had been served from) was crawling with bugs. Many of her cooking utensils were caked with rust. She had been cooking meals for the homeless once a month from that kitchen, and I wondered what kinds of rancid food those poor people had been subjected to. Many disgusting items were hidden from sight. If a chair was peed on by a cat, a sheet would be thrown over it. If another cat vomited on that sheet, another sheet would be thrown on top of it. Then another. It wasn’t unusual to find 10, 15 layers of cloth on any given surface. ••• Around this time, the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders was published, and for the first time ever, it included hoarding as a mental illness. It doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to understand that a person who literally wallows in shit doesn’t feel very good about themselves. But consulting my sister Sharron (she had a PhD in psychology) helped me understand exactly why it is delusional and why the DSM believes hoarding behavior has harmful effects. Symptoms of the disorder cause clinically significant distress or impairment. These behaviors can often be quite severe and even threatening. Beyond the mental impact of the disorder, the accumulation of clutter can create a health issue. I would also reluctantly emphasize that hoarding is incredibly social. Untrained to really help her, I had enabled my landlady’s hoarding, and had gone a little crazy in pretending like it wasn’t as bad as it was. ••• The dozen workers worked around the clock. I missed Christmas and New Year’s with my own family trying to get the house in order. But somehow we managed to make the house clean and somewhat orderly. Maple Mandy was able to come home. And when the city checked out the house, it passed inspection. My landlady returned to her dewormed dog and her cats. She had a brand new mattress, bed linens and curtains. Perhaps for the first time in years, she could see her floor, which was shiny with Murphy’s Oil Soap. She thanked me, apologized for the mess she’d put me through, and promised to hire a housekeeper to keep things in order while she recovered. But the honeymoon didn’t last long. She was now expecting me to bring her food several times a day, and refused to hire a nurse. I was nervous that she was further going to consume my life. After a few days, I stepped in something when I came in to bring her food. The cat turds started piling up on the floor again, and I reminded her that she needed to get a house cleaner. When they were still there 24 hours later, I told her that until she picked them up, I wouldn’t be coming back. We really only spoke one more time after that, when she summoned me down a few weeks later to go over a list of missing items. “There were three can openers, I can only find two!â€\x9d She screamed at me.“Where’s my fourth tennis ball?â€\x9d I told her to go through all the clear plastic bags, but that the cleaning crew had cleaned everything that could be salvaged and thrown out what couldn’t. “I told you to get the house cleaned!â€\x9d She yelled at me. “Cleaning does not mean throwing things away!â€\x9d ••• She never spoke to me again after that. Part of me was relieved. I grew to have a newfound understanding about people in abusive relationships who don’t leave realizing that I – with some education and some money and no children to support – felt paralyzed about even trying to find another home. And then one day, a man rang my doorbell. He was a process server, giving me my eviction papers to put me out on the street. I had 30 days to vacate. I had never been so ashamed and frightened in my life. I hired a lawyer to buy myself a couple more months. I could have probably staved it off for another year or two in court but ultimately I would have lost, and I would have been living above a toxic environment. I was lucky there had never been a fire. I decided to leave – to leave my apartment, and to leave New York City. Nothing but good came to me once I left – spiritually, financially, physically or professionally. I lived for a year with my sister, who had been living with cancer, which turned out to be the bulk of the last year of her life. I applied to six PhD programs and got into all of them. I got a fantastic new writing job (this one, in fact). I eventually moved to Manhattan. I don’t regret my years in that house. I have wonderful memories from my time there – of parties and dinners and love and sex. Two friends’ marriage and family blossomed from a meeting in my kitchen. I left with a full heart ready to be filled by new adventures. But I am glad that, unlike my landlady, I am emotionally well enough to know when to move, when to let go, and to understand that people and relationships are much more valuable than even the most prime New York real estate. * Names have been changed to protect innocent and abused pets.',
 "David Holmes: 'It was a modern day Wrecking Crew' At the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Virgil Avenue on the edge of east Hollywood, there stood for several years a bar called Little Temple. On Tuesday evenings here, you might stumble across a jam night named The Rotary Room, where you could find Money Mark performing alongside the legendary upright bassist David Piltch, or Tommy Morgan, the harmonica player on the Beach Boys’ I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, covering Van Dyke Parks tunes with John Lennon’s drummer Jim Keltner, while a member of the world’s best Led Zeppelin tribute band worked the sound. The Rotary Room was dreamed up by singer-songwriter Jade Vincent and her partner, composer-keyboardist Keefus Ciancia, who together with David Holmes have now launched a new project: Unloved. Anyone curious to know about the musical influences on Unloved’s debut album need only consult the playlists from those Tuesdays at The Rotary Room: a little Shuggie Otis, a touch of Connie Francis, Brigitte Fontaine meets yé-yé, Broadcast and Morricone mingled with Bonnie Beecher’s Come Wander With Me. Certainly it was where Holmes, who had met Ciancia working on a film score in the studio of composer Woody Jackson, began to contemplate the idea of Unloved. “I just invited him down one night,â€\x9d Ciancia recalls, “and then we asked him to curate it, to pick the pieces for the entire night, and it was intense, because he picked some hard pieces. But all the musicians loved it.â€\x9d Today Ciancia, 43, and Vincent, 49, are sitting in a London pub playing backgammon and recounting their respective musical histories. Ciancia grew up in Colorado, where he credits the cold winters with forcing him to stay indoors learning piano in the basement. He won a scholarship to music college in Los Angeles, where eventually he met Vincent, a transplant from Phoenix, Arizona, then singing in the city’s jazz clubs and looking for a piano player. He was struck, he says, by the beauty of her voice, by its range and depth and phrasing. Vincent was similarly bowled over by his piano-playing: “Nobody plays like Keefus,â€\x9d she says. “It’s his instinct. The delivery is like a voice, I can speak to it.â€\x9d The pair began to write together, horn-heavy, increasingly experimental material, pursued while Ciancia’s career in film and TV scoring began to flourish, working on projects such as True Detective, Nashville and The Hunger Games. Their world seemed to overlap easily with that of Holmes – since his debut release in 1995, This Film’s Crap Let’s Slash the Seats, he has gone on to score films such as Out of Sight, Ocean’s 11 and 12, Hunger and Good Vibrations. In the beginning, the new project was rudderless and nameless, but charged with the trio’s enthusiasm: days spent listening to records turned into time in the studio composing a dozen or so instrumentals. “The style was dark and slow at first,â€\x9d Ciancia recalls. “Then over time we loosened up, so the last batch we wrote, tracks like I Can Tell You, The Ground and Now Is the Time, are much faster.â€\x9d The instrumentals were handed to Vincent to work alone on the melody and lyrics. She is a natural storyteller, her songs rich and visual, full of dark anecdotes and intriguing characters, her striking vocal range allowing her to play the full cast. “Before I wrote, David would talk through ideas, almost the way a director would to an actor,â€\x9d she explains. “We’d just have a conversation, he’d play me something I’d never heard before or show me a film even.â€\x9d Holmes, Ciancia says, “Steered the ship to where it was going. But I think David is always open to see something happen. There’s no tiptoeing, he’s blunt, and impulsive and of the moment.â€\x9d Vincent laughs and leans across the backgammon board. “In my opinion,â€\x9d she says conspiratorially, “they’re both mad geniuses.â€\x9d It is a couple of weeks later, and Holmes is on the phone from Belfast, playing a track named Screw You, by Ram and Sel, down the line. “I’m gonna … SCREW … YOU …â€\x9d it scrawls. “Do you know it?â€\x9d Holmes asks. This track, he says, was the one he chose for the finale of his first night curating The Rotary Room: a gang of female backing singers clustered on stage, lip-curling their way through the chorus accompanied by a selection of impeccably qualified, hand-picked musicians. “It was like a modern day Wrecking Crew,â€\x9d Holmes says with tangible glee, name-checking the famous LA session musicians of the 60s. “In my own mind I felt that I had seen something through the eyes of Jack Nitzsche.â€\x9d Transferring this very particular atmosphere to the recording studio was, he feels, essential to Unloved’s success. “If you’re going to make music that has its influence from that period, then the recording really has to be taken very seriously,â€\x9d he explains. “And we did make a real conscious effort to move away from digital effects as much as possible. Everything was analogue – all the reverbs, all the delays, echo, the console.â€\x9d Vincent herself has an analogue quality, Holmes feels. “She’s got that swagger,â€\x9d he says. “There’s people who do that sound, the whole 60s thing, but a lot of people don’t do it right. Jade has it, like Amy Winehouse had it. She’s the real thing.â€\x9d Ciancia brings another quality: “A lot of times with Keefus it’s about finding a single, specific sound,â€\x9d Holmes says. “And that’s one thing that we shared in common – we had both been constantly collecting sounds wherever we could find them. He can manipulate a sound like no other. We do a lot of sampling, but it was about transferring that sample into a keyboard sound. Like on Guilty of Love, that groove is sampled from this track called Little Gold Locket, a 60s popcorn song by Darwin. So you were playing a melody or a riff with that sample, so what you were getting was an authenticity, but done in our way.â€\x9d Holmes’s enthusiasm – a boundless, giddy force – seems to buckle a little when he talks about some of the trappings of modern music: the point in any DJ set where “everyone gets pissed and you have to put on something by Abbaâ€\x9d or the “shiny productionâ€\x9d of many new records. “There’s something that’s really missing,â€\x9d he says, “in a lot of music now; everything’s so perfect and overly-compressed and one-dimensional, and you lose that rawness and roughness.â€\x9d And so, in many ways, Unloved is his attempt to find some of that roughness again, a quest for “authenticity and that feeling that you get when you listen to somethingâ€\x9d. He sounds lit up, suddenly, delighted by all the possibilities that this new project might offer: “Because I love so much music, and I love it for so many different reasons,â€\x9d he says. “I just think music has the power to do so many things.â€\x9d Unloved is released on 4 March on Unloved Records. David Holmes – along with Andrew Weatherall – is one of the guests on the first show in Music’s takeover of Apple’s Beats 1, discussing the best new music (and some old stuff, too). You can hear it on Saturday 5 March at 7pm GMT, with shows following at the same time every Saturday for the rest of the month. All the shows will be available to hear on demand.",
 'May acknowledges human rights issues in seeking Gulf trade deal Theresa May has said the UK must not “turn our backâ€\x9d on the human rights abuses of foreign countries as she prepares to court Gulf states over a post-Brexit trade deal on a trip to Bahrain. The prime minister has been urged by campaigners not to set aside human rights concerns in pursuit of a potentially lucrative free-trade arrangement with Middle-Eastern countries. But May, who will become the first British leader and the first woman to attend the annual gathering of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) annual summit, said on Sunday that the UK must seek to “transform the way we do businessâ€\x9d with the region. “As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf,â€\x9d she said. “This could transform the way we do business and lock in a new level of prosperity for our people.â€\x9d She added: “There will be some people in the UK who say we shouldn’t seek stronger trade and security ties with these countries because of their record on human rights. But we don’t uphold our values and human rights by turning our back on this issue. We achieve far more by stepping up, engaging with these countries and working with them.â€\x9d Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, and many Conservative MPs believe a trade deal with the Gulf could be one of the first the UK can seal post-Brexit. But the GCC member states – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar – may demand visa-free travel in return. The largest political party in Bahrain has been banned from the summit in Manama and both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been heavily criticised for their bombing campaign in the Yemen civil war. In a letter sent to May and published on Sunday, groups including Human Rights Watch, Reprieve and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “The Bahraini authorities’ orchestrated attack on the rights to free expression, assembly and association has seriously undermined the prospects of a political solution to Bahrain’s domestic unrest. “If your government is serious about its commitment to encouraging reform and dialogue, you should use this influence to press the government of Bahrain to put an immediate stop to this repression.â€\x9d Critics such as Amnesty International claim that UK engagement in Bahrain, such as helping to train its judiciary and giving advice about a police complaints ombudsman, has not led to real change, but instead has become a PR fig leaf. Despite having a free trade agreement with the European free trade area, the Gulf states have failed to strike a trade deal with the EU and talks with Brussels have in effect been on ice since 2008. In 2015, British exports to the GCC were £22bn, higher than UK exports to China and more than double those to India. May’s visit will coincide with an initiative by MPs to give UK authorities the power to seize assets of dictators and human rights abusers who buy luxury property in Britain to conceal their wealth. A group of backbenchers are seeking to amend the criminal finances bill and to introduce a clause targeting those guilty of abusing human rights outside Britain. It would allow officials and groups such as Amnesty International to apply for an order freezing perpetrators’ UK assets. The two-day GCC summit is likely to discuss whether it should form a tighter economic Gulf union, including a single market, single currency and customs union modelled on the EU. Both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have been pressing the idea of a Gulf Union since 2012, arguing that world insecurity, including the threat posed by Iran, makes the case for forming a large, more unified bloc. Huge democratic and social obstacles lie in front of the project, including concerns about loss of national sovereignty. UK security and economic ties with Bahrain have been especially close and King Hamad of Bahrain extended the invitation to May, when he visited Downing Street in October. Prince Charles also visited Bahrain last month, along with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, where he opened a wing of the new Royal Navy base, the construction of which has been funded by the King of Bahrain. During her visit the Duchess of Cornwall raised the issue of women’s rights and domestic violence, setting a bar for the prime minister. But in a letter sent to May and published on Sunday the rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Reprieve and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), claim: “The Bahraini authorities’ orchestrated attack on the rights to free expression, assembly and association, has seriously undermined the prospects of a political solution to Bahrain’s domestic unrest. “If your government is serious about its commitment to encouraging reform and dialogue, you should use this influence to press the government of Bahrain to put an immediate stop to this repression.â€\x9d In particular, the groups urge the prime minister to call for the release of arrested human rights defender Nabeel Rajab who has been held in solitary confinement in police custody since June 2016. Rajab is facing up to 15 years in prison on charges of insulting a neighbouring state, spreading rumours in wartime and insulting a statutory body. These charges relate to his criticism of the humanitarian cost of the war in Yemen, in which Bahrain is a participant, and for his documentation of torture in Bahrain’s Central Jau Prison. He faces another charge of defaming the state after he wrote a letter to the New York Times in September 2016. Sheikh Ali Salman, the Shia leader of the largest opposition party, has been jailed for nine years. The human rights abuses in Bahrain are a specific British concern, as the UK government has provided technical assistance since 2012 to help implement police and judicial reform. The UK helped to set up two bodies – the Ombudsman of the Ministry of Interior and the Special Investigations Unit within the Public Prosecution Office, both of which receive training and capacity building support from the UK. Both were established in 2012 in the wake of the Bahraini government’s brutal crackdown on protests the previous year. The foreign secretary Boris Johnson speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show again insisted he was concerned about the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, saying he had spoken to the Saudi foreign minister about the issue only this weekend. But Johnson said he believed the Saudi campaign did not represent a serious risk of war crimes violations and added that the UK was not involved in helping Saudi Arabia to set specific bomb targets.',
 'Man v rat: could the long war soon be over? First, the myths. There are no “super ratsâ€\x9d. Apart from a specific subtropical breed, they do not get much bigger than 20 inches long, including the tail. They are not blind, nor are they afraid of cats. They do not carry rabies. They do not, as was reported in 1969 regarding an island in Indonesia, fall from the sky. Their communities are not led by elusive, giant “king ratsâ€\x9d. Rat skeletons cannot liquefy and reconstitute at will. (For some otherwise rational people, this is a genuine concern.) They are not indestructible, and there are not as many of them as we think. The one-rat-per-human in New York City estimate is pure fiction. Consider this the good news. In most other respects, “the rat problemâ€\x9d, as it has come to be known, is a perfect nightmare. Wherever humans go, rats follow, forming shadow cities under our metropolises and hollows beneath our farmlands. They thrive in our squalor, making homes of our sewers, abandoned alleys, and neglected parks. They poison food, bite babies, undermine buildings, spread disease, decimate crop yields, and very occasionally eat people alive. A male and female left to their own devices for one year – the average lifespan of a city rat – can beget 15,000 descendants. There may be no “king ratâ€\x9d, but there are “rat kingsâ€\x9d, groups of up to 30 rats whose tails have knotted together to form one giant, swirling mass. Rats may be unable to liquefy their bones to slide under doors, but they don’t need to: their skeletons are so flexible that they can squeeze their way through any hole or crack wider than half an inch. They are cannibals, and they sometimes laugh (sort of) – especially when tickled. They can appear en masse, as if from nowhere, moving as fast as seven feet per second. They do not carry rabies, but a 2014 study from Columbia University found that the average New York City subway rat carried 18 viruses previously unknown to science, along with dozens of familiar, dangerous pathogens, such as C difficile and hepatitis C. As recently as 1994 there was a major recurrence of bubonic plague in India, an unpleasant flashback to the 14th century, when that rat-borne illness killed 25 million people in five years. Collectively, rats are responsible for more human death than any other mammal on earth. Humans have a peculiar talent for exterminating other species. In the case of rats, we have been pursuing their total demise for centuries. We have invented elaborate, gruesome traps. We have trained dogs, ferrets, and cats to kill them. We have invented ultrasonic machines to drive them away with high-pitched noise. (Those machines, still popular, do not work.) We have poisoned them in their millions. In 1930, faced with a rat infestation on Rikers Island, New York City officials flushed the area with mustard gas. In the late 1940s, scientists developed anticoagulants to treat thrombosis in humans, and some years later supertoxic versions of the drugs were developed in order to kill rats by making them bleed to death from the inside after a single dose. Cityscapes and farmlands were drenched with thousands of tons of these chemicals. During the 1970s, we used DDT. These days, rat poison is not just sown in the earth by the truckload, it is rained from helicopters that track the rats with radar – in 2011 80 metric tonnes of poison-laced bait were dumped on to Henderson Island, home to one of the last untouched coral reefs in the South Pacific. In 2010, Chicago officials went “naturalâ€\x9d: figuring a natural predator might track and kill rats, they released 60 coyotes wearing radio collars on to the city streets. Still, here they are. According to Bobby Corrigan, the world’s leading expert on rodent control, many of the world’s great cities remain totally overcome. “In New York – we’re losing that war in a big way,â€\x9d he told me. Combat metaphors have become a central feature of rat conversation among pest control professionals. In Robert Sullivan’s 2014 book Rats, he described humanity’s relationship with the species as an “unending and brutish warâ€\x9d, a battle we seem always, always to lose. Why? How is it that we can send robots to Mars, build the internet, keep alive infants born so early that their skin isn’t even fully made – and yet remain unable to keep rats from threatening our food supplies, biting our babies, and appearing in our toilet bowls? * * * “Frankly, rodents are the most successful species,â€\x9d Loretta Mayer told me recently. “After the next holocaust, rats and Twinkies will be the only things left.â€\x9d Mayer is a biologist, and she contends that the rat problem is actually a human problem, a result of our foolish choices and failures of imagination. In 2007, she co-founded SenesTech, a biotech startup that offers the promise of an armistice in a conflict that has lasted thousands of years. The concept is simple: rat birth control The rat’s primary survival skill, as a species, is its unnerving rate of reproduction. Female rats ovulate every four days, copulate dozens of times a day and remain fertile until they die. (Like humans, they have sex for pleasure as well as for procreation.) This is how you go from two to 15,000 in a single year. When poison or traps thin out a population, they mate faster until their numbers regenerate. Conversely, if you can keep them from mating, colonies collapse in weeks and do not rebound. Solving the rat problem by putting them on the pill sounds ridiculous. Until recently no pharmaceutical product existed that could make rats infertile, and even if it had, there was still the question of how it could be administered. But if such a thing were to work, the impact could be historic. Rats would die off without the need for poison, radar or coyotes. SenesTech, which is based in Flagstaff, Arizona, claims to have created a liquid that will do exactly that. In tests conducted in Indonesian rice fields, South Carolina pig farms, the suburbs of Boston and the New York City subway, the product, called ContraPest, caused a drop in rat populations of roughly 40% in 12 weeks. This autumn, for the first time, the company is making ContraPest available to commercial markets in the US and Europe. The team at SenesTech believes it could be the first meaningful advance in the fight against rats in a hundred years, and the first viable alternative to poison. Mayer was blunt about the implications: “This will change the world.â€\x9d Mayer is a tall, vigorous woman in her mid-60s with bright eyes, spiky grey hair and a toothy grin. Her ideologies of choice are Buddhism and the Girl Scouts. “It’s kind of my core,â€\x9d she said of the latter, “to do for others.â€\x9d In conversation, her manner is so upbeat that she seems to be holding forth radiantly before an audience or on the verge of bursting into song. When asked how she is doing, she frequently responds in a near-rapture: “If I was any better, I’d be a twin!â€\x9d – she also appears to enjoy watching people wonder whether this is an expression they should know. When I took a seat in her office earlier this year, she clapped her hands triumphantly and said “Ooh! You’re sitting in history and strength!â€\x9d There was a pause. “I had a feng shui person come and do my office,â€\x9d she explained. Mayer came to science later than usual, in her mid-40s, after a career in real estate development and a stint as the international vice president of Soroptimist, a global volunteer organisation dedicated to improving the lives of women. The career change was unexpected, even to her. After a close friend died suddenly of a heart attack, Mayer called up a biologist she knew and asked how something like this could have happened. The biologist had no satisfying answer; she explained that while heart disease in men had been thoroughly studied, little attention had been devoted to post-menopausal heart disease in women. “Well you’ve got to change it,â€\x9d Mayer replied, outraged. The biologist was otherwise occupied, so Mayer decided to do it herself. At 46, she entered a PhD programme in biology at Northern Arizona University. After graduate school, her initial research as a professor of biology at Northern Arizona focused on artificially inducing menopause in lab mice so that she could study changes in the postmenopausal heart. Three years into her efforts, Mayer was contacted by Patricia Hoyer, a colleague in Phoenix, who said that she had stumbled across a chemical that seemed to make mice infertile, without having any other effects. Together, Mayer and Hoyer synthesised a new compound, which they called Mouseopause. Shortly after Mayer and Hoyer published their work on Mouseopause in 2005, Mayer received a telephone call from a veterinarian in Gallup, New Mexico, who had read about her research. The Navajo reservation where he worked was overrun by wild dogs. There were too many to spay and neuter, so he was euthanising almost 500 a month. “If you could do for a dog what you can do for a mouse, I could stop killing dogs out here,â€\x9d he told her. Mayer describes herself as “extremely connected to animals, dogs in particularâ€\x9d. When she arrived in Gallup and saw the piled corpses, she agreed to test Mouseopause on an initial group of 18 reservation dogs. “I held up that first puppy, who I called Patient Zero,â€\x9d she told me, “and I said, ‘I don’t know what this is gonna do to you, but you will live on a satin pillow the rest of your days.â€\x9d The injection made the dogs infertile, but left them otherwise happy and healthy. (Mayer brought home all 18 dogs and built a kennel in her yard to house them until she could find homes for them with families she knew personally. Patient Zero, renamed Cheetah, lived with her until she died of old age – though the pillow was fleece.) The next call came from Australia in 2006. Biologists there wanted an adaptation of Mouseopause for rats. Rats, they told her, were eating 30% of the rice crop in Australia and Indonesia. If she could reduce the rat population by even half, they claimed, the crops that would be saved could feed millions of people. Mayer was moved by the idea of finding a solution to rat overpopulation that was neither lethal nor toxic. Since its invention, rat poison has been our primary method of curbing rat populations, but it is dangerous. Ingested in high doses, it’s fatal to humans, and it poses a particular to children because it is sweet and brightly coloured. In the US alone, more than 12,000 children per year, most of whom live below the poverty line, are accidentally poisoned by pesticide meant for rats. The collateral damage inflicted by rat poison also extends to the environment, leaching into the soil and poisoning house pets, farm animals, and wildlife that feed on rats. Worst of all, rat poison is not very effective at eliminating large infestations. As long as there is still a food source, colonies bounce back, and, especially in Europe, rats have grown resistant to the toxins. As Mayer often says, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results: isn’t that the definition of insanity?â€\x9d Persuaded by the research, and by her wife, fellow biologist Cheryl Dyer, Mayer decided to devote her career to developing a new, smarter way to control the rat population. In 2007, they founded SenesTech. “People say never to invest with a husband and wife team,â€\x9d Mayer joked to me. “I say, ‘Oh absolutely not! Then you have dominance.’ But wife and wife? Works great!â€\x9d * * * For Dyer and Mayer, the immediate problem was obvious: while the lab mice and feral dogs had received injections in controlled studies, wild rats would have to eat the formula of their own volition. Rats are neophobic – they avoid what they don’t know. What’s more, city rats are already well fed. In New York City, for example, they have fresh bagels, pizza, melted ice cream and fried chicken in unending supply. To succeed, Dyer and Mayer had to make the compound not just edible but delicious. After a series of tests, they quickly settled on a liquid, rather than solid, formulation. Rats have to drink 10% of their body weight every day to survive, and so are always looking out for something potable. “We compared the [two] and they peed on the solid and drank the liquid,â€\x9d Dyer told me. “Rats are pretty straightforward.â€\x9d Where Mayer is tall and voluble, Dyer is short and broad-shouldered, quiet and succinct. She seems most comfortable behind the scenes, if only because it is easier to get away with wearing Hawaiian-print shirts and no shoes. At SenesTech’s headquarters, Dyer’s windowless office is right next to Mayer’s, and if Mayer’s office evokes Zen, Dyer’s evokes an island paradise. Scenes from Hawaii cover her walls, hula (and rat) figurines line the shelves, and on her desk sits a small wooden sign, which says, “WELCOME TO THE TIKI BAR.â€\x9d There is also a widescreen TV, on which Dyer likes to watch old movies on mute all day. It was Dyer’s job to make Mouseopause palatable for rats – a tricky proposition because its active ingredient, 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD), is bitter and caustic. Rats have the same taste preferences as humans – they love fat and sugar – though Dyer’s experiments with various flavour profiles indicated that their appetite for both exceeds ours. She was also tasked with the greater challenge of adapting Mouseopause to work on rats, which are much hardier than mice. While VCD caused the eggs in mouse ovaries to degenerate rapidly, female rats were far less susceptible. Hoping for a compound effect, Dyer added a second active ingredient: triptolide, which stunted any growing eggs. The results were better, but still not good enough. “They just had smaller litters, goddammit,â€\x9d she said. Eventually, out of a mix of curiosity and desperation, she fed it to both males and females. The result was dramatic. It turns out that the triptolide destroyed sperm – the males became sterile almost immediately after ingesting the formula. This was a total surprise: no one had ever tested triptolide on male rats before. It was “stunningâ€\x9d, Dyer told me. “Totally unpredictable.â€\x9d Test after test: no pups. She sighed. “Man, you should have seen the No Pup party.â€\x9d After three years of research and development, they had a product that worked and did not harm other animals. (The active ingredients are metabolised by the rat’s body in 10 minutes, which means that any predator that eats it is not affected, and the compound quickly breaks down into inactive ingredients when it hits soil or water.) ContraPest, the finished product, is viscous and sweet. Electric pink and opaque, it tastes like nine packets of saccharine blended into two tablespoons of kitchen oil. “Rats love it,â€\x9d Dyer said. “Love it.â€\x9d Mayer, who taste-tested every version during the development process, could not say the same for herself. In 2013, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) reached out to Mayer after hearing about SenesTech’s early trials to ask whether the company would test ContraPest in New York’s subways as part of a citywide effort to find new, more successful alternatives to poison. Many cities devote manpower and money to keeping the rats under control, but New York, which is more or less the rat capital of the western world, is the epicentre of anti-rat efforts. Every incoming mayor of New York declares his intentions for a vast rodenticide – Giuliani even appointed a “rat czarâ€\x9d to oversee the carnage – only to leave the next guy even more to deal with. When the MTA officials contacted Mayer, she recalled, they were worried that the formula would not work on New York rats, which have the reputation of being bigger, tougher, and smarter than any other city rat in the world. (Norway rats, the species infesting New York, are not in fact the largest rat type.) They asked Mayer whether they should send a few New York rats on a plane to Arizona so that SenesTech could experiment with them before coming to New York. “No, I don’t think so,â€\x9d replied Mayer, amused. “I never met a rat I couldn’t sterilise.â€\x9d Mayer dispatched two of SenesTech’s youngest scientists, women in their 20s, to New York in order to test whether the formula was appealing enough. Would New York rats prefer ContraPest to water or pizza? Wearing their best approximation of hazmat suits to protect themselves from the filth, the scientists patrolled the subway’s trash storage rooms under Grand Central Station. They planted bait boxes filled with feed stations of ContraPest and then stood nearby, counting the rats that came in and out with clickers in order to track how many rats were taking the bait. For six months, they baited and counted, washing their suits at the end of each day in bleach. The two young women went home to Arizona with good news: not only did the New York rats drink ContraPest, the drink actually worked on them. The test confirmed the highest hopes of the company – there was an alternative to poison that would work, even in New York City, and they had found it. * * * When humans and animals come together, there are choices. Mayer believes that if you understand the ecology of the animal and you understand your own ecology, then you and the animal will be able to coexist peacefully. After centuries of misperception and squeamishness, we finally have a good grasp of rat ecology. Now the problem may be our reluctance to look too carefully at ourselves. In his 1983 book More Cunning than Man, writer Robert Hendrickson lists “the obvious ways in which rats so well resemble humans: ferocity, omnivorousness, adaptability to all climes, migration from east to west in the life journey of their species, irresponsible fecundity in all seasons, with a seeming need to make genocidal war on their own kind.â€\x9d He describes rats and men alike as “utterly destructive, both taking all other living things for their purposes.â€\x9d Humanity’s long struggle with rats mostly signals the worst traits we share with them: our inability to live responsibly within our environment; our tendencies toward hedonism and greed; and our failures to look after the weakest among us. Getting rid of them means correcting ourselves first. SenesTech is not alone in its attempts to devise a more sustainable, responsible method of ending the rat problem. Its work is heir to an existing method: integrated pest management, or IPM, which holds that if humans – particularly city-dwellers – took more care with their environment, rats wouldn’t thrive. IPM’s most vocal advocate is Bobby Corrigan, who has brought its principles to farmlands and cities all over the world, most notably New York, which recently revised its rat control programme on his advice. Twice a year, he teaches the New York health department’s “Rat Academyâ€\x9d, a three-day training for industry professionals. This April, there were maybe 100 attendees wedged into wooden theatre seats in a downtown auditorium, holding weak coffee and spongy muffins. Corrigan is a thinnish, pale man, bald except for a low, wispy crown framing his ears. He spends his nights on the streets or in basement corners studying rats. Once, he lay in an alley with peanut butter spread around him all night so he could get good photographs. (“No, it wasn’t safe. Yes, they were urinating on me. In grad school, you do crazy things.â€\x9d) He regards his work with utmost seriousness. “Here’s what health professionals do,â€\x9d he said to his audience by way of introduction. He pointed at a slide behind him and read aloud. We protect the roof over people’s heads. We protect the food they eat. We protect their health, comfort and safety. “I’m not saying this to pat us on the back. This is real. This is our job. [Rats] get on airplanes. They gnaw on wires. They cause diseases. To me, this is the shot heard round the world.â€\x9d Then he spent 20 minutes explaining how to divine information from rat droppings based on their moisture. As the day wore on, Corrigan’s core message for his audience emerged: fighting rats means committing to holistic efforts, not looking for a quick, flashy fix. “We love to spritz problems away,â€\x9d Corrigan told me later. “A chemical or a trap, it’s a Band Aid, and they’re Band Aids that come off very quickly.â€\x9d Instead, Corrigan argues that you first need to remove the rat’s food, then remove the rat’s shelter, and only then take lethal measures if you have to. In theory, this solution is simple. It does not involve radar or guns. Instead, it demands lids for the trash can, and caulking for the cracks in foundations, or “keeping our own little nests cleanâ€\x9d, as Corrigan says. It is the obvious answer, the one that has been sitting under our noses for centuries: stop feeding them, stop housing them, and they will go away on their own. The problem is that people, as a rule, prefer the quick fix. Setting out poison is easier; the ultrasonic machine looks cool. The sensible, labour-intensive option meets with resistance. Often, when Corrigan is called out to consult with a property owner, the owner rejects his advice, simply because following it would require too much thought, effort or expense. And sometimes, even those who are willing to try his methods do not have the resources. Ricky Simeone, the director of pest control for New York’s health department, explained to me that the neighbourhoods that struggle with the worst rat infestations are not the ones who file the most reports to his office. The poorest neighbourhoods are too overwhelmed with other social or economic problems to file complaints – or, worse, they accept rat infestation as one of the conditions of living in poverty. Corrigan confirmed that rats, especially in cities, affect the poor more than the rich, because effective pest control services are expensive. But he pointed out that no one totally escapes the rat problem, no matter how rich. Cities such as New York make evident a universal truth. “We’re all holding hands whether we know it or like it. Your rats are my rats. If the city blows it off, the sewer rats become everybody’s rats. Rats are everybody’s issue. “Everyone thinks, ‘It’s not my job, it’s someone else’s job,’â€\x9d Corrigan continued. “They think, ‘Oh I live in New York, no one can get rid of the rats in New York!’â€\x9d He gave a short sigh. “We don’t think we can do it alone, so we don’t do anything as a group.â€\x9d As with all conditions that threaten everyone but torment the disadvantaged above all, the situation is not better because we are not better. “Homo sapiens,â€\x9d Corrigan said to his audience at the Rat Academy. “Does anyone know what this means?â€\x9d He smiled a grim little smile. “Wise man.â€\x9d Improving society is a collective project, but as Corrigan attests, it happens because individual people make it their business to incite change. Mayer and Dyer, too, see this as their mission. “We have to be better stewards than this,â€\x9d Dyer told me fiercely. “We’re better than this.â€\x9d If SenesTech looks quirky in the attempt, its founders do not seem to mind. * * * On a Tuesday night in August, Mayer and Dyer held a celebration in their backyard for staff and investors. The company had just received US Environmental Protection Agency registration, a process that usually takes years and often costs more than companies of SenesTech’s size can afford. (The EPA is making an active effort to get rat poison off the markets in the US, and received news of SenesTech’s science with enthusiasm.) Now, with the EPA’s blessing, the company could take ContraPest to commercial markets. Immediately, more than 100 calls and 200 emails came in with order requests. Mayer and Dyer live in a one-level wood cabin a few miles north of downtown Flagstaff, in a wooded area near a field of wildflowers. For the occasion, they had cleared the back patio, where Mayer does her morning meditation and yoga, and filled it with deck furniture and folding tables. The sun was coming down the San Francisco Peaks. It was not a typical investors dinner, but then, SenesTech’s nearly 700 stakeholders are mostly firemen. While most biotech startups are funded by investment bankers and venture capitalists, Mayer chose to pursue funding from grant-giving bodies and a horde of private donors, all of whom made small investments, and each of whom Mayer knows by name. It was a pure accident of networking that so many of them turned out to be firemen, but she is thrilled with the situation. “Firefighters really believe in doing good,â€\x9d Mayer explained to me. “And they’re like teenage girls. Once one of them invested, they all wanted in.â€\x9d There were perhaps 25 people – investors, board members and SenesTech staff – gathered on the back patio, eating tacos and drinking from Mayer and Dyer’s impressive liquor collection, but they made noise for 50. They were boisterous and loving, hugging each other, teasing each other, shouting old stories to roars of laughter, and clinking glasses. About half the room seemed to be wearing Hawaiian patterned shirts. When the time came for Mayer to give a speech, she demurred for a moment before standing. Her toast turned briefly into an anecdote about flattening mouse skeletons in lasagna tins. “But seriously,â€\x9d she said, returning to her theme, “We knew [this day] would come. It’s great to be riding this wave with you. It’s just so sweet.â€\x9d Glasses heaved into the air. There was considerable work left to do: now that SenesTech had its national registration, it would have to file for registration in every state. (Since then, the company has registered in 11 US states, and begun registration in the EU.) The manufacturing team was hurrying to make enough ContraPest to accommodate the requests coming in. Dyer was working hard on adaptations that would make the formula work in a variety of different environments, and planning variations for different species. Mayer was preparing for a torrent of meetings. While ContraPest has been effective in every test SenesTech has run so far, there is a lot still to learn about how rats in different parts of the world will respond to it in the wild. It sounds crazy: a band of animal lovers and firemen in the mountains of Arizona, led by a Buddhist girl scout, making a pink milkshake for rats that may eventually improve the lives of millions of people. They are unruffled by scepticism: In the middle of one interview, Mayer forgot a detail and yelled towards the door, “Cheryl, who said to you, ‘That’s just not how we do it?’â€\x9d Dyer hollered back from the other room. “Which time?â€\x9d In response, they point to hard science, solicitations from governments and companies around the world, and an endorsement from Stephen Hawking, who featured them on his documentary mini-series Brave New World. Rats are so longstanding a threat to humanity that contemplating an end to the rat problem – and one that does not require us to kill them – seems like a fantasy. They are, as Mayer herself put it, a more successful species than us. Long after we’re gone, they will still be here. But the possibility of a truce seems closer than ever before. “The answer in the future may lie completely within biotechnology,â€\x9d said Corrigan when I asked for his impressions. (He and Mayer consider themselves allies in the campaign to create sustainable solutions to the rat problem. Mayer fondly recalls a nighttime “rat safariâ€\x9d she once took with Corrigan in New York.) “The SenesTech product is a breakthrough, but it is still at the very infancy stages of biotechnology for this species,â€\x9d Corrigan said. “This is going to be maybe years of refinements and changing and experiments. We’re not walking yet. And we’re certainly not running.â€\x9d Mayer, Dyer and their team seem cheerful at the prospect, and confident that they are doing the work of the future. “Do you see this?â€\x9d asked Ali Applin, a senior member of SenesTech’s staff. We were sitting in Mayer’s office, and Applin pointed to a little sign on the coffee table that read “Make it so.â€\x9d “This is what she tells us,â€\x9d Applin said. Mayer nodded, smiling. “That’s what you need to do. I mean, why squabble over something and say, ‘I can’t do that’. Make it so. Find a way. There’s always a way.â€\x9d After a moment, she had another thought. “You’re really gonna have to do that, Ali, when you take this to Argentina soon. If we thought Laos was hard – I mean, my God.â€\x9d She grinned mischievously and folded her hands together and pressed them to her forehead and said a mantra. “I wish you ease on the path to peace. I wish you an end to your suffering.â€\x9d • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here. • This article was amended on 20 September 2016. An earlier version incorrectly stated that DDT is the active ingredient in Agent Orange, and suggested that C difficile is a virus.',
 "Russia probably didn't hack US election – but we still need audits, experts say The computer science experts who want the presidential election results audited don’t think a Russian vote-hacking operation is likely, either. But they’ve been upset for a decade that there’s no way to make sure. Jeremy J Epstein, senior computer scientist at research center SRI International, said the effort to audit the vote “was and is a nationwide effort over a long period of timeâ€\x9d. The Green party candidate, Jill Stein, has applied for a recount. The Clinton campaign has said it will cooperate. “The Stein folks have somewhat hijacked the message, but I’m not worried,â€\x9d Epstein said. “In fact, the goal of an audit is to verify [emphasis his] that the result was as originally reported.â€\x9d Epstein describes himself as “75% confident that Trump won, and 25% that either there was an error in counting or there was a hackâ€\x9d. “Any accusation that it’s partisan and of-the-moment is ignorant of the history,â€\x9d Epstein told the . Epstein, formerly of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, is one of the country’s foremost experts on election security and last year successfully crusaded to get insecure WinVote voting machines decertified and removed in Virginia. Epstein has devoted years of time and energy to describing the frustrating process of voting machine certification and manufacture. Often, voting system regulators possess inadequate technical knowledge and make the certification process too cumbersome for successful hardware manufacturers to bother competing. The machines that eventually are certified are frequently underwhelming to security analysts. The push to audit the vote is not new, but it is opportunistic: rarely have so many expressed concerns about the technical security of the election, and scientists who have spent more than a decade agitating for greater awareness of electoral insecurity are pleased that their voices are finally being heard. J Alex Halderman, director of University of Michigan’s center for computer security and society, would only say that a hack of the vote was “plausibleâ€\x9d in his affidavit added to Stein’s request for a recount. The more important point, to Halderman and many others who study voting machine security, is making sure there are reasonable security protocols in place: “The only way to determine whether a cyber-attack affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election is to examine the physical evidence – that is, to count the paper ballots and paper audit trail records, and review the voting equipment, to ensure that the votes cast by actual voters match the results determined by the computers.â€\x9d The Stanford engineering professor David Dill, founder of the Verified Voting Foundation, said he supported Halderman. “In the statement, [Halderman] does not bring to light new evidence that the election was hacked,â€\x9d Dill said. “However, he points out that there is ample reason to be concerned about it, and notes that we can’t really find out without getting a look at the ballots, which requires some candidate to ask for a recount. I strongly agree with this view. He says he and his students could have pulled off an election hack, and I have no doubt that that is true.â€\x9d During the 2016 election season, Russian intelligence services appear to have breached the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the emails for Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. One hacking group in particular, known to cybersecurity researchers as Fancy Bear and believed to be operated by the Russian GRU intelligence agency, may have helped to coordinate the release of some information acquired from the Democrats. But that is not the same thing as surgically hacking the vast patchwork of American voting systems in such a way as to turn three states that were not even considered swing states until election night so effectively that the outcome of the vote was reversed. Now, as officials begin to listen to calls for security protocols that Halderman, Epstein and others believe ought to be routine, there is a danger that a jumpy public will perceive the audit as the work of sore losers crying wolf. There is plenty of reason for voting security advocates to be frustrated with the progress of their cause thus far: “It took years and lots of pilots to get audits added to the laws in California and Colorado; many other states have been experimenting,â€\x9d Epstein said. “In Virginia, where I live, we had a law passed almost a decade ago to require an audit study; unfortunately, the study was done poorly, and the legislature didn’t act on the results.â€\x9d Dill and Epstein both had strong words for Trump, who, in the days before the election, said often that the “systemâ€\x9d was “riggedâ€\x9d against him: “I would think that the Trump folks would endorse audits, because they would show that they won fair and square, which would eliminate the Bush-Gore contested results meme,â€\x9d Epstein said. Dill said: “The main concerns about election fraud during during the campaign came from the Trump campaign … If those concerns were sincere, the Trump campaign should also support some kind of manual recount or audit.â€\x9d Epstein added: “[For what it’s worth], the more I see of the statistical analyses, the more I expect that the audits will confirm the results. I think we’ll see the impact of voter ID laws depressing voter turnout, but not significant problems in the results themselves. There will be errors discovered – that’s unavoidable but they’ll largely be accidental.â€\x9d",
 'Middlesbrough 0-1 Chelsea: Premier League – as it happened! That’s six wins in a row for Chelsea – and they have kept a clean sheet in every one of them, scoring 17 without reply. Antonio Conte is on the pitch, hugging his players. They are in brilliant form and looking very difficult to break down. Boro battled hard and if they continue performing like this should be fine. They remain one point above the bottom three as it stands. Thanks for reading. Bye! Chelsea are top of the league thanks to yet another Diego Costa goal. 90 min +4: With 20 seconds to go Barragan tries to find Ramirez down the right channel with a long ball but puts too much juice on it. That should be that. Chelsea will finish the weekend on top of the league. 90 min +3: Tick, tock, tick, tock. Chelsea are closing this out with very little bother. 90 min +1: Costa shoots from range, accidentally catching Gibson on the shin in the process. He picks the Boro defender up – what sportsmanship! Chelsea’s final change sees Hazard stroll off, with Oscar coming on for him. 90 min: There will be at least four minutes of added time. 89 min: Moses comes off – slowly – for Ivanovic, who has found game time hard to come by since that horror against Arsenal. Boro’s final sub sees Leadbitter return, replacing Forshaw. 89 min: Eventually Downing tries to find Negredo with a cross from the left but it’s too deep. Goal kick. 88 min: Boro pop it about in midfield but are struggling to find a way through Chelsea’s defence. They really have become masters of shutting games down. 86 min: The attempt beats the wall but does not dip sufficiently to threaten Valdes. 84 min: Ramirez fouls Hazard on the edge of the box. It’s clumsy rather than naughty, but this is very dangerous indeed. David Luiz is eyeing it up. Boro are forming a four-man wall, which Cahill and Costa join to impede Valdes’s view. 83 min: Alonso – cleverly, cynically; delete depending on which team you support – brings down Fischer near halfway as Boro sought to counter on the right. 80 min: Chelsea’s first change sees Chalobah, who was on loan at Boro in the Championship, replace Pedro. Chalobah will sit next to Kanté and Matic. 78 min: Pedro and Costa combine brilliantly but Boro get enough bodies in the way and then rapidly break through Traore. This time he decides to pass to Negredo. The former Man City striker takes a magnificent first touch and his shot is on target … but Courtois is alert to make his first proper save of the evening. 75 min: Traore picks up possession down the right and has options to cross or layoff but instead shoots wildly over from an improbable distance. Fischer and Negredo are furious with their team-mate. 74 min: Chambers is booked after Costa turns him on halfway and the defender tugs the Chelsea striker to the floor. 73 min: Fischer is now on, replacing Clayton. Realistically, it is hard to see Boro finding a way past this Chelsea defence. 71 min: Boro are making two changes in the hope of reversing their fortunes. Downing is the first on, coming in for Fabio. Fischer is also ready to come on but play resumes with a Chelsea throw before he is introduced. 65 min: … who quickly sets away Chelsea on the counter. They are four v four with Costa in possession. His threaded through ball picks out Moses. He cannot finish, lofting the ball over Valdes’s goal. 65 min: And now Traore wins a corner at the opposite end. It ends up being smothered by Courtois … 63 min: Chelsea hit the bar! Costa does well in the buildup to knock down a David Luiz cross for Pedro, but his effort comes back off the bar with Valdes beaten. 62 min: Barragan tries to find Negredo from the right but David Luiz gets to the ball first and Courtois follows up to smother. 61 min: Now Traore has a shot blocked before slipping before connecting with the rebound. Boro are suddenly back in this and enjoying their best spell for some time. 59 min: You probably only need one hand to count Premier League players faster than Traore. He races past four Chelsea players in the blink of an eye before being taken down by Kante near halfway. 55 min: But now Boro have a good chance. Negredo steps over a Clayton pass, allowing Ramirez to run on to the ball. The shot, however, drifts over Courtois’ bar. 54 min: Chelsea are so, so comfortable. They are barely breaking sweat and Boro could be doing a lot more to pressure them. 52 min: His strike comes off the wall, specifically the forehead of David Luiz. 51 min: Azpilicueta is yellow carded for dragging down Ramirez after a poor touch from the defender allowed the Boro attacker possession. This certainly within range for Ramirez. 49 min: De Roon fouls Costa cynically near halfway, standing on the Chelsea player’s toes. In the past the striker would have reacted angrily to that. De Roon gets a final warning from the referee. Next time, he’ll be booked. 46 min: Valdes does well to deny Alonso inside 20 seconds, while Chambers does well to disrupt Pedro on the rebound. 46 min: Costa gets us going again. Can Boro respond? Negredo was anonymous in the opening 45, so he needs to improved considerably. Diego Costa’s goal is the difference at the break. 45 min: There will be two minutes added time. 44 min: Ramirez harries Azpilicueta but concedes a foul for nudging the Chelsea defender on the back as he attempted to head away a long hook forward. 41 min: And from the corner Chelsea score. It’s Costa’s 10th of the season but Boro can only blame themselves for some woeful defending. The ball bobbles around the near post and Chambers fails to clear, inadvertently playing Costa in. He screws the ball home first time. 40 min: Moses, picked out by Costa, steps over the ball and dazzles Fabio before his shot is deflected out for a corner. 37 min: A minute later Chelsea attack through Hazard and then Costa, who squares to Pedro. He pulls the ball back to Kanté and he feeds Alonso on the left. The wing-back’s cross is cleared by Valdes, who gets a nasty knock on the back of the head for his troubles. 36 min: Boro have just taken some time to play a bit of keep ball but Traore has no interest in continuing that so races down the left, leaving Kante and Cahill in his wake and sends a cross from the right. David Luiz clears. 35 min: Kante attempts a speculative long range pass for Costa. It’s bread and butter for Valdes. 33 min: Boro could do with getting their foot on the ball for a minute or so to stem this onslaught. It now seems only a matter of time before Chelsea open the scoring. 31 min: Chelsea are dominant. Costa turns four Boro players on the D before picking out Pedro all alone on the right. The Spain attacker is caught in two minds, however – does he shoot or does he cross? Instead it is somewhere in between and Valdes makes an easy stop. 29 min: What a save from Valdes! Hazard picks out Moses down the right with a delightful lofted pass. He squares to Pedro, who attempts to sidefoot the ball home only for the keeper to get a fingertip on the shot, turning it over the bar for a corner. 27 min: David Luiz heads the ball straight to De Roon in a dangerous position but the Boro midfielder is whistled at for using his hands to control. 26 min: Alonso latches on to a Valdes clearance and shoots well wide. In the last five minutes, Chelsea have had 91% possession. 24 min: There has been a lot of hard work and it is by no means the worst game ever seen but we are still waiting for a shot on target. 22 min: Moses picks out Alonso with a deep cross from the right but the wing-back’s touch is poor, resulting in a goal-kick for Boro. 21 min: Ramirez is working very hard here, something you can’t always say. He beats Azpilicueta for pace on the left, which is no mean feat but eventually cuts in due to no options in front of him and Boro are unable to translate what appeared a promising break into an opportunity. 19 min: Moses shoots wild and wide after getting past Da Silva following a one-two with Hazard. 18 min: RamÃ\xadrez is played into possession down the right by Barragan but he raises his head to check what options are around him and takes a poor touch, kicking the ball out of play. 17 min: Da Silva does well to track Moses, who is picked out by a lovely ball from Matic, and block a threatening cross. The corner is cleared. 15 min: Kante sends a diagonal pass meant for Moses on the right into the stands. “Wahey!â€\x9d shout the home fans. 14 min: Chambers intercepts a below par Hazard cross from the left. This game is lacking a spark. 13 min: Seconds later Matic fouls Traore just inside Chelsea’s half. 12 min: Negredo drops deep to get his foot on the ball and is tracked by David Luiz, who clips the striker from behind. It’s a free-kick but nothing more. 10 min: Hazard is continuing but limping. He curls a harmless effort straight into Valdes’s arms. 8 min: Clayton is booked for bringing down Hazard, who shrugs off a challenge from De Roon with a tasty turn before being clattered by Clayton’s follow up challenge. That’s his third of the season. Hazard remains down and is getting some attention to his right ankle. 8 min: Boro have shaded the opening exchanges. Chelsea have yet to settle. 6 min: Ramirez dribbles forward after David Luiz misjudges a long ball from Da Silva but the Boro attacker’s cross to De Roon is a tad misplaced. The Dutchman checks his run and the move eventually ends with Traoré’s cross from the right being blocked. 5 min: Boro are a bit hasty when playing the ball out from the back, leading to Pedro pressing Gibson into hooking out for a throw. 4 min: Ramirez squirms out of a couple of challenges in midfield with some neat control. His performance will be key if Boro are to get a result today. 2 min: Barragan does well to hold off Hazard, who is making his 150th Premier League appearance here, earning a free after the Belgian nudges him on the back while shielding the ball. 1 min: We are underway. Boro get going, playing from right to left as we watch. We will kick-off after a moment of silence that ends up turning into applause for Remembrance Sunday. Nobody at all is wearing a poppy – who’s ready to fume at this lack of respect? The teams are out. The lightshow (!) is done with and we are moments away from some hot! hot! hot! Premier League football action. Middlesbrough are in red, as you’d expect, and Chelsea are in their black and yellow change strip. “Every game is a challenge for us,â€\x9d says Aitor Karanka on TV. “It’s important to think and play our football and win,â€\x9d believes Antonio Conte. More of these hot takes as we get them. Chelsea’s last game, that thumping of Everton, was perhaps the most one-sided of the season so far. And ominously for Boro they are unchanged. The hosts, meanwhile, have made two swaps from the draw at City: Fabio Da Silva replaces George Friend at left-back, and Gaston RamÃ\xadrez is back from suspension, meaning Stewart Downing drops to the bench. A question for the floor: what’s the least appealing fixture in the Premier League? Of course not this one, but looking at West Brom v Burnley tomorrow night, there aren’t many less exciting for neutrals than that … Email me: alan.smith@theguardian.com, or sum it up in fewer than 140 characters by making a tweet to @alansmith90. Middlesbrough: Valdes; Barragan, Chambers, Gibson, Da Silva; Traore, Forshaw, Clayton, De Roon, Ramirez; Negredo. Subs: Guzan, Espinosa, Fischer, Nsue, Leadbitter, Downing, Rhodes. Chelsea: Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso; Pedro, Diego Costa, Hazard. Subs: Begovic, Ivanovic, Terry, Chalobah, Fabregas, Oscar, Batshuayi. Remember that Saturday evening in late September when Chelsea were brutally dismantled by Arsenal and it seemed that Antonio Conte had more work than initially bargained for to return them to title challengers? Yeah, well since then Chelsea have won every game to an aggregate score of 16-0. A sixth victory in a row here would move them top of the table, a point clear of Manchester City and Liverpool. Early days and all that, but they have the look of contenders. Middlesbrough should not be completely discounted this afternoon, though. They have stifled both Arsenal and City in recent weeks to earn draws and have also beaten Bournemouth at home, although the head to head record makes for grim reading. Not only have Chelsea won the past half dozen meetings but it is more than a decade since Boro last scored in this fixture – Mark Viduka finding the net in a 2-1 win in August 2006. (Obvious caveat: today’s hosts have spent much of that period in the second tier). Chelsea’s run has largely been put down to a change in system but there have been more notable facets. Certainly the switch to a three-man defence has been a boost and Conte says “I’m surprised at the speed to understand this new changeâ€\x9d, but one cannot underplay that Chelsea are a team again and the star players are locked in and engaged. In particular Eden Hazard, who is close to the irresistible form he was in the season before last. “You can see Eden is always involved in the game, not calm and off during the game. No, he always stays in the game and he’s always a point of reference for his team-mates,â€\x9d Conte says of the Belgian. Will he be decisive here? Kick-off at the Riverside is 4pm GMT. Team news follows imminently. Meantime, why not read Dominic Fifield’s exclusive interview with Eden Hazard.',
 "'This is insane. This is three Brexits': Trump supporters savour special night Just before 3am on Wednesday at the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Donald Trump made his entrance to his victory party amid chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!â€\x9d. If they could have heard it in the nearby convention centre where they awaited in vain for Hillary Clinton, it might have sounded like a threat. Just as at his freewheeling rallies, his entrance to the crowded ballroom was heralded by the theme music of Air Force One, a Hollywood action film starring Harrison Ford as the American president. All eyes turned up to the balcony. There stood a tall figure in dark suit with white shirt, red tie and familiar shock of orange hair. But this was no movie. This was the president-elect. Trump – who at 70 will be the oldest person ever to assume the office – clapped and raised a triumphant fist above a blue “Make America Great Againâ€\x9d banner. He was followed by a royal train of grinning family members, political allies and campaign aides, some scarcely able to believe what just happened. Behind them the curtains were illuminated red, white and blue. An improbable, rollicking, at times farcical campaign that had begun with a ride down an escalator at Trump Tower in June last year – in the days when he was dismissed as a clown posing no possible threat to the republic – culminated in an exultant strut down a staircase at a nearby hotel. Trump gave the thumbs up and applauded some more as he walked on to a stage where two red “Make America Great Againâ€\x9d baseball caps were mounted in glass cases like religious relics. He took the podium against a backdrop of 24 US flags plus state flags, with son Barron on his left and running mate Mike Pence on his right, as the crowd chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!â€\x9d. After 17 months of bile and braggadocio in which he threatened to jail his opponent, suddenly Trump was Mr Magnanimous: “I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us – it’s about us – on our victory and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign.â€\x9d He added: “We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely. Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division.â€\x9d It was not quite plagiarism on the scale of future first lady Melania Trump at the Republican national convention, where she copied large parts of a Michelle Obama speech, but it did bear an uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address: “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.â€\x9d Yet less than an hour earlier, when Clinton’s face flashed up on giant TV screens showing conservative Fox News, the guests at Trump’s victory party had erupted in loud boos, chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!â€\x9d and a hearty rendition of “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbyeâ€\x9d. For a night, this bland high-ceilinged room in a bland corporate hotel was the centre of the political universe. A business tycoon, reality TV celebrity and architect of one of the most divisive and incendiary campaigns in memory – some compared him to Hitler or Mussolini – had become the most powerful person on the planet, his finger on the nuclear trigger. “First,â€\x9d he said, “I want to thank my parents who I know are looking down on me right now.â€\x9d His mother, Mary MacLeod, was from Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, once described by Trump as “serious Scotlandâ€\x9d. His father, Fred Trump, the son of a German immigrant, became one of the New York’s biggest developers and landlords. After a formative spell at military academy, Trump went the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the family business, taking control of it in 1971. He has claimed his father gave him a “small loan of a million dollarsâ€\x9d to help. The firm expanded into Manhattan, and the Trump name spread internationally, but he suffered his share of business failures, notably when four casinos went bust in Atlantic City. In 2003 his celebrity soared with The Apprentice, in which contestants battled for a shot at a management job within his organisation and he could say with relish, “You’re fired!â€\x9d His eruption on the political stage was not entirely unexpected. Once a registered Democrat and donor to the party, he entered the 2000 race as a Reform party candidate but did not last. He also led the “birther movementâ€\x9d after repeatedly questioning the birthplace of Barack Obama. He finally conceded this year that the US president was born in Hawaii but offered no apology, fuelling the allegation that he had run a racially charged, white nativist campaign. He also faced a string of sexual assault allegations on his way to the White House. Trump may have been propelled to a shocking, paradigm-shattering victory by blue-collar workers, but the guests at his election-night event were decidedly moneyed. The men were in suits and ties, the women in dresses. They began filtering in after 6pm in somewhat subdued mood; just like Brexit champion Nigel Farage on the eve of that result, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared to lower expectations by complaining of a lack of support from Republican stalwarts. Yet what would follow would be a night of rising hope, of belief spreading around the room like a wildfire, of daring to believe that their man might just pull off the biggest upset in modern political history. TV celebrity Omarosa Manigault, Trump’s director of African American outreach, held court with reporters, insisting that the candidate was supremely confident but that she felt “butterfliesâ€\x9d. She mused on the circularity of having worked on The Apprentice at Trump Tower years ago and now being back there watching her mentor become “leader of the free worldâ€\x9d. National spokeswoman Katrina Pierson also showed up. “Are you nervous?â€\x9d someone asked. Pierson replied: “Nothing to be nervous about.â€\x9d The drinks began to flow. Someone said: “We’re making America great again.â€\x9d A friend replied: “Trying, trying.â€\x9d Each time Fox News flashed up a Trump victory in a reliably red state, the guests cheered and waved signs with slogans. Each time it showed Clinton had won a Democratic stronghold, they booed. Then the Republican candidate won Ohio and North Carolina. Suddenly, what had seemed like a pipe dream felt just a little more tangible. Jeff Sado, 58, a property broker and film producer, said: “I’m very excited. It looks good so far. You know what they say: when you win Ohio, you win the presidency. I’ve always liked Trump, and if you look at our country as a corporation, who better to run it than a businessman?â€\x9d The crowd became thicker and noisier with more “Make America Great Againâ€\x9d caps in evidence. Confidence surged into every corner of the room. And then there was Florida. The crowd erupted in its biggest roar of the night so far and people high-fived. It was game on. Wearing one of those caps, Benjamin Marchi, 38, who owns a home healthcare company, said: “Driving up, we were depressed. We felt this was not going to go our way tonight. We were saying, even though he might lose, he was setting up the party to reach out for voters we haven’t reached since Ronald Reagan. But now it looks like he might win the whole thing.â€\x9d Marchi made comparison with Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. “This Brexit wave, it reaches across oceans. It really does. Never underestimate ordinary people because eventually they show up and vote.â€\x9d The excitement also infected Diana Loffredo, 32, an events planner. “It’s crazy,â€\x9d she said. “This is history in the making right here. I didn’t think so before but now I really do. Amazing. I’m amazed, ecstatic. She was the favourite and now he’s turned the tables.â€\x9d Her husband, Scott Loffredo, 32, was watching the big screen when Fox News declared Wisconsin for Trump, a stunning surprise. “That’s it!â€\x9d he exclaimed. “It’s over! This is history!â€\x9d Asked to characterise his emotions, Loffredo replied: “It’s hard to describe a feeling. I cannot overcome the utter disbelief. It’s sheer shock. I cannot break that shell. This is insane. This is three Brexits.â€\x9d The sports event atmosphere took on a darker tone. The crowd chanted: “Lock her up! Lock her up!â€\x9d Every so often the TV feed cut to Clinton’s election party where faces were disconsolate. Trump’s supporters booed and jeered without compassion. Thomas Stewart, a member of Trump’s national security committee, said of the Democrat’s followers: “I think they were a little arrogant, a little unfriendly. There were some Clinton people on the plane today and they were taunting me because I had Trump material in my briefcase. I thought, ‘Guys, you don’t have to be rude.’â€\x9d As the momentum continued to build, Brian Lynch, 55, general manager of a country club, said: “It’s orgasmic. It’s like Brexit and, by the way, God bless London. People in London got it right. They want their country back; America wants its country back. It’s the same thing.â€\x9d By now the room was nearly full but there was long wait for further results. Some broke into a chorus or two of “God bless Americaâ€\x9d. Some, after several hours on their feet, opted to sit on the floor. The atmosphere was becoming increasingly hot and claustrophobic. The TV showed Wall Street stock prices tumbling. Thomas Hilbert, 22, a portfolio analyst from Indianapolis, was watching his fortune diminish in real time. “I’m in biotech and it’s going to be down big tomorrow,â€\x9d he said. “Everything’s going to be down. It’s definitely a price worth paying because in the long run it’s going up.â€\x9d People studied their phones for the latest vote counts in Pennsylvania. But tiredness was creeping in. One woman could be heard saying: “At 3am I’m leaving.â€\x9d But then, finally, came the announcement of a once unthinkable, perhaps unpalatable statement: Donald Trump elected US president. The crowd erupted in unbridled euphoria with high fives all round. Their “championâ€\x9d, as Pence put it, made his entrance to Air Force One and departed to the sound of another golden oldie from his rallies, the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want. The Stones have objected to his use of the track. But now Trump is about to be president of the United States, who is going to stop him?",
 "Stanley Tucci remembers Alan Rickman: 'My heart aches with loss' The actor Stanley Tucci, who made a memorable supporting performance in Alan Rickman’s final film behind the camera, has paid tribute to “a wonderful actor and directorâ€\x9d. Tucci also called Rickman, who died on Thursday, “most importantly, behind his wry imperiousness, one of the kindest people and one of the most generous friends I have had the great fortune to knowâ€\x9d. Tucci played the flamboyant Duke of Orléans in last year’s period romance A Little Chaos, in which Rickman also featured as Louis XIV. They also co-starred in 2012s Gambit. But the pair had been friends since 2010, after meeting in a New York bar when both were directing plays on Broadway. “After that night we seemed effortlessly to become part of each other’s lives,â€\x9d Tucci told the . “I had begun to work a lot in London and would see him and Rima [Horton, Rickman’s partner] whenever I could. We went to the theatre together and shared many, many wonderful meals, as good food and drink were a common passion.â€\x9d Tucci remembered the couple coming to stay with him and his family in America; Rickman’s “imminent arrival throwing my three children into paroxysms of excitement and fear as Harry Potter was basically the only thing on their minds in those days. “My youngest, who about nine at the time, had invited her best friend to sleep over and their anticipation of meeting Severus Snape was nothing short of hysterical. When he finally did arrive he greeted them as graciously as he greeted everyone and then bent slightly at the waist so that he was just on the cusp of looming over them, lowered his eyelids slightly and asked them in that distinctive and profoundly sonorous voice: ‘Are you Harry Potter fans?’ Needless to say we almost had to take the poor things to the hospital.â€\x9d “How happy my family and I are to have had him in our lives for even a short period of time,â€\x9d said Tucci. “My heart aches with loss.â€\x9d",
 'I don’t need to play my vinyl to love it Vinyl sales may be on the up, but according to an ICM poll, almost half of people who bought a vinyl album last month have yet to listen to it. And of people who buy records, the poll found, 41% have a turntable they never use – and 7% don’t even own a record player. So as a buyer of vinyl that I no longer play, I have to ask: what’s in it for us? The romance of owning a physical object? Having to go to a particular place and spend cold hard contactless money to buy it? That’s certainly more rewarding than idly downloading a song while you’re sitting on the loo. Or is it just about hanging a copy of Adele’s latest album, last year’s biggest selling vinyl album, on the wall of your lounge to look cultured? As a DJ and music journalist, I used to own a lot of vinyl. It’s not an exact measurement, but I’m talking two full Ikea Expedits’ worth. After moving in and then out of a fifth-floor flat with no lift, I decided that perhaps it was time to reconsider my situation and weed out some of the lesser-played records in my collection. As it turned out, it would probably be the last time I played a record. This was five years ago. My eye-wateringly expensive record player now sits with it’s two output cables forlornly dangling down the back. On top of it are, among other things, a spare dog collar and a recorder. But that’s not to say that I don’t have a strong emotional connection to the vinyl I have hung on to. I can pretty much remember where each and every record came from. That time I bought the seven inch for Hard to Love, Easy to Lay by Leeds-based band Black Wire in a store called Feeling Groovy in Peoria, Illinois; the occasion I found a mysterious album by a band called Ex-Hole in the street at 1am, only to discover their strange, minimal Belgian new wave would present me with one of my favourite songs, about someone dying of boredom at their own party. Is it a waste of records to keep them and not play them? Is it like those drawers in the National History Museum that are full of bugs, pinned to card, that you can’t even see unless you’re a bug geek? Maybe. But for me each one holds a memory: of a person, a time, a place. Or the smell of the carpet when I found Talking Head’s Naive Melody in 7â€\x9d at the bottom of the 25p bin in the East Dulwich branch of Sense. When it came to getting rid of some (reader, it was loads) of them, I went over those memories, like a flashback in a film. I can’t say I had the same emotional engagement when I deleted 3,900 MP3s from my computer. So why do I keep buying vinyl, if I never play it any more? I’ll admit that on some level, as with the ownership of many physical things, it’s a status symbol. No one knows that I’m listening to Mariah Carey at the back of the bus – but they do know, because I’ve shared it on Instagram, that I bought the Björk re-issue of Post on pink vinyl not all that long ago. And to my utter shame, it’s still in the plastic. The fact is that I am not the only person who buys but never tries. But it’s certainly no bad thing for the economy - this weekend marks Record Store Day when vinyl will be flying out of independent shops around the land – or for the music industry. At a time when everything is disposable, going out and buying a record is a real commitment. If you don’t ever listen to it, so be it. When I first started DJing, not many places would have a CDJ (compact disc jockey) – so I had to carry my records around with me. Listening to them I’d think about the meditative quality of that warm, dusty crackle of vinyl. It made me feel safe and loved. I can’t get rid of all my vinyl, they’re old friends. But I should probably do the right thing, plug my record player in and show them some love back.',
 'Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea and more: football clockwatch – as it happened That’s it from me, thanks for reading and emailing from all corners of the world, sorry I couldn’t use them all. Now why not follow Leicester receiving the Premier League trophy? Gregg Bakowski has it live, right here. Bye! The Newcastle manager, Rafa BenÃ\xadtez: “Really disappointed, not just because of three points but also Sunderland. Now we have to wait. We have to wait, see what they do in the week, and after try to win our game. We were not comfortable in possession, we had some good chances but at this level and when you need points you have to take your chances, and we didn’t do it.â€\x9d Match report: West Ham 1-4 Swansea Match report: Crystal Palace 2-1 Stoke Match report: Bournemouth 1-1 West Brom Match report: Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea The Sunderland manager, Sam Allardyce: “Extraordinary. Nerve-racking. Wonderful goal from Wahbi to thrill the whole of the stadium. (I said) ‘let’s not waste Whabi’s goal’. It’s a wonderful result for us. One thing we do know is that it’s in our hands. Hopefully we can achieve our goal on Wednesday night [against Everton]. Since the turn of the year we’ve been so near yet so far from so many victories, yet today we’ve come back to a winning position twice.â€\x9d That late John Terry red card could spell a miserable end to his trophy-laden Chelsea career, should he leave in the summer. Terry will receive a two-match ban, having been sent off earlier in the season already, and of course Chelsea have only two games remaining. He threw his armband to the floor when he realised what he’d done. Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe: “Goosebumps. Unbelievable. It’s been like that all season. The fans have been fantastic. A difficult game but obviously we managed to do it against a top Chelsea team who won the league last year.â€\x9d That result sends Sunderland out of the bottom three, a point clear of Newcastle with a game in hand. Sunderland are in the box seat and would seal safety with a win on Wednesday night against Everton. The picture now looks very bleak for Norwich, however, and their race is almost run. Premier League table Premier League results Norwich 0-1 Man Utd West Ham 1-4 Swansea Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Bournemouth 1-1 West Brom Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle Crystal Palace 2-1 Stoke Wow. A stunning strike by Khazri before a quickfire double by Defoe and Borini have handed Sunderland the most crucial of crucial wins. Oxford see off Wycombe 3-0 and Bristol Rovers strike late to win 2-1 against Dagenham and secure back-to-back promotions. Accrington will have to do it through the play-offs. A second yellow and the Chelsea captain is off. Bafetimbi Gomis adds a bit of gloss and West Ham have been humbled at Upton Park. That is surely the end of their top-four chase. Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle This looks like being a major slip-up for Newcastle. Follow it live right here. “My location is about as far from exotic as you can get,â€\x9d emails Jeremy Morris. “I’m in seat 8F on American Airlines flight 2980, 29,000 feet over the Arizona desert. Nice view though. If you’ve nothing better to do, go to FlightAware.com and you can track progress to New York.â€\x9d Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Nothing came of that Chelsea free-kick as you might have guessed and Sunderland are into injury time here – so close. League Two – Huge goal! Bristol Rovers strike! They go 2-1 up through Lee Brown’s injury-time goal, and it means Accrington have to score in the remaining few seconds or they will bumped down into the play-offs. Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Free-kick to Chelsea in a dangerous position... League Two Accrington hit the bar! They might not need it but that would have secured their place in League One next season. Still 0-0 against Stevenage. Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Five minutes for Sunderland to hold on, and holding on is exactly what they are doing. No fourth goal on the cards, Big Sam is shutting up shop. League Two Accrington are struggling to make that crucial breakthrough against Stevenage, likewise Bristol Rovers who are desperate for that goal against Dagenham that would send them up. Both still drawing with around five minutes to go. Matt Ritchie puts Bournemouth level and these two are going to go into the final weekend of the season locked together on 42 points, it seems. An incredible array of exotic and not-so locations emailed, and plenty of suspicion about whether Hugo really has a girlfriend. Unfortunately I can’t roll them all out because of the football that’s happening, but here’s one from Nicholas Brown: “Taking shelter in a little Hurricane Hole in the ‘Paradise Lakes’ Great Sound, Bermuda on my 40’ liveaboard. It’s blowing near gale force and pissing rain and has been for 2 days. All on my lonesome with just the turtles for company. Glad of the distraction of EPL. Bet the weather’s better there!!â€\x9d Tis lovely. League Two Oxford United have a second against Wycombe through a Chris Maguire penalty and they are just 15 minutes from sealing promotion to League One. Bristol Rovers still need a goal to deny Accrington Stanley the other automatic promotion spot. A great effort from Dortmund falls short after a surprise defeat to Frankfurt, and Bayern are champions for the fourth season in a row. How about this. Jermain Dofoe grabs Sunderland’s second in three minutes and Sunderland, as it stands, are out of the bottom three. Incredible. Equaliser! Wait, there’s more... Palace have turned this game on its head and it’s that man Dwight Gayle again. Fabianski makes a brilliant double save but can’t keep out the third as Sakho’s effort goes in off Kingsley, and the Hammers may be back in it. Scottish Premiership Kris Doolan grabs Partick’s second and it looks as though Kilmarnock will have to settle for the relegation play-off. Sunderland 1-2 Chelsea Cattermole and Costa both miss decent chances, Mannone making a fine stop to deny the latter. “Keeping up with the Sunderland game from my girlfriend’s house,â€\x9d Hugo Campbell. “Nowhere particularly special, it’s just in Greenwich, but I just wanted everyone to know that I’ve got a girlfriend.â€\x9d Bundesliga Karim Onisiwo makes it 3-1 to Mainz and it looks like Stuttgart are moving a step closer to the drop. Michael Collins emails with an important point on book-based etiquette: “Donuts? In a library? It’s the end of days.â€\x9d League Two Chey Dunkley’s bullet header has sent Oxford fans crazy – they are heading to League One if they can hold on to this 1-0 advantage against Wycombe. Bristol Rovers need a goal of their own against Dagenham & Redbridge if they are to seal back-to-back promotions this afternoon. Scottish Premiership “Is it possible to add Dundee to your list of exotic reading locations?â€\x9d chances Simon McMahon. “The climate is sub-arctic, and there’s certainly a lot of wildlife here. Looking good for Hamilton and Partick, who both lead, leaving Kilmarnock to take their chances in the relegation play off.â€\x9d Well, well, well. Well. Barrow whips a cross from the left and Ki slams a classy volley home. Hard to know if people are just making these up now: “Watching Chelsea from a bungalow at a Mauritian fisherman village,â€\x9d emails Gaurav Pandit, “and feeling that Sunderland should be rewarded better for their enterprise and effort.â€\x9d This is a very Yannick Bolasie assist, charging 30 yards with the ball stuck to his feet before losing control at the crucial moment, but it ran nicely for Dwight Gayle to fire Palace level. Light reading If you are the sort who only calls in on the Championship to find out who the teams promoted to the Premier League are, then here are some match reports just for you: “Your ‘great range of exotic reading locations this afternoon’ also includes the law library at the University of Tennessee,â€\x9d toots Claire Tuley, “where I am rooting for Sunderland (actually an Arsenal fan, but they’re my nephew’s team and I’d hate to see them relegated), eating donuts, and attempting to learn the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. So, so exotic and glamourous.â€\x9d Don’t put yourself down, Claire. It’s below Tibetan rafting but a library in Tennessee is still a notch above Towers in the glamour league system, I think. And you have donuts. Adam Hirst emails: “The way Villa v Newcastle is going, that Norwich v United match earlier is somehow not even going to be the dullest match of the day. If you can stay awake til 5pm, you’ll have earned your money today.â€\x9d League Two Oxford, Accrington and Bristol Rovers are all drawing at the break, which means Rovers would be the side to miss out on automatic promotion as it stands. It’s set up for some spectacular late heartbreak, you feel. Half-time whistles are blowing all over the UK. Here are the scores at the break in the Premier League: West Ham 0-2 Swansea Sunderland 1-2 Chelsea Bournemouth 0-1 West Brom Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle Crystal Palace 0-1 Stoke And you can get all the latest scores across Europe right here. Oh dear. So soon after that wonderful Khazri equaliser, Nemanja Matic has restored Chelsea’s lead. A brutal blow for the home side just before the break. “Big L,â€\x9d emails Ciaran Gill. Lovely start. “Currently on a rooftop in Jaisalmer, India, in a Tibetan restaurant with a couple of frosty Kingfishers. Eagerly awaiting some good news re Sunderland - don’t let us down!â€\x9d Your wish has already been granted, I think. A great range of exotic reading locations this afternoon. Artur Boruc pulls off a fine double save to deny Craig Gardner’s penalty and the rebound, and keep Bournemouth in it. The Baggies aren’t having much luck from the spot in recent weeks. Footage of that Khazri goal just in: Wahbi Khazri has just scored an utter stunner to bring Sunderland level. What a massive moment in the relegation battle this may or may not be. Bayern Munich’s English arm is still finding its tone on Twitter, I feel: Bundesliga Second halves under way in Germany. Frankfurt still lead Dortmund 1-0 where a surprise win could pull them out of the relegation scrap. Scottish Premiership Only two goals in the Scottish Premiership so far: Scott McDonald handed Motherwell the lead against St Johnstone and Carlton Morris has scored for Hamilton against Dundee. It’s a wonderful assist by 21-year-old Stephen Kingsley who feeds Andre Ayew in thre box and the forward can’t miss. Shouldn’t Swansea be on the proverbial beach? West Ham’s Champions League aspirations are hanging by a thread. A lovely goal by the visitors, Charlie Adam arriving in the box and sweeping home with his right foot, which is almost certainly the first time it’s touched a ball this season. First Payet goes very close with one of his trademark free-kicks, before Swansea go on the attack. Naughton volleys the ball across the goal and Wayne Routledge is on hand to tap home at the back post. Crystal Palace 0-0 Stoke Xherdan Shaqiri runs in on goal but misses his one-on-one, Wayne Hennessey saving well with his feet. Lots of action at Selhurst but no goals so far. “Also very, very nervous here in Nepal up near the Tibetan border where we are rafting the Bhote Kosi,â€\x9d emails John Davis. “Relying on intermittent mobile data connection and your reports to keep in touch with Newcastle’s score. My wife is a mackem, so it is a tense state of affairs.â€\x9d This sounds like a recipe for a drowned mobile phone, surely? League Two Back to the battle for promotion and Billy Bodin has equalised for Bristol Rovers to quickly cancel out Dagenham & Redbridge’s opener. The League winners, Northampton, are up against Portsmouth through a Jack Whatmough own goal. Pompey have rested plenty of players today ahead of the play-offs. Salomón Rondón gets up well in the box to power a header past Artur Boruc, and the visitors are in front. Cahill’s deflected shot finds its way to Diego Costa who fires home from close range. A roar goes in a corner of Villa Park. League Two Hmm, did I say Bristol Rovers have the easiest game of the promotion chasers? Well they are behind against Dagenham & Redbridge, Matthew Cash slotting home for the visitors. A massive boost for Accrington Stanley and Oxford United, who are going up as it stands. Crystal Palace 0-0 Stoke It’s been an entertaining start at Selhurst Park and Palace might have had an early penalty – Dwight Gayle went down right on the edge of the box but won only a free-kick. League Two Bristol Rovers require a win and a mistake from either Oxford United or Accrington Stanley to be promoted automatically, but they have the easiest fixture on paper with a home tie against relegated Dagenham and Redbridge. All three matches are goalless so far. “Nerves, nerves and more nerves here in Beijing,â€\x9d emails Richard Wood, who I deduce is a Bristol Rovers fan. “We have had a fantastic season - this time last year we were in the Conference Playoffs and maybe in three hours we will be in the League Two playoffs - but a result today and a failure for Oxford or Accrington would be perfect. Up The Gas.â€\x9d Bundesliga Stefan Aigner’s 14th-minute strike has handed Frankfurt a 1-0 lead against Dortmund. At Ingolstadt, Thomas Müller has handed penalty duties to Robert Lewandowski following his miss against Atlético Madrid, and the striker has slotted Bayern into a 1-0 advantage. Bundesliga table Premier League Whistles peep as the five 1500 BST kick-offs get under way. Perhaps not £170m but I take Gary’s point. I always like a club who come up and gives the players who earned it their chance. Juan Mata’s second-half goal has pushed Norwich closer to the Championship. The Canaries now desperately need favours from Chelsea and Aston Villa this afternoon. Get the details here. Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka: “I could not be more proud of this group of players. Thank you, it’s amazing for me. It was impossible (to relax). Sometimes they said I was crazy when I said we could put this club in the Premier League again, but two years later we’ve done it.â€\x9d Middlesbrough midfielder Adam Clayton speaks from a bouncing Boro dressing room: “Personally for me and my dad to finally get back up there it’s been a personal mission, it has been incredible. This is a Premier League club, and now it is in the Premier League. We’ll have a good two months off, then we’ll come back and try and do a Leicester eh.â€\x9d That was said with a cheeky grin, I should say. Rafa BenÃ\xadtez speaks: “They [the Newcastle players] are running a lot. I can see the belief every time that we win. When they get the result they fight even more for the next game.â€\x9d Premier League Norwich are running out of time to get something from their match against Manchester United, where it’s still 1-0 thanks to Juan Mata’s second-half strike. You can follow the finish to that one here, and the buildup to Aston Villa v Newcastle here. A beleaguered Simon McMahon emails from Scotland: “Afternoon Lawrence. I’ll be honest, I struggled to motivate myself to write this week’s Scottish football update. But, you know, the show must go on etc etc. Hibs have just beaten Raith 2-0 and so overturn their first leg defeat and progress to the play off semi against Falkirk. The winners of that will most likely face Kilmarnock for a place in the SPL after Dundee United’s inevitable relegation was confirmed on Monday. United restored a little pride (not really, though) with a 3-2 win at Inverness last night as they prepare for life in the Scottish Championship. “A win for Kilmarnock against Partick today though would make things interesting as far as the play-off place is concerned. Elsewhere it’s play-off time all round as teams across Scotland fight to stay in or move up a league. Ayr and Stranraer have healthy first leg leads against Peterhead and Livingston and should progress. It’s not so clear cut as Cowdenbeath host Queens Park and Elgin play Clyde. And Edinburgh City are looking to end East Stirling’s 61 year stay in the senior leagues as they host the first leg of the League Two play off. Right, I’m off for a lie down.â€\x9d Match report: Middlesbrough 1-1 Brighton Championship Most of the full-time scores from England’s second tier are in and you can check them all here. They’ve done it, and Brighton will have to go through the play-offs if they are to join Boro and Burnley in the top flight. Get the details here with Gregg Bakowski. Championship Hull have finished the regular season with a flourish, smashing five past Rotherham with Jake Livermore twice on the scoresheet in a 5-1 win. Hull head into the playoffs next where they will play Derby. Still a couple of minutes left of the eight added at Boro where it’s 1-1 – their fans are lining up ominously on the advertising hoardings for a full-scale pitch invasion. The stewards have no chance. Follow it here. There hasn’t been an awful lot more than pride to play for elsewhere in England’s second tier, something Charlton haven’t managed to salvage much of with a 3-0 home bashing by Burnley, who win the league in the process. Sam Vokes, George Boyd, and Andre Gray did the damage in south London. Hats off to a team who came down from the Premier League and stuck by their manager, Sean Dyche. A fantastic achievement. Disaster for Norwich – get the skinny right here with Barry Glendenning. It’s worth just the £170m: Championship It’s the final ten minutes of the Championship’s regular season and Middlesbrough are clinging on to an automatic promotion place. You can follow Brighton throwing the kitchen sink at Boro right here, with Gregg Bakowski. In a week best summed up by a slow-motion video of Wes Morgan sliding on his back across Jamie Vardy’s kitchen floor, it is easy to forget there is still plenty to settle below Leicester in the Premier League table. Sunderland host a Chelsea side fresh from the Stamford Bridge brawl with Tottenham which sealed Leicester’s title. It is hard to know whether the Blues will be inspired or insipid after that game but the Black Cats, 18th and one point behind Newcastle with a game in hand, are in desperate need of the latter. Newcastle go to Aston Villa knowing anything but a win will mean points dropped, while Norwich are already in action with Manchester United – you can follow the end of that game here. West Ham play Swansea in their penultimate match at Upton Park with a Champions League spot still within reach, while Crystal Palace host on-their-holidays Stoke for the chance to make their safety official. And Bournemouth play West Brom at the Vitality Stadium, two teams each with a totally opposing ethos locked together on 41 points. It doesn’t matter how you get there, I suppose. Premier League table Elsewhere, League Two wraps up with a tasty fight for the right to be automatically promoted alongside Northampton: Accrington Stanley, Oxford United and Bristol Rovers are chasing the two remaining spots. There is also a busy schedule of Bundesliga games to keep an eye on and lots of action in Scotland too, so don’t go anywhere! No really, I need the company: if you’d like to send me an email or a tweet, that would be lovely. League Two table',
 'Ban use of police cells for people in mental health crisis, MPs told People suffering a mental health crisis should never be held in police cells as they find it terrifying and become even more unwell, ministers will be told. Peers will move an amendment to the policing and crime bill on Wednesday to ensure that adults who are feeling suicidal, are psychotic or are self-harming are never taken to police stations for assessment. It already plans to do that for under-18s. The number of people to whom that happens has fallen sharply in recent years and the number taken instead to hospitals has risen as a result, after widespread concern about the practice. “When you’re in a mental health crisis you may become frustrated, frightened and extremely distressed. Your behaviour could be perceived as aggressive and threatening to others, but you desperately need support and compassion,â€\x9d said Paul Harmer, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, which is leading the calls to end the practice. “Being held in a police cell and [in effect] treated like a criminal only makes things worse. Now is the moment to ban this damaging practice once and for all.â€\x9d Figures show there were 2,100 instances of adults being detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act in police cells in England and Wales during 2015-16, and it also happened with 43 children and young people aged under 18. West Yorkshire police detained people 269 times in a police cell under section 136 during 2015-16, while Avon and Somerset did it 242 times, and South Wales 192. Officers usually take someone in crisis to a cell only when there is no “place of safetyâ€\x9d available in a local NHS hospital. Yet, the 2,100 figure was 53% fewer than the 4,537 to whom that happened the year before. Numbers fell dramatically during Theresa May’s time as home secretary from 2010. For example, in 2011-12 a total of 9,000 people were taken to police cells after being detained. Similarly, the number of under-18s taken to a police cell had fallen from 256 in 2013-14 to 43 last year. Joan Walmsley, a Liberal Democrat peer, will use the Lords debate on Wednesday to try to push through the change. Insp Wayne Goodwin, Kent constabulary’s mental health liaison officer, said: “Kent police believe the use of police cells for those detained under the Mental Health Act should be a never event. Cells are not appropriate places for anyone detained under the act and we know that their use can add to the trauma of the crisis and potentially delay that person’s recovery.â€\x9d The Home Office said adults should only be taken to police cells in “exceptional circumstancesâ€\x9d but did not comment on the call for a ban. A spokeswoman said: “We are committed to ensuring those in mental health crisis get compassionate care and that no one is taken to a cell when they have committed no crime and solely because there is no alternative safe place for them. Significant progress has been made by the police and health partners in halving the use of police cells for those in mental health crisis over the last year. But there is still more work to be done. “Changes to legislation through the Policing and Crime Bill will ban the use of police cells for under 18s in mental health crisis, and ensure they can only be used as a place of safety for adults in genuinely exceptional circumstances.â€\x9d',
 'WTO head says leaving EU would cost UK consumers £9bn a year The watchdog for global trade has said leaving the European Union would push back trade barriers at a cost of £9bn a year to British consumers. World Trade Organisation boss, Roberto Azevedo, said Britain would be forced to renegotiate trade deals with all 161 WTO members in an unprecedented move that would be akin to joining from scratch. The impact of new tariffs in overseas markets would also be a burden for UK businesses, adding a further £5.5bn to the costs of trade, he said. “The consumer in the UK will have to pay those duties,â€\x9d Azevedo said. “The UK is not in a position to decide ‘I’m not charging duties here’. That is impossible. That is illegal.â€\x9d His comments came as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said sterling’s status as a reserve currency would be jeopardised by a decision to quit the EU as central banks around the world would sell their holdings in favour of more secure currencies. S&P said countries with a reserve currency earned considerable income from heavy trading on foreign exchange markets and enjoyed lower interest charges on overseas debt. “A departure from the EU could put sterling’s reserve status at risk by deterring foreign direct investment and other capital inflows into the UK,â€\x9d it said, adding that because last year’s current account deficit was the world’s second-highest, any decline in capital inflows would weaken the pound and hit GDP growth. The remain camp said the two interventions left the economic argument for leaving the EU “in tattersâ€\x9d. Former business secretary Vince Cable said Brexit campaigners believed British businesses would be no worse off operating under WTO rules compared to exporting from inside the EU. “But the head of the WTO has warned leaving the EU could cost the UK billions in trade and lead to years of damaging uncertainty. The comments from the WTO are especially important as Boris Johnson has made clear that his vision of a ‘Brexit future’ lies within a WTO framework. Standard & Poor’s warning over sterling would mean higher prices, higher mortgage rates and more government debt.â€\x9d Boris Johnson told the BBC in April: “The WTO has changed the way trade works in the world now. Tariff barriers are much less important and don’t forget 73% of the non-EU trade we do at the moment is done without any kind of trade deal whatsoever.â€\x9d The WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which came into force in 1948, were created to lower trade barriers and police disputes. Azevedo told the Financial Times: “Pretty much all of the UK’s trade [with the world] would somehow have to be negotiated. It is extremely difficult and complex to negotiate these trade agreements. And slow as well. Even if you are in a position to negotiate quickly with all these other members it doesn’t mean that they will be in a position to negotiate with you because they have their own priorities.â€\x9d Responding to Azevedo’s comments, the chief executive of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliot, said: “At the moment our trade relations are dictated by the EU, and this means British businesses are subject to unnecessary constraints. For example, we are forbidden from making free-trade agreements with India and other emerging economies, and we are bound by rules and regulations that we have no say over. Not only that, we currently have no seat at the WTO but are just one of 28 countries represented by the EU. If we vote leave, we can take back control of our our own trade relations, and look forward to a more secure and more prosperous future.â€\x9d Britain could opt to simply scrap all trade barriers, as some free market economists have advocated, and turn its economy into a duty-free state, but that was unlikely, Azevedo said. He suggested that a burden of great responsibility rested with UK voters regarding Britain’s future trade position and the wider economy. Azevedo said: “It is a very important decision for the British people. It is a sovereign decision and they will decide what they want to decide. But it is very important, particularly with regard to trade, which is something very important for the British economy, that people have the facts and that they don’t underestimate the challenges.â€\x9d S&P analyst Frank Gill said several other countries could soon be in a position to take over from sterling as a reserve currency, which it defines as accounting for at least 3% of global foreign exchange reserves. The Australian and Canadian dollars have increased from close to zero a decade ago to a combined 3.8% at the end of last year.',
 'Wild Beasts: Boy King review – wilder and beastlier Around the time of their first album, 2008’s Limbo, Panto, Wild Beasts were neither wild nor beasts. Taking their name from fauvism, the early 20th-century art movement, this operatic indie foursome were a repository of erudite, swooping art rock. The red-blooded falsetto of Hayden Thorpe used to crack ecstatically, so deeply felt were their songs. The rest of the band shirked the obvious, energetically. It’s hard for complexity to survive in the brutal dystopia that is modern music commerce. Five albums in – solidly good ones, never truly earth-moving ones – you get a sense that this Cumbria-via-Leeds band have decided to throw erudition to the wind and finally embrace knuckle-dragging rock piggery. This, in exchange for some of the kudos, cheddar and ancillary benefits that their labelmates Arctic Monkeys have long enjoyed. So Boy King is actually all about being wild – a song called Big Cat opens the record – and sex, hyper-masculinity (Adonis and Colossus are referenced) and getting one’s “bangâ€\x9d. Basslines swagger, and the prettiness that lit up the band’s first three albums (one of them Mercury-nominated) has become a guttering, neon strip, one that deepens the electronic flirtation Wild Beasts began on their last album, Present Tense. To this end, producer John Congleton (St Vincent, John Grant) mans the board, running Wild Beasts’ guitars through alchemising effects. This approach hits its apex on He the Colossus, when Thorpe sings “Everything just dies in these handsâ€\x9d, and Tom Fleming’s guitar answers him beautifully, all distorted. Congleton also brings a widescreen, pared-back, Texan feel to the band’s previously twitchy default mode. On songs like Get My Bang, you can’t help but think of Arctic Monkeys. It’s not actually about sex, but about the orgy of consumerism that western society indulges in, where tearing cut-price TVs out of other people’s hands on Black Friday is the only thrill left. “We’re going darker ages/ I wanna feel outrageous,â€\x9d pout the backing vocals. Big Cat, meanwhile, sounds like a malevolently slinky Muse song, keen to drive the chorus into your skull. The closing guitar line is downright poetic in its succinctness. Is this Wild Beasts’ masterpiece, then, where they finally live up to an over-literal reading of their name? Not quite. Too many songs sound like generic electronic rock. But a masterful mid-album run – the intriguing, three-legged sulk of 2BU into He the Colossus into the pitch-shifted bomp’n’thwack of Ponytail – is as arresting and fresh as they wanted the rest of this album to be.',
 'TechCrunch falls victim to OurMine hacking group Verizon-owned prominent technology site TechCrunch has become the latest victim of the OurMine hacking group. OurMine Security appeared to gain publishing access to the site, which uses the popular content management system Wordpress, and posted its now infamous message. A post on the site under the byline of Seattle-based writer Devin Coldewey said: “Hello Guys, don’t worry we are just testing techcrunch security, we didn’t change any passwords, please contact us.â€\x9d The post was then promoted as a ticker, the top banner in red and a the main story on TechCrunch’s front page. The OurMine posting appeared at around 12.20pm BST (7.20am ET) but was removed within two hours. It was still showing in Google’s index and cache at the time of writing. The attack on the technology site is latest in a number of high-profile compromises by OurMine, which included the social media accounts of Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai. OurMine also claimed responsibility last week for a DDoS attack on Pokémon Go’s servers. The TechCrunch attack appears to have leveraged a contributor’s account, rather than a hack on the site’s Wordpress system. In previous attacks, OurMine has used weaker linked accounts to post to services such as Twitter, rather than taking over the user’s social media accounts directly. The attacks underscore the inherent flaws in linked systems: your accounts, or in this case site, is only as resilient as your weakest link. Security experts recommend the use of two-step verification systems to help prevent accounts being compromised. It is unknown whether TechCrunch writer accounts required two-step verification for access to the site’s Wordpress backend. TechCrunch, which is owned by AOL, and in turn by Verizon, did not respond to request for comment. Oculus CEO is latest tech boss hacked in embarrassing account takeover From Tumblr to Katie Couric, here’s everything Verizon just bought from Yahoo',
 "Reality show singer breaks China's Cultural Revolution taboo Nearly half a century after his father plunged to his death from the roof of a Beijing university, Yang Le stepped out on to the stage to tell millions of Chinese television viewers how Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution had torn his family apart. “When I was young we were a family of six … My father was handsome, mum was young and beautiful,â€\x9d sang the silver-haired contestant on China Star, the country’s answer to the X-Factor. “After the Cultural Revolution only five of us were left.â€\x9d When his lament-filled, taboo-breaking performance ended, Yang bit his lower lip. Applause rippled through the theatre; the judges leapt to their feet; tears streamed down cheeks. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get through the song,â€\x9d the 60-year-old musician recalled in a tearful interview. “I had to force myself to relax because it wasn’t only me who went through this. Millions of other families went through this in China.â€\x9d May marks 50 years since China was convulsed by Mao Zedong’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a bewildering and bloody attempt by the leader to reshape and reassert control over the Communist party he had helped found in 1921 by mobilising the nation’s youth. A new book on the period by Dutch historian Frank Dikötter reveals the grotesque catalogue of violence inflicted upon alleged “class enemiesâ€\x9d and intellectuals as teenage Red Guards fanned out across urban China with orders to “sweep away monsters and demonsâ€\x9d. Victims were beaten, flogged, stoned and scolded by “Mao’s Little Generalsâ€\x9d or forced to swallow nails and excrement as jeering crowds looked on. Homes and places of worship were ransacked, pillaged and burned. One teacher killed himself after being set upon by students who forced him to drink ink. Another was doused in petrol and set alight. Others were electrocuted or even buried alive. “[It was] a demented environment, an Alice-in-Wonderland world, governed only by its mad logic,â€\x9d Percy Cradock, then a senior British diplomat in Beijing, recalls in his memoirs. “The country was in the grip of a nightmare.â€\x9d Among the estimated two million people who lost their lives over the coming decade was Yang Le’s father, Wang Yuguo, a lecturer in industrial economy at Beijing’s prestigious Renmin University. “My father was persecuted and he killed himself. He jumped from the roof of a building,â€\x9d the singer said. “At Renmin University you heard of professors killing themselves every day. It was horrible. I would hear someone crying and we would wonder who was crying and whose family was suffering those bad things.â€\x9d The premature death of Yang’s father devastated his family. His mother was forced to sell her dead husband’s belongings – and even her own blood – to feed the couple’s four children. Yang’s three siblings were packed off to the countryside for “re-educationâ€\x9d as part of an attempt to rein in Mao’s marauding Red Guards. Finally, Yang’s mother remarried and moved south to Jiangxi province. “She felt sad,â€\x9d he said. “But she had no choice.â€\x9d China’s Communist party leaders have officially classified the Cultural Revolution as a mistake. A 1981 resolution noted that the decade-long upheaval “was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses by the party, the state and the people since the founding of the People’s Republicâ€\x9d in 1949. Two years earlier the People’s Liberation Army marshall Ye Jianying labelled the period “an appalling catastrophe suffered by all our peopleâ€\x9d. Yet half a century after the mayhem began the subject remains largely a taboo within China. School textbooks skirt around the period and discussion of Mao’s central role in the disaster is shunned. Yang, a classically trained flautist who fled China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and went on to study at the Schola Cantorum de Paris, said few songs had examined the heartbreak caused by the Cultural Revolution. The government’s refusal to revisit that era means much about what unfolded in the 10 years between the Cultural Revolution’s start in May 1966 and Mao’s death in 1976 remains hazy. For example, the exact circumstances surrounding the death of Yang’s father are still shrouded in mystery. The singer said he believed his father had been interrogated and beaten before he was found dead on 4 December 1968 at the age of 39. “I heard they used shoes to beat my father in the face. He felt humiliated. He couldn’t stand it,â€\x9d Yang said. But before his corpse was cremated, Yang’s mother spotted an indentation in her dead husband’s skull, leading her to suspect he had been set upon by Red Guards and then pushed to his death. “If somebody jumps from a building you would expect to see a problem with their neck, an internal problem, not the kind of trauma that you can see,â€\x9d he said. The 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution is unlikely to shine fresh light on such cases. Dikötter predicted that China’s leaders would seek to remember the occasion with total silence. “[Chinese people] have been told again and again and again: you had better forget. Let’s just get on with it,â€\x9d the historian said. “The team in charge is very well aware that there is a danger to its legitimacy and its credibility [in discussing past mistakes]. And it knows very well that history is one of the pillars of its own legitimacy and it will not have it undermined. It is as simple as that.â€\x9d The party’s determination to bury the horrors of the Cultural Revolution made Yang Le’s prime-time television performance, in November last year, even more unusual. The singer said he had feared the show’s producers might attempt to censor the lyrics but had lobbied against that with the help of Cui Jian, a friend and well-known Chinese rock star. The channel relented. “There are movies and novels that tell stories from that time so why can we not sing this kind of song?â€\x9d Yang said. Dikötter said Beijing had been largely successful in “stamping out the memory of the Cultural Revolutionâ€\x9d and staving off calls for any significant probe into one of the darkest chapters in Chinese history. “I think that does leave scars. That does leave a society that is very traumatised by who did what to whom without any sense of redress or justice,â€\x9d he said. But the outpouring of emotion triggered by Yang’s performance suggests many have not forgotten the hurt and suffering inflicted on their families. Yang, who cites Gustav Mahler and Serge Gainsbourg among his influences, said he saw music not simply as entertainment but as a way of inspiring listeners to confront painful truths. He attributed the tears shed over his performance to the profound emotional burden those who witnessed the excesses of the Cultural Revolution still carried with them. “Recalling that time in history is something that is extremely heavy for our generation.â€\x9d “It was a catastrophe,â€\x9d he said. “It was like a war.â€\x9d Additional reporting by Christy Yao",
 'Pounded by the pound: Brexit inspires its first erotic novel Brexit has produced its first work of literature, in the form of an erotic novel depicting a relationship between a man and a “massive, sentientâ€\x9d pound coin. Pounded by the Pound: Turned Gay by the Socioeconomic Implications of Britain Leaving the European Union is the latest novella from Chuck Tingle, the author of more than 50 sexually explicit science fiction stories. In the book a giant floating pound coin, with an “incredible set of chiseled metallic absâ€\x9d and a “thick golden rodâ€\x9d, takes 25-year-old Alex Liverbot one month into the future, offering a haunting vision of the UK a few weeks after the Brexit vote. In London the Houses of Parliament are ablaze, the River Thames is “bubbling like the lava of a molten volcanoâ€\x9d, and strange creatures “dressed [as] the Queen’s guard but with leathery reptilian wings and extended knifelike teethâ€\x9d patrol the sky. Quadruple-decker passenger buses, introduced in a cost-saving measure by a desperate post-referendum government, have proven impractical and lie on their sides in the streets. Against this dystopian backdrop Liverbot and the giant pound coin, which is called Perber and appears to have hands, a penis and some method of speaking aloud, strike up an unlikely relationship. Their coupling culminates with a breathlessly depicted sexual encounter in a London pub. Tingle – the name is believed to be a pseudonym – has been honing his distinct take on erotica since January 2015, when his debut novel, Chuck’s Dinosaur Tinglers Volume 1, was released. A prolific writer, Tingle averages almost three books a month. He rose to fame over the last year after his work was nominated for a Hugo prize – a prestigious science fiction award – following an online campaign by the Rabid Puppies movement. The group campaigns against a perceived leftwing bias by Hugo award judges by voting en masse for male authors and criticizing female writers. Tingle disowned the Rabid Puppies earlier this year, and invited Zoë Quinn, a video game developer who has been the target of online harassment by Gamergate and the Rabid Puppies, to attend the Hugo awards ceremony in his stead. Tingle’s work has been described as a parody of dinosaur erotica, a real sub-genre of literature which explores hypothetical sexual encounters between animals from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and human beings. In recent months Tingle has expanded his ouevre, however, and exploring themes such as unicorns – in Hunter Dentist: Pounded in the Butt by Cecil the Handsome Unicorn – and inanimate objects, in Pounded in the Butt by my Handsome Ghost Boats. In an email interview, Tingle said Pounded by the Pound took “seven or eightâ€\x9d hours to write, but conceded that many more hours had been spent on research. The author, who in his correspondence displayed an eccentric interpretation of grammar and punctuation, warned that his stark vision for Britain’s future, including the distortion of the Queen’s guard and the ill-conceived adaptations to London’s public transport, could yet come to pass. “Well the events of Pounded by Pound are only a month later so id say [it is] pretty realistic,â€\x9d Tingle said. “It makes sense that they would have to call in the reptile guards and also that all double decker bus[es] would need four stories to cut costs.â€\x9d He advised: “DON’T DO THIS THEY WILL TIP OVER.â€\x9d',
 'FTSE 100 defies Brexit turmoil and hits 10-month high The prospect of interest rate cuts and a flurry of bargain-hunting by stock market investors has helped the FTSE 100 shrug off the Brexit vote to hit a 10-month high. In a strong start to the second half of 2016, the index of London-listed bluechip shares finished up 73.5 points, or 1.1%, on the day at 6,577.83. That built on solid gains clocked up over the previous three days and left the FTSE 100 up 7.2% over the week – the biggest weekly rally since late 2011, when hopes for a solution to the eurozone crisis had fired up the FTSE and other stock markets around the world. This week’s rebound was a sharp contrast to just a week earlier when investors had woken up to the news Britain had voted to leave the EU. The referendum outcome last Friday caught traders off-guard after opinion polls had led them to bet on a remain vote. On the day the victory for the leave camp was confirmed, a record $2.08tn was wiped off the value of global shares. But markets quickly stabilised in the days following the vote as investors saw the low prices of some stocks as a buying opportunity and as other stocks rose in the wake of the Brexit vote. Shares in miners have been boosted by a rise in demand for precious metals, seen as a safer asset to hold in uncertain times. There were also big gains for companies that get a substantial amount of their sales from overseas thanks to a fall in the pound. The drop in sterling, which has plumbed 31-year lows since the referendum, flatters the finances of those companies that report their profits in dollars. For example, while the banking sector has generally been battered by the Brexit vote, shares in the global bank HSBC which reports in US dollars are up 3.4% since the referendum. The weaker pound has also boosted exporters because it makes their goods and services more competitive in overseas markets. The latest fillip for stock markets came from the Bank of England governor’s strong hint on Thursday that interest rates could be cut within weeks and that policymakers were also ready to use other tools to shore up business and consumer confidence. Mark Carney said he believed “some monetary policy easing will likely be required over the summerâ€\x9d. In other words, official borrowing costs could be cut from their already record low of 0.5% as soon as a 14 July Bank policy meeting. The prospect of official interest rates falling as low as zero increased appetite for shares, said Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “The stock market likes falling interest rates though, and indeed the accompanying fall in the pound, so understandably the Footsie rose on the back of Mark Carney’s comments,â€\x9d said Khalaf. “In a world where you have to pay money to lend to the government, an investment in the stock market which pays you 3-4% a year looks attractive, even if it can be volatile.â€\x9d But there were doubts over whether stock markets could sustain their rally given the backdrop of political uncertainty in the UK and signs of a slowdown in the global economy that emerged long before the referendum. “The big question is if the FTSE and [other stock markets] can hold on to the momentum they have accrued in the past few days, or whether the ongoing issues in the property and banking sectors, as well as the general sense of uncertainty that seems to be everywhere but the markets at the moment, will prove to be too much,â€\x9d said Connor Campbell, analyst at spread-betting firm Spreadex. While the internationally diverse FTSE 100 is at a peak for this year, the more domestically focused FTSE 250 of mid-sized companies has yet to return to its pre-referendum level. Seen as a better proxy for confidence in the UK economy, that index closed at 16,565.49 on Friday, up 1.2% on the day, but down on its 17,333.51 level the night the polls closed on 23 June. Other European bourses were also struggling to regain their pre-referendum levels, with traders citing worries about the impact of Brexit on the rest of the EU, where some commentators fear a domino effect with other countries heading for the exit. Italy’s main share index, weighed down by fears over some of its banking stocks, is down 9% since the referendum.',
 'Opportunity or disaster? Small firms describe the impact of the Brexit vote ‘It’s devastating for us as a small business and I am not sure if we can survive it’ “I run a small communications agency as well as being a journalist. One of our clients is a European-owned company who we have worked with for around 10 years. Two weeks ago they asked whether we could come to a meeting to talk about another large chunk of business they wanted us to take on. However now they have cancelled the entire contract as they had seen too much wiped off the company value to be able to keep their pre-Brexit budgets in place. It’s devastating for us as a small business and I am not sure if we can survive it. It definitely means we will have to lose an employee and possibly the company. It also means the money I can earn from the company has halved overnight.â€\x9d Anonymous owner of a communications agency ‘Our client base is set to expand’ “As a firm we are feeling optimistic about the possibilities. Our client base is set to expand, due to businesses fearing the current tax implications and looking to us for help and advice. It is important to remember that small businesses won’t be as constrained by tax laws, and could benefit from more favourable tax treatment. As a company, we are looking forward, and excited to grow and implement new services and business solutions that have the potential to save our clients both time and money without the red tape and regulations in force from the EU.â€\x9d Paul Pritchard, director, Abacus Accountancy ‘I’ve lost a contract’ “I help tech businesses with their marketing. Most early stage tech companies get a lot of their funding from the EU. The day after Brexit I followed up with someone who I had had final negotiations with and I was planning to support them. However because of Brexit and the uncertainty in the market he told me he couldn’t guarantee he would have funding for marketing, therefore while he would do everything personally to help me, professionally his hands were tied. This is a massive gap I now have to fill, and I don’t have a huge amount of time to do it.â€\x9d Tina Marshall, owner of marketing company Creating Sense in Oxford ‘We need to turn this into an opportunity’ “I voted for Remain, but I think now the vote has happened we need to rally behind it and take the bull by the horns. I think it will be possible to find opportunities from all of this if we pull together. UK manufacturing is the strongest it’s been for years, and my company exports 10% to Europe. I’m confident we can continue that trade – we haven’t seen any changes in our business since the referendum, we just to need to treat Europe with respect and we need leadership from our politicians. I do think it is a shame the vote was so split down the middle, it’s caused a lot of anger - we need to make sure we don’t talk ourselves into a recession.â€\x9d Christopher Greenough, commercial director at Salop Design & Engineering Ltd and president of Made in the Midlands ‘The pause button has been well and truly pushed’ “Our business is upholstery – we reupholster, design bespoke upholstered furniture and sell fabrics. Summer is typically the quietest of times so maintaining an order book to keep you busy through the summer months takes longer and is harder fought. For us the timings could not be worse. Prior to Brexit, the phones went quiet - so much so, that I had to check that they were actually working. Since the vote to leave the EU last week the pause button has been well and truly pushed. One customer cancelled this morning – a project that would have been approximately two to three weeks’ work for us. Another large furniture order again hasn’t progressed – the work was all scheduled, but he has a reticence to proceed at the moment as a precaution – again another three weeks of work gone. The lack of any concrete certainty of where we are headed as a trading nation and a country as a whole is massively unsettling to business.â€\x9d Fiona Harris, owner of Harris Upholstery, based in Castle Douglas in Kirkcudbrightshire and Fleet in Hampshire ‘I’m working on a plan B to reduce factory costs’ “Our shoes are designed in the UK, but manufactured in Europe so the decision to leave has thrown a few curve balls, but I’m remaining positive. The immediate effect is the falling value of the pound against the euro. My orders are committed months in advance so our purchasing decisions haven’t been affected yet but the cost of our purchases has as exchange rates started to wobble shortly after the referendum and obviously hit a low after the result. I buy my finished shoes in euros from Portugal. If the pound drops 10% the cost of purchasing those shoes increases by 10%. There are two choices - let the business absorb the cost resulting in a reduced margin or passing it onto the consumer via increased retail prices. I’ve chosen so far to do the former, but it’s not a viable long-term strategy. I want to avoid retail price rises so I’m working on a plan B to reduce factory costs.â€\x9d Claire Burrows, founder of London-based footwear brand Air & Grace ‘We are now more competitive in foreign markets’ “We often use laboratory-grown diamonds to make jewellery for our customers, and the only place we can import them from is the United States. The price we pay for the diamonds is affected by the strength of the pound versus the US dollar, which meant that when the referendum result wiped value off the pound, percentage points were knocked off our margins. Accounting for daily fluctuations in the exchange rate, it’s effectively costing us an extra 5%-10% per diamond, compared with earlier this month. Fortunately, not all of our stock is imported, which provides us with some ongoing stability and lessens the net impact on our balance sheet. We intend to absorb as much of the hit on our US-imported stock as we can and monitor the situation whilst the pound stabilises before reviewing our prices. From a purely commercial perspective, one benefit to come out of the weakness of the pound is that we are now more competitive as a retailer in foreign markets.â€\x9d Richard Hatfield, director of York-based jewellers Nightingale ‘I’ve had about half the sales I normally have since the referendum’ “My company has been affected as some of my sales are from the US and the pound is now lower against the dollar. I have also had about half the sales I normally have since the referendum and I think this is because there is a huge fear again now in the UK of another recession. I won UK’s Best Vintage Fashion Website at The National Vintage Awards 2013 and feel it will undo all my hard work since launch in 2011.â€\x9d Lynnette Peck, owner of Bristol-based online vintage retailer Lovely’s Vintage Emporium This article was amended on 4 July 2016. An earlier version said the cost of purchasing shoes in euros would increase if the euro dropped. That has been corrected to say the cost would increase if the pound dropped. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.',
 "My mum has Alzheimer's – I think we've just shared our last Christmas together “Here, Mum.â€\x9d I hold the fork close to her mouth. Turkey, cranberry, a little salad. “Here.â€\x9d She looks around, moving her head from side to side. One hand picks up her knife, holds it back to front, puts it down again. Then she picks up a spoon. “No, no, here. On your fork.â€\x9d She puts the spoon down, and reaches for her serviette, clutching it hard in her hand. My brother and mother-in-law are engaged in Christmas conversation and I can sense their chatter is disturbing to Mum; she can follow neither them nor my directions. “Can you shush a minute? Mum, here. Here.â€\x9d I’ve got her attention, but she can’t see what I’m trying to draw it towards. “Don’t get frustrated,â€\x9d my brother admonishes softly, but it’s hard, so hard, to quell the feelings of impatience, mingled with disbelief, followed by guilt. Infants learn to understand pointing by 12 months. My mother can’t see, or recognise, the food being waved in front of her face. This is what the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease looks like. Before lunch, my brother had put in her favourite dangling cat earrings. We took her to the bathroom so she could admire them in the mirror but she barely recognised herself, let alone the jewellery. “Can you see them?â€\x9d Her eyes were barely open. “Yes,â€\x9d she said eventually, so we’d stop asking. I’d picked her up from her facility earlier that day. Her carers had helped to get her ready. “I had no idea it was Christmas Day,â€\x9d she told me, and it was true: all that tinsel amounted to nothing. Any sense of time was obliterated for my mother long ago, but Christmas was the last important date to go, long after birthdays were forgotten. “Here,â€\x9d I say gently. Finally her eyes register the food. She takes it into her mouth, so deeply so I’m afraid the teeth of the fork will scratch her palate. She chews slowly. Soon, I think to myself, she will forget to swallow. Forget to breathe. Forget the things that we take for granted as nothing more than life-preserving instinct. I’d read a Christmas card to her before lunch. “We will remember you long after you’ve forgotten us,â€\x9d I told her. She is already forgetting. We re-introduce ourselves to her these days. Sometimes she gets cross. “Of course I know who you are,â€\x9d she says. Sometimes, she does. Other times, it’s obvious she doesn’t. “I’m Andrew, your son,â€\x9d I will say, but her face is as cloudy as Melbourne. Our names, our relationships to her are becoming a mystery. “My son?â€\x9d she says, puzzled. The word itself has no meaning. Later, when the penny drops, she will become distressed. “I’m off the planet, aren’t I?â€\x9d she says. “You’re just having a bad day,â€\x9d I’ll reply. But Mum holds on to a residual insight into her condition that increases her suffering. She worked for years in aged care, becoming an expert in the field. She often told me she could not imagine anything worse than Alzheimer’s disease. She resisted seeking treatment for years. When we sold her house to fund her care, earlier this year, I trawled through boxes of personal effects. Among them was a 2002 letter from a psychologist to her GP, written after she’d taken stress leave from her job in the health department. It referred to problems with memory and completing tasks. She was 55. Fourteen years is a long time to watch someone you love disintegrate. It’s also about average for an Alzheimer’s sufferer – seven years from onset to diagnosis; seven from diagnosis to death. There are even seven stages of the disease, according to the most commonly used scale. Mum is in stage six. It took us years to connect the dots. The irrational outbursts of temper (frankly, she was always prone to those). The onset of panic attacks, as her life and career began to fall apart. Her terror of driving – although the greater terror was the loss of independence after we took the keys from her, following her diagnosis in late 2011. Suddenly her eyes are open, and there’s an flash of recognition. “I know who you’re talking about,â€\x9d she exclaims, and it seems she does. I shoot a look at my brother. “She’s back,â€\x9d I mutter. For a few minutes, she is engaged. She even takes the fork from my hand, though as she holds it at such a steep angle that food falls in her lap. “This is just lovely,â€\x9d she says. “I’m the happiest person in the world.â€\x9d And in that moment, perhaps she is. A couple of days later I visit her. Earlier, she’d called my brother in a panic, hyperventilating, terrified that she had been abandoned. But by the time I get to her she’s lying peacefully on her bed. “Hello, Mum.â€\x9d She looks up, and her faces creases into an huge smile of relief. “I thought you didn’t love me any more,â€\x9d she says, clutching on to me. “Of course I do. We all do,â€\x9d I say. “Do you remember Christmas, a couple of days ago? You had a lovely time.â€\x9d “Did I?â€\x9d “Yes, you did. And Mark came to visit you yesterday.â€\x9d “Mark?â€\x9d Fog veils her face again. “Yes, Mark. Here he is.â€\x9d I point to a picture of my brother on the wall behind her with our parents, but again, she can’t follow my finger, scarcely raising her head. Instead she points at a soft toy I’d given her as a present. She’s got quite a collection of them now. She asks me what I’ve been up to. I tell her I’ve been writing; that I’ve just had a piece on Stevie Wright published. “Who was he again?â€\x9d I explain he was the singer of the Easybeats, a band of her youth. “I remember him!â€\x9d she says, clapping. I sing her a few lines from Friday On My Mind. Remarkably, she picks up some of the tune. “How old was he?â€\x9d she asks. “68,â€\x9d I say. “That’s awful! He was he same age as me. It could have been me,â€\x9d she says. Despite her own condition, Mum’s empathy for others is intact. But I’m more impressed that on this occasion, she’s correctly remembered her own age. At least she’s calmed down, and she’s tired. So am I, and I don’t have it in me to stay longer than half an hour this time. Once she’s sufficiently reassured, I make my excuses and leave. I tell myself as I drive away, next time I’ll stay longer; take her out for coffee. Probably, I think to myself, she’s seen her last Christmas – certainly the last one she’ll be sentient for. At first the thought feels like a relief. It is not fair for anyone to suffer for so long; to lose touch with everything that defines and connects you to others. But then I think of her telling me she’s the happiest person in the world, and I’m not so sure.",
 'Jamie Lidell: Building a Beginning review – swoonworthy soul-pop As you listen to Jamie Lidell’s hopelessly romantic new soul-pop LP, petals fall from the sky, squirrels flirt, and sparrows follow you around with a heart-strewn banner in their beaks. Lidell wrote the lyrics with his wife, and they’re full of earnest declarations of how valuable their bond is. Perhaps they’d make nauseating dinner party guests, but the songwriting is so comfortably strong and the production so toasty that you’re soon swooning along with them.  How Did I Live Before Your Love is perfection, like Charles Wright doing lover’s rock; Motionless is wonderfully overwrought gospel; Believe in Me is Van Morrison trying on an OVO ballad. Throughout, Lidell’s voice remains one of the most underrated sounds in pop: sexy and breathy, but with an appealing top note of adenoidal nerdiness. He can even make a song called I Live to Make You Smile sound relaxed, rather than a misjudged attempt at soothing a marital tiff.',
 'Tom Chaplin: The Wave review – tender songs from former Keane frontman The first solo album by Keane singer Tom Chaplin has a clean-cut MOR sheen. It is aglow with mid-paced piano-led ballads with crowd-pleasing choruses. There’s also a strong streak of melancholy. Opening track Still Waiting paints a scene of death and destruction: “Buried in the rubble, there’s a boy in trouble.â€\x9d The song could be about Aleppo, but Chaplin doesn’t say. He’s unspecific, too, in more introspective songs such as Hardened Heart, in which he says he “drove to the point of madness just to feel something realâ€\x9d – which could be about his well-publicised struggles with addiction. Or not. Of course, lyrics with a broad sweep, that you can interpret any way you like, helped Keane sell millions of albums and touch stadium audiences, and The Wave’s hooks and polish won’t harm its chances of doing the same. It’s not a sonically adventurous album, but Chaplin’s voice on tender songs such as the title track is as affecting as ever.',
 'There are several metropolitan elites. But the same one still pulls the strings Mustering all the serenity and self-restraint that has made it famous, the Daily Mail published a full-page editorial on Wednesday headlined “Whingeing. Contemptuous. Unpatriotic. Damn the Bremoaners and their plot to subvert the will of the British people.â€\x9d It attacked remain voters for being “sore losersâ€\x9d who were “incredulous that the British people could be so disrespectful as to reject their wisdomâ€\x9d. One group in particular attracted the Mail’s contempt: the “metropolitan eliteâ€\x9d, defined by the paper as “the well-heeled group of London ‘intellectuals’ which is used to having everything its own wayâ€\x9d – and which was anxious to revenge Theresa May’s “devastating attackâ€\x9d on its sneering attitude to public concerns about mass immigration. The Mail identified the BBC as Bremoaner-in-chief. The paper loves May. Not since Margaret Thatcher has it given a prime minister such unstinting admiration and support. It never much cared for David Cameron – for a time even Gordon Brown ranked higher in the Mail’s affections, perhaps because Brown replaced a flashy predecessor, just as May has done. Both leaders exemplify the hard work and modesty that you might expect from a childhood spent in a churchy household – a manse in Brown’s case and a vicarage in May’s – which are habits and virtues that the Mail likes to think its readers share. May, presumably, loves the Mail in return; who wouldn’t want the support of the most politically influential paper in England? But whether May hates the “metropolitan eliteâ€\x9d quite as much as the Mail does is an open question. On the morning of her big speech to the Tory conference, the Mail’s front-page report predicted that she would condemn this elite, which it also called the “liberal eliteâ€\x9d, “for sneering at millions of ordinary Britons over immigrationâ€\x9d. But her speech, when she delivered it, wasn’t quite so straightforward. Many politicians and commentators, she told her audience, had found “your patriotism distasteful, your concerns about immigration parochial, your views about crime illiberal, your attachment to your job security inconvenientâ€\x9d. But the only mention of an elite came in an earlier passage about the many “people in positions of powerâ€\x9d who behaved as if they had “more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass in the streetâ€\x9d. And then she added: “But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.â€\x9d In one or two paragraphs, she had taken aim at various kinds of elites and allegedly elitist attitudes, some antithetical to others and the most awkward of them probably invented for the sake of political balance – for which politician or commentator has ever openly complained about the “inconvenienceâ€\x9d of a worker’s attachment to job security? Two broad categories had been conflated and confused. First came the rich and greedy international elite, who ran businesses that didn’t pay proper taxes and treated their workers badly. Second came a social and cultural elite who peered down their noses at the illiberalism and flag-waving of the classes below. Both groups could be smeared as citizens of nowhere – “rootless cosmopolitansâ€\x9d in the antisemitic jibe of Stalin’s Soviet Union – but other than that they have little or nothing in common. Ruthless billionaires on the one hand, condescending academics on the other: together, May implied, they had alienated the larger part of an electorate that felt wronged and ignored. There’s nothing new in her diagnosis. Shortly before he died in 1994, the American historian and moralist Christopher Lasch wrote an eloquent charge sheet against similar targets in his posthumously published book The Revolt of the Elites. He mainly described the United States, but his analysis illuminates many other parts of the world (including the land of Brexit) as well. What went wrong? Lasch: “The general course of recent history no longer favours the levelling of social distinctions but runs more and more in the direction of a two-class society.â€\x9d What he called the “democratisation of abundanceâ€\x9d – the expectation that each generation would be better off than its predecessor – was giving way to a society of rising inequalities. How did this happen? When the idea that the masses were riding the wave of history faded away. The radical movements of the 20th century have failed, and the industrial working class, once the mainstay of the socialist movement, has been weakened to the point where, in some of its former strongholds, it barely exists anymore. Who are the elites? “Those who control the international flow of money and information, preside over philanthropic foundations and institutions of higher learning, manage the instruments of cultural production and thus set the terms of public debate.â€\x9d A Marxist could have written those last words; the Daily Mail, in its anti-Philip (“Sir Shiftyâ€\x9d) Green and anti-metropolitan moments, could almost have written it. As a social critic rather than an ideologue, Lasch is hard to place on the left-right spectrum. Sometimes he might be depicting the present-day dilemma of a constituency Labour party in the north of England, as when he points out that the class once regarded as the most likely to support a revolution has many members with political instincts more conservative than those of their radical would-be leaders. Elsewhere he could be describing a way of London living that in 1994 still lay a dozen years in the future: “Ambitious people understand … that a migratory way of life is the price of getting ahead … ‘multiculturalism’ suits them to perfection, conjuring up an agreeable image of a global bazaar … Theirs is essentially a tourist’s view of the world.â€\x9d Reading Lasch at this time of crisis in British history is also valuable as a caution. He writes that when the common folk confront well-meaning initiatives from above, their resistance provokes an outburst of “the venomous hatred that lies not far beneath the smiling face of upper-middle-class benevolenceâ€\x9d. I don’t think of myself as upper-middle-class, but that might be a caricature of my emotions when, say, I watch Brexiteers on Question Time. The Daily Mail’s portrayal of remainers as truculent and bitter has a few grains of truth. Nobody can look at something they see as a catastrophe and not despair of the people who caused it. Speaking of whom, let us count the public schools and the frequent mention of the same university. Nigel Farage (Dulwich College), Daniel Hannan (Marlborough and Oxford), Douglas Carswell (Charterhouse and UEA), Mark Reckless (Charterhouse and Oxford), David Cameron (Eton and Oxford), George Osborne (St Paul’s and Oxford), Boris Johnson (Eton and Oxford), Michael Gove (Robert Gordon’s College and Oxford), John Redwood (Kent College, Canterbury and Oxford), Bill Cash (Stonyhurst and Oxford), Matthew Elliott (Leeds Grammar and LSE), Dominic Cummings (Durham School and Oxford). That looks like an elite to me. More than that – it looks like a ruling class. In its whiteness, maleness and connectedness it could have ruled Britain in 1955. I imagine its members not as a caricature but as an old-fashioned cartoon: boys in school caps and short trousers lighting a little firework labelled “Sovereigntyâ€\x9d next to a huge pile of tinder marked “All Our Discontentsâ€\x9d. As Terry-Thomas used to exclaim in the films of those days: “What a shower! What an absolute shower!â€\x9d',
 'Swansea City 1-2 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened And now, read Stuart James’s on-the-whistle match report from the Liberty Stadium here: And if you want more football, Barry Glendenning is your man. Liverpool move up to second in the table. They started poorly but the injury to Adam Lallana forced a reshuffle, and moving Philippe Coutinho into midfield sparked them into life. They were deserved winners after completely dominating the last hour of the game. Swansea put in an admirable shift and will reflect on two great chances that were missed by Borja Baston in the first half, and that last-minute sitter for Mike van der Hoorn. Thanks for your company; bye! 90+3 min What a chance for van der Hoorn! I would have scored that*. It was a great cross from the right by Rangel that curled and dipped over the head of the Liverpool centre-backs. It came to van der Hoorn, eight yards out, and he screwed a feeble volley wide of the far post. (* Legal disclaimer: I may not actually have scored that.) 90 min There will be four added minutes. 89 min Can’s low cross is almost put into his own net by the weary Cork. Fabianski gets down to his left to save. 89 min It will be ridiculous if Francesco Guidolin is sacked after this game. 88 min This is over. Swansea have nothing left in the tank. 86 min Origi has an instant impact with a low cross from the right towards the unmarked Sturridge. He can’t reach it on the stretch but Coutinho backs up the play beyond the far post to batter a shot from a tight angle that is beaten away by Fabianski. 85 min A double change for Liverpool: Can and Origi replace Wijnaldum and Firmino. James Milner scores confidently, clipping it straight down the middle as Fabianski goes to the right. Oh, this is a nightmare for Swansea. Barrow, in his own box, blooters his attempted clearance straight up in the air, and when it bounces Rangel panicks and shoves Firmino to the ground. A clear penalty, and a pretty needless one. 82 min The Swansea players, it is fair to assume, do not want Francesco Guidolin to be sacked. Their endeavour in this half has verged on the heroic. 81 min Coutinho’s long-range shot deflects behind for a corner. Matip’s near-post header deflects behind for a second corner on the right, which will again be taken by Henderson. It’s a dangerous outswinger that somehow evades everyone on the six-yard line. 78 min This is Swansea’s best spell since around the half-hour mark, and for the time being they look the likelier scorers. 77 min Francesco Guidolin’s substitutions have given Swansea greater energy, and as a result the last 10 minutes have been less fraught. They almost take the lead when Karius comes for a left-wing corner and gets nowhere near it, with the ball flashing right across the face of goal. 75 min A rare Swansea attack, with a nice run and cross from Barrow leading to a corner. Sigurdsson takes it and Milner heads clear. 72 min Swansea’s final substitution: Leroy Fer is replaced by Jay Fulton. 72 min Swansea can put two passes together, but three is a stretch and the ball is always coming back at them. 70 min From the resulting corner, Sturridge flashes a header a few yards wide of the far post. 69 min The dithering van der Hoorn is robbed on the edge of the area by Milner. He slightly overhits his pass to Mane, who gets it out of his feet nonetheless and hits a shot that is deflected over the bar by Naughton. 68 min Clyne, who has been a constant attacking threat, cracks a low shot from 25 yards that is well held by Fabianski. 67 min Mane shrieks with pain after a tackle by Ki, and the replays shows why: he planted his studs into Mane’s right foot. 64 min Coutinho bundles Barrow to the ground to launch a Liverpool counter-attack. Firmino plays the ball down the left to Coutinho, whose excellent low cross just evades Sturridge at the near post. 63 min Another Swansea change: Ki Sung-Yueng replaces the tiring captain Leon Britton. 62 min Swansea make their first change, with Modou Barrow replacing Wayne Routledge. 59 min Swansea surely can’t do this for another half an hour. They are under constant pressure. 57 min Swansea are struggling to stay in this game. Coutinho plays a one-two with Mane and places a beautiful curler just wide from inside the D. He has been terrific since dropping into midfield. Liverpool are level! Coutinho’s free-kick hits the wall and comes to Henderson, who lobs it first time into the box. Firmino, who stayed onside as Swansea pushed up, places a good header into the left corner of the net from 10 yards. 54 min Britton is booked for a cynical pull on Mane, 25 yards from goal. 52 min It’s raining heavily now, which adds to the increasingly desperate feel of the match as Liverpool chase an equaliser in a manner usually reserved for the last 10 minutes. 48 min Mane combines with Sturridge – who should have been flagged offside - and clips the ball past the outrushing Fabianski from the right corner of the six-yard box. It deflects off van der Hoorn and rolls invitingly in front of goal before Amat boots it clear. 47 min Clyne runs at Naughton and crosses low towards Sturridge, who spins Amat at the near post but overruns the ball in doing so. Goal kick to Swansea. 46 min Swansea begin the second half, kicking from left to right. Half-time cheer “Travelling from west Wales to Cardiff, I got stuck in match-day traffic in torrential rain on the M4 earlier, so this match put me in a bad mood before it had even kicked off,â€\x9d says Matt Dony. “Checking the half-time score hasn’t helped. Batter Arsenal, lose to Burnley. Batter Chelsea, losing to Swansea. Gotta love being a Liverpool fan.â€\x9d They’ll win this 3-1. You have my word. Half-time reading A fine 45 minutes for Swansea, who could be 3-0 ahead, though the way Liverpool came to life towards half-time was pretty ominous. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 44 min Sigurdsson’s dipping free-kick is fumbled by Karius but he claims it comfortably at the second attempt. 43 min Swansea really, really need half-time. A breather is the next-best thing, and Britton provides that by craftily drawing a foul from Matip 30 yards from the Liverpool goal. 42 min Another corner for Liverpool, who have stirred menacingly in the last 10 minutes. Henderson’s outswinger reaches Lovren, who miscontrols it perfectly for Firmino. He shoots on the turn from six yards but Fer takes the sting out of the shot and it dribbles through to Fabianski. 40 min After a classy through pass from Coutinho, Amat makes a wonderful tackle to block Mane’s first-time shot. 39 min Sturridge is booked for diving in the Swansea area. He was challenged by Routledge, who put hands on him but not very firmly. Jurgen Klopp has his hands over his mouth in surprise, but I think that was probably the right decision. 38 min Cork is booked for a lunge at Clyne. This is Liverpool’s best spell of pressure. 35 min The overlapping Clyne wins a corner for Liverpool. It’s taken by Henderson and reaches Lovren, whose stabbed volley on the stretch is blocked by a defender on the six-yard line. 32 min Liverpool have been a bit better since Coutinho moved into midfield but their play is still relatively ponderous. 29 min Mane does brilliantly to wriggle away from two defenders inside the box and then goes over after a bit of a shove from van der Hoorn. Michael Oliver doesn’t give a penalty, and you can understand why as the contact was relatively light, but it was risky defending from van der Hoorn. 28 min In other news, you should watch this. 26 min From the resulting free-kick, curled in magnificently from a narrow position on the right by Sigurdsson, Borja plants a great headed chance wide of the post. He was actually offside, though the flag didn’t go up, and in that sense Liverpool are lucky not to be 3-0 down here. 25 min Liverpool are not playing well at all. Swansea are beating them at their own gegenpress. Cork is tripped by Henderson, who is booked. 23 min Lallana has a groin injury apparently, and Daniel Sturridge comes on to replace him. Coutinho goes into midfield, Firmino to the left and Sturridge up front. I love the smell of tactics in the morning. 21 min Sigurdsson floats a high, dainty ball over the top of the Liverpool defence to find Cork, who slides forward and helps the ball towards goal as it drops over his shoulder inside the box. He can’t get any pace on it, however, and it’s a comfortable save from Karius. 20 min Lallana is struggling after a tackle from Britton. It looked innocuous but I don’t think he’ll be able to continue. 16 min “I don’t think Fer was offside either,â€\x9d says Hubert O’Hearn. “Besides, any team that leaves two men unmarked at its far post deserves to be scored on, just on moral and ethical grounds.â€\x9d I like this idea of adding a moral dimension to officiating. Like in cricket, where batsmen who pad up are more likely to be given out LBW as punishment for bad batsmanship. 14 min Liverpool have been a bit sloppy and sluggish. Firmino is robbed 30 yards from his own goal by Fer, who smashes a shot over the bar. 10 min The more you see the replays, the more it looks like the touch came from Lovren, so the goal was fine. Fer was not offside from the original header by Borja. 9 min “The game isn’t at Anfield,â€\x9d says Chris Rendle, “but it’s always nice to bust out the video of the Swansea supporter scoring at Anfield.â€\x9d It was a simple goal for Swansea. Sigurdssn’s swung a left-wing corner beyond the far post to Borja, who strained his neck muscles like Bruce Banner to head it down into the six-yard box. Van der Hoorn stretched to stab it past Karius, and although it was going in anyway, Leroy Fer did a Craig Johnston and whacked it in from 0.5 yards. I thought Fer looked fractionally offside but there is a suggestion the touch came from Lovren rather than van der Hoorn. Klopp out! 5 min The first chance falls to Swansea. Routledge on the right curls a lovely cross over the head of Matip to find the unmarked Borja, who heads over from six yards. He should have scored. 4 min “Extraordinary clip of Dai Davies sticking the boot in on Terry Mac,â€\x9d says Gary Naylor. “In front of the Kop, what could have prompted the ex-Everton man to such aggression?â€\x9d Graeme Souness’s attempt to mediate is also a joy. 3 min Liverpool have started with lots of possession, if not yet progression. 2 min “Dear Rob and Hubert,â€\x9d says Paul Ewart, “when will hipsters stop being a thing?â€\x9d At last, someone on my wavelength. I got a machete for my birthday and I reckon we can complete Operation Hipstercide by 2032. Wait, hang on. “Good test for the Reds this: are we Jurgen’s new, vibrant, confident Reds as I suspect, or do we still have our demons......â€\x9d 1 min Peep peep! Liverpool, in red, kick off from left to right. Swansea are all white on the afternoon. Another email! “Good afternoon Rob,â€\x9d says Dean Kinsella. “I can’t believe that Guidolin is already under pressure for his job after just a handful of games. The Swans have had some tough fixtures and starting to play well after a slow start. This ‘in out in out shake it all about’ way of running football clubs is ludicrous.â€\x9d Yep. Like too much of modern football, it’s beneath contempt. Ron Atkinson made a great point in his new autobiography (which is superb, by the way), that if Arsene Wenger was a businessman, he’d win awards every year. There’s a broader point that business standards should apply to certain aspects of football, and sacking managers at the first sign of trouble is appallingly bad practice. Thirty-five years ago this weekend, newly promoted Swansea drew 2-2 at Anfield. The goalkeeper Dai Davies didn’t take Terry McDermott’s equaliser too well. An email! “Hello Rob,â€\x9d says Hubert O’Hearn. “Today will be the perfect test for Liverpool as this is just the sort of match that has binned our previous false dawns. Swansea is at home, its manager desperate, and they have the style and the players that can break the hipsters’ beloved gegenpresse. A title is one via two mini-leagues: take 2/3 of the points available from the other 5 or 6 contenders and pretenders; and be a brutal flat track bully to the other dozen teams. Burnley was a stumble. Now, was it motivation or the hint of things to come? Today we get our first indication.â€\x9d That last point is a particularly good one. There was one season, 2008/09 I think, when Manchester United took 70 out of 72 points against the bottom 12. The champions are often the team that deals best with the mundane. Swansea (4-3-3) Fabianski; Rangel, van der Hoorn, Amat, Naughton; Fer, Cork, Britton; Routledge, Borja, Sigurdsson. Substitutes: Nordfeldt, Mawson, Taylor, Fulton, Ki, Barrow, McBurnie. Liverpool (4-3-3) Karius; Clyne, Lovren, Matip, Milner; Lallana, Henderson, Wijnaldum; Mane, Firmino, Coutinho. Substitutes: Mignolet, Sturridge, Klavan, Moreno, Lucas, Can, Origi. Liverpool are fifth in the table. What’s the rumpus? The rumpus is that they’ve already won at Chelsea and Arsenal, outplayed Spurs at White Hart Lane and scored 16 goals in six games. It’s hard to know whether they are serious title contenders, because we can’t be sure what impact their flawed defence will have over a whole season, but we can say without fear of contradiction from tryhard blowhards on the internet that they have an attack capable of winning the title. They also have the huge advantage of not being in Europe – just as in 2013-14, when they should have won their first title since 1989-90 - and a manager who, even in this season of the Premier League supersupersupermanager, is rapidly becoming the neutral’s favourite. In some ways, talk of them winning the title is unnecessary. It’s October. Relax everyone, can we? This Liverpool side are a reminder that football can and should be fun. Swansea is not an easy place to go – they drew against Chelsea and were excellent against Manchester City last week - but you would fancy Liverpool to have more fun today. Kick off is at 12.30pm. Hello. Rob will be along shortly. Here’s Alan Smith’s preview of the lunchtime kick-off: Swansea performed well in defeat to Manchester City last weekend but Francesco Guidolin is still living on borrowed time. The Italian could badly do with a result against Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who have at times been exhilarating in attack. Guidolin says he could “maybeâ€\x9d lose his job with another loss but “if we win, for the international break you don’t speak any more about my positionâ€\x9d. No pressure, then.',
 'These aren’t hard Brexiters. They’re political extremists Everyone knew there was an alternative Boris Johnson column, the one where he votes remain. If we accept that his support for leave was a decisive factor in the campaign, this leads us to the mournful consideration of an alternative reality where we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, and we haven’t woken up in the care of people who have decided to chop the foot off, because surgery is just very complex and boring, and a Briton with only one foot is still mightier than a person from any other nation with two serviceable feet. Frankly, we were mourning already, and few of us had any illusions about Johnson himself, who tries on opinions like clothes, discarding them as the mood and weather takes him. He essayed this “ho, for the open seas!â€\x9d garb apparently for fun, and finds himself thrust on to the world stage dressed as a clown. So you could say he’s already had his comeuppance; whether he’ll ever have the self-awareness to realise it is merely a coda to this disaster. None of the arguments in his remain column are surprising. He pointed out that there would probably be an economic shock, which was obvious. He raised the prospects of a disgruntled Scotland, an emboldened Russia, a Europe in which your children and grandchildren aren’t free to work, to sell things, to make friends, to find partners – all true, none of it original. The only thing at all eye-opening about the column, for those of us who don’t read him regularly, is how bad it is: strewn with references that range from irrelevant to plain wrong, unpersuasive, linguistically childish, structurally shambolic. It isn’t the most dangerous thing about him, in his current incarnation as foreign secretary, but it is one of the most dispiriting, that we’re forced to think deeply about the actions of a politician who wouldn’t himself entertain such an activity for longer than five minutes. No serious government would have Johnson in its cabinet, but would that he were an aberration. Theresa May’s appointments – most recently, the announcement of her European Union exit and trade committee – are all made to appease the most extreme elements of her party. Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling, Andrea Leadsom, Amber Rudd, Priti Patel, Patrick McLoughlin – leaving aside the specific deficiencies of each character, they are all known now as “hard Brexitersâ€\x9d, for which the umbrella term is “political extremistsâ€\x9d. After the acres of print and aeons of time spent discussing the extremist takeover of the Labour party, a more pressing matter has been left more or less ignored. The actual party of government has been seized by its radical wing. We worry about the toxicity of their rhetoric and the chaos they create while leaving tactfully unsaid that this is because they are fanatics. Political extremism is often diagnosed in isolation, and used as a cover for some other objection. It is impossible to call an idea extreme without considering the seriousness of the problem it sets out to solve. A policy might look excessive if it were floated as a way to mend the north/south divide, but perfectly reasonable and desirable if its aim were to combat climate change. Ideas to tackle inequality look a lot more swivel-eyed if you don’t accept the premise, believing equality to be broadly increasing on its own. So a hard Brexit – leaving the single market, leaving the customs union, halting the flow of labour, blaming the crashing pound on the Bank of England, dealing with shortages in agriculture and service industries by making prisoners pick fruit (this is the Sun’s big idea) – cannot on its own be termed extreme. First, we must evaluate what the leave side set out to solve: a dislike of Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker; a generalised anxiety that the government kept promising to control its borders but didn’t seem able to; some confusion around laws concerning the shape of bananas, created by Boris Johnson (the confusion, not the laws); a desire to control things that no nation alone can control (how much its currency is worth relative to others; who wants to invest in it; mass movements of people escaping conflict). Only now does the picture solidify: we are in the grip of the most fervent radicals, people willing to sacrifice everything – grants, investment, trade, security, standing, solidarity, legal apparatus built up by decades of painstaking cooperation – at the altar of a concept (sovereignty) that nobody really understands, and a principle (taking back control) that is abstract to the point of meaninglessness. Extremism in politics carries a heap of associations, only some of them borne out: it is taken to be a short-lived state, being incapable of compromise; unlikely to make mature or sober decisions; incapable of accommodating a broad sweep of views and possibilities. This we can see writ large in the prime minister’s skirmishes with Philip Hammond, the only member of government visibly considering the national interest. To let in a voice like Hammond’s would mean accepting certain realities: that the risks to our future prosperity are real and present; that an economic downturn cannot be dismissed as scaremongering when it is actually in train; that we do not hold every ace, or even any ace, in the coming negotiations, and some humility may be unavoidable; that business voices, even when they say things you don’t like, are not necessarily doing so for base self-interest. These ideas cannot be permitted; the hard Brexiters have nothing but their confidence. It would not survive pluralism in the smallest amount. Other qualities attached to extremism are less evident: you’d expect the hard Brexiters to be taking delight in their own victory, where instead there is only a querulous obsession with naysayers. You’d think, given the burning fury of their convictions, that they would be overflowing with plans, yet the plan extends no further than to protect themselves from scrutiny and debate. You’d hope for consistency and coherence; in its place, the bizarre spectacle of a party claiming to have been against the single market all along, because Michael Gove once said so. To be simultaneously so certain, and yet so chaotic, is perhaps an inevitable condition for extremists, but one you’d only see when doomed to observe them at close range. The question is not whether they can last, but how much damage they can do before they fall.',
 "The New Yorker Presents review – Amazon show captures magazine's spirit There are a certain set of assumptions one makes about a person reading the New Yorker on the subway. He or she is certainly well-informed, probably highly educated, curious about disparate parts of the culture, owns at least three art books that rest on a tasteful coffee table, and probably scoffs at those who say Real Housewives of New York is their favorite television program. Now we can all become that person, without having to slog through a text-heavy weekly magazine. The New Yorker Presents, a series of 30-minute compilations of documentaries, poems, comedy pieces and cartoons that distill the magazine into easily digestible nuggets, debuted its second and third episodes at the Sundance film festival this week before going live to the public on Amazon starting 16 February. The pilot is already available for free. The great thing about this series is that it is like a visual equivalent of an episode of This American Life, a handful of stories and elements joined together for the NPR tote bag set. The second episode features a story about child rodeos, an essay about AfricanAmerican bodies in motion, the story of the failure of a $2bn Atlantic City casino, and two cartoons as drawn by their artists (both lefties) from start to finish. The third episode is just as diverse, featuring a sketch in which Paul Giamatti plays Honoré de Balzac, a story about how the FBI and CIA might have prevented 9/11, a look at the New Yorker’s storied fact-checking department, and another cartoon. Each is based on a story from the magazine’s archives. Much like Saturday Night Live sketches, the sections are rather hit and miss. Unlike that late-night staple, there are far more hits than misses. This is not a way to get informed about the current events of the day, but to have one’s curiosity satisfied about far-flung experiences and one’s intellect stoked by stories that aren’t plastered all over the front page. Yes, it’s exactly like reading the New Yorker. Documentarian Alex Gibney and former Daily Show producer Kahane Cooperman produce the series, so there is great attention paid to the journalistic integrity of each story. Sometimes, though, the depth and complexity of the stories are glossed over for the sake of time. Hopefully Amazon will provide links to the relevant stories alongside the episodes, for those who want a deeper dive. Being on Amazon, one of the streaming services that typically offers all episodes at once, is curious for this series. If this were on a broadcast or cable network, the short clips could easily be separated and turned into viral videos – a practice that has been very successful for John Oliver, late-night variety shows and all sorts of sketch comedy, from Inside Amy Schumer to Key & Peele. Since it’s already online, doing that seems redundant. Wisely, Amazon will release new episodes each week. There is nothing about this that will make viewers want to binge. In fact, there are so many breaks between stories that there are unlimited points of exit for those who are getting antsy and want to check their email or finish another round of Candy Crush. But I can see plenty of people looking forward to having a nice half-hour each week in which they can explore the world from the safety of their couch – just like readers exploring the world from the train.",
 'Measles outbreaks at festivals can’t be blamed wholly on anti-vaxxers Your main concerns when you attend a festival might include any of the following: how will I identify my tent at 5am? Is glamping worth it? Will Este from Haim do bassface? But one thing you should not have to worry about is: will I get measles? Public Health England has confirmed a significant number of infections linked to music festivals and other large public events. There have been reports of 38 suspected measles cases at events in June and July alone. Glastonbury had 16 cases, with seven cases reported from the NASS festival near Bristol; six at the Triplicity festival in north Devon; three at Tewkesbury medieval festival; two at Nozstock: the Hidden Valley in Herefordshire; two at Noisily in Leicester; one at the Secret Garden Party near Huntingdon; and one at Yeovil Show. In all, 234 cases have been confirmed between January and June, compared with 54 for the same period last year. Why is this happening now? One possibility is that the Wakefield generation has come of age. The fraudulent study by Andrew Wakefield that incorrectly linked the MMR vaccine and autism was published 18 years ago. Although later discredited (with Wakefield being struck off the medical register), the rate of vaccination against measles plummeted after the study’s appearance in The Lancet. There were 56 cases of measles the year before its publication in England and Wales; by 2008 there were 1,370. Many parents of the Wakefield era chose not to vaccinate their children and were understandably swayed by breathless media coverage, inconsistent messages from health providers, and apparent validation of Wakefield’s findings by the scientific community; it took The Lancet 12 years to retract the publication. If you were the parent of a toddler in those years, what would you have done? Now, those unvaccinated children have grown up. They go to festivals. The virus is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of those in close contact will also become infected if they are not immune themselves. And so Public Health England has urged teenagers and adults to check with their GP if they have been vaccinated and to receive two doses of the MMR vaccine if required. The Wakefield-era children also grew up to account for most of the 1,219 measles cases in the Swansea measles epidemic in 2012, in which one person died. Although some recovered quickly from fever, conjunctivitis and a rash, others suffered more significant complications. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one or two out of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic sequelae including blindness, seizures and encephalitis. Since 2006, there have been three deaths from measles in England and Wales. This historical legacy is compounded by anti-vax sentiment that has become more visible in recent years, albeit not necessarily more widespread. The consequences of this movement travel beyond forums and Facebook posts. It is easy to imagine it to be as infectious as the virus itself, but I think there is a more nuanced subtext, too. Measles arrived at Disneyland, California with one case in December 2014. Within four months, there were 145 confirmed cases in seven states and three countries, all linked to Disneyland. The authors of an analysis in JAMA Pediatrics journal said the outbreak was directly associated with substandard vaccination compliance: “The ongoing measles outbreak linked to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, shines a glaring spotlight on our nation’s growing anti-vaccination movement and the prevalence of vaccination-hesitant parents.â€\x9d Vaccination is more than a personal choice; the inaction of others can affect even vaccinated children and adults. Community vaccination helps to halt the spread of the virus and thus protects the wider population. The sum is greater than its parts. But here’s what is crucial. Each outbreak is different, there are nuances to each one, and not all can be attributed simplistically to a groundswell of anti-vax sentiment. Swansea is definitely not California. For example, early 2014 cases were linked to unvaccinated travellers returning home who had acquired the virus abroad (an outbreak in the Philippines was an important factor) and then infected others in communities with lower vaccination rates. Despite the concerns expressed in pockets of unvaccinated residents, there is no nationwide loss of confidence in vaccines. Sometimes it’s a case of missed doctors’ appointments or single vaccines refused rather than staunch dissent. And vaccine refusal does not correlate with a lack of knowledge. Moral outrage is too easy. Julie Leask, an associate professor at Sydney University’s school of public health, provides level-headed discussion on this topic: “To be committed to the science of immunisation ideally comes with a commitment to the science of immunisation behaviour. Media often present this problem as refusal to vaccinate. But the evidence is clear and it’s more complex: under-vaccination is broadly about a lack of acceptance and a lack of opportunity to vaccinate fully or on time. It’s not just the haves, but the have-nots who don’t fully vaccinate. “A typical measles outbreak will reveal this. There will be children whose parents refused vaccination; children whose parents were unwittingly not up to date for lack of access; affordability or awareness; adults and travellers who didn’t get a needed booster; and babies who are too young to be vaccinated.â€\x9d So although “festival measlesâ€\x9d seems to largely fit with the coming of age of the Wakefield generation and more particularly a broader anti-vax narrative, it is too simplistic to conclude that this is applicable to all. But it does provide an opportune moment to discuss issues around vaccination, to strengthen public health infrastructure to deliver effective programmes, and to ensure there is never even the possibility of a Wakefield generation occurring again.',
 'Maximus fit-for-work tests fail mental health patients, says doctor People with mental health problems are still being wrongly assessed by a “severely flawedâ€\x9d system intended to find whether they are entitled to state help, according to a doctor who was charged with improving so-called “fit-for-workâ€\x9d tests. The doctor, who did not want to be named, was employed by Maximus, the US company that took over the government’s controversial scheme to determine whether claimants are entitled to employment and support allowance in March 2015. He said that despite improvements to the system, some were still “falling through the netâ€\x9d. The doctor, who now works in the NHS having left the company last year after more than a year as an assessor, alleged there were a series of problems at the heart of the scheme. These include unreasonable targets leading to poor quality assessments; not enough specialists in mental health; and tests that are too subjective and often skewed against the claimant. As a result, the tests, which were introduced by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), were not fit for purpose, the doctor said. “There may be cases where a person was seriously unwell, but within the criteria in the assessment, I would have to classify them as well,â€\x9d the doctor, who has psychiatric training said. Maximus is under severe pressure after a damning report by the National Audit Office in January found it performing worse than its much-criticised predecessor, Atos, in key areas. Auditors found that one in 10 of its reports on disability claimants were below standard, that the average cost of assessments has risen and the company is struggling to retain staff. The doctor, who trained and worked in psychiatry for four years before becoming a disability assessor, first worked for Atos before going on to work for Maximus. One issue, they said, were targets that meant the average face-to-face time with a claimant was just 30 minutes. “Working in clinical psychiatry, an assessment of a new patient would take 45-50 minutes, with 10 minutes for dictating notes,â€\x9d they said. “The target set by Maximus was six tests a day at 65 minutes each. Around 30 minutes for assessment, 30 for writing up. The argument was you might get an easy case that would take 35/40 minutes and a difficult one that would take longer. But there were times when you had five difficult cases in a row. You get pushed into doing difficult cases fast. I would stay late most evenings and had to skimp on quality at times.â€\x9d The DWP said that the scheme had been improved following consultation with mental health experts and charities. The doctor acknowledged improvements to the scheme, saying that, following a spate of stories about claimants killing themselves, there was a shift in emphasis to allow protection of claimants who were believed to be at risk of harm if they were found fit for work. However, echoing criticism of the work capability assessments that has been made by mental health groups, medical professionals, user groups and a parliamentary committee, the doctor said he believed those with mental health problems were still being failed by the scheme. “You need people with psychiatric training. I worked in mental health for three years and I still struggled. If someone tells you they are severely depressed but there is no input from their GP and no psychiatrist, and no input from the mental health system, then the assessor is more likely to put down ‘fit for work’, because the assessor is basing their assessment more on the level of input they have rather than their clinical presentations,â€\x9d the doctor said. He pointed out the majority of people who killed themselves who had mental health issues had not received a medical assessment. “Some of the signs are subtle, if they have had depression, if they have had low mood or a lack of energy, looking at their body language. Their demeanour. You can assess how bad their mental state is but that’s very difficult if you have had no training,â€\x9d he said. Maximus said all staff had training in how to recognise how a person’s mental health impacted upon their ability to work. He said: “Our doctors, therapists and nurses are responsible for carrying out functional assessments, which are not clinical psychiatric assessments. While it is not our role to diagnose someone’s mental health, we know how important it is to understand it in the context of an individual’s functional capability.â€\x9d He said the company had more than doubled the number of mental health experts to help assessors. “We continue to engage with mental health charities and organisations to support our training and understanding of people with mental health conditions who come to us for an assessment.â€\x9d A DWP spokesman said: “We are committed to ensuring people get the right support they need – a high quality and fair assessment is key to this. The work capability assessment has been strengthened following five independent reviews, and this includes the way mental health is assessed.â€\x9d',
 'Morrissey and Mexico fit together like hand in glove. Is that really so strange? Of all the incongruous links between music and peoples, one of the strangest appears to be that between Steven Patrick Morrissey, the former lead singer of the Smiths, and Mexicans. Specifically, Mexicans in southern California. Notably, he’s not popular south of the border. Of all the potential singers you’d imagine a culture steeped in masculinity and machismo could choose, why would they embrace this son of northern England? The question has reared its head again after the release of the Spanish-language Morrissey cover band Mexrrissey’s first album, No Manchester. But it’s actually not that mysterious. Morrissey’s melancholic ballads provide the best starting point. The sense of estrangement and longing that exists in all his songs is also something that’s present in traditional northern Mexican music genres such as rancheras. Drawing on rural traditional folk music, it began as a symbol of national consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century. Traditionally, rancheras are about love, nature or patriotism. We don’t normally associate patriotism with Morrissey or his songs, but the nature of love? Absolutely. The longing for love? Most definitely. Morrissey’s most famous lament of unrequited love, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, resembles so many Mexican torch songs – for example Mi Destino Fue Quererte, written by Felipe Valdés Leal. Not just in theme, but almost thought for thought. And yet the association between Mexican folk music and Morrissey is just the beginning. The real linkages lie with Mexican-Americans; with Chicanos. Although I’ve never been further south than Monterrey, my family has myriad tales of living in a golden Mexico during the 1940s and 1950s. Those stories helped foster a deep-seated melancholy within me about where I truly belong. Not quite American; not wholly Latino, living in all the spaces in between. Growing up in rural Ohio, these duelling identities caused me an incredible amount of angst, as I tried to traverse the space between home and school. It’s easy to see where so many of Morrissey’s songs that deal with identity crisis, with a sense of alienation, of being an “otherâ€\x9d, would appeal to people such as me. Feeling ostracised, not part of a homogeneous American culture – that’s enough to make anyone morose and woebegone. Small wonder that Morrissey’s lyrics, shot through with dolefulness, speak to so many of us. Over the past two decades, though, Morrissey has made that linkage explicit, both in song and sign. There was his 1999 ¡Oye, Estéban! tour. At a concert at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center, the singer lamented: “I wish I was born Mexican, but it’s too late for that now.â€\x9d That’s the most famous recognition of the love his Latino fans bear for him, but there have been other, more subtle signs - wearing the football jersey of Chivas de Guadalajara, the 11-time Mexican champions who only have Mexicans on their roster, for example. Or rocking shirts adorned with Mexico’s patroness, the Virgin of Guadalajara. And then there’s Mexico, one of Morrissey’s newer songs. It could double as an anthem of Chicano love for the homeland: “In Mexico I went for a walk to inhale the tranquil cool lover’s air But I could taste a trace Of American chemical waste. And the small voice said, ‘What can we do?’ I lay on the grass And I cried my heart out for want of my love.â€\x9d And for those of us who’ve never been, who rely on the tales of our relatives, there’s the condemnation of white privilege in that same song: “It seems if you’re rich and you’re white you think you’re so right I just don’t see why this should be so.â€\x9d All of that combines to make Morrissey a magnetic figure to Latinos like me. Here’s a guy who really gets it. How can we resist that? His songs offer the chance to escape our bleak surroundings, transcend our existence, and leave behind the limits of our lives. Especially at a time when the presumptive nominee of one of America’s two major parties condemns my fellow Latinos as criminals and threatens to build a wall severing one America from the other.',
 'Best albums of 2016: No 6 Hopelessness by Anohni As album titles go, you’d be hard pressed to find one more appropriate for 2016 than Hopelessness. It was a statement of despair – angry and unwavering, bold and unmistakably bleak, furious at the world. You’d also be hard pressed to find an album this year as fearlessly political – or at least one with a danceable song about execution. The artist formerly known as Antony and the Johnsons made her name with nimble piano torch songs, but for her first album as Anohni, she emerged as a velvet-voiced harbinger of doom, her anguish at drone warfare, climate change, Guantánamo Bay, the Obama administration and humanity at large set to an exuberant electronic soundtrack. If that suggested an uneasy listen, then that was the point. At times Hopelessness could shake you to the core: the lyrics of Crisis, for example, were more brutal than a news report and the song had an emphatic crescendo of static and strings that made your ribcage want to burst. But the album succeeded in bringing such difficult subjects into the dance arena: it could be escapist as well as subversive. Anohni has said the album was inspired by late-80s club music, when people danced away their rage during the peak of the Aids crisis. Hopelessness, for all its tales of burning landscapes and beheadings, had engulfing head-nodding rhythms and shades of R&B, hip-hop and gospel. At times, Anohni sounded like a diva-house star on the apocalypse’s podium. Hopelessness has been hailed as a modern protest album, full of environmental bangers and cinematic crisis reports – some such as Drone Bomb Me sung from the perspective of a civilian, inviting a drone bomb strike like a lost lover. But it was also an achievement for the simple yet staggeringly beautiful combination of vocals and visceral instrumentals. Its songs are among the best work that co-producers Ross Birchard (AKA Hudson Mohawke) and Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) have made yet, and their Disneyfied hellscapes of crystal synth and majestic horns were luminous paired with Anohni’s breathtaking voice. 4 Degrees, in particular, had a sweeping grandeur that suggested a camera crew panning over melting ice caps from the air as Anohni, inhabiting a Mother Earth scorned, called for the animals to burn. Complex, rich and formidable, Anohni’s masterwork proved that political music in 2016 need not be hackneyed and earnest. Instead it could be galvanising and confrontational. Just imagine what she has in store for Trump. More of the best albums of 2016',
 'Imagining Ireland review – remembering in song the rebels with a cause This concert presented an intriguing challenge. It was staged on the 100th anniversary of the day on which the Easter Rising in Dublin neared its end. And the president of Ireland, Michael Higgins, was in the audience. So what were the appropriate songs? Of course, there had to be rebel ballads commemorating the bloody 1916 uprising in Dublin against British rule. But these were cleverly intercut with songs examining the links between Ireland and Britain over the past century. There were stories about Irish workers in Britain, but also reminders of the crucial role that the descendants of Irish immigrants played in transforming British pop. Host John Kelly’s list started with the Beatles, and included Elvis Costello and Morrissey. Dexys singer Kevin Rowland, gave one of the most powerful performances of the night. The band’s new album, Let the Record Show Dexys Do Irish and Country Soul, explores Rowland’s Irish links and includes songs perfect for this occasion. Joined by his bandmate Sean Read, Rowland started with Curragh of Kildare, treating this traditional song of parting with respect but also an unexpected, edgy emotion. He followed with an affecting song from the 80s about his roots, My National Pride, and returned later for a treatment of Carrickfergus that compared well with Van Morrison’s version as a display of rousing celtic soul. He was joined on stage by Cáit O’Riordan, the former Pogues bass player, who provided a suitably stomping treatment of Dark Streets of London, “which was born in the squats of King’s Cross, not for nice people sitting downâ€\x9d. Here, she was backed by the classy house band led by multi-instrumentalist Kate St John and including Neill and Callum MacColl, who paid tribute to their father Ewan MacColl with a rousing Tunnel Tigers, his song about Irish workers building the Blackwall Tunnel. There were constant surprises. English folk hero Martin Carthy provided an impressive if unlikely treatment of Nothing Rhymed by the “cruelly disregardedâ€\x9d Gilbert O’Sullivan, and then dramatically switched direction with The Row in the Town, a rebel song about 1916. Irish folk hero Andy Irvine performed another rebel song commemorating James Connolly, who was executed by the British despite being gravely injured in the Easter Rising fighting. Then there were angry songs from another great veteran, Paul Brady, and a new lament, England Has My Man, from the impressive young Irish singer Lisa O’Neill. Mixed in were instrumental passages from classical pianist Barry Douglas and the remarkable violin and guitar duo, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, whose playing is crucial to the international success of the Gloaming. The evening ended with Dominic Behan’s stomping story of Irish construction workers, McAlpine’s Fusiliers, and a return to Easter 1916 with the emotional Foggy Dew, finely sung by O’Neill.',
 'Africa calling: mobile phone revolution to transform democracies Mobile phones will account for almost one-tenth of African GDP by the end of the decade, as mobile broadband connections triple in five years, underlining how the explosive growth in the telecoms industry is having a major economic, social and political impact on the continent. Market analysts Ovum expect mobile broadband connections, which stood at 147m in 2014, to account for a substantial share of the mobile market, forecasting a rise to 76% at the end of 2020, up from just 17% in 2014. The figures underpin the extraordinary rate at which the mobile industry has grown across the continent over the past decade and a half. The sector contributed $100bn (£76bn) to sub-Saharan Africa’s economy in 2014 and is expected to account for three times that in 2020. As handsets and data become more affordable, greater accessibility to mobiles – which have outpaced other forms of communications infrastructure on the continent – is changing the way in which public services are delivered and business and politics are being conducted. “This will have a huge democratising effect,â€\x9d says John Githongo, one of Kenya’s leading anti-corruption campaigners. “The growth in access to smartphones leads to the creation of networks that are broader, deeper and more durable than we have seen in the past. “The growth in access to smartphones leads to the creation of networks that are broader, deeeper and more durable than we have seen in the past. “We are already witnessing a transformation in the way people relate to their governments, as we saw in Zimbabwe recently, where a protest movement sprang simply from a post on the internet that captured the imagination of the public.â€\x9d He stresses how the mobile technology revolution has improved transparency and given a voice to citizens. In part, because the old state-run fixed-line telephone companies were inefficient monopolies, many in Africa took up mobiles with great enthusiasm at the start of the last decade. There are more mobile phones than adults in most African countries, with the number of subscriptions in Kenya, for example, surging from 330,000 in 2001 to 38m in 2016, in a country with a population of nearly 45 million. In recent years, the rise of mobile internet access is acting as a new game-changer, bringing many online who don’t have access to desktop machines or fixed-line broadband. This growth has fuelled a parallel expansion in the number of innovators and entrepreneurs looking to ride the mobile wave on the continent and opened up an array of uses for mobiles in areas such as business, healthcare and education. In Ghana, the Mobile Technology for Community Health initiative aims to improve healthcare for pregnant mothers by providing time-specific information about their pregnancies and childcare each week. A separate application enables nurses to collect patient data and upload records to a centralised database to track the progress of patents and identify those who are due for care. Similar schemes operate in Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa, while a programme in Nigeria known as Smart has halved the turnaround time for test results for early diagnosis of HIV infection in infants. Using small battery-operated printers and SMS technology, health facilities can receive and print test results without having computers and internet access. Few advances have been as successful as M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer system introduced in Kenya in 2007. Seven in 10 adults in Kenya use M-Pesa, making 9m transactions daily. The service has become a popular alternative to cash for numerous businesses and government agencies. Users register on the system and deposit cash with an agent who then credits the money to a pin-protected digital wallet. They can then use the mobile phone to pay for a taxi ride or settle utility bills or to transfer money to another user, who can withdraw the funds from an M-Pesa agent or a bank ATM. The system offers everyone from grocers to mechanics a safer way to store their money. “I have not carried any cash with me for three weeks,â€\x9d says Bob Collymore, chief executive of Kenya’s leading telecoms firm, Safaricom, which operates M-Pesa. “The mobile payment service is hugely convenient because it allows you to make micro payments of as low as 10 US cents and in many ways, it symbolises how mobiles are being used differently in Africa than in other parts of the world. Here, the mobile is one of the central tools that people use to earn a living.â€\x9d M-Pesa has helped to increase financial inclusion in the country – in 2006, 20% of the adult population was banked; by 2013, 67% had some kind of access to financial services. Collymore says the next challenge for Africa is to produce innovations that could be bolstered to solve digital challenges beyond the continent. Safaricom is partnering with numerous startups looking for markets outside Kenya. These include Eneza, which sends personalised revision aids to tens of thousands of pupils daily; iCow, a “virtual midwifeâ€\x9d for cows that helps farmers to maximise their herd’s breeding potential by tracking their fertility cycle; and M-Kopa, a firm that sells 500 units of small, solar-powered lighting units a day in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana and aims to have sold a million units by the end of next year. Collymore also points to the need to improve digital literacy. “If our children grow up as digital natives, like the children in the US and the UK and Europe, that makes a huge difference,â€\x9d he says, referring to an initiative by Safaricom, which is part-owned by Vodafone, to provide free Wi-Fi in primary schools in an attempt to expand internet access to young Kenyans. Mteto Nyati, chief executive of MTN South Africa, the country’s second largest mobile operator, makes a similar point about the need to invest in education. “The education system should be slanted towards being more practical than what we have today. Our education system yields people who are knowledgable about things but not necessarily able to do things. “We need to transform our education system and this can only be led by government, but business and the wider community must also play their part.â€\x9d Nyati predicts online retail will be the next big thing: “My sense is that the e-commerce space is going to be key going forward in Africa. But any e-commerce needs to be connected with some kind of logistics – we need to solve logistics challenges. We can do the transactions – people are comfortable using mobile devices but how do you deliver the goods. We need reliable service providers. A combination of those two things will certainly move Africa forward.â€\x9d Telecoms pioneer Funke Opeke – founder and chief executive of MainOne, which has played a major role in transforming west Africa’s internet landscape – stresses that better and more affordable access to the internet must also be a priority. “Mobile penetration is high, covering over 60% of the population, and more than 50% of those users have access to the internet. However, service quality is poor, throughput is limited and prices are quite expensive,â€\x9d Opeke says. “The situation is a result of limitations in terrestrial and last mile network infrastructure across the continent with internet delivery occurring primarily via congested mobile networks,â€\x9d says Opeke, who returned to Nigeria after a 20-year career in the US and in 2010 launched the first privately owned submarine cable system linking west Africa to Europe. “The continent will have to develop its own unique set of business models for digital service delivery that are efficient given lower income levels and continued limintations in infrastructure,â€\x9d she adds. Su Kahumbu Stephanou, the founder of iCow, says there is reason to be optimistic about Africa’s digital prowess: “The mobile will help Africa close the digital divide with the rest of the world. We have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of exploiting the huge potential there is in this field.â€\x9d',
 'Real-life ice cream van battle set for big-screen treatment Get ready for The Cold War: a movie about rival ice cream truckers in Salem, Oregon. The film will be co-produced by American Sniper’s Andrew Lazar and by Joshuah Bearman, on whose article the film Argo was based. In 2013, Bearman and journalist Joshua Davis set up Epic Magazine, a digital platform for long-form reportage with the potential for film and TV syndication. The Cold War story was first published by Epic, then featured last year on a popular Radiolab podcast. Written by David Wolman and Julian Smith, it tells the tale of the feud and reconciliation between American ice-cream seller Dennis Roeper and Efrain Escobar, recently moved from Mexico. What began in 2009 as a straightforward turf war swiftly mushroomed into a brutal contest, involving competitive pricing and even arson. Wolman and Smith’s piece contextualises the battle within the context of modern immigration and job market concerns. In 1984, Bill Paterson starred in Comfort and Joy, a similarly themed film in which he plays a radio host reporting on a Glasgow battle between warring Italian ice-cream makers, initiated after one family trashes the other’s van.',
 'Remainder: Tom McCarthy and Omer Fast’s avant-garde explosion One afternoon in 1998, a New York branch of Chase Manhattan bank received an unexpected request from a graduate art student. “The poor woman thought I was going to open some sort of account,â€\x9d recalls the artist Omer Fast. “My appearance probably told her I wasn’t going to be one of those startup millionaires. But the idea I was trying to sell her was that I wanted to stage a robbery in the bank without telling the customers. The conversation was extremely short.â€\x9d “You never told me this!â€\x9d interjects a tickled Tom McCarthy, whose hypnotic 2005 novel Remainder culminates in just such a staged heist. We’re discussing Fast’s film adaptation of the award-winning experimental book. It stars Tom Sturridge, brilliant and brooding, as the novel’s nameless Londoner struck by unidentified falling objects; suffering from amnesia and relearning rudimentary movement during his recovery, his obsession with authentic existence (and the £8.5m insurance settlement he receives) leads him to stage increasingly detailed re‑enactments of dimly remembered events. Remainder’s rights were optioned quickly by Film4 after publication, though Brad Pitt’s production company had briefly flirted with it (“He read 10 pages of it and went, ‘No fucking way’,â€\x9d says McCarthy). Fast, meanwhile, had been knocked for six by the book, finishing the story, like the protagonist, on board a flight; another weird reverberation. “My reaction was amazed, stunned silence,â€\x9d the Israel-born, Berlin-based artist says. “I had this feeling – I looked out the window and I saw the clouds moving slowly by, and the world slowed down for me.â€\x9d When the option lapsed, McCarthy – a fan of Fast’s haunting video art such as 2007’s The Casting and 2011’s 5,000 Feet Is the Best, which is similarly centred on trauma, re-enactment and identity – insisted he would only renew if Fast directed. Avant-garde-affiliated novelist and cinematographically fluent artist – it looked like a beautiful hookup. The pair have since become friends, holidaying with each other. They had fun creating a giant diagram of the novel’s structure on the pristine white wall of the Stockholm studio where McCarthy was staying on an artist’s residency in 2010. “One of the terms on it was ‘zombie flaneur’,â€\x9d says McCarthy. Fast, viewing their creation, didn’t want to let go. “The diagram is the most wonderful stage. Networks are about possibilities, shifting terrain. And the moment you begin to work, you begin to narrow down possibilities, and that’s just what telling a story is like.â€\x9d The artist worked solo on the script. He produced a first draft after six months – but the struggle to correctly position it between arthouse and mainstream continued. “My first draft was just someone sitting in a room reading the book out aloud from cover to cover,â€\x9d Fast deadpans. The affectless protagonist, willing to sacrifice friends, felines and eventually collaborators in pursuit of impeccable re-enactments, was a problem for some investors (the project was co-financed by the BFI and various German sources, and cost just under $2m). “In the art world, nobody uses the word ‘sympathetic’ to describe the protagonist,â€\x9d says Fast, “I heard that word so many times, I’m never going to use it again in relation to any storytelling project that I do.â€\x9d McCarthy, keen for the adaptation to have its own stamp, stayed out of the way. He read some of the 11 drafts, but let Fast fight the battles: “I didn’t want to tread on Omer’s toes.â€\x9d “I didn’t have any toes left by that time,â€\x9d says Fast. Despite that, the film began to zone off its own territory. Fast liberated the story from the febrile headspace of the narrator: “He’s talking non-stop. I knew that I didn’t want a voiceover-driven film. [In my version], he’s quite laconic, he withholds information.â€\x9d Sturridge’s character – now called Tom, as if to stress the artifice at play – insists on filming the cast of ersatz residents with which he fills Madlyn Mansions, the south London building he buys (there’s a nod to Proust in the name). In the novel, he forbids this because it will prevent him from authentically inhabiting the realities he is recreating. But the film version seemed less convincing without the presence of technology and media that has hemmed us in even more since Remainder was published. McCarthy rhapsodises the scenes in which Tom’s facilitator, Naz, oversees a staging through a bank of monitors. “He’s wearing these really thick glasses, and you see the multiple screens reflected in his eyes – like he is technology.â€\x9d He thinks the adaptation triumphantly speaks for the Edward Snowden era. That seems a bit of a stretch. More important is that the novel’s core themes and texture have been elegantly compressed according to algorithms whirring in the original text. The film fully embraces the genre territory of the psychological thriller – presumably for commercial reasons. But also, says Fast, because the sense of a latent mystery to be solved lingered in the original narrator’s fascination with the Brixton street crimes he later appropriates. Before filming began in 2014, McCarthy took producer Natasha Dack-Ojumu on a tour of “Remainder real estateâ€\x9d: the Brixton locations that had been “generativeâ€\x9d for the novel while the author was living there in the late 90s. Presumably that included the building in Ferndale Road that inspired Madlyn Mansions, though Fast ended up using a different location, in Kennington. McCarthy points out that the racial undertones of the gentrification that has transformed Brixton beyond recognition were already present in the novel: the white narrator, effectively a kind of property developer, also seeks absorption – with his street-crime stagings – into the gritty “authenticityâ€\x9d of the black rudeboys living in the area. The novelist praises Fast for taking those undercurrents and “amplifying them in an untimid wayâ€\x9d. The director goes on: “The protagonist is obsessed with recognising a vision in a particular space. And it just so happens that it has inhabitants, and they must make room for his fantasy to become realised. Inadvertently, he becomes this kind of gentrifier.â€\x9d He sees a personal link: “That’s very much related to the role of the artist – we’re no longer just squatting spaces, we’re seeking to acquire them, too.â€\x9d McCarthy went to the set three times. Confronted with the contents of his mind intricately realised, he didn’t quite manage the kind of epiphany sought by his protagonist. (“Film sets are the least likely place where one would have an epiphany,â€\x9d points out Fast. “They’re extremely dull places.â€\x9d) The transubstantiation into the new form, though, was fitting given how much cinema saturated the original Remainder. McCarthy says he thought of the weight and slowness of Tarkovsky and Warhol when he was writing. The unfeigned grace of Robert DeNiro’s Johnny Boy from Mean Streets is what anxiously inspires the narrator in his quest to be authentic: “He seemed to execute the action perfectly, to live it, to merge with it until he was it and it was him and there was nothing in between.â€\x9d Remainder belongs to a less livewire, more strategic order of cinema – a dark cousin in the meta category to the more romanticised likes of Synecdoche, New York and The Truman Show, whose heroes are also a construct or are imprisoned inside fastidious miniatures of reality. With the juicy personal motivations of the traditional psychological thriller blanched by Sturridge’s searingly impassive performance, Remainder burrows ever inwards. But its repetitions hit a resonant frequency, releasing its protagonist somewhere beyond his simulcra, blinking at the light. The book’s author, at any rate, seems satisfied with this latest, possibly final reiteration – an inevitable consequence of the nature of the themes at play. Having a new version doesn’t “dilute thingsâ€\x9d, McCarthy says: “It compounds them. The story started with me having deja vu in a bathroom at a party, like in the book. The narrator restages even the restagings. And then when I went on set, the whole thing’s being filmed. It was a redoubling of the redoubling of the redoubling.â€\x9d • Remainder is out on 24 June.',
 'Meet the woman who changed the dictionary definition of ‘femininity’ It has been no surprise that women are among those keening over Donald Trump’s election victory. But they are also using the result as a platform for protest. Alison Segel is an activist and writer who started compiling a post-election zine – Forever Nasty – for aggrieved women in an attempt to galvanise them. The submissions were myriad, including fan art of Hillary Clinton, prose, poetry and, finally, a screenshot of a definition of how “femininityâ€\x9d is used in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It read: “She managed to become a female CEO without sacrificing her femininity.â€\x9d Horrified, Segel tweeted the screenshot with the thinking-face emoji. The tweet found its way back to Merriam-Webster’s lexicographer, Peter Sokolowski, and shortly afterwards, the company changed it. Segel was thrilled – and surprised. “I wanted to create a dialogue and was not looking or expecting to get the definition altered.â€\x9d The new definition? “The quality or nature of the female sex.â€\x9d Even so, a cursory Google suggests this problematic definition isn’t unique to Merriam-Webster. The Oxford Living Dictionaries says: “She celebrates her femininity by wearing makeup and high heels.â€\x9d The Cambridge Online dictionary? “Long hair was traditionally regarded as a sign of femininity.â€\x9d And hats off to the online Macmillan dictionary for suggesting: “Qualities that are considered to be typical of women, for example, the quality of being gentle and delicate.â€\x9d You might argue that to quibble with this definition is to quibble with the definition of “femininityâ€\x9d as a social and cultural construct. Marx once said: “The ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas.â€\x9d But the change suggests these dialogues – and the people who start them – have some gravitas. And that identity politics is very much back in the public sphere. “I think that traditional gender constructs are changing,â€\x9d explains Segel. “What makes someone stereotypically male or female doesn’t really exist any more.â€\x9d Segel’s zine, which is still in compilation stage, remains focused on “solutionâ€\x9d and changing people’s minds, rather than aggression – and redefining “femininityâ€\x9d certainly points towards progress. Whatever authority a dictionary definition might have, Segel proved women have the power to change it.',
 "Pop art, fanzines and Channel 4 – the making of Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha If we’re using DIY as a starting point for the story of Foxbase Alpha, when did you first become aware of DIY culture in pop? Was it through music fanzines? Yeah, totally. I used to get sold them at gigs as far back as I can remember. The Birthday Party, the Fall, Dead Can Dance, Factory bands. The first ones I remember were pretty dull, because I was buying them in 1982 and 83, and they were writing about bands like the Inca Babies or the Folk Devils or the Luddites. It was all pretty boring. I didn’t see the point of them for a while, because the music papers existed and these fanzines weren’t really doing anything different. It wasn’t until 85 that I started seeing fanzines that made sense, because by then the NME was putting Courtney Pine on the cover and writing about Green on Red, and things I didn’t get. You mean the explosion of the C86-era fanzines? Yes. I moved to Peterborough because I couldn’t afford a flat on my own in glamorous, high-priced Croydon. I was working at [record shop] Our Price, and I got a transfer to Our Price in Cambridge, so it was an 80-mile round trip to work every day. Then I moved to Virgin in Peterborough when a job came up there. I was a fish out of water – I’d never lived outside suburban London before. I fell in with a bunch of blokes who’d been talking about doing a fanzine for ages, and then I came along and said we should do it. So we did it. That was Pop Avalanche. That went well, so I thought me and Pete Wiggs could do one called Caff. Did Our Price and Virgin let you sell the fanzine in the shops? No, but it never occurred to me to ask. They wouldn’t have done anyway. But some of the big chains could be quite adventurous in those days, because often they had their own buyers, so they had their own identities. Even WH Smith did – the Reading branch was particularly strong on metal for a while, and its record counter had all the NWOBHM stuff. I’ve read about big-city branches of HMV and Virgin with interesting ranges of stock. Yes, Virgin certainly had that. I remember the Virgin in Croydon being like that. When the Joy Division flexi came out, they had a stack on the counter and you could just help yourself. I think I took 10. I took a lot. Peterborough wasn’t like that, though. It was quite soul destroying. On a Saturday, people would come in and they wouldn’t even buy numbers six to 10, they’d only buy the Top 5. When I’d been working in Epsom Our Price it was a lot more interesting. I remember one bloke coming in and buying Forever Changes. I told him it was one of my favourite albums, and he said, “Oh, I bought it when it came out, but my old copy’s got a bit of a warp. I’m going to throw it away. You can have it if you want.â€\x9d So I’ve got an original Forever Changes. Warped. Things like that never happened in Peterborough. In the interviews around the original release of Foxbase Alpha, you all talk about how you made that music to share your tastes. Was that why you worked in record shops? Or was it just to get discounted records? Both. There were a lot of Chelsea soul-fan hooligans who used to come into the Epsom shop in ’84, ’85 to buy soul. So I did a Top 10 soul reissues and put it out in the racks. And I got in trouble for that. For using my initiative. Because I hadn’t cleared it with the heavy-metal fan manager. I think that explains my residual dislike of heavy metal. One thing that often goes unremarked on in coverage of British indie culture – except in David Cavanagh’s book about Creation – is the importance of Channel 4, which helped repopularise trash culture, the 60s pop art aesthetic, French and continental styles, and mixed it all up with the brashness of contemporary pop culture. So you’d get The Munsters, The Avengers, The Tube and a Godard movie on the same evening. It created a cultural melting point that was really attractive to a certain kind of person. Yes, definitely. I used to tape so many of those films – buying blank videotapes cost so much back then. I’d try to tape all the Truffaut films, all the British kitchen sink films. It was the first channel to show [the Monkees’ film] Head. I’d read so much about it and never seen it – that seems quite hard to comprehend now. But a lot of things that you’d see referenced were hard to see and hear. The Byrds’ albums had all been deleted, for example. You could get a couple of compilations and that was it. Channel 4 was definitely important. Though I hated The Tube. It was so long, and it was on every week. You always seemed to have half an hour of Tears for Fears. I guess C86 was exciting, then, because it felt like it was “oursâ€\x9d. For people who had been too young for punk and found goth a bit unappealing. It also, if you were a nice kid, didn’t feel dangerous. Most importantly, it felt as if all those people making records were watching Channel 4 at the same time we were. And I didn’t feel scared to talk to people in bands, so I ended up getting to know those people. Obviously, doing a fanzine, I had to talk to them anyway. But it definitely felt like these were my people. Which doesn’t really explain Foxbase Alpha. But it’s part of it. I think C86 is the part of Foxbase Alpha that people ignore, in favour of the clubbing part of it. Because I think, in sensibility, it’s very much an indiepop record, even if it doesn’t sound like one. Especially in its fetishisation of the 60s. What it reminds me of more than any actual record is the collaged covers I used to do for mixtapes with bits from 60s Penguin book covers – the photos and the quotes that are all unrelated but work together. Yes, we made mixtapes. And we made them before we did the fanzine. Someone made me one called Don’t Put That Sausage in Your Mouth, Mrs Worthington. You wouldn’t have given that to a girl. You’d put bits between the tracks – bits of films on Channel 4, bits of adverts, bits of the Dangerous Brothers. So Tough [Saint Etienne’s second album] was exactly that, and it even had bits we’d taken from our cassettes. With pop art, I didn’t know anything about that until 1985, but that was absolutely mind-blowing. So, Bob, what did you actually do on Foxbase Alpha? I get asked this all the time. I was accused in the pub the other day of doing nothing. No, clearly you do something. But what is it? The back covers of Saint Etienne records don’t exactly define it. How did you actually make records? Did you go in with a flow chart to explain to Ian Catt, the engineer, what you needed him to do? Kind of. Let’s have a think. How would we have done something back then? We’d start with a loop, then work out a bassline and build up from there. Did you have the skills to make a loop yourselves? No. We needed someone to do it. We had to go to Ian Catt’s studio. Most good engineers can play most instruments reasonably well, and Ian’s certainly one of them. So it would be at the level of you humming him the melody or the bassline? Yeah. Or playing him a chord change off a record and telling him we wanted the chord change to be like that. Working with Ian you’d learn that adding a ninth makes a chord change richer – we just picked stuff up. I never wanted to become a musician, because I thought that if I knew how things were meant to work, I wouldn’t be able to do the things I wanted to do. I’m absolutely an amateur, because expertise would exclude doing anything new. That’s my philosophy. Although Pete’s managed to build himself a studio and become a proper musician in the last 25 years. I’ve been reading some old interviews with you, and there’s one with Jim Arundel in Melody Maker where you all get annoyed at the suggestion you’re a clever group. Come off it. Of course you were a clever group. Clever’s a bit of a problematic word. Does it mean arch? We used to be called ironic all the time. We didn’t like things that suggested we were using reference points because we thought they were funny, rather than because we liked them. I remember in that interview he refused to believe we liked Dazzle Ships by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, which these days is accepted as a great record. That album was a huge influence on us – a massive pop group putting together two or three recognisable pop songs and loads of found sounds. But what’s clever? Where does that come from? You made an album with a very clear worldview and aesthetic sense, employing your knowledge to locate the sources of the material you wanted, and with the intelligence to deploy those sources correctly. You could be a 60s-inspired pop group, using 60s sources, and be recognisably stupid, but you weren’t. That’s true. I never felt particularly clever myself. I think what annoyed us was clever and ironic being seen as the same thing. Betty Boo never got called clever, and I could never see any difference between us. You also get defensive in those old interviews about the idea that you might be elitist. That really baffled me. It seemed really obvious – making a song called Join Our Club doesn’t mean you’re being sarcastic. I understand where the idea that you were elitist came from. You’re singing about a super-cool London … We’d only moved there six months before! The people hearing your music don’t know that. They hear a group writing about cool London, filled with carefully chosen references to pop culture they might well not know. They’re getting a display of impeccable taste from people dressed like they’ve come out of Blow Up. That was the opposite of what we trying to do. It’s interesting you say that. I used to read interviews with Julian Cope [of the Teardrop Explodes] or Nick Heyward of [Haircut 100] and they would talk about their influences really openly, and it was like opening a door: if you like what I do, here’s where it all comes from. We probably overdid that, and it looked like we were showing off. Are you surprised at the affection in which Foxbase Alpha is still held, 25 years on? I am. But I’d also be disappointed if it was people’s favourite Saint Etienne record, because I don’t think it’s the best one. At the same time, I know as a pop fan that people tend to like the first album by a group most, because it’s the moment of discovery, and the one that captures the band’s youth, so I can understand it. But it’s always sounded like a scrapbook to me. The 25th anniversary edition of Foxbase Alpha is out now on vinyl and double CD, via Heavenly. A deluxe box set edition is released on 6 January. This interview is an edited version of one that appears in the sleevenotes for the box set.",
 "OscarsSoWhite: Chris Rock exposed the depths of the industry's race problem At the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday night, host Chris Rock moderated a discussion of race as it should be conducted in the United States: uncomfortably and without any easy resolution in just a few hours. And like most such attempts, it wasn’t as successful at solving anything, as it was inadvertently exposing the breadth of the problem through comedy. Rock had an extremely difficult task in front of him, having agreed to host the show before the all-white acting nods were announced, which prompted boycotts and a re-emergence of #OscarsSoWhite. He certainly didn’t know that a Justice for Flint fundraiser would be happening on the same evening, or that he’d unwittingly prove how much more Hollywood cares about Girl Scout cookies than it does about drinking water for black people. During the opening montage of films from the past year, I found myself engaging in the age-old pastime I call “counting Negroesâ€\x9d – wondering if the Academy was fitting in as many black faces as it could, despite none of those actors being nominated. I was relieved when Rock began his introduction similarly: “Man, I counted at least 15 black people on that montage.â€\x9d I was thrilled when he bluntly said: “Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood is racist.â€\x9d Rock kept black people at the forefront throughout the night, which was a cultural win of sorts. But his monologue – like his efforts overall to challenge the racism of Hollywood – was hit and miss. I was glad to see the audience confronted in the Dolby theatre, but it wasn’t exactly enjoyable. For example, Rock joked about telling Barack Obama at a Hollywood fundraiser: “Mr President, you see all these writers and producers and actors? They don’t hire black people, and they’re the nicest, white people on earth! They’re liberals!â€\x9d But it made me cringe to see those nice, powerful white people laughing at how they withhold jobs – and power – from black people, then walking away with gold. Earlier that evening, more than 2,000 miles away, it was equally cringeworthy to watch the comedian Hannibal Buress as he joked to a crowd in Flint, Michigan, about being checked into his hotel “regular styleâ€\x9d, and being given a key without any warning. “There’s nothing else you want to tell me?â€\x9d Buress wondered. Like, “Hey, the water is poison right now?â€\x9d Watching Buress joke to the people of Flint about being poisoned with lead was as uncomfortable (and brilliant) as his infamous routine about Bill Cosby. Buress was performing at the Justice for Flint fundraiser that black directors Ava DuVernay (snubbed for Selma last year) and Ryan Coogler (snubbed for Creed) had scheduled for the same night as the Oscars. Watching Buress joke about racism in its most deadly form – to an audience of black people affected by it – was uncomfortable in a very different way to watching Rock yuk it up with powerful white folks. Rock punched down a couple times in disappointing ways. First, he said that black people didn’t protest the Oscars in the early 1960s because “we had real things to protest; you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographerâ€\x9d. This is not true – NPR’s Gene Demby has written about a protest in 1962 – and implies black people who care about representation in the media can’t also care about the lynching and raping of black people today. Rock ended his monologue taking a swipe at the #AskHerMore campaign – pushing for journalists to ask women film-makers about more than what they are wearing – by saying: “Everything’s not sexism, everything’s not racism.â€\x9d It was an unnecessary dismissal of sexism in a business so sexist that 93% of top films are directed by men. Where Rock succeeded was in keeping the audience nervous about race throughout the night. The highlight was when he subversively introduced the “Academy’s new director of the minority outreachâ€\x9d, Clueless actor and Fox News contributor Stacey Dash. Dash, who has called for the abolition of Black History Month, came on stage to say, awkwardly: “I cannot wait to help my people out. Happy Black History Month!â€\x9d The clueless and nearly silent white people at the Dolby theatre didn’t know whether to laugh, clap or hide from the revolution. To black America, and especially black Twitter, Dash’s appearance couldn’t have provoked an angrier reaction than if Jamie Foxx came on stage to say black Oscar hopefuls needed to #actbetter for a fair shot. But in bringing out the Republican Dash, Rock skewered how meaningless attempts at “diversityâ€\x9d usually are. As the ceremony wore on, the disconnect between black America outside and inside the Dolby theatre grew increasingly obvious, no more so than when Rock walked into the audience to sell Girl Scout cookies for his daughter’s troop. Shaking down the participants for cookie orders, Hollywood’s wealthiest waived bills at little black Girl Scouts to the tune of $65,243. Meanwhile, despite a head start on the air and trending on Twitter, the Justice for Flint fundraiser had, at the same time, raised just $52,000. For all the ways in which the Academy desperately did not want to come off as racist this year, no one mentioned Flint, nor the fundraiser that Academy brethren were hosting at the same time. Unwittingly, Rock showed that the Academy cares more about the Girl Scout cookie sales of a black star’s daughter than it does about getting water to the poisoned black people of Flint. Despite winners’ cause-filled speeches, the Academy is not about changing society or championing social justice. It’s about consolidating power, and its awards show is mostly about trying to expand its power without necessarily sharing it. Yes, not all the winners were white this year, including Mexican-born director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who won best director for a second year in a row for The Revenant. (Fortunately, no one even yelled “Who gave this sonofabitch his green card?â€\x9d when he won this time, as Sean Penn did last year.) After Spotlight won best picture and Rock signed off with shout-outs to Black Lives Matter, Brooklyn and cookies, the weirdest juxtaposition came as Public Enemy’s Fight the Power was played over the credits. It was a craven play to black viewers. The Oscars are at the tip of the iceberg of cultural power in America, so how can they invoke Public Enemy to call for fighting ... themselves? This rests upon an Academy that is 91% white and 76% male, whose membership is drawn from an entertainment industry which, according to recent studies, is a “straight, white boys’ clubâ€\x9d where “women, people of colour and those identifying as LGBT are not represented on screen or behind the cameraâ€\x9d. This also reflected in US academia and journalism media. When Melissa Harris-Perry walked off her show on the left-leaning MSNBC network last week, writing that it had been taken away from her, her removal stoked fears that, as the Obama years wind down, people of colour will be pushed out of media positions after making modest gains. A few days before the Oscars, the New York Times published a report describing “the faces of American powerâ€\x9d as being “nearly as white as the Oscar nomineesâ€\x9d. In keeping us uncomfortable as we talked about it, and in showing how the Academy loves his children more than Flint’s, Rock made us confront Hollywood’s racism and how difficult, if not impossible, it will be to eradicate without changing the whole damn system.",
 'The UK economy is slowing – experts debate the Brexit watch data David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) from June 2006 to May 2009 The UK economy is slowing, there is no doubt about it. The incoming data so far though are mixed as it is early days post the Brexit vote. The PMIs were quite strong, suggesting GDP growth isn’t set to slow sharply in the fourth quarter of 2016 but 2017 is likely a different matter. Retail sales were also pretty good. Despite the boost from the fall in sterling, Britain’s trade deficit with the rest of the world widened unexpectedly in September. Inflation surprised to the downside but major price rises look to be in the pipeline as factory gate prices increased 0.6% in October compared with an increase of 0.3% in September. The UK claimant count rose by 10,000 in October, while average weekly earnings grew by £1 between April and September. XPertHR, the pay consultants, report that the median private-sector pay award stood at 2% in the year to 31 August 2016, unchanged from that recorded 12 months previously. Private sector employers are predicting a median 2% pay award in the year to 31 August 2017. The MPC thinks 3.75% is on the horizon shortly. There is every probability that the Office for Budget Responsibility will suggest this week that the public finances are in a terrible mess due to the weakening outlook for the economy. There is some suggestion that there is little room for a fiscal boost to the economy. It is time to condemn austerity into the dustbin of history. It is the unnecessary hang-up with debts and deficits that has got us into this fine populist mess in the first place. In a major macro error in 2010, George Osborne slashed £30bn from public investment. Now Philip Hammond looks set to respond to the slowing economy with a trifling £1.3bn on infrastructure and roads. To put this in context, the UK has 29,145 miles of main roads 2,173 miles of motorways and 213,750 miles of paved roads so that should cover the cost of filling in about one pothole a mile. Or put another way, it is equivalent to about a fifth of the cost of refurbishing the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Too little too late as ever. Oh dear. Andrew Sentance, senior economic adviser at the consultancy PwC and former member of the Bank’s MPC from October 2006 to May 2011 The picture of the UK economy since the Brexit vote is that consumer spending and services activity are supporting growth and employment. We still don’t have any hard data on the investment side of the economy – but even when we do it may be several quarters before the impact of post-Brexit uncertainty shows up in the level of capital spending. GDP held up in the third quarter better than expected and the early data for the current quarter – on retail sales and the purchasing managers’ survey of services activity – has been positive. The unemployment rate has continued to fall, though the rate of growth of new job creation appears to be slowing. One surprise this month was a drop in the inflation rate, from 1% to 0.9%. But it is clear from the measure of input prices paid by manufacturers that a wave of inflation is coming through the pipeline driven by a weaker pound. We should therefore still expect to see inflation at around 3% or just below by the end of next year. That will squeeze real consumer spending growth, adding to the slowdown generated by uncertainty affecting investment plans. PwC’s updated forecast is for GDP to rise by just 1.2% next year – about half the growth rate over the past 12 months. The EU referendum vote seems likely to create a longer-term drag on economic activity rather than a short sharp shock. The chancellor should be focusing on long-term priorities in his autumn statement this week – relieving the pressure in the housing market by supporting supply, boosting transport investment, helping smaller firms, tax reform and investment in skills. Business should view an autumn statement focused on long-term priorities positively and this is the best way to support business confidence in the face of Brexit uncertainty.',
 'Embrace of the Serpent; Bad Neighbours 2; Our Kind of Traitor; I Saw the Light; The Measure of a Man and more – review Inter-film references can be dangerous things in criticism: you might have seen a lot of films that feed into Embrace of the Serpent (Peccadillo, 12) – Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, even Miguel Gomes’s Tabu – without ever having seen anything quite like it. Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s Oscar-nominated trip into the Amazon is a singular vision and I use “visionâ€\x9d (and “tripâ€\x9d, for that matter) in the slightly unearthly sense. As two white explorers, 30 years apart, are drawn into the heart of the jungle in pursuit of healing and enlightenment, the ghosts of the region’s colonial past are raised in vivid, disquieting fashion. Shot in lustrous, deep-toned black and white, Guerra’s film functions as a muscular adventure tale quite aside from its complex political undertow: outwardly imposing, it proves utterly immersive. Somewhere along the line, and we may never know exactly how this came to pass, Zac Efron came to be one of the best comic actors in current American film, with a self-effacing disregard for his own matinee-idol stainlessness that is both endearing and cruelly funny. He’s on oddly bittersweet form in the otherwise raucous sequel Bad Neighbours 2 (Universal, 15), playing a former fraternity bro who knows his glory days are already behind him and is beginning to realise they weren’t all that glorious to start with. The film, for its part, slyly complicates the crude generational battle of its predecessor, satirising millennial-era feminism and identity politics by introducing Chloë Grace Moretz’s sorority outcast to proceedings. Two new John le Carré adaptations hit our screens this year: while Susanne Bier’s sleek, riveting The Night Manager became whatever the equivalent of appointment TV is in this unscheduled era, over in cinemas, Susanna White’s Our Kind of Traitor (Studiocanal, 15) made scarcely a ripple. Some would use this as ammo in the recently fashionable telly-over-film debate, but White’s shrug of a spy thriller hardly gives cinema a chance; adapted from Le Carré’s most classically suspense-driven novel of recent years, it’s colour-by-numbers film-making in which every number calls for a moody shade of beige. As The Night Manager demonstrated, that’s the kind of territory for which Tom Hiddleston was essentially born. Playing rootsy Alabama-born country music legend Hank Williams? Not so much, though let it be said that Hiddleston plays compellingly against his own natural presence in every scene of the rather dusty biopic I Saw the Light (Sony, 15). It’s a twitchy, twangy, hard-working performance, even if it’s not quite a natural one, and gives some oddball energy to the otherwise rote backstage-drama mechanics the film has applied to Williams’s deeply sad story. One of those reliably careworn character actors whose face has been begging for just the right showcase, Vincent Lindon earns his Cannes plaudits fair and square in The Measure of a Man (New Wave, PG), a determinedly low-key but cumulatively shattering portrait of an unemployed factory worker cruelly thrust into the job market at 51. It’s plainly styled social realism, rightly stripped back to foreground on Lindon’s quietly wrenching work. If you like your French drama a little sunnier and more scenic, Catherine Corsini’s Summertime (Curzon Artificial Eye, 15) is a sweetly played romance between a naive farm girl and a liberal feminist activist, even if I liked their story more than I believed it; it would pair up nicely with Michal Vinik’s warm, funky, coming-out tale Blush (TLA, 18), in which Israeli-Palestinian tensions spike the more universal adolescent drama. We stick with an LGBT theme for this week’s streaming pick: South Korean transgender noir Man on High Heels is a spiky curio from last year’s festival circuit that I wasn’t expecting to see show up even on Netflix’s catholic playlist. But there it is and while this brash, wildly veering story of a hard-bitten cop yearning for a sex-change operation occasionally loses its own tail in its mash-up of issue drama, comedy and grisly shoot-’em-up, I’m glad it’s on the loose.',
 'Donald Trump tours flood-ravaged Louisiana with 18-wheeler of supplies The post-disaster politicking got under way in earnest on Friday, as Donald Trump appeared in flood-stricken Louisiana to give his image a presidential burnish, and as the White House announced Barack Obama would tour the area next Tuesday. A day earlier Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, had warned Trump not to show up in Louisiana “for a photo opâ€\x9d. Instead, he said, Trump should volunteer and make donations. Edwards also defended the delayed visit by Obama, who has come under heavy criticism locally for not interrupting his vacation to come tour the disaster area. The photo opportunity is a time-honored political maneuver after a natural disaster, and Trump put his own spin on it, traveling with an 18-wheel transfer truck full of supplies to hand out to crowds. Wherever he went, he created his own television-ready crowds. In St Amant, one of the hardest-hit areas between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Trump’s convoy set up in a parking lot, and droves of people turned out to watch him hand out water bottles and diapers. “It was really something,â€\x9d said national guardsman Chris Ealy, who shook Trump’s hand. The 25-year-old seemed dazzled by his encounter with national political machinery. “I could tell they were in a hurry.â€\x9d Trump stayed about 15 minutes before the motorcade of black SUVs and motorcycles moved on. Within a few minutes the crowd had melted away. The brevity of the spectacle didn’t matter. Trump’s target audience was watching him on television; local people will vote for him regardless. “This is his stomping grounds,â€\x9d said Greg Patterson, who was cleaning muck from his store called the Pit Stop. The idea that a billionaire from Manhattan could describe the working-class corner of Louisiana as “his stomping groundsâ€\x9d did not strike Patterson as contradictory. “We’ve got 2,000 houses damaged just in this area alone,â€\x9d he said, stretching his arm out to the south. “These people are already back in their homes, working to repair them. It’s not like down in the Ninth Ward.â€\x9d That was a reference to one of the quarters of New Orleans that was worst hit by Katrina a decade ago. That neighborhood is mostly poor, and mostly black. “I mean that’s a bunch of government-owned housing,â€\x9d Patterson said. “Nobody here is looking for handouts or waiting on the government. These are Trump’s people.â€\x9d It was a bombastic statement, and maybe emotionally satisfying, but it was also untrue: more than 60,000 local people have applied for relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). As Trump left the area, police closed down Interstate 10, which connects Baton Rouge and New Orleans. As his motorcade passed by, drivers in the oncoming lane slammed on their brakes, unsure whether to pull to the side of the road. Some veered off into the grass and mud. Trump’s visit was a savvy one that helped distract attention from the disarray of his campaign just 80 days from the general election. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned on Friday after a series of revelations about his connections to a pro-Russian Ukrainian regime. It also leveraged regional frustration with Obama. The Baton Rouge Advocate published an editorial comparing Obama’s vacation on Martha’s Vineyard to George W Bush’s response to Katrina. “Sometimes, presidential visits can get in the way of emergency response, doing more harm than good,â€\x9d it said. “But we don’t see that as a factor now that flood waters are subsiding, even if at an agonizing pace. It’s past time for the president to pay a personal visit, showing his solidarity with suffering Americans.â€\x9d A mile or so from where Trump had stopped to distribute supplies from his 18-wheeler, Joyce Humphries sat in a pickup truck Friday with her chihuahua, Elvis Presley, and looked out over a lake that used to be her home. “Everything is gone,â€\x9d she said. Humphries said that Trump’s visit was good enough to win her vote. “We will take any help we can get,â€\x9d she said.',
 'How can social workers build resilience and avoid burnout? Live Q&A “I gained a stone in weight and regularly binged and comfort ate, finding there was no time to exercise as I used to. Many members of the team had similar experiences. In the end, it all became so overwhelming that I saw a psychotherapist for a couple of months prior to resigning. This helped crystallise why I was finding it so unbearable: my body was in physical revolt against an unrealistic to-do list that I could never catch up on, no matter how hard I tried.â€\x9d This is one social worker’s description of how working in child protection affected their mental and physical health. It is a familiar tale: in the ’s Social Lives research, 67% of social workers said they had been affected by stress and depression. To help social workers deal with the stress and trauma of their job, building resilience is key. This can help ensure that social workers don’t burn out at an early stage of their career, and are able to continue working without suffering from work-related stress or mental health problems. And there is value for this in employers, too; at a time when experienced social workers are in short supply, anything that helps people stay in the profession has to be considered. To discuss some of these issues, we’ve put together a panel of experts from the social work sector. We’ll be talking about: Strategies social workers can use to build resilience – from time management to mindfulness. The role employers have to play: what they can do to reduce workloads and improve morale. How healthy, resilient, supportive teams of social workers can be built. The role of managers and supervision. The discussion will take place on Monday 9 May between 12pm and 2pm in the comments section below this article. Taking part is easier than ever: you can create a free account or log in using your Twitter or Facebook profiles to comment. Alternatively, you can email us to post your questions for you. Panellists To be updated as more panellists confirm Jim Greer, principal lecturer in social work at Teesside University and author of the upcoming book from Sage Resilience and Personal Effectiveness for Social Workers Ruth Allen, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers Paul Dockerty, health and wellbeing officer, Cafcass Emma Perry, senior lecturer in social work at the University of Gloucestershire and former practitioner in adult’s services Anna Elliott, acting service manger, learning and development – children and families, Somerset county council Elizabeth Frost, associate professor at University of West of England Rachel Wardell, chair of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services workforce development policy committee Discussion commissioned and controlled by the , funded by Cafcass.',
 "Ronnie O'Sullivan biopic being cued up A film of maverick snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan is in the works, with Hunger Games studio Lionsgate named as possible producers. According to the Sunday Mirror, O’Sullivan’s chequered career has sparked a flurry of interest from film-makers, with O’Sullivan himself quoted as saying Lionsgate are the prime movers. “Lionsgate in America got in contact with my agent. I thought ‘they’re not serious’ ... But as it’s gone on they’ve said they were going to buy the rights to my film and a couple of big LA actors who are snooker fans said they want the part.â€\x9d O’Sullivan also suggested that Unbroken star Jack O’Connell has put himself forward for the lead role. He said: “[O’Connell] is interested – he’s a big snooker fan and from the North and he’s followed my career and says he wants the part.â€\x9d O’Sullivan, 4o, first won snooker’s World Championship in 2001, and has won it a further four times, most recently in 2013. His career has been marked by his turbulent family background and volatile personality: his father, Ronald O’Sullivan Sr, served 17 years for murder, while O’Sullivan himself acknowledged severe addictions to drink and drugs, and “retiredâ€\x9d for a year from professional snooker in 2012. This follows news that a film about footballer Jamie Vardy is in the works, suggesting that sporting figures deemed once of UK interest only are beginning to resonate internationally. According to the Mirror, O’Sullivan said: “As long as the film does justice to my life I’ve got no problems with it ... I’ve been told it will be along the lines of dramas Whiplash and the Black Swan – which I really liked as it got into the emotions of the character and I think that’s how my career has been.â€\x9d",
 'Online abuse: we need Good Samaritans on the web In summer 2014, 16-year-old Jada was sexually assaulted at a Houston party. Someone took a photograph of her lying naked and unconscious on the floor. The photo was posted on social media, where others shared it. Then, in a particularly callous act, strangers started to post their own re-enactments of the photo, sharing it via the hashtag #Jadapose. Online violence is often an act in two parts: the original violence, followed by the participation of large numbers of bystanders – social media users who share harassing content, non-consensually re-distribute private photos, re-post threats to someone’s life, post comments that support – even revel in – public humiliation and hatred, and participate in doxxing (the posting of an individual’s personal information with the malicious intention of subjecting them to crowd-sourced harassment). Responsibility for violence online and off must be placed where it belongs: on the perpetrators, rather than the victims, survivors and community members targeted by it. But bystanders should also be held accountable. Many of us witness violence online. According to a 2014 Pew Center study, 73% of respondents had witnessed someone being harassed online. While the majority of what they witnessed was name-calling and intentional acts of humiliation (like #Jadapose), they also witnessed criminal acts: 25% of those respondents witnessed someone being physically threatened, while nearly 20% witnessed others being stalked or sexually harassed via social media, often for sustained periods of time. The numbers are even higher among those aged 18 to 29, where 92% have witnessed online violence. People of Hispanic and African-American descent in the US are far more likely to witness online violence than others (88% and 84%, respectively), suggesting just how racially targeted online violence is. Young women disproportionately experience sexual harassment and stalking online. However, while 92% of users perceive that online environments enable people to be more judgmental of one another, 68% also report that these same environments enable people to be supportive of one another. It is this opportunity for support online that creates a space for more caring bystander intervention. After Jada spoke out about her rape and social media abuse, she launched a solidarity campaign, #IAmJada, that others have used to call out the cruelty of the re-enactors. In the process they made visible a form of bystander solidarity that counteracts the hyper-visibility of online cruelties. Yet, it is rare to find stories of bystanders who provide help to the victims. When the media does focus on bystanders, it tends to focus on their failure to intervene, particularly when surveillance video evidence is available. Other footage has captured bystanders breaking up fights, only to be harmed or even killed in the process, such as the case of Hugo Yale-Tax in New York City, pointing out the threats some interveners face if they try to help. Yet, social movements are trying to tell a different story, redefining intervention as a set of minor acts people can do in their everyday lives to reduce harm online, and provide support to those who are targeted. In hashtag campaigns such as #YouOkSis? (started by social worker and black feminist tweeter Feminista Jones), women of colour provide advice and support to other women of colour who have been harassed. They suggest community-based solutions that avoid going to the police to address the over-criminalisation and police violence committed against non-white communities. Theirs is a model of feminist bystander intervention based in racial justice. A recent online comic, Paths, written by Mikki Kendall, creator of #solidarityisforwhitewomen and #fasttailedgirls, details the process through which a young man comes to understand the harm he caused by re-posting a female student’s nude image – as a bystander to another person’s original non-consensual act of posting of the photo. The comic teaches teenagers that distributing private images without the consent of the person who made them is itself an act of violence. We do not often see or hear online perpetrators coming to consciousness about their violence, but it is a crucial process. In an NPR radio interview with feminist author Lindy West, her former abuser described how he enacted his violence through fake email and Twitter accounts he created in her dead father’s name. He talked about his feelings of deficiency and resentment as a man and why he lashed out at West’s confidence and visibility. In doing so, he provided a model for other perpetrators – and bystander participants – of how they might take responsibility and make amends for the injuries they have caused. Bystanders can learn from the systems of support that survivors of online violence have developed for each other, in online resource guides that provide information on how women can collectively respond to cultures of online misogynist violence, practices that the targets of online violence can use for conducting self-care post-assault, and methods for better protecting one’s own privacy and not violating others. Activists are developing app-based interfaces, Tumblrs and hashtags that provide ways of talking back to harassers and the bystanders who support them. Tools such as the mobile app Not Your Baby, created by Toronto’s Metrac, and Hollaback’s app for documenting street harassment, crowdsource responses to harassment that both bystanders and the targets of this violence can use. However, tech alone will not solve these problems. According to Jacque Wernimont at the Center for Solutions to Online Violence, “There is no technological fix to online violence. The problems are social and so are the solutions.â€\x9d The real challenge is building consensual relations both online and face-to-face, with people we know and people we don’t know, and demanding that everyone live up to these ideals. It also means that, as bystanders, we need to reconceive what justice looks like from a bystander perspective – particularly when the most available models suggest going to the police, when for some, including many people of colour, the police are part of the problem. To be effective, bystander intervention must be a collective effort, not only an individual act. It needs to reckon with the ways in which some bystanders are more targeted for violence and the ways in which some bystanders are criminalised for simply enacting their rights to witness, say, police action. We need more education that can interrogate and dismantle the sources of online violence; the quiet acquiescence of bystanders to online misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia; and the fears witnesses have of becoming targets of violence themselves. We do this by holding both the perpetrators and their cultures of support accountable.',
 'Bernie Sanders rallies in Brooklyn while Trump hits Staten Island – as it happened Money in politics dominated Sunday before the candidates hit the trail around New York, with its corrupting influence the danger discussed by Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and George Clooney. Actor George Clooney said he helped raise “an obscene amount of moneyâ€\x9d for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party, and that he agrees with Bernie Sanders and protester that it’s a danger to democracy. He also noted that most of the money he raised at a protested San Francisco event went to the party, and not Clinton’s campaign. “We need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm a supreme court justice,â€\x9d Clooney said, “because that fifth vote on the supreme court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again.â€\x9d Bernie Sanders said that it “doesn’t pass the laugh testâ€\x9d for candidates to go “raising money from the top 1%â€\x9d and then to promise a crackdown on those same powerful interests. “People see that, and that’s why so many people don’t vote,.â€\x9d “You can’t do that when you’re dependent on them for your fundraising,â€\x9d he said.. “That is not what democracy is about. That is a movement toward oligarchy.â€\x9d Hillary Clinton shrugged off a new nickname, “crooked Hillaryâ€\x9d, from Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. “I can take care of myself,â€\x9d she said. “He would turn us back and undermine the progress that we’ve been making. He wants to set Americans against each other and I’m not going to stand for it.â€\x9d Trump presided over a raucous crowd in Staten Island, New York, and bemoaned what he sees as a “riggedâ€\x9d primary process in which campaigns have to bribe delegates. “That’s a corrupt system. That has nothing to do with democracy.â€\x9d He again hinted at trouble at the Republican convention in July: “I hope it doesn’t involve violence, and I’m not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t involve violence and I don’t think it will. But I will say this it’s a rigged system, it’s a crooked system, it’s 100% crooked.â€\x9d Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said that candidates have no right to complain: each of the 50 states decided their rules last October, long before anyone had complained about caucuses, conventions or local “bossesâ€\x9d. He similarly said it’s all up to the delegates to write the convention rules, and out of Washington’s hands. “It’s not a matter of party insiders, it’s a matter of 2,400-plus grassroots activists and no matter what they want to do they can do.“ “The majority rules and that is an American concept that I can’t imagine us turning our backs on,â€\x9d Priebus said, before admitting that he had urged party leaders not to recommend any rule changes. “The recommendations I think just confuse people,â€\x9d he said. “I think it’s a bad idea.â€\x9d Trump talks about nuclear weapons. “We have stuff that’s so old and so rotten that we don’t even know if it works.â€\x9d “It’s going to be a whole different ballgame, folks.â€\x9d He appears to be suggesting the US resume active testing of nuclear weapons. China and Russia are beating the US in the arms race, according to the businessman. “You know Vladimir Putin said Donald Trump is a genius, he’s going to do very well,â€\x9d Trump says. “Believe me he’s not get anything for that.â€\x9d “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia? Wouldn’t it be nice? It wouldn’t be so bad?â€\x9d The crowd gives the verbal equivalent of a shrug to this. A little applause. A half-hearted whoop. But Trump quickly works them back into a fervor with praise, saying he’s astounded to see the audience still on its feet for his speech. The crowd loves this praise, and goes into raptures. Trump: “The press won’t report that. This dishonest media. This dishonest group of people.â€\x9d The press is reporting this right now, here. He hunches his shoulders and mimics holding a microphone, like a local TV newscaster on assignment. He also raises his voice into a nasal twang. “They’re going to say, ‘we’re in Staten Island, Donald Trump gave a speech.’â€\x9d Back to his usual Trump voice: “They’re not going to say the audience was packed, the biggest audience in 15 years. They’re not going to say that not one person in the audience for a 20 minute speech sat down. Nobody’s seen that before.â€\x9d The press has also reported on the specific rules that Trump makes some organizations agree to in exchange for entry, including a rule that cameras are only allowed to show him at the podium, and not zoom out or pan the room to show the crowd. The businessman is rambling about China, and a story about how its leaders are alarmed by Donald Trump. “They’re the problem,â€\x9d he says. “They’re going to treat us fairly, and they’re going to treat us justly or it’s bye-bye.â€\x9d He suggests that he’ll tear up trade agreements and financial arrangements with China if they don’t do what he wants. The crowd whoops and whistles. Then he talks about how manufacturers have left the US. He previews a hypothetical phone call to a company that goes to Mexico to create a factory. “Congratulations on your new plant, have many many years of success,â€\x9d Trump says he’d tell the CEO before revealing the “bad newsâ€\x9d. “Every unit that you make and send across our now very strong border, you’re going to pay a 35% tax on that unit.â€\x9d The crowd loves tariffs. “We have New York values,â€\x9d Trump cheers. They cheer too. Somebody snarls “Lyyyyyin’ Ted!â€\x9d with glee. “They lie. They lie. It’s all a rigged deal. They said they didn’t change anything. I announced in June,â€\x9d Trump rambles. “So it’s June, we’re doing well all over.â€\x9d “Once they heard the message, it was over. And I can tell you this nobody can beat my message.â€\x9d He says that “when I watched Lyin’ Ted talk the other nightâ€\x9d, he noticed that Cruz talked about a wall and jobs and the myriad topics of a Trump speech (and of many political speeches). Then he starts talking about how the US should have taken the high quality oil of Iraq instead of “giving themâ€\x9d – the antecedent of “themâ€\x9d appears to be Iraqis – the nation of Iraq. Trump meanwhile is talking to some rowdy supports at a brunch event on Staten Island. The crowd absolutely roars at a protesters who snuck in. Trump calls the person a “professional agitatorâ€\x9d without evidence. “He’s not for real.â€\x9d “The safest place to be anywhere is at a New York rally,â€\x9d Trump says. “There’s love in the room.â€\x9d “Some days I wish they could turn off the live television, then we could really have fun.â€\x9d The press pack trailing Trump notices some adjustments in the businessman’s tactics. The Sanders campaign has entered the looking glass and sent an email from the beyond. Its subject line: “Thank YOU, George Clooney.â€\x9d A reporter asks Trump about his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with battery against a reporter but not prosecuted. Trump points out that the aide is standing nearby, and says he’s very glad that Lewandowski was “totally exonerated from that bogus nonsense, that bogus claim.â€\x9d “That was a very unfair thing that happened to him, very, very unfair.â€\x9d Prosecutors said that while the video was enough to charge Lewandowski with the crime but not enough to convict him in trial. They did not say that Lewandowski was “exoneratedâ€\x9d or not guilty. Another reporter asks the candidate about the enormous college tuition debt that many young people carry. Trump doesn’t have a plan – yet. “I’m going to come up with something.â€\x9d “They come to me and it’s turmoil for them. They’re loaded up with debt and they can’t get a job. And I’m going to have policy on that very, very soon.â€\x9d And finally a reporter asks Trump about the violence that has plagued his events around the country, from fistfights in Chicago to scuffles in St Louis and sucker-punch incidents and pepper-spray in North Carolina and elsewhere. “The safest places to be in this country are at a Trump rally,â€\x9d Trump says. It’s the press who misconstrue his events, he claims. Video from many events, including this rally in March, shows violence by Trump supporters against protesters at his rallies. Donald Trump is doing an event in Staten Island, New York, hosted by a local police association – they’re presenting the businessman with an award. An official with the police organization is talking about how back in the day “the wall was Ellis Islandâ€\x9d and how proud he is to give Trump “the America’s Finest Awardâ€\x9d. Trump starts off with his usual spiel of praise for the “great hotelâ€\x9d, the police organization (“you people [who] have done an unbelievable jobâ€\x9d) and irritation at the press in the room, who he says don’t believe him and he doesn’t believe them. “It’s a rigged election. I’m winning by a lot. And people say, ‘don’t complain, you’re winning,’â€\x9d he says. “I win all the time when it’s up to the voters.â€\x9d He criticizes “the bossesâ€\x9d, just like his new convention manager Paul Manafort did on a talk show earlier today. “I’m winning with the voters, and we’re winning big, and I think we’ll get to the 1,237.â€\x9d He rambles a lot about how “they changed the rulesâ€\x9d in Colorado and Florida, sometimes to try to stymie him, sometimes to try to help Jeb Bush with changes that actually boosted Trump. All the states had to have their rules set by 1 October 2015, long before any person anywhere had voted for Trump in an election or caucus. “I don’t want to play the rule game,â€\x9d Trump says. “It’s all about getting the bosses out.â€\x9d Then he insinuates that bad things will happen if delegates try to skew convention rules in favor of Ted Cruz this summer. “You’re going to have a very, very angry and upset group of people at the convention.â€\x9d “I hope it doesn’t involve violence, and I’m not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t involve violence and I don’t think it will. But I will say this it’s a rigged system, it’s a crooked system, it’s 100% crooked.â€\x9d “It’s a corrupt system, you’re basically buying these people,â€\x9d he continues, talking about the kind of delegate courtship – he implies bribery – that he would have to do to win some supporters at the local level. He says he could invite them to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. “You’re gonna use the spa, you’re gonna this you’re gonna that, we’re gonna buy your vote. That’s a corrupt system. That has nothing to do with democracy.â€\x9d The US is a republic. John Kasich has spent part of the weekend in the private quarters of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, with my colleague Ben Jacobs in pursuit of the Ohio governor’s quixotic campaign for the Republican nomination. On Saturday, John Kasich gave what many of the reporters covering his campaign thought was one of his most effective and touching speeches yet. Because it was in a New York synagogue, cameras were banned and even note taking was considered forbidden. As a result only the 500 or so Orthodox Jews who were in the room at the Great Neck Synagogue will ever have seen it. That, in microcosm, is what John Kasich faces as he stumps New York. The Ohio governor is, in effect, running not to lose. With no path to the 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination (he still needs well over 1,000 and there are only 852 still available), Kasich is banking on a deadlock leading to a contested convention and then emerging as a dark horse if neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz prevails. The Ohio governor’s strategy speaks to his precarious situation. Kasich is hopscotching the state from congressional district to congressional district, to places where he can keep Donald Trump under 50% and finish second, thus winning one delegate. Kasich spent Saturday targeting Jewish voters, many of whom are wary of Trump for reasons ranging from his inconsistency on foreign policy to his sometimes autocratic presentation. The appearance at the synagogue in Great Neck – a heavily Jewish community with a mix of Ashkenazi and Persian Jews – came at a time when many Jews in the United States are feeling particularly uneasy with the rise of Islamic terrorism and growing anti-semitism throughout the world. There were moments of awkwardness here too, including Kasich briefly citing the end of Psalm 23 to solve a debate among Jewish theologians about the afterlife; and he cited the approaching holiday of Passover as an opportunity to see the Cecil B DeMille classic The Ten Commandments. But mostly the Ohio governor talked about his faith in a touching, personal way. He rooted it in a retelling the story of how his parents were killed by a drunk-driver in a car accident, and discussed the story of Joseph from Genesis. His sincerity was evident. Kasich cited his past gaffes defensively – “I’m not trying to teach, sometimes when I get carried away they say he’s trying to teach to us and preach to us, I am not.â€\x9d The only hint of anything political was when he offered what was likely an inadvertent contrast with Trump: “Sometimes we invest too much in the power of leadership and not investing enough in the power of ourselves to bring a healing and justice to this world to live a life bigger than ourselves.â€\x9d North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory is the last guest in the talk shows this morning, on NBC’s Meet the Press. McCrory is appearing to defend a new law dubbed “the bathroom lawâ€\x9d that been protested by LGBT people, corporations, celebrities and other state governments. The law is seen as sanctioning discrimination against LGBT people. The governor says it’s actually about “government overreachâ€\x9d and liberals. “It was the left that brought about the bathroom bill,â€\x9d he says. “The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private sector employer,â€\x9d McCrory says, “and I think that’s government overreach. “It’s not the government’s business to tell the private sector what their bathroom, locker room, shower practices should be.â€\x9d “To allow a man into a women’s restroom or a shower facility at a YMCA for example,â€\x9d would be inappropriate, he says. “I’m not going to tell any manufacturing plan any bank their policy.â€\x9d “But I do believe in our high schools, in our universities we should continue the tradition we’ve had for many yearsâ€\x9d – separate men’s and women’s rooms. Todd tries to pin McCrory down on the apparent contradiction: he is using the state government to handcuff what city governments can do, ostensibly to prevent government overreach. “I don’t think the government ought to be the HR director for each business,â€\x9d McCrory says. “This is that fine line between how much does government tell the private sector.â€\x9d Then the NBC host questions McCrory about the central problem of discrimination: why don’t LGBT people deserve the same protections as any other Americans? “We have got to deal with this extremely new social norm,â€\x9d he says, “and have these discussions about the conception of equality.â€\x9d He says that he doesn’t know of any business in North Carolina that is actively discriminating against LGBT people. “This is basically a restroom privacy issue versus equality, and these things need to be discussed, not threatened by Hollywood,â€\x9d an apparent allusion to the criticism he’s drawn from stars such as Bruce Springsteen and George Clooney. Meanwhile. Reince Priebus is making one last stop on the talk shows, on NBC’s Meet the Press. He’s asked for the third time this morning about Donald Trump’s complaints. “I don’t know what the motivation is. There’s really nothing being rigged or changed or altered,â€\x9d Priebus says. “These are really the same rules that’ve been in place for really a century.â€\x9d He says that states had to submit their rules by “October 1st of 2015 and not a single thing has changed about them.â€\x9d “You have to go state by state by state. It’s a pretty extraordinary task.â€\x9d Who elects a nominee, voters or delegates? ‘The voters empower the delegates but the the delegates, who in most cases are bound,â€\x9d Priebus says, before adding that the convention, “it’s not a four-day party. A convention in the legal sense is the party coming to gatherâ€\x9d and write rules and decide how the party works. “It has a legal value,â€\x9d he says. “If the boy scouts have a national convention they do similar things. We actually do a lot of business at a convention, and now everyone’s interested in the business.â€\x9d Trump’s complaints have a shaky foundation, Priebus implies. “He’s winning a plurality of votes and he has a plurality of delegates,â€\x9d he says, but “majority rules on everything.â€\x9d George Clooney is on NBC with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, where the actor strikes a friendly tone toward Bernie Sanders and the criticism that he’s complicit in raising “obsceneâ€\x9d amounts of money from wealthy interests. “Yes,â€\x9d he says. “I think it’s an obscene amount of money. I think, you know, we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right, it is an obscene amount of money. “The Sanders campaign when they talk about is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree, completely.â€\x9d “The overwhelming amount of the money that we’re raising is not going to Hillary for president it’s going to the downticket for congressmen, for senators to try to retake Congress,â€\x9d he says. “We need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm a supreme court justice, because that fifth vote on the supreme court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again.â€\x9d The actor then links the problem to that of the “incredibly helpfulâ€\x9d Panama Papers and corruption in politics more broadly. “I spend probably a quarter of my time now raising millions and millions of dollars for my foundation which is basically chasing and looking form money that these corrupt politicians all around the world have been hiding.â€\x9d “I think Citizens United is one of the worst laws passed since I’ve been around.â€\x9d Todd asks whether Clooney has ever met Trump. “I met him once, I was sitting own at a table. He was nice, and we talked a couple of times I think, and then he went on Larry King and told everybody I was very short,â€\x9d the actor laughs. “I said well I met you sitting down.â€\x9d Clooney then turns this toward the broader race: “Trump and Cruz are making this a campaign of fear. We have to be afraid of everything, we have to be afraid of refugees, we have to be afraid of Muslims, we have to be afraid of minorities.â€\x9d “Are we really going to be scared of the very things that made our country great?â€\x9d If the answer is yes, Clooney says, Americans will have to answer to history. “We are not afraid. We are not a country that is afraid.â€\x9d The actor concedes that “fear has always worked, one way or another … fear has always been one of the great tools of any election. But the reality is we are not the descendants of a fearful people. So no, we are not going to ban Muslims from this country, that’s never going to happen. We are not going to go back to torture. We are not going to kill the families of terrorists or suspected terrorist. Because that is not who we are.â€\x9d Finally Todd asks Clooney about an anti-LGBT law recently enacted in North Carolina. “I think the law is ridiculous,â€\x9d Clooney says, before praising some of the protests made by corporations who’ve stopped services in the state. Citing the example of corporations that protested a “religious freedomâ€\x9d law in Indiana, Clooney says “I think that can have some great effect.â€\x9d Reince Priebus now on CBS, to be asked, again, about the Republican primary rules that Donald Trump does not like. He goes through the motions. Does he take the “rough Julyâ€\x9d remark from Trump as a threat? “Not particularly. I don’t know if it’s hyperbole or positioning.â€\x9d Dickerson pushes – Trump has shown ability to get his supporters “energisedâ€\x9d. Priebus says he is doing shows like this to get the message across: “Each candidate has to know the rules, learn the rules and abide by the rules.â€\x9d And the rules are decided at the convention, by the grass roots. Nor does Priebus think Trump aide/supporter/operator Roger Stone’s remarks about possibly sending out delegates’ room numbers are a good thing. “We’re going to have plenty of security, plenty of protection for the delegates,â€\x9d Priebus says, adding: “It’s going to be a great convention… we’re going to be watching American history.â€\x9d Is that a reassuring answer? And it’s over to CBS, and Face the Nation. Facing the Nation this week is… Bernie Sanders. First, it’s CBS Battleground Tracker time. Trump is way ahead in New York, Pennsylvania and California. Clinton is up on Sanders in California and New York. Here’s Sanders, to be asked about the changed, some would say deteriorated tone of the Democraric contest. He says he was not “ferociousâ€\x9d in the Brooklyn debate this week, but has become “a little bit fed upâ€\x9d with the negativity of the Clinton campaign and has therefore responded in kind. “I am making it very clear that my views are representing the needs of the working class,â€\x9d he says. He is asked to what negative Clinton tactics he is referring. “Oh, you name it. After we won eight of nine caucuses and primaries … they made it clear their goal was, and I think I’m quoting, ‘disqualify and defeat’.â€\x9d He says he has not attacked Planned Parenthood, for example, which he says the Clinton campaign says he has. And he returns to the fundraising difference – small donors for him, big for Clinton. As he said on CNN, he says he is not saying Clinton has done anything specifically for donors, but uses her positions on Wall Street reform as an attack point, as he did in the debate. Host John Dickerson accuses Sanders of “fuzzing upâ€\x9d an economic policy debate with Clinton by concentrating on Clinton’s speaking fees from Wall Street banks and her lack of support (she said yesterday she supported it) for a $15 minimum wage. The 1994 crime bill, now. Does he regret his support? Sanders uses his usual line on this: any big bill will have good things in it and bad, and this one had good things on violence against women and an assault weapons ban, so he voted for it. And on superdelegates, is the system stacked against him, à  la Trump? “Yes. Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate.â€\x9d He thinks he can win New York on a big turnout but the state system prohibits independents from voting in the Democratic primary, and that’s wrong. Donald Trump’s convention manager Paul Manafort is next on the ABC program, where Stephanopoulos asks him about the businessman’s recent shutout losses to Ted Cruz in Colorado in Wyoming. “We didn’t even play there because it was a closed system and we didn’t want to waste our money there dealing with party bosses,â€\x9d Manafort says. “There isn’t going to be a second ballot,â€\x9d Manafort insists. “There is [sic] many paths to 1,237 to Donald Trump through June and July,â€\x9d including New Jersey and California. He then tries to frame Trump as a surprising underdog of sorts. “This was supposed to be the time when Cruz was supposed to be well ahead,â€\x9d he says. Cruz wins in “the reddest of red states, where you have closed rules,â€\x9d Manafort argues. “Trump wins in states where we have to win to win the presidency.â€\x9d Manafort blames “systems that keeps the votersâ€\x9d out. “When voters participate, Donald Trump wins. When the bosses participate…â€\x9d The “bossesâ€\x9d don’t like Trump, he says, because the businessman has promised to “change the banking system, change the economyâ€\x9d. “They’re not playing by their own rules,â€\x9d Manafort says, adding that he’ll be “filing protestsâ€\x9d in Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming. “And we’re playing by [the rules], and we’re winning, and that’s the point, there’s only going to be one ballot.â€\x9d He’s dismissive of Cruz’s delegate tactics: “Those are not votes he’s winning, those are bodies he’s winning. If there’s no second ballot it’s much ado about nothing.â€\x9d The aide then defends Trump’s complaints about a “riggedâ€\x9d primary process. “He’s complaining about the system, that’s the point that keeps getting lost here,â€\x9d Manafort says. “We’re trying to open up the process.â€\x9d He adds his own criticism of caucuses and conventions and closed primaries. “That’s the system of the 1920s, not 2016. And yes, there’s history in conventions, but that history is ancient now, not of the modern presidency.â€\x9d Stephanopoulos moves on to foreign policy, asking Sanders about his remarkable turn away from a long tradition of American politicians who have hewed tight to an uncompromising defense of Israel. Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to have won any state primary or caucus for president, has criticized Israel for what he calls its “disproportionateâ€\x9d response in the 2014 war against Gaza, in which 66 Israelis died and more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed. “It goes without saying we have to protect Israel, its right to live in peace, to defend the security of its people,â€\x9d Sanders tells ABC. “Israel has every right in the world to respond to terrorism,â€\x9d he adds, “but that was a disproportionate response.â€\x9d The senator does not back down from his criticism of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who he says is not infallible. “You cannot just nod your head to Netanyahu.â€\x9d Sanders doesn’t go so far as to say that Hillary Clinton has “ignoredâ€\x9d the devastation and poverty in which Palestinians live (Stephanopoulos’ word), but he does stress its importance. “Poverty rate is off the charts [there], 40% people are unemployed.â€\x9d Stephanopoulos then asks about Saudi Arabia’s threats to sell off huge American assets if the US passes a bill that would target Saudis linked to terrorism for prosecution. “Well, we can’t be blackmailed,â€\x9d Sanders says, agreeing with Clinton that he wants to look at the legislation before making any kind of position on it. But he doesn’t shy from a critique of the Kingdom. “I have said throughout this campaign that we are not taking a hard enough look at Saudi Arabia,â€\x9d he says. “Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the world,â€\x9d he continues, “The evidence is quite clear that sections of that very large royal family have funded Wahhabism,â€\x9d an ultraconservative form of Islam. “That is what al-Qaida is about,â€\x9d Sanders says,â€\x9d this horrific fundamentalist ideology.â€\x9d “So let me look at it, let me look at it,â€\x9d he says of the legislation. “I do believe that Saudi Arabia is playing a very dangerous role in fomenting fundamentalism all over the world.â€\x9d Finally, Stephanopoulos asks whether Sanders will support Clinton should she win the nomination. Sanders basically says yes. “At the end of the say we must defeat Trump, we must not allow a Republicanâ€\x9d to win the White House. Stephanopoulos turns away from the live stream with Clinton and to his desk, where Bernie Sanders is sitting across from him. He asks about fundraising, which has been one of Sanders biggest criticisms of Clinton. The senator says that he wants the US to “move away from Super Pacs, as you know secretary Clinton has many of themâ€\x9d. He contrasts this with his own campaign’s contributions: “We have received seven million individual campaign contributions, averaging $27 bucks a pieceâ€\x9d. He then links the wealthy donors to the cynicism of many Americans about their politics. “I don’t think you do that by raising money from the top 1% and thenâ€\x9d say you represent everyone else,â€\x9d Sanders says. “That kind of doesn’t pass the laugh test.â€\x9d “And people see that, and that’s why so many people don’t vote,â€\x9d he continues. “So I think we need a revolution, certainly in campaign finance [and an] emphasis on getting more working people, young people in the political process.â€\x9d He says that Clinton’s intentions to regulate and prosecute Wall Street run afoul of her contributors. “You can’t do that when you’re dependent on them for your fundraising.â€\x9d “I am trying to lead this country in a different direction,â€\x9d he says. While Clinton says she’ll sign measures to increase the minimum wage or regulate Wall Street, she’ll only do so once Congress sends it to her desk, he argues. “I want to lead that effort, not just follow.â€\x9d Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, speaks on Fox News Sunday. He’s asked first about his infamous “encounterâ€\x9d with the reporter Michelle Fields in March, which resulted in charges of battery which this week were dropped. Does he now acknowledge that he did touch Miss Fields? No. “Candidly,â€\x9d he says, “I didn’t remember the incident.â€\x9d He tried to contact Fields, he says, but to this day he has not heard from her and he is happy this is behind him. Chris Wallace, one of the more dogged talk show hosts, presses the issue. Is Lewandowski prepared to apologise for touching Fields and saying she was “delusionalâ€\x9d? No. “I’d be happy to have a conversation with her but to apologise to someone I’ve never spoken to and don’t remember having any interaction with is not realistic now.â€\x9d On to the delegate fight, which Trump is losing to Ted Cruz in states where bargaining gets delegates rather than voting. Lewandowski says Trump’s best states are ahead of him, starting with New York on Tuesday. “He is the presumptive nominee going forward,â€\x9d he says, “and Ted Cruz is going to mathematically eliminated from gaining 1,237 delegates by next Tuesday.â€\x9d Wallace presses on how the Trump campaign appears not to have known the rules of the Republican primary. Lewandowski criticises the rules. He mentions Florida, where Trump won but of 99 delegates 30 will be apportioned locally. “I understand that those are the rules but there are people out there who do not volunteer or write a cheque for the party,â€\x9d he says. What did Trump mean when he predicted “a rough Julyâ€\x9d at the convention? Lewandowski doesn’t bite. Trump is winning, the RNC “should respect thatâ€\x9d. Wallace pushes – is this another alusion to the possibility of riots, of violence? “No,â€\x9d says Lewandowski, “what we’re talking about is a fractured party … that’s not what we’re about … if the party wants a winner they have to support Donald Trump.â€\x9d Last question: is the veteran operative Paul Manafort now running the Trump campaign, not Lewandowski, as some reports have said? In cricketing terms, Lewandowski dead-bats it. Baseball? A bunt? “I’m grateful that Paul is onboard,â€\x9d says Lewandowski, adding that they had “a great senior staff meetingâ€\x9d yesterday. The host asks Clinton whether she’ll release the transcripts of her high-paid speeches to Wall Street, and whether she’s worried they’ll reveal flattery for the financiers. “I don’t have any concerns like that, I’m just concerned about a constantly changing set of standards for everyone else but me,â€\x9d she says. Clinton has asked other candidates to release analogous speeches; Sanders has mockingly pointed out he’s never been paid to say anything to Wall Street. “Thirty-three years of [my taxes] are in the public domain, eight years are on our website,â€\x9d she says, going on about her openness to letting Americans see her records. I think the Republicans are going to play all kinds of games … I for one am nto going to be fooled by that Then Stephanopoulos asks about Donald Trump’s new nickname for Clinton, “crooked Hillaryâ€\x9d. “I don’t respond to Donald Trump and his string of insults to me,â€\x9d Clinton says. “I can take care of myself.â€\x9d “I look forward to running against him,â€\x9d she continues. “I’m concerned about how he goes after everybody else. He goes after women, he goes after Muslims.â€\x9d “He’s undermining the values that we stand for in New York,â€\x9d she says, adding that “he would turn us back and undermine the progress that we’ve been making. “He wants to set Americans against each other and I’m not going to stand for it.â€\x9d Hillary Clinton is next on ABC’s This Week, where host George Stephanopoulos asks her whether she’s worried about Bernie Sanders’ continued criticisms of her links to Wall Street and wealthy individuals. “No, I’m not,â€\x9d Clinton says. “He knows very well that I’ve been supporting the fight for $15, that the whole movement behind the whole fight for $15 that is fueled by unions and activists, who have endorsed me.â€\x9d “We’re having a vigorous back and forth about raising the minimum wage which we both support, which the Republicans don’t support at all,â€\x9d she continues. “There are going to be a lot of charges and all kinds of misrepresentations, but I don’t think voters are confused by all that.â€\x9d Stephanopoulos points out that Clinton is calling for a $12 national minimum, and has cited some economists’ concerns that a $15 minimum wage could actually reduce jobs. She says she wants “a phased-inâ€\x9d increase. “A phased-in minimum wage increase to get to $15 in the city and surrounding areas, to get to $12, $12.50 upstate … but to be constantly evaluating the consequences so that there are no lost jobs.â€\x9d “If for federal legislation it has the same kind of understanding about how we have to phase this in, how we have to evaluate it as we go, if the Congress passes that of course I would sign it.â€\x9d “I think their campaign is trying to make something where there is nothing.â€\x9d She again points out that many unions “support me, not himâ€\x9d. Finally Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, appears on the CNN show. In what’s become a weekly ritual the host asks him about the rules of the Republican primary process, and Donald Trump’s accusation that the election is “riggedâ€\x9d. Priebus says it doesn’t bother him at all. “Because I know what the truth is I don’t really worry about it, because I know what is right and I know what is wrong.â€\x9d “It’s a state by state process,â€\x9d he says. “There’s nothing the RNC can do to alter the rules between now and the convention.â€\x9d Then Priebus invokes Gertrude Stein (perhaps unwittingly) when pressed about Trump’s charges: “There’s no there there.â€\x9d He cannot stress enough how unconcerned he is. “I find it to be rhetoric and hyperbole. I think everyone understands these rules have been in place for years.â€\x9d As for Trump’s recent losses, “there are a few states that pick delegates by convention. It’s been going on for a month in each of these states.â€\x9d Priebus says that Trump’s stated preference, that the candidate with the most delegates should win the nomination, rather than the candidate with at least 1,237 delegates (a majority of all available delegates), is downright un-American. “By majority the delegates decide,â€\x9d he says. “It’s not a matter of party insiders, it’s a matter of 2,400-plus grassroots activists and no matter what they want to do they can do. “The majority of delegates is the goal and you need to be able to play within the confines of the rules to make sure that you get there.â€\x9d He notes that the electoral college and Democratic National Committee also use majority and not plurality systems. “The majority rules and that is an American concept that I can’t imagine us turning our backs on.â€\x9d Priebus concedes, however, that he recently asked his colleagues not to even recommend any new rule changes to delegates. “I think it’s too complicated, I think the RNC rules committee with making rules amendment suggestions, it is not a good idea.â€\x9d “The recommendations I think just confuse people,â€\x9d he says. “I think it’s a bad idea and the environment I think is not conducive to that.â€\x9d Then Bash asks Kasich about a new law signed in Mississippi designed to protect “religious freedomâ€\x9d by allowing residents to deny services to LGBT people. Kasich has criticized the law. He says that while religious freedoms are important, so are anti-discrimination laws. “Trying to figure out how to legislate that balance is complicated and you keep doing do-overs because nobody does it right,â€\x9d he says. “I think if we would just calm down hereâ€\x9d it would be fine, he adds. “If you don’t like what somebody’s doing, pray for them. And if you feel they are doing something [against you], just for a second get over it, because this thing will settle down.â€\x9d John Kasich is next on CNN with a pre-taped interview with Bash, who asks him what his plan is to somehow win the nomination from hundreds of delegates behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. “I am not going to whine,â€\x9d Kasich says, before complaining about what he sees as a lack of media coverage for most of his presidential campaign. He then repeats a common stump speech refrain, saying “there’s Coke, Pepsi and Kasich,â€\x9d and most voters go with the brand they know, even though they’re intrigued by the can that says Kasich. Then he mixes metaphors. “Now we have to pass the Rubicon so people actually know who I am.â€\x9d His plan is “to accumulate delegates and to go into the convention as the person standing who can beat Hillary … we are going to nominate somebody who’s going to win in the fall. We are going to win in the fall.â€\x9d Bash then asks Kasich about his advice to young women going who fear sexual assault: “Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol,â€\x9d he said earlier this week. “When alcohol’s involved it becomes more difficult for justice to be rendered for a whole variety of reasons,â€\x9d Kasich tells CNN. “I just don’t want justice to be denied because a prosecutor comes up and says ‘well I don’t know.’â€\x9d He says he would tell his own daughters “just you have to be carefulâ€\x9d. He wants some undefined mechanisms “to make sure that the women on our college campuses are protectedâ€\x9d, and that when abuse does happen “of course we’re going to get to the bottom of it.â€\x9d “I don’t care if there’s a party with alcohol I would just say be careful.â€\x9d Bash asks Sanders about his seemingly conflicted positions on gun control, namely his commitment to a rule that protects gun dealers from lawsuits by the families of gun victims and his recent comment that Sandy Hook families should be allowed to sue. Sanders tries to thread the needle, saying that they have the right to sue but that he still believes the laws should offer protections to dealers. “Of course they have a right to sue, anyone has a right to sue,â€\x9d he says. He has previously argued that guns are like hammers or other objects that could be used for violence: the wielder is ultimately responsible, not the person who made or sold the object, necessarily. He also points out that he supports a ban on assault weapons. “That’s the kind of weapon that caused the horrible tragedy in Sandy Hook,â€\x9d he says. “Those weapons should not be made in the United States of America. So in that sense, I agree with the Sandy Hook parents.â€\x9d Bash moves on, asking Sanders whether he can point to any instance in which he thinks Hillary Clinton was influenced by cash contributions from wealthy interests. He says no one can prove any instance, declining to go the route that Elizabeth Warren – now a senator and fairly muted about the campaign – once did. Warren has in the past linked Clinton’s ties to Wall Street with her decisions. Finally Bash asks Sanders about releasing many years of tax returns, as Hillary Clinton has done, and Sanders promises he’ll get them out, as soon as this week. Bernie Sanders is the first guest this morning on CNN’s State of the Union, where Dana Bash asks him about actor George Clooney’s recent concession that there are “obsceneâ€\x9d amounts of money being given by wealthy donors to candidates. Clooney just co-hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that cost as much as $353,400 a seat in San Francisco. “Well I have a lot of respect for George Clooney’s honesty and integrity on this issue,â€\x9d Sanders says. “One of the great tragedies is that big money is buying elections,â€\x9d he continues, adding that leaders should not be “responsive to the needs of Wall Street and wealthy campaign contributorsâ€\x9d. “There is something wrong when a few people, in this case wealthy individuals,â€\x9d he says, “are able to contribute unbelievably large sums of money. That is not what democracy is about. That is a movement toward oligarchy.â€\x9d “This is the issue of American politics today. Do we have a government that represents all of us or represents the 1%?â€\x9d Bash then asks about Sanders’ recent visit to the Vatican, where he managed to get five minutes with Pope Francis. “No one is suggesting the pope is embracing my policies,â€\x9d he says, adding that he was honored to go and that he agrees with the pontiff about the importance of fighting inequality. “We have got to create an economics which is based on the morality dealing with the needs of working families and the elderly and children and the sick and the poor,â€\x9d he says. “The fact that I was invited there was for me a very moving experiences.â€\x9d “The rich are getting richer almost everybody else is getting poorer.â€\x9d George Clooney hosted some big-money fundraisers for Hillary Clinton in California this week, events which attracted criticism from the Bernie Sanders campaign and protests outside the venues. He has been interviewed by NBC’s Meet the Press, which goes out at 10.30am ET, and NBC has released a clip. In it, the actor is asked by host Chuck Todd whether the sums involved in his events, such as $353,000 a couple to be a “co-chairâ€\x9d, are as critics and protesters have said, obscene. “Yes,â€\x9d he says. “I think it’s an obscene amount of money. We had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right, it is an obscene amount of money. “The Sanders campaign when they talk about is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree, completely.â€\x9d Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the race for New York, a day after Ted Cruz swept the Wyoming convention and left Donald Trump without a solitary delegate there. If it’s Sunday it’s the shows, and the businessman has sent two representatives to cross swords with the press on his behalf: a former adviser to dictators and a man who was charged with battery against a reporter, but will not be prosecuted. Last week one of the duo accused Cruz’s campaign of “Gestapo tacticsâ€\x9d and hinted at dark things to come at the Republican convention should Trump not receive the party’s blessing and nomination. The real estate heir’s campaign has turned to his home state of New York, where he’s expected to crush Cruz: he leads 53% to 18%, with third candidate John Kasich sandwiched between them at 23%. Cruz’s ultraconservative ideas have clashed with conservative and liberal New Yorkers alike, and while Kasich has had more success speaking to (and eating with) the moderates of the state, neither has high hopes for Tuesday, though Cruz has chipped away at Trump’s lead in the delegate race. Trump, after weeks of campaign disarray and losses to Cruz’s well organized team, is ready for a comeback. He’ll be holding a rally in Staten Island at 11.30am ET, where my colleague Ben Jacobs will report on his tirades against a “riggedâ€\x9d primary process. Party chairman Reince Priebus will also appear on the shows to talk about a possible contested convention – and Trump’s past threats of “riotsâ€\x9d. For Democrats, the race has become a contest of a expat Brooklynite and an adopted Manhattanite. Bernie Sanders, fresh off a speech in the Vatican and a very brief encounter with Pope Francis, will be facing off with the press to talk about his chances to win some of New York’s 291 delegates against high odds. He’ll also be holding what’s expected to be a gigantic rally in Prospect Park, in the heart of his native Brooklyn, later this afternoon. My colleague Dan Roberts will report from the scene. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has also deigned to answer questions from the press this morning, before she also heads to Staten Island to woo Democrats on the most conservative borough of New York City. Clinton has held a steady lead in New York, according to poll averages, and has spent the week alternately criticizing Trump’s outrageous claims and Sanders’ mixed record on gun control. Sanders has argued that his past in a state with virtually no gun control makes him ideally suited to find “consensusâ€\x9d – but Vermont gun lovers aren’t so sure, Lois Beckett reports. Clinton also continues to fend off accusations that she’s in the corner for big money: the banks, fossil fuel interests and now venture capitalists. Scores of tech workers took to the streets of San Francisco earlier this week to protest a Clinton fundraiser co-hosted by a financier and George Clooney, with seats costing as much as $353,400. We’ll have updates on all their answers on national TV, the appearance of North Carolina’s governor – embattled over an anti-LGBT protection law – and any fallout from the surprise release of nine prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, a prison condemned by the UN but largely ignored by presidential candidates so far.',
 'Irish leader to campaign in UK for remain vote Ireland’s taoiseach has stepped up his warnings about the consequences of a British exit from the European Union, saying it might spark a return to violence in Northern Ireland and trigger an economic slowdown in the Republic. Enda Kenny said he and his ministers would be campaigning in the UK to try to persuade Irish-born residents to vote to remain. It is understood that there is concern in Ireland that some younger Irish people in the UK are less inclined to vote to remain than more established Irish settlers. In a speech in Dublin, Kenny – freshly installed as leader of a new coalition government – said no future arrangement between Ireland and a UK outside the EU could possibly work as effectively as the current one. His remarks will be seen as a direct rebuff to the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, who has claimed that trade relations with Ireland would be unaffected. Without specifically warning of a return to violence, Kenny said he was concerned that a British departure from the EU would undermine some of the institutions that have acted to support the Northern Ireland peace process. Citing €3bn of EU funding for north-south economic cooperation, he said: “In a jurisdiction that still has ‘peace walls’ physically dividing communities, the importance of the EU’s support for these small building blocks of economic and social infrastructure should not be taken for granted. “The trust that enables that kind of close cooperation was forged at least in part through years of working side by side in Brussels since 1973. North-south cooperation – a keystone of the Good Friday agreement – is so much easier when both jurisdictions are members of the same union.â€\x9d A similar warning of a return to conflict in Northern Ireland in the event of Brexit was made on Thursday by Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He said: “If the United Kingdom were to quit the EU, there will be a border again between Ireland and Northern Ireland. And that could at least have the potential of rekindling a conflict that has seemingly calmed down.â€\x9d Kenny also used his speech to make an economic case for a remain vote. “We can argue all day about what new arrangements could be put in place after a Brexit and how long that would take,â€\x9d he said. However, no alternative arrangement will be better than the one we have: a single market and seamless flows of goods, services, capital and people. “There are a myriad of different trading models that could be put in place. Each of the alternatives would impede, not improve, trade flows. They would build in extra bureaucracy, not reduce red tape.â€\x9d He said as many as 400,000 jobs in Ireland and the UK were at stake. There has been speculation that Ireland might benefit from Brexit, as some of the UK’s financial services industry might transfer to Dublin, but Ireland says that has not been a factor in its decision to campaign for remain.',
 'Disney to make live-action Peter Pan Disney will produce a live-action version of Peter Pan, following in the footsteps of Cinderella and The Jungle Book. According to Deadline, the studio has tapped director David Lowery to take on the project. His credits include the indie drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and the forthcoming family adventure Pete’s Dragon. He will write the script with Toby Halbrooks. The news lands as the studio’s latest live-action take on the Disney classic is set to hit cinemas worldwide. The Jungle Book, which has received glowing reviews, is predicted to open with $70m (£49m) in the US. Last year Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella made $524m worldwide. This year also sees the release of sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass. The studio also has live-action takes on Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson, and Dumbo, to be directed by Tim Burton, as well as Pocahontas and Tinkerbell. It is not yet clear whether the latter film will cross over with Peter Pan. The latest remake is one of many attempts to retell the classic JM Barrie tale of a boy who never grows up since Disney released their animated version in 1963. Steven Spielberg gave it a revisionist spin in the live-action Hook in 1991; PJ Hogan’s Peter Pan was a box office flop in 2003, while Joe Wright’s version last year also failed to perform.',
 'Film director Jacques Rivette, stalwart of the French new wave, dies aged 87 Jacques Rivette, the veteran French film director who became a stalwart of the French new wave of the late 1950s and 60s, has died. He was 87, and had reportedly had Alzheimer’s disease for some years. In 1953, Rouen-born Rivette joined the likes of François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol as a writer on the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, edited by André Bazin, and like them was encouraged to make a move into feature film-making. His debut, Paris Nous Appartient (aka Paris Belongs to Us), was a critical, if not commercial success on its release in 1961. Rivette remained within the fold of film criticism, however, and became editor of Cahiers in 1963. Under his stewardship the magazine became more politically engaged, reflecting Rivette’s own Marxist politics as well as the intellectual drift of the time. Rivette stepped down in 1965, and recommenced film-making with The Nun, starring Anna Karina as woman attempting to escape her oppressive life in a convent. The film aroused much controversy and it was banned until 1967. Rivette followed The Nun with the experimental improvised piece L’Amour Fou. Rivette then began to become known for the increasing length of his films: Out 1, released in 1971, ran at 770 minutes – over 12 hours – which was followed by the comparatively-modest 192 minutes of what remains probably his most celebrated film, the 1974 release Céline and Julie Go Boating. Shortly afterwards, Rivette suffered a nervous breakdown and had to abandon a subsequent project, the four-part Scènes de la Vie Parallèle. In 1991, Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse – running at 237 minutes – became an unexpected success, perhaps due to its theme of an elderly artist undergoing a creative rebirth, which led to a similar revival of Rivette’s own fortunes. It enabled him to make a two-part film about Joan of Arc, starring Sandrine Bonnaire, which runs at 336 minutes in total. His final film was Around a Small Mountain, featuring Jane Birkin, which was released in 2009.',
 "Australia's Serial: Dan Box on the making of true crime podcast Bowraville For a few years after the high court dismantled terra nullius and established rights of native title in the Mabo case, Australia pretended it had solved its problems with race. Paul Keating delivered his Redfern speech, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report and the issues raised in both were acknowledged and swiftly consigned to the past, as if acknowledgement alone had fixed the problem. All the while the serial murders of three Aboriginal children, plucked from the same street of the same small town in country New South Wales, passed largely unnoticed. Enter Bowraville, a podcast produced by the Australian and hosted by the crime reporter Dan Box, that chronicles the investigation into Australia’s least-known serial killings. It tracks the case from the first disappearance of 16-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig on 13 September 1990 to the current bid by NSW police to get special leave under double jeopardy laws to prosecute the three murders as a single trial. It’s been called an Australian answer to Serial but Bowraville – which wrapped up with a final episode last week – goes beyond that. It is a gripping true crime tale and an essay on racism; a challenge to the lies Australia tells itself about its treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people told through the voices of three Aboriginal families who have been indisputably let down. Colleen’s disappearance was followed in three weeks by the disappearance of her four-year-old cousin, Evelyn Greenup. Just over four months later, 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux also disappeared. All three were last seen at house parties on Cemetery Road, a part of Bowraville known as The Mission and still unofficially segregated from the white side of town. All three were seen in proximity of the same non-Indigenous man. And, when they were first reported to police, the disappearances were each dismissed as just an Aboriginal kid going “walkaboutâ€\x9d – until the bodies began to turn up. Two bodies, anyway. Colleen’s has never been found. The podcast has galvanised the public in a way that two decades of print and television reporting on the Bowraville murders have not. Box, who covered the case for the Australian for several years before getting the idea in December to turn it into a podcast, told Australia that before the first episode launched the case only got “small stories, down on page fourâ€\x9d. Since the first episode, timed to coincide with a march at the NSW state parliament, the case has been bumped to the front of the paper, and been followed by other outlets including the . By the fourth episode, the NSW premier, Mike Baird, had reiterated his government’s promise that any application for a retrial would be assessed by an independent arbitrator. The police commissioner, Andrew Scipione, had announced plans to meet with the victims’ families. “I don’t think we would have got either of those without the reaction that the podcast produced,â€\x9d Box said. “I have never done anything with this level of reaction.â€\x9d It even induced the prime suspect, Jay Thomas Hart, to break his silence. Hart has been put on trial twice: in 1993, for Clinton’s murder, and in 2005, for Evelyn’s. He was acquitted on both occasions and, before contacting Box, had not spoken publicly since giving evidence at the first trial. In the interview, which makes up half of the final episode, Hart said he called Box after listening to the earlier podcasts. “That shocked me, because I never thought that he might listen,â€\x9d Box said. “He would never have spoken to me without those first four episodes.â€\x9d Box and his producer, Eric George, crammed 17 interviews into four days in Bowraville. Family members travelled down from other towns, so desperate were they to have their voices heard. It is those voices, delivered in such an intimate format, that makes Bowraville impossible to ignore. It is the crack of emotion from the family members, the quiet frustration of the detectives, the menace behind the laughing dismissal of Hart’s stepfather, and Hart himself. It is Box’s disapproval when told Colleen was living it up in Newcastle, and the birdsong that fills the silence when her sister is overcome. No one is edited for soundbites. The conversation is allowed to ramble on and the pain and tension caused by the murder of three children in a small community bleeds through. In the second episode, Gary Jubelin – the detective who has led the investigation since 1996 – said the family had been let down by the justice system and everything that surrounded it: police, the courts and the media, with its notable lack of outrage. “One thing I found unique about this investigation, and I have been doing homicide for a long time and I get the sense of things that attract the public’s attention, is here we have three kids murdered living in the same street and I am absolutely gobsmacked by the amount of people that have never heard of it,â€\x9d Jubelin said. “You speak to the community and they say it’s because ‘we’re Aboriginal and people don’t care’. I have been working on this for 20 years and at first I didn’t think they were right but now I think they were spot on.â€\x9d Box, speaking after the final episode, agreed but said he thought Australia might be approaching a moment of reckoning for its dismissal of crimes against Aboriginal people. It goes beyond Bowraville. There was the brutal case of Lynette Daley, who bled to death after what’s being described as a sexual encounter in 2011, which will be subject to an independent review by the director of public prosecutions following a report on the ABC’s Four Corners. And the death in custody in Western Australia of 22-year-old Yamatji woman Ms Dhu, whose face was projected on the side of public buildings in Perth during the coronial inquest. These are deaths that may have slipped the national interest a few years ago but have now triggered national outrage. We’ve had moments of reckoning before. The Redfern speech was one, as was the Mabo decision; there was the Bringing Them Home report in 1996 and the case of Mr Ward, who was cooked alive in a West Australian prison van in 2008. It goes back decades, too – it was 1968 when W.E. Stanner gave a Boyer Lecture on the Great Australian Silence. But these moments of reckoning have never yet stuck. Just as the dream that Australia had become a post-racial society didn’t survive the 1990s, it seems impossible to think that the strong feelings generated by reporting like Bowraville will have a lasting impact. On this case, however, it might be enough. “You can’t look at this without looking at race but, at the end of the day, it’s three dead children – and that is beyond race,â€\x9d Box said. • Listen to Bowraville here",
 'Don’t let WhatsApp nudge you into sharing your data with Facebook When WhatsApp, the messaging app, launched in 2009, it struck me as one of the most interesting innovations I’d seen in ages – for two reasons. The first was that it seemed beautifully designed from the outset: it was clean, minimalist and efficient; and, secondly, it had a business model that did not depend on advertising. Instead, users got a year free, after which they paid a modest annual subscription. Better still, the co-founder Jan Koum, seemed to have a very healthy aversion to the surveillance capitalism that underpins the vast revenues of Google, Facebook and co, in which they extract users’ personal data without paying for it, and then refine and sell it to advertisers. In a blog post headed “Why We Don’t Sell Adsâ€\x9d written in June 2012, for example, Koum quoted approvingly a memorable line uttered by Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) in the movie Fight Club: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.â€\x9d “When we sat down to start our own thing together three years ago,â€\x9d Koum wrote, “we wanted to make something that wasn’t just another ad clearing house. We wanted to spend our time building a service people wanted to use because it worked and saved them money and made their lives better in a small way. We knew that we could charge people directly if we could do all those things. We knew we could do what most people aim to do every day: avoid ads.â€\x9d And Koum was as good as his word. WhatsApp grew and grew, because it did what it said on the tin. Its growth was funded by $58m from Sequoia Capital, the only venture capital firm to invest in it. By February 2013, WhatsApp claimed 200m active users worldwide, and had a valuation of $1.5bn – not huge by Silicon Valley standards but pretty good for an outfit that had an honest business model. And then, in February 2014, something strange happened. Facebook offered to buy the company – for $19bn – and Koum and co took the bait. Given that Facebook’s business depends on selling ads, most of us wondered what had happened to Koum’s admirable principles and concluded, gloomily, that everyone has a price. But for a while WhatsApp continued as before within the Facebook stockade. Not only did it not sell ads, but in November 2014 it announced that it was introducing end-to-end encryption for all WhatsApp communications – which meant that nobody, not even Facebook, could read (and thereby monetise) its users’ messages. So the puzzle continued: why on earth had Mark Zuckerberg paid such a whopping price for a service that he couldn’t exploit? Now we know. On 25 August WhatsApp announced that it was changing its terms and conditions and its privacy policy. In a blog post which is a masterpiece of lawyerly euphemism, it tells us that it is going to “shareâ€\x9d with Facebook its users’ phone numbers and details of the last time they signed on to WhatsApp. Every user is asked to click “Agreeâ€\x9d to this proposition – although, of course, they can always reverse this agreement if they can find the relevant section of their settings. Needless to say, this radical change has nothing to do with the needs of WhatsApp’s corporate owners. Perish the thought: it’s to improve things for you, the user. It’s all about using “your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook ads and products experienceâ€\x9d. And, just to make sure you understand the magnitude of the decision you are about to make, “If you tap ‘Don’t Share’, you won’t be able change this in the futureâ€\x9d. Seasoned observers of the computer industry will recognise this for what it is: just another illustration of the power of the default setting. In marketing-speak, it’s how to “Nudge Your Customers Toward Better Choicesâ€\x9d – an implementation of the philosophy set out by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in their book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness. Of course, it’s true – as Sunstein and Thaler argue – that defaults can sometimes be used to ensure that people do things that are good for them, like ensuring that they enrol in a pension scheme. But in the computer industry, defaults are often deployed purely in the interests of corporations. So if you’re a WhatsApp user, don’t fall for this particular wheeze: go to “Settingsâ€\x9d, select “Accountâ€\x9d, “Share my account infoâ€\x9d and tap on “Don’t Shareâ€\x9d. And do it now, because time’s running out.',
 'Georginio Wijnaldum gives Liverpool deserved win against Manchester City These are the moments when Liverpool’s supporters must hold genuine hope their team are capable of catching and overhauling Chelsea at the top of the Premier League table. There is still a six-point deficit but Jürgen Klopp’s men look absolutely convinced they have what it takes and it was not a coincidence that the man in charge of the music belted out an old Starship track straight after the final whistle. Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now felt like an accurate gauge of the mood. Anfield was certainly a happy place because Liverpool not only signalled their intentions here but blew a gaping hole in the title chances on another of the teams who began the season with lofty ambitions. Georginio Wijnaldum’s goal inflicted the damage and the 10-match winning sequence with which Pep Guardiola introduced himself at Manchester City is starting to feel like a deception. This was another erratic display and, however it is dressed up, City’s owners did not bring in Guardiola to be 10 points adrift at the halfway point of the season. Liverpool played with great panache at times and, in other periods, they showed the kind of durability that will be essential to sustain a title challenge. The players in red never gave their opponents a moment’s peace in the first half but after the break, when they switched to a more conservative system, they can also take great encouragement from the fact City had lots of the ball but did not create one clear opportunity. What never shifted was the impeccable attitude of Liverpool’s players whereas their opponents, in contrast, took an age to get going. Once the visiting team started showing some urgency, with Raheem Sterling, David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne growing into the game, they did at least make a fight of it. Yet it would be generous to say they deserved anything considering the story of the 90 minutes and, once again, they came away from Anfield filled with regret. They have not won here since 2003 and Sergio Agüero has not scored at this ground in eight appearances. The Argentinian, back from a four-match suspension, barely got a sniff. Klopp’s men scored 87 league goals in 2016, their highest figure since managing the same in 1985. More importantly, there was hard evidence here that if any team can chase down Chelsea it is likely to be the one with the liver bird on their chest. At one point Roberto Firmino could be seen miscontrolling the ball to concede a throw-in and there was still warm applause. There is a vibe here reminiscent of the near-victorious season now infamous for Steven Gerrard’s slip. The crowd can see a team who are giving everything and, in their latest victory, a set of players who looked desperate to show their superiority. For long spells, they did exactly that – quick to the ball, strong in the tackle and playing in the knowledge that if City’s defence are placed under pressure a mistake will generally follow. City have kept only four clean sheets from their 19 league fixtures in the Guardiola era and Aleksandar Kolarov, in particular, had a difficult match. There is nothing particularly new about that but it was rare to see City look so incoherent in attack, particularly in the opening 45 minutes when Sterling, facing his former club, seemed disorientated by the crowd’s jeers and even Silva, of all people, could be seen misplacing relatively simple passes. Sterling’s early anxiety disappeared in the second half when he started reminding his old club of his threat. Yet Liverpool, holding on to their early lead and switching to a counterattacking system, still looked the more threatening side, albeit with less of the ball. Perhaps the best compliment that can be paid to Wijnaldum for his goal is that there are Liverpool supporters of a certain generation who will remember John Toshack scoring headers of this nature. It was a prodigious leap but, more than anything, it was the sheer will on his part to meet Adam Lallana’s cross with the necessary blend of power and precision. The ball flashed past Claudio Bravo and Liverpool had scored for the 23rd successive top-division fixture on their own ground. City had an argument that Ragnar Klavan, already booked for a challenge on Agüero, might have been shown a second yellow card shortly before the goal. Yet any grievance on their part does not alter the fact they made an almighty mess of the free-kick, leading directly to the game’s decisive moment. Yaya Touré’s decision to aim it out to the left wing was strange in itself and Kolarov’s touch to give the ball away was clumsy in the extreme. City were vulnerable as soon as Firmino played the initial forward pass, giving Lallana the chance to make ground on the left, and Kolarov’s ignominy was compounded by the fact that when he made it back to the penalty area he was the player Wijnaldum out-jumped. That Kolarov was at fault twice probably summed up his evening. It was not until the game was approaching the hour-mark that Guardiola’s team started to pass the ball with speed and clarity. Silva and De Bruyne switched positions and both became increasingly influential. Yet whatever Guardiola is trying is not working. Not yet anyway. Liverpool were barely troubled during four minutes of stoppage time and the game finished with Klopp embracing his players, blowing kisses to the crowd and looking forward to 2017.',
 'Nicolas Cage to star in climate change disaster movie Nicolas Cage is to take the lead in a new sci-fi movie depicting a world ravaged by climate change. The film, called The Humanity Project, takes place in 2030, when much of the midwest of America has been rendered uninhabitable. The government agency of the title exiles people felt to be unproductive and banishes them to a colony, New Eden. Cage plays a caseworker seeking to appeal the exile of a single mother (Sarah Lind) and her son (Jakob Davies). The film has been scripted by Dave Schultz, will be directed by Rob King, and is due to start shooting in British Columbia next week. The eco-disaster movie dates back to the early 1970s, with Bruce Dern vehicle Silent Running. Other notables in the genre include Soylent Green (1973), Waterworld (1995), The Core (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Children of Men (2006), Wall-E (2008) and 2012 (2009). George Miller’s Mad Max series is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland whose inhabitants seek to defend themselves against drought; Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar depicted an Earth no longer inhabitable, hence the need to explore other potential planets. However that film did not explicitly attribute the situation to global warming.',
 "Teen dressed in gorilla suit 'punched in face' at Boris Johnson rally Police are looking into a number of incidents at a boisterous rally addressed by Boris Johnson where a teenager in a gorilla suit was alleged to have been elbowed in the ribs and punched in the face. Another man, a remain campaigner, was allegedly pushed from a monument in Winchester city centre amid jostling for position with leave supporters. A Hampshire police spokesman said that the force was investigating whether the same suspect was responsible for both incidents. It came as the Tory MP and former London mayor spoke to a noisy crowd composed of activists from the rival camps, who waved placards and umbrellas. Before Johnson arrived, the teenager in the gorilla suit had been seen dancing around waving a placard saying, “I eat five in a bunch Boris!â€\x9d while waving a large inflatable banana. Next to him danced another campaigner dressed as a banana with a placard saying: “Vote stay. Let’s not crash the economy.â€\x9d John Romero, a local Liberal Democrat activist and parish councillor, told the that he had been pushed off the monument by a leave campaigner after waving a piece of paper in Johnson’s face. He reported the incident to the police, who he said had been provided with photographs of the incident. Romero, 64, said that the man who allegedly pushed him had been recognised by the teenager in the gorilla suit, who claimed that he had hit him. “There were about 400 people shouting and screaming. It was a not very nice scene, to be frank,â€\x9d said Romero “I went up on top of the monument thinking it was a good time to push a poster in front of Boris Johnson, who pushed it away from his face. Then a guy standing next to him who had a big board hit me with his knee on to my thigh and I lost my position and fell.â€\x9d “He was an activist for Brexit. There is no doubt about that.â€\x9d A Vote Leave spokesman said that if any incident did happen, it had happened after Johnson had left the area. He added: “A group of remain campaigners turned up at the event determined to cause disruption. “When our team left the area, the gorilla was still in good spirits and dancing around and didn’t look like he had been punched.â€\x9d Britain Stronger In Europe’s chief campaign spokesman, James McGrory, said: “Who punches a teenager dressed as a gorilla in the face at a protest?â€\x9d",
 'The 10 best things… to do this week Exhibitions William Eggleston Even if you aren’t able to name one of US snapper William Eggleston’s works, you will almost certainly recognise their defining characteristic: that almost absurd sunburst of colour saturation, which adds a lingering mystery to otherwise routine scenes. This major National Portrait Gallery survey profiles 100 photographs from the 1960s onwards, charting his progression from distrusted outsider to celebrated artist. Theatre Hug Being sung at while blindfolded, by a stranger who also has their arms wrapped around you might sound like a truly hellish ordeal, but Verity Standen’s polyphonic work has had the opposite effect on many. Indeed, some have been reduced to tears by this immersive experience. Film Ghostbusters Who you gonna call to drag a franchise kicking and screaming into the modern age? Well, Paul Feig, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy would probably be a decent start. The good news is that this all-female remake has received largely positive notices and, to be honest, even if it hadn’t, we’d still advocate seeing it just to stick it to the trolls. Secret Cinema: Dirty Dancing You’ll forgive the clandestine screenings company for dropping its usual secretive shtick to revisit one of its earlier events: the 2013 staging of Dirty Dancing proved immensely popular, luring in more than 12,000 people to a recreated version of the Catskills. This revival should ensure that nobody puts Baby in a corner. TV Friday Night Dinner Robert Popper’s sitcom returns, and we rejoin the gratifyingly idiosyncratic Goodman family as they prepare for a guest diner. The unfolding events are, as ever, a farce masterclass. Online BoJack Horseman Will Arnett voices a talking Hollywood horse in an animated series that manages to find something interesting to say about fame and failure alongside the equine-themed gags. Series three is on Netflix from Friday. The Arts Edinburgh jazz and blues festival We’re getting close to the point when the entire comedy cognoscenti decamps to Edinburgh for the fringe. Before then, though, there’s time for proponents of jazz, blues and funk to have their moment in the spotlight. This year features a festival debut from storytelling songwriter Doug MacLeod (pictured)and 19-piece Slovakians the Bratislava Hot Serenaders. Comedy Reggie Watts Perhaps most famous in the context of US TV, musician and comedian Reggie Watts is currently bandleader and banter partner on The Late Late Show With James Corden. But if that makes him sound like a mainstream proposition, this fleeting UK visit should provide plenty of evidence to the contrary. The self-proclaimed “disinformationistâ€\x9d (if only all post-truth practitioners were doing it for comic effect) brings his loop pedal and erudite, leftfield standup to gigs at both Latitude in Suffolk and London’s Southbank Centre on Saturday. Events An Afternoon With Susan Cain Providing a voice for those who can’t speak up, Cain achieved success with her 2013 book Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking. She’s since given a much-shared TED talk and founded Quiet Revolution, an organisation seeking “to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of us allâ€\x9d. She talks about her followup book and gives advice at Waterstones Oxford. Music LCD Soundsystem Don’t be angry at NYC’s finest punk-funkers for announcing their split, doing a farewell tour and flogging an emotional doc off the back of it, only to re-form four years later. Murf and co’s return has been one of 2016’s festival highlights and their Lovebox date is their only remaining UK stop. Shut up and play the hits, indeed.',
 'World’s largest hedge fund to replace managers with artificial intelligence The world’s largest hedge fund is building a piece of software to automate the day-to-day management of the firm, including hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making. Bridgewater Associates has a team of software engineers working on the project at the request of billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who wants to ensure the company can run according to his vision even when he’s not there, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn’t be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions, intervening when something isn’t working,â€\x9d wrote the Journal, which spoke to five former and current employees. The firm, which manages $160bn, created the team of programmers specializing in analytics and artificial intelligence, dubbed the Systematized Intelligence Lab, in early 2015. The unit is headed up by David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM’s development of Watson, the supercomputer that beat humans at Jeopardy! in 2011. The company is already highly data-driven, with meetings recorded and staff asked to grade each other throughout the day using a ratings system called “dotsâ€\x9d. The Systematized Intelligence Lab has built a tool that incorporates these ratings into “Baseball Cardsâ€\x9d that show employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Another app, dubbed The Contract, gets staff to set goals they want to achieve and then tracks how effectively they follow through. These tools are early applications of PriOS, the over-arching management software that Dalio wants to make three-quarters of all management decisions within five years. The kinds of decisions PriOS could make include finding the right staff for particular job openings and ranking opposing perspectives from multiple team members when there’s a disagreement about how to proceed. The machine will make the decisions, according to a set of principles laid out by Dalio about the company vision. “It’s ambitious, but it’s not unreasonable,â€\x9d said Devin Fidler, research director at the Institute For The Future, who has built a prototype management system called iCEO. “A lot of management is basically information work, the sort of thing that software can get very good at.â€\x9d Automated decision-making is appealing to businesses as it can save time and eliminate human emotional volatility. “People have a bad day and it then colors their perception of the world and they make different decisions. In a hedge fund that’s a big deal,â€\x9d he added. Will people happily accept orders from a robotic manager? Fidler isn’t so sure. “People tend not to accept a message delivered by a machine,â€\x9d he said, pointing to the need for a human interface. “In companies that are really good at data analytics very often the decision is made by a statistical algorithm but the decision is conveyed by somebody who can put it in an emotional context,â€\x9d he explained. Futurist Zoltan Istvan, founder of the Transhumanist party, disagrees. “People will follow the will and statistical might of machines,â€\x9d he said, pointing out that people already outsource way-finding to GPS or the flying of planes to autopilot. However, the period in which people will need to interact with a robot manager will be brief. “Soon there just won’t be any reason to keep us around,â€\x9d Istvan said. “Sure, humans can fix problems, but machines in a few years time will be able to fix those problems even better. “Bankers will become dinosaurs.â€\x9d It’s not just the banking sector that will be affected. According to a report by Accenture, artificial intelligence will free people from the drudgery of administrative tasks in many industries. The company surveyed 1,770 managers across 14 countries to find out how artificial intelligence would impact their jobs. “AI will ultimately prove to be cheaper, more efficient, and potentially more impartial in its actions than human beings,â€\x9d said the authors writing up the results of the survey in Harvard Business Review. However, they didn’t think there was too much cause for concern. “It just means that their jobs will change to focus on things only humans can do.â€\x9d The authors say that machines would be better at administrative tasks like writing earnings reports and tracking schedules and resources while humans would be better at developing messages to inspire the workforce and drafting strategy. Fidler disagrees. “There’s no reason to believe that a lot of what we think of as strategic work or even creative work can’t be substantially overtaken by software.â€\x9d However, he said, that software will need some direction. “It needs human decision making to set objectives.â€\x9d Bridgewater Associates did not respond to a request for comment.',
 'A reality check for both wings of the Tory party As the chancellor sat down, commentators and politicians began to muse whether they had just witnessed a true heir to Tory predecessor George Osborne, or a man intent in following in the footsteps of Labour’s Ed Balls. Philip Hammond was clearly not mimicking the dancing style of the former Labour MP. However, he did seem comfortable announcing almost Keynesian large-scale investment projects and high levels of borrowing to invest, in a statement that, unquestionably, had an interventionist touch. That alongside, at best, moderate action for just managing families and stark forecasts in the face of Brexit uncertainty left Hammond facing possible angst from both sides of his party. One Conservative MP, making his way from the House of Commons’ chamber to an office in Portcullis House, parliament’s glass-roofed annexe, admitted that he was a little concerned. “There is some worry about them shifting to a more interventionist position, especially among those of us who are more free marketeers,â€\x9d said the politician. “I can see why they want to do it. It is seductive to step in if an industry is in trouble. But they have to be careful not to go too far.â€\x9d Nearby, a Tory on the left wing of the party was critical for a different reason. “What was there for just managing families?â€\x9d they asked, shrugging their shoulders and rolling their eyes. “The sandwich didn’t have much jam!â€\x9d And yet, while there was the odd grumble, the backbench concern did appear to be largely muted. Most Tory MPs wandering around the Commons seemed relatively pleased with what they had heard. Heidi Allen, a key figure who has been pushing hard for the government to offer relief to universal credit recipients who are facing massive cuts, seemed satisfied with what she had heard. Although Labour said a change in the benefit’s taper rate fell well short of undoing the damage caused by the original decision, Allen insisted that it was a start. “You are always a little bit disappointed because you dream of utopia and I hoped we might have more,â€\x9d she told the ’s Politics Weekly podcast. But alongside continued increases to the personal allowance and a rise in the minimum wage, she argued that “a billion pounds into universal credit plusâ€\x9d was pretty good. Others simply felt that the chancellor had done what he had to. “Philip Hammond delivered the autumn statement you’d expect him to,â€\x9d said backbencher James Cleverly, a Tory MP who backed Brexit. “It was not flamboyant, there were no bells and whistles. There was some difficult economic news, but still with spending on areas that Conservatives care about – transport, broadband, fuel duty.â€\x9d Nicky Morgan, who supported remain and has been an increasingly vocal member of the backbench awkward squad, also described it as “steady as he goesâ€\x9d. Backbenchers also pointed to Hammond’s expectation management, through which he made sure the media, but also Conservatives, weren’t clamouring for much. It was noted that Hammond had addressed a meeting of the 1922 backbench committee where he stressed to colleagues that showmanship (think rabbits, sweets, gimmicks) wasn’t his style. And so gone were the four to five pages that Osborne would have dedicated in the “green bookâ€\x9d to regional giveaways (through which the A14 appeared to have been resurfaced several times). Hammond’s approach was to focus on investment in specific industrial areas, not parts of the country. And then there was Brexit. Even those who campaigned for the UK to leave the EU admitted the economic news was tough. But the argument was that Hammond provided the Conservatives with a “bullet-proofâ€\x9d messenger given that he had campaigned to remain. Brexit-supporting MPs also argued that the borrowing figures were over a long period, and pointed out that Hammond would have pleased leavers by starting his speech with a booming introduction about the robust health of the British economy. On this thinking, Hammond’s cautious approach to the question of Brexit so far (critics have accused the chancellor of being a doom-monger) also gives him the advanage that people take him even more seriously when he sounds upbeat. But perhaps MPs are hearing what they most want to. While Brexiters have seized on Hammond’s positive start, remainers were instead taken by a more worrying end. As one MP fighting for a soft Brexit put it: “This was the first reality check about just how difficult this is going to be for the British economy.â€\x9d',
 'Puro Instinct: Autodrama review – dangerous dreampop LA sisters Piper Durabo and Skylar Cielo made, in 2011’s Headbangers in Ecstasy, the bloggiest of all blog band albums. Their second takes its template – hazy dreampop, synth haze, slightly gothic guitar – and explores a darker Hollywood delirium. On Peccavi and Tell Me there are hints of Madonna’s early pep, but dreamy and dissipated, with Durabo intoning about “wishing fiction into factâ€\x9d and urging you to “forget about tomorrowâ€\x9d. LA’s mystical side surfaces in Six of Swords, Scorpio Rising and the title track’s sample of the occultist Manly P Hall, while End of an Era introduces an anti-war sentiment and a delicious, doomy lassitude. If the songwriting isn’t always the match of the sheen, the best moments here – Panarchy, What You See, Autodrama – are dangerously seductive.',
 'Let’s Eat Grandma review – frighteningly inventive duo rip up girl-group cliches From their ominous name to the impudent, blank expressions they wear, Let’s Eat Grandma don’t just eschew girl-group stereotypes – they rip them to shreds with fiendish delight. Formed by friends Jenny Hollingworth, 17, and Rosa Walton, 16, LEG provide a dazzling, befuddling glimpse into teenage life as expressed through dark-edged fantasies and experimental pop. The duo, who share an uncanny physical and saccharine-sweet vocal similarity, amp up the weird factor with spooky synths and eerie recorders. Shrouded in black, barricaded on stage by a bank of keyboards and hidden behind curtains of long wavy hair, it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. Facing one another for the vigorous hand-clapping intro of Deep Six Textbook, they resemble baby-faced versions of pre-Raphaelite heroine Elizabeth Siddal. But, as they bend forward, then slowly rise up to face the crowd, there’s something of The Shining’s scary Grady twins about the pair. The thing most frightening about their music, however, is its sheer inventiveness. The frustration of schoolwork is vented against hymn-like, humming synths and a soulful saxophone, the story of Rapunzel is sung by Walton with vengeful sweetness, while Hollingworth plays an accusatory rhythm on drums with lashings of cymbal. Both girls move between their instruments – which include lead guitar and glockenspiel – with practised ease and, having formed the band in 2013, the songs are played with tight abandon. It’s when LEG set their innocent fairytales to hedonistic club beats on Eat Shiitake Mushrooms and the stunning Donnie Darko that they create something not just bewitching, but mould-breaking. Let’s Eat Grandma play Field Day festival, London, on 11 June 2016.',
 'Mystic (Rees-)Mogg and the art of economic prediction A big week in parliament for the Jacob Rees-Mogg committee (formerly known as the Treasury select committee), which will again be grilling one of its favourite targets: economic forecasters. First up on Tuesday comes Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which last Thursday said that Brexit really means British workers facing the longest pay squeeze in 70 years. The following day will see Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose organisation also had a run-out last week, when it predicted the UK economy would slow next year and inflation would rise. None of which is likely to have gone down terribly well with Rees-Mogg, the flag-bearer of the Tories’ Eurosceptic wing, who has shot to fame this year by baiting Bank of England governor Mark Carney as a Remainer. To say that the Rees-Mogg demeanour tends towards the traditional is to recklessly underplay the situation, although even his critics concede his entertainment value. The old Etonian former fund manager was once accused of going to bed in double-breasted pyjamas and, at the 1997 general election, stood as the Tory candidate for the solidly Labour seat of Central Fife. He attracted ridicule – by canvassing with his nanny. A philosophical take on the trials of Topps Tiles “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.â€\x9d Given that next week will be the 2,058th anniversary of the death of Roman philosopher Cicero, it’s too much of a stretch (even for this column) to suggest that the great orator foresaw the role of the financial analyst – however compelling the circumstantial evidence may be. Still, for as long as the trade of analyst has existed, its members have attempted to illustrate how much life there is in those wise words. Take Topps Tiles, whose shares have dropped almost 50% this year. Despite that, the company’s supporters have been harder to dislodge than a 30-year-old installation of one of its products. Peel Hunt rated the shares a buy in January (at about 150p), when they were worth almost twice as much as now, and has reiterated that view six times during 2016. Cantor Fitzgerald, Berenberg and Liberum also persisted in their error – remaining positive on the company all the way down. So, aside from admitting to a costly mistake, is there any way out of the mess? Well, the retailer reports numbers this week – so it’ll be prayers to Jupiter all round. Why confidence can be a tricky matter Consumer confidence has been holding up pretty well following the EU referendum – rather defying gloomy expectations of a slump and giving further ammunition to those claiming that Remainers over-egged the risks of a Brexit vote. Last month, GfK’s consumer confidence index, which assesses respondents’ outlook for the next 12 months, decreased by two points to -3, ending a revival since June’s Brexit vote that pushed the index up to -1 from a low of -12. We get the latest numbers on all this on Wednesday. Last time, the survey also found that plans to purchase big-ticket items were not being delayed. That seems like good news – it’s an area often thought to show the first signs of a slowdown – but like almost everything on Brexit, you can use the figures to argue whichever way you want. So confidence to buy expensive items could mean everybody really is feeling chipper and Brexit is no big deal. Or it could mean that the referendum-induced slump in the pound is going to send prices soaring, so we’re all really getting our big purchases in before the arrival of a nasty bout of inflation. So it could be either – or neither. Let’s be honest: no one really has a clue what’s going to happen next.',
 "Brexit vote and Trump's election have created risks for banks, says S&P The UK’s vote for Brexit, Donald Trump’s US election win and a slowdown in Chinese economic growth are combining to create significant risks for the global banking sector, a leading ratings agency warned on Wednesday. Standard & Poor’s also included the low interest rate environment as posing potential hurdles for the banking industry’s creditworthiness in its global credit outlook for the sector in 2017. More than half of the largest global banking systems face negative pressure, S&P said, with more banks in Latin America and Asia Pacific appearing on the watch list. The UK is among 11 of the 20 largest global banking markets facing negative pressure. S&P said: “Weaker prospects for earnings growth globally, potential risks related to the UK’s referendum vote to leave the EU, and more generally increased political risks are constraining factors for bank ratings in 2017.â€\x9d It added: “A key constraint in our global credit outlook for banks relates to the path of the global economy, which is marked by a sluggish global growth underpinned by China’s rebalancing, the adjustment of commodity exporters to new commodity prices, demographic factors inducing lower productivity growth and geopolitical and political uncertainty.â€\x9d Of the 85 banking systems assessed, 42% faced negative trends. The ratings agency said there were signs of “renewed tremorsâ€\x9d from the result of the UK’s EU referendum on 23 June while the election of Trump as US president showed that political risk remained significant. Some believe Trump could prove helpful for the banking sector, while the US stock market is at record highs on expectations that he will boost spending on the economy. “The policies of President-elect Trump’s administration could represent the largest wildcard with the potential, at least over time, to meaningfully affect regulation, economic growth, interest rates, and ultimately bank performance,â€\x9d S&P said. There could be knock-on effects in other parts of the world as a result, particularly in France and Germany, which are holding elections in 2017. “Brexit may have energised broader, populist trends already pulsating through Europe. Citizens of other EU member states have expressed interest in holding referendums of their own to exit the union. Increasing populist sentiment, especially after the results of the US elections, also points to a shifting political landscape in the world’s largest economies,â€\x9d S&P said. This week Angela Merkel said she would run for a fourth term as German chancellor in next September’s elections. In France polls show that the Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, will make it to the French presidential final round runoff next May, while the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has failed to be chosen as the rightwing Les Républicains party’s candidate for the presidency. The former PMs François Fillon and Alain Juppé now face a second vote on 27 November to decide who will go up against Le Pen as the party’s candidate. Anti-globalisation movements could affect growth prospects and S&P is operating on the assumption that 2017 will be a year of sluggish growth across most developed and emerging markets. The European Central Bank could adopt a more relaxed approach to monetary policy while the US Federal Reserve could start to increase rates by a quarter percentage point in December and a half point in 2017.",
 'Point Break review – an empty rehash “Have you ever fired your gun up in the air and gone, ‘Aaaaaaaargh!?â€\x9d’ Nick Frost asks Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, referencing an iconic Keanu Reeves moment from Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 crime-and-surfing classic Point Break. Inevitably, Pegg gets to do just that, replaying the scene to oddly touching comic effect. Now, Luke Bracey gets to do it too, in this adrenaline-fuelled but empty rehash that flies close enough to Bigelow’s movie to remind you how much you’d much rather be watching the original. As before, the story centres on a young FBI agent infiltrating a group of extreme sports enthusiasts and finding himself torn between his strait-laced mission and their free-form madness, here given an anti-capitalist eco-waffle twist. “So it’s not about money, it’s about spiritual enlightenment?â€\x9d says Delroy Lindo’s Instructor Hall, taking a break from the usual declarations about his ass being on the line with this one blah blah blah. As for Ray Winstone, he appears to have wandered in from another movie entirely, playing European field agent Pappas with the fluidly accented conviction of a contract player eager to be done with this nonsense. There are some vertiginous action sequences (snowboarding down mountains, base jumping through canyons, apparently done “for realâ€\x9d) but such thrills can’t sustain a whole movie. While Bigelow tipped her hat toward the greater themes of Big Wednesday, director/cinematographer Ericson Core seems to take his cues from the empty flash of the Fast & Furious series, the first of which he shot. The result, disappointingly, is all froth and no depth.',
 'Texas rule requiring burial or cremation of fetal tissue shames women, suit says A women’s rights group has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block a new Texas rule that requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried. Accusing the state of a politically motivated ploy to make it harder for women to have abortions, the Center for Reproductive Rights launched the legal action on Monday, one week before the regulation is set to take effect on 19 December. The lawsuit against the Texas department of state health services (DSHS), filed in federal court in Austin, alleges that the regulation has no medical benefits, will pose practical burdens by increasing the cost of healthcare services and is an attempt to stigmatise abortion and heap shame on women seeking the procedure. Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider, is the lead plaintiff in the suit. It claims that the new regulation “burdens women seeking pregnancy-related medical care. It imposes a funeral ritual on women who have a miscarriage management procedure, ectopic pregnancy surgery, or an abortion. “Further, it threatens women’s health and safety by providing no safe harbor for sending tissue to pathology or crime labs. It also forces healthcare providers to work with an extremely limited number of third-party vendors for burial or scattering ashes, threatening abortion clinics’ provision of care and their long-term ability to remain open, as well as cost increases for women seeking pregnancy-related medical care.â€\x9d Current Texas regulations on disposal by healthcare facilities do not generally distinguish between fetal remains and other kinds of human materials that would typically be disposed of in a sanitary landfill. The new rule changes that, creating a category for “fetal tissueâ€\x9d and ordering it be buried or cremated regardless of how far along the pregnancy is. Miscarriages or abortions that happen at home are exempt and birth or death certificates are not required to be issued. The plan, strongly promoted by Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, was publicly announced last July, four days after the supreme court struck down key parts of an onerous 2013 abortion law that prompted a drastic drop in the number of clinics in Texas. The court found that the law, which mandated that clinics have standards akin to surgical centres, caused an undue burden on women seeking an abortion and did not offer sufficient medical benefits. Abbott, though, has vowed to continue efforts to restrict abortion. “I believe it is imperative to establish higher standards that reflect our respect for the sanctity of life. This is why Texas will require clinics and hospitals to bury or cremate human and fetal remains,â€\x9d Abbott wrote in July in a fundraising email to supporters reported by the Texas Tribune. He said the proposal would “help make Texas the strongest pro-life state in the nationâ€\x9d. According to the DSHS, the rule will benefit public health and safety “by ensuring that the disposition methods specified in the rules continue to be limited to methods that prevent the spread of diseaseâ€\x9d and by “protecting the dignity of the unbornâ€\x9d. Texas’s Republican-dominated legislature is expected to formally enshrine the regulation in state law during the 2017 session, which starts in January. “These regulations are an insult to Texas women, the rule of law and the US supreme court, which declared less than six months ago that medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion access are unconstitutional,â€\x9d Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “These insidious regulations are a new low in Texas’ long history of denying women the respect that they deserve to make their own decision about their lives and their healthcare.â€\x9d The question of how to handle fetal remains became a rallying point for anti-abortion activists after an organisation released a video in 2015 that falsely appeared to show employees at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston illegally selling fetal tissue. Mike Pence, the Indiana governor and now vice-president elect, signed a restrictive abortion law in March that included a fetal remains provision similar to Texas’s plans. It was stopped by a court in June shortly before it was scheduled to take effect. Another law in Louisiana is on hold because of a legal challenge.',
 'La Femme: Mystère review – alluring French indiepop For the non-Francophone, at least, La Femme’s second album lives up to its title. Mystère – delivered in blank, affectless voices, by male and female voices – is an alluring grab-bag of styles, from synthpop to surf-rock to Stereolabish indie motorik, to near-baroque guitar picking, to faux-Morricone western soundtracks, to an almost pastoral psychedelia. The stylistic range is wide enough to keep Mystère varied, and to stave off boredom – despite the album being about 20 minutes too long – but its parameters are also logical enough that each song sounds like it follows naturally from the last, rather than being a jarring leap. Goodness knows what they’re singing about, though that’s very much my fault rather than theirs; in any case, it doesn’t matter when the music this expertly conceived: it’s recognisably the work of an indie band, but not one constrained by preconceived notions of what indie must be, and it’s well worth your time.',
 'Michail Antonio strikes early to give West Ham victory over Tottenham This is the kind of defeat that can leave a team questioning their title credentials. It was not that Tottenham Hotspur were thrashed or even outclassed, in the East End. There were periods during a frantic second half when they had threatened to claw back the deficit suffered early on and had they pilfered an equaliser, they would have departed buoyed as if in victory. West Ham United, after all, are a resurgent force and now a team who have the scent of the Champions League places. Yet, for all that there is no disgrace in succumbing to these opponents, Spurs’ uncharacteristic hesitancy was troubling. The pangs of anxiety had gripped through a one-sided first half, rendering their approach tentative and ineffective. Mauricio Pochettino denied it but the suspicion was that this was the first evidence of nerves undermining the club’s pursuit of a first league championship in 55 years. This team, the youngest in the Premier League, were supposed to be fearless, blissfully unaware of everything that could yet be achieved this season. And yet here they had initially been diminished in the face of their hosts’ aggression and eclipsed by their energy. Those traits were supposed to be their own. Even when they roused themselves after the interval, forcing West Ham back largely through Christian Eriksen’s tireless running and clever probing, anxiety still unnerved their approach. Harry Kane, the team’s only attacking focal point but a lone striker starved of service for long periods, summed that up by snatching at two close-range opportunities. The England forward had been unable to contort his body to convert in the six-yard box, under pressure from Cheikhou Kouyaté, after Adrián had done wonderfully well to push away Toby Alderweireld’s swerving attempt from distance. When Christain Eriksen sent over a delicious centre moments later Kane mistimed his stretch and could only dribble the attempt wide from just beyond the back post. There has been only one goal from open play in eight matches and, at some stage, there may have to be an acknowledgment that the weight of this team’s schedule – this was a ninth game in 32 days – could be having a blunting effect. Adrián in the home goal was not tested at all in the first half and only rather sporadically when Tottenham held greater sway. Certainly the post-match shuffle towards the away support to demonstrate their appreciation, and the gloom in the dressing room long after the final whistle, suggested this was an opportunity missed. The visit of Arsenal on Saturday has suddenly been transformed into a test of character. Spurs can still top the division, for a few hours at least, by winning the north London derby. Given the idiosyncratic nature of the title race – Leicester’s point on Tuesday had looked wasteful but actually represented the sole reward for any of the top four in midweek – this need not prove an arithmetically damaging loss. But, psychologically, it seems far more significant. The top flight’s stingiest defence had been bullied, with Alderweireld and Kevin Wimmer tormented by Emmanuel Emenike’s channel-running, hassling and harrying. The centre-halves were both booked and it would not have been a surprise had Wimmer been dismissed before the end. West Ham merited their success, their prolonged send-off from the Boleyn Ground having still not contained a defeat since August. This result mirrored Saturday’s success over Sunderland, a win achieved courtesy of a sole Michail Antonio goal scored relatively early, and was illuminated by flashes of brilliance from Dimitri Payet and leggy industry up and down the lineup. Their pressing disoriented the visitors, who are used to imposing their own upbeat rhythm. They forced early errors, confusion between Ben Davies and Nacer Chadli needlessly presenting the hosts with an early corner which Payet whipped in to the near post. There it was met emphatically by Antonio, the right wing-back having dizzied Chadli too easily with his movement to earn a yard of space from the befuddled winger. The ball flew in via Hugo Lloris’ left hand. It was the fourth successive home match in which the summer signing from Nottingham Forest had scored, and it should have been followed by further first-half reward. Lloris, jittery particularly from back-passes throughout on a treacherous surface, did well to push away Mark Noble’s attempt from distance but only a series of desperate blocks prevented West Ham going further ahead. “Even to match a team that has conceded the fewest goals in the Premier League, scored the most, [are] all about running and pressing and whose confidence is sky high, you have to play very well,â€\x9d said Slaven Bilic. “It’s not about being lucky. You have to deserve it. I might be biased but they should have been more happy with the result than us. It could have been more. We were simply magnificent.â€\x9d The same, for once, cannot be said of Spurs. They go into the north London derby with another point to prove.',
 'The view on Britain and Europe There is a view, current in some circles here and abroad, that the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU is an unnecessary and damaging distraction. Issues such as the war in Syria, global terrorism, the impact of climate change and widening social and economic inequality at home are deemed more deserving of attention. Did not Margaret Thatcher, while insisting on proper limitations to EU power, ultimately answer the European question, both for Eurosceptic Tories and the country, when she declared in Bruges in 1988: “Our destiny is in Europeâ€\x9d? Unveiling his referendum plan in January 2013, David Cameron recycled some of Thatcher’s ambivalence. He warned that deepening integration among the 19 eurozone countries and the demands of global competition posed important questions for the UK-EU relationship. Yet, like Thatcher, he did not say Britain should leave. Quite the opposite. “I do not want that to happen. I want the EU to be a success. And I want a relationship between Britain and the EU that keeps us in it,â€\x9d Cameron said. In calling the referendum, it was clear he was responding primarily to party pressures, not continental power shifts or any fundamental change of heart. In the same speech, he argued that public disillusionment with the EU “is at an all-time highâ€\x9d. In fact, according to a contemporary Ipsos Mori survey, only 2% of voters included Europe among the most pressing issues facing Britain. A more alarming figure for Cameron, at that decisive moment three years ago, was Labour’s 10% poll lead – and growing panic among Tory backbenchers about the rapid rise of Ukip. As the 2015 election showed, these fears were unfounded. But he was stuck with his referendum. Having put party before country and himself before party, and called a vote for the wrong reasons, Cameron compounded his error by squandering the opportunity for renegotiation. This is not surprising. He has rarely demonstrated a firm grasp of, or a sustained personal interest in, foreign affairs. His neglect of Europe during his first term was illustrated by the Tories’ withdrawal from the main centre-right group in the European parliament, unwisely snubbing powerful allies such as Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Looked at from the outside, Cameron is one of the most parochial prime ministers Britain has produced. His subsequent negotiations have been characterised by haste, muddle and lack of ambition. It seems he can hardly wait to get the whole business over with, hence the prospect of an early June vote. His evident weakness has undermined his already limited leverage with irritated EU leaders wary of being sucked into what seems an essentially British problem. In the tradition of the Major-era “bastardsâ€\x9d, Cameron has not been helped by some semi-loyal Eurosceptic ministers and MPs whose lack of vision reflects their limited abilities. How very gracious of Theresa May to let it be known, in her grandly elevated view, that the prime minister may have secured the basis for a deal! How jolly for Boris Johnson to keep flashing his ankle at Downing Street. When considered calmly, the package of changes assembled by Cameron and Donald Tusk, the EU council president, has merit. The threat of British withdrawal has contributed to a shift in a European mindset that placed a premium on integration, enlargement and bringing more countries into the euro. The driver of the EU project was always the historical and constitutional obligation on the commission to push for integration, to open with the highest bid and move in one direction. Now, there is more questioning and a recognition that perhaps the bid might need to be in the other direction – a sense that unless the EU and commission question its approach, it could be done for. The fear grew that Britain could be just the first to go. And Cameron has garnered backing for some of his specific measures. Several east and central European leaders support his proposed additional protections for non-eurozone members. Many agree there is too much red tape. Many parliaments would welcome a moderate restoration of sovereign powers. The once emblematic concept of ever-closer union has palled in these more complex times, without Cameron having to push his case. Even on the question of in-work benefits, at a time when uncontrolled migration is affecting all, there is sympathy, if not agreement, for Cameron’s stance. All of which underscores the substantive point: that in changing times, many, perhaps a majority of EU states, overshadowed for too long by an inflexible Franco-German axis, accept there is need for reform. The British renegotiation, if it had been handled more consensually, could have achieved so much more. As the last European elections showed, there is deep dissatisfaction in all 28 EU countries. Post-crash austerity imposed on southern Europe continues to cause immense damage. The proliferation of xenophobic, racist and nationalist parties of left and right is one direct result. The failure of the Brussels elites to respond to, or even demonstrate understanding of, this crisis is more injurious to the idea of Europe than anything Bill Cash and John Redwood might do. The EU suffers from a chronic democratic deficit. But the answer is not to walk away. The answer lies in challenging how Europe works, in rendering its opaque institutions more open and accountable and exercising more control over how it evolves. A good start would be a total re-evaluation of the EU’s proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US, which might be good for multinationals, but threatens jobs, incomes, workplace and environmental standards and the way public sector organisations are run. The public, by and large, understands this broader point, even if a complacent Downing Street does not. Cameron’s referendum will be decided, to a large degree, not by mixed perceptions of his much-mocked renegotiation but far bigger issues. Now you ask us, voters might say, one such issue is this lack of a connected, fit-for-purpose EU. Another is how Europe will deal with accelerating migration. If Germany closes the door, and pressure on Merkel is growing, chaos could ensue. And then there is the risk of another eurozone meltdown or Crimea-style humiliation by Russia. Any of these or other wild-card factors could tip a vote in favour of leaving, whatever the government says. This is the risk to which Cameron has exposed Britain. He has created conditions in which the opposite of what he said he wanted in 2013 may now occur: Brexit, with all the deeply negative and harmful consequences.',
 "Enough is enough: we've reached a tipping point on sexual assault Most times, it’s easier to say nothing. When a man gropes you on a subway. If a stranger tells you to smile as you walk down the street. When someone calls you a bitch because you turned them down at a bar. The decision of whether to speak up or push back is made in a split second, and for a lot of women, it’s just not worth it. The person that just harassed you might get even more aggressive if confronted. Besides, what difference will it make, you think. Why spend energy on a person like this? As the election looms closer and women continue to come forward to accuse Donald Trump of assault, I’ve noticed a shift in the way women are talking about dealing with these all-too-common indignities. They’re not just fed up with the harassment itself, but with the resigned feeling that this is just the way things are. More and more, women are sharing stories of speaking up in those moments – and crediting Trump’s misogyny with what they did. Carolina Siede, writing at Quartz, described being leered at by a man one evening and changing her usual tactic of not “rocking the boatâ€\x9d. As we sat in uncomfortable silence, I began to think again about Donald Trump. I thought about the women he’d groped. I thought about the men who, through their ignorance or denial, enable this behavior to happen. I thought about Michelle Obama telling women and girls that they deserve dignity and respect too. And I decided enough was enough. Writer Rebecca Solnit shared a similar story on Facebook from a woman who was called a “cuntâ€\x9d by a stranger and decided to confront him. “Are you going to tell me it was just locker room talk?,â€\x9d she asked. There’s more talk, too, of the less obvious kinds of harassment and assault. A woman on Twitter this week described a man caressing her calf as she walked by him on an airplane, for example. When we think of groping what comes to mind is someone grabbing “privateâ€\x9d areas. But if it’s another person’s body – it is private. Trump’s remarks about women – his bragging about assaulting women without consequence and his continued insistence that every accuser is lying – have brought us to a sort of national tipping point. As Elizabeth Warren said about Trump to tremendous applause this week, “Women have had it with guys like youâ€\x9d. Women are tired. Tired of being told that this is just the way men talk or act. Tired of looks or touches that we’re expected to deal with because they’re not “realâ€\x9d assault. Tired of saying nothing in the face of unrelenting sexism and slights. Why should we have to live like this? Perhaps when the election is over, the anxiety and anger women are feeling right now will subside and many of us will go back to saying nothing in those scary moments. Maybe the national conversation around assault will wane. But I doubt it. When you start to speak up, it’s hard to stop. America should be prepared for a lot of loud, “nastyâ€\x9d women to make themselves heard. No billionaire owner, no shareholders. Just independent, investigative reporting that fights for the truth, whatever the cost. Why not support it? Become a US member for $49 a year, or make a contribution.",
 'Paul Haggis to supply documentary about Flint water scandal Paul Haggis, director of the Oscar-winning drama Crash, is to produce a documentary about the Flint water contamination scandal. According to Deadline, Haggis is working with director William Hart on Lead and Copper, a film that aims to investigate the ongoing crisis, which began in 2014 after the city in Michigan changed its water supply. As a result, untreated water found its way into people’s homes and locals were exposed to drinking water with high levels of lead. A state of emergency was declared in January 2016, and a series of city officials were subsequently charged with a range of offences, including misconduct in a public office and evidence tampering. Lead and Copper appears to be Hart’s feature debut, while Haggis’s most recent film as director was the 2013 feature Third Person, starring James Franco. Haggis’s recent career, though, has been dominated by his very public break from the Church of Scientology, which he left in 2009 after 35 years.',
 'Facebook lures Africa with free internet - but what is the hidden cost? Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service in a controversial move to corner the market in one of the world’s biggest mobile data growth regions. Facebook’s co-founder and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, has made it clear that he wants to connect the whole world to the internet, describing access as a basic human right. His Free Basics initiative, in which mobile users are able to access the site free of data charges, is available in 42 countries, more than half of them in Africa. But digital campaigners and internet freedom advocates argue that Facebook’s expansion is a thinly veiled marketing ploy that could end up undermining, rather than enhancing, mass efforts to get millions more people connected. “Even if people are hungry, we shouldn’t be giving them half a loaf,â€\x9d says Gbenga Sesan, whose organisation Paradigm Initiative Nigeria helps young people living in poverty get online. “It’s difficult for me to argue against free internet,â€\x9d he says. But he added that it is problematic to give people only part access to the internet, especially if they believe what they have is full access. Breaking down the barriers According to the mobile industry trade body GSMA, there will be as many as 700m smartphones in sub-Saharan Africa by 2020. But a handset alone may not get you online, explains GSMA’s head of mobile, Yasmina McCarty. A person might not have enough money for data, or the government might not have installed broadband cables in the area where they live, she says. Or the internet that is available might be in English, and therefore not useful to all. Or, McCarty adds, the person might not have been taught IT at school and would not know how to use the technology. Free Basics offers a solution to the affordability issue, but three remaining barriers – infrastructure, content and education – need to be “attackedâ€\x9d to get the next billion online, says McCarty. Facebook is exploring the infrastructure obstacle, testing a solar-powered drone and developing a satellite, both of which would beam internet access to remote communities from the sky. But people in the industry say efforts on the ground are equally as important to help the internet take root. When introducing a technology such as the internet, “lots of personal interaction needs to take place ... explaining how it works and busting mythsâ€\x9d, says Alix Murphy from WorldRemit, a mobile money transfer company. Digital colonialism? It is not the first time Facebook has faced challenges to its initiative. In India, Free Basics was effectively banned after a groundswell of support for net neutrality – a principle affirming that what you look at, who you talk to and what you read is ultimately determined by you, not a business. It was a blow for Zuckerberg, who was accused of acting like a digital colonialist: shouting about the right to the internet to mask true profit motives. Timothy Karr from the Save the Internet campaign does not doubt Zuckerberg’s “genuine zeal to connect the worldâ€\x9d but says we should not ignore his motivation to “dominate the global internet landscapeâ€\x9d. “Facebook is not the internet, and limiting it doesn’t give people the agency, political power or control,â€\x9d says Karr. But Gustav Praekelt, whose foundation has helped Facebook provide health, educational and other information on the Free Basics platform since it launched, argues that everyone else is moving too slowly: in a perfect world access to information would be a human right but currently “there’s a vacuum and Facebook are plugging itâ€\x9d. Nigeria was the most recent country to launch 80 pre-selected websites on Free Basics with Airtel Africa, the country’s second largest mobile provider. Zuckerberg said Facebook was offering Nigerians, including 90 million people who are currently offline, the opportunity to access news, health information and services for free. However, Gbenga Sesan says the offer is only appealing because the government “shirked its responsibilitiesâ€\x9d by failing to invest in infrastructure. He would rather see a state focus on building connectivity, arguing that this would engender competition that in turn would drive down the cost for the poorest citizens. Freemium to premium? In a competitive emerging market, giving away data for free may not seem like an obvious business choice, but Facebook has sold it to mobile operators on the basis that customers will eventually buy data. This freemium to premium model is also problematic, says Gbenga Sesan. “As soon as you are around the table you become a marketing opportunity,â€\x9d he says, adding that there is a perception that internet rights campaigners are not supposed to ask questions about Free Basics “because it’s ‘for good’â€\x9d. Facebook did not reply to requests to respond to these specific criticisms of their approach, but after the fallout in India Zuckerberg wrote an opinion piece for the Times of India denying that Free Basics was about maintaining Facebook’s commercial interests. “If people lose access to free basic services, they will simply lose access to the opportunities offered by the internet today,â€\x9d he said, adding that the platform fully respected the principles of net neutrality. For Praekelt, the more fundamental benefit is that there are millions of people across the developing world who cannot currently access life-saving services and so, he says, Free Basics is a flawed attempt in the absence of anything else to ensure those people are no longer deprived. Who benefits? Facebook has yet to release official data on how the initiative has been received across the continent, but when the Alliance for Affordable Internet looked at how eight countries, including three in Africa, were using such zero-rated services including Free Basics they discovered only one in 10 connections came from someone who had never used the internet before. “The application is used as a stop-gap measure,â€\x9d says Nanjira Sambuli, a Kenyan tech expert. Most people use it to browse when they have run out of data, but switch back to the full web when they can afford it. Sambuli recently took Kenya’s service for a spin and found it “barely functionalâ€\x9d with “kinks and pages missingâ€\x9d. Kenyan internet access campaigner Ephraim Kenyanito describes the experience as an “unbalanced dietâ€\x9d with web pages that look like they were made in 2002. Snooping risk There is also a worry, says Sambuli, that “centralised interventionsâ€\x9d such as Free Basics could be misused and become susceptible to control and interference. In April, Reuters revealed that Free Basics had been blocked by Egypt’s increasingly oppressive government after Facebook refused to let it snoop on users. But in Uganda, where the government has implemented two social media blackouts already this year, campaigners are concerned. Although Zuckerberg has been outspoken on his commitment to freedom of speech “the fear is that Facebook becomes the broker between citizens and the government,â€\x9d says Geoffrey Wokulira Ssebaggala, from the digital rights organisation Unwanted Witness Uganda. The alternatives As for the alternatives, initiatives such as public Wi-Fi and long-term investment in connectivity infrastructure are a far more solid proposition, says Murphy: “Companies [like Facebook] could pull out of the market whenever they like.â€\x9d She says good infrastructure coupled with “tiered, piecemeal pricing that lets you buy small chunks of airtime as and when you can afford itâ€\x9d is how the African economy works, and paying for the internet should follow that pattern. Others point to initiatives including cyber cafes, where people are taught how to access what they need, or earned data provisions, where users watch an advert in return for a certain amount of free access. The problem as Karr sees it is that Facebook could have supported any number of these without building a walled garden around the people who need it least – low-income families in the developing world.',
 'What will be the big environment events in 2017? After five years of false starts and delays, 2017 will see exploratory fracking for shale gas begin in earnest in England. The first wells will likely be drilled in Lancashire and Yorkshire by the summer, and Cuadrilla, Third Energy and other companies will hope to confirm commercially viable quantities of the gas by the end of the year. With only 17% of people in Britain in favour of fracking, local and national protests are certain. Brexit negotiations will affect farming subsidies and possibly all European nature protection laws, including those for birds and habitats, air and water pollution, GM foods and animal welfare. If ministers attempt to roll back or trade off decades of environmental regulation, as some have threatened, they are likely to meet the most intense opposition. Air pollution, now known to kill nearly 40-50,000 people a year in Britain, will be high on the political agenda in the spring with the government under court orders to publish a new plan to meet EU legal limits. The draft, to be published in April, is almost certain to propose more fully funded clean-air zones in major cities, tighter restrictions on some vehicles and fuels, and further measures to encourage walking and cycling. London will also come under pressure to join Paris, Madrid, Athens, and Mexico City in pledging to ban diesel vehicles in the city centre within a few years. The movement of world cities signing up to be fossil-free within 30 years is expected to grow too. The global climate debate will be dominated by whether the president-elect Donald Trump withdraws the US from the Paris global agreement to reduce emissions. He has appointed climate sceptics to head all the key agencies responsible for either monitoring or dealing with climate change and is known to want to increase oil, gas and coal production. If he pulls the US out of the Paris deal, it would gift China climate leadership, set back efforts to brake emissions and do untold diplomatic damage with hundreds of countries who followed Obama’s leadership in 2015. Insiders expect him to ignore the voluntary commitments the US has made and to increase fossil fuel emissions. Many US climate scientists expect to lose research grants in what some expect to become a witch-hunt. 2016 saw the tail end of El Niño, a naturally occurring warming of the Pacific, bring droughts, searing temperatures and food shortages to much of Africa, Latin America and south-east Asia. In 2017, we can expect a weak La Niña, a natural cooling of Pacific Ocean waters. This is likely to bring above average rainfall and cooler temperatures across much of the globe. Wildlife losses are expected to continue through 2017, despite more and more animals having been put on the IUCN’s red list of threatened species and action to tackle the illegal trade. Candidates for effective extinction in 2017 include the Bornean orangutan, the South China tiger, the giant otter, the Amur leopard, the black-footed ferret and Darwin’s fox. The Eurasian lynx could be reintroduced in small numbers to the Kielder forest in Northumberland, and to remote areas of southern Scotland. The last time this wild cat was seen in what is now the UK was in about AD700. Other provisional sites have been selected including Cumbria, Aberdeenshire, the Kintyre pensinsula and Thetford forest in Norfolk. Marine protection will be raised up the political agenda with the first UN oceans conference in June. This will focus on the increasing quantities of plastics polluting the oceans, overfishing, the effects of climate change, and the need for more marine national parks.',
 'Business minister Sajid Javid opens preliminary trade talks with India The business minister is to launch trade talks with India, marking the start of a world tour aimed at drawing up a blueprint for Britain’s role in the global economy outside the European Union. Sajid Javid will hold preliminary talks with Indian government ministers in Delhi on Friday, marking the start of what is expected to be years of negotiations to establish new trade deals with individual countries. These bilateral deals will replace agreements the EU has with more than 50 countries. Javid’s visit to India comes after George Osborne met a Chinese government delegation in London on Thursday and promised to foster “stronger trade tiesâ€\x9d with the world’s second largest economy. The chancellor is undertaking a four-day trip to China later this month for the G20 finance ministers’ meeting and will visit several cities to promote UK-Chinese relations. The government said it plans to hire up to 300 staff in a bid to address a shortage of trade negotiators capable of forging closer economic ties to dozens of other countries. Javid said: “Following the referendum result, my absolute priority is making sure the UK has the tools it needs to continue to compete on the global stage. “That is why I am in India today to launch these initial trade discussions. There is a strong bilateral trade relationship between our two countries and I am determined that we build on this.â€\x9d The discussions kick off a schedule of trips to the US, China, Japan and South Korea over the next few months, as Javid starts the process of refashioning the UK’s trade ties. Government sources said talks were unlikely to go into great detail but would provide an early platform for future negotiations. Javid said he would use the discussions to outline the government’s “vision for what the UK’s future trade relationship might look likeâ€\x9d. The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said earlier in the week that the UK had a shortage of trade negotiators and may need to hire staff from abroad to get the necessary expertise. Osborne met Chinese officials including the ambassador, Liu Xiaoming, for talks about future trade relations. Treasury sources said there had been “productive discussions on investment, financial services and fostering stronger trading ties,â€\x9d aimed at extending a “golden eraâ€\x9d of partnership on trade. The UK was the third largest investor in India between April 2000 and September 2015, pouring $22.5bn (£17.4bn) into the country, while Indian investment is also hugely important to the UK. Foreign direct investment from India created 7,730 jobs between 2014 and 2015, according to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, while bilateral trade between the two countries was £16.5bn last year. One of the biggest Indian investors in the UK is conglomerate Tata, which owns Jaguar Land Rover and struggling steel firm Tata Steel UK. During his Indian trip Javid will also meet Tata board members on Saturday to discuss the company’s efforts to find a buyer for its British steel business, which includes the blast furnaces at Port Talbot in South Wales. The sale process is understood to have been put on hold amid the economic uncertainty created by the vote to leave the EU.',
 'Rio has showcased a post-Brexit nationalism the left should embrace Who could resent the captain of the British women’s hockey team, Kate Richardson-Walsh, carrying the flag at the Olympic closing ceremony in Rio? Her wife Helen, who was also on the team, had played a pivotal role in their win (on receiving their golds, they became the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic medals). The entire GB team wore jackets that said “thank youâ€\x9d to Brazil in Portuguese and “helloâ€\x9d to Tokyo where the next Olympics takes place. I’m not a sports fan, but as a nation we have been pretty fantastic and it seems entirely appropriate to celebrate the achievements of these athletes and to feel, dare I say it … a little bit proud. Oh, but here come the begrudgers. We certainly could win a gold for self-loathing whinging. We only got so many medals because of the money thrown at sports through the national lottery. We must not get all puffed up and nationalistic because that is a bad thing. Sport has nothing to do with our place in the world, it merely reveals many of the existing inequalities, and on and on it goes. But surely the fact that in 1996 we came 36th in the medal table, below North Korea, and now we have pipped China, has given some much-needed uplift to a divided country? Of course, being good at physical jerks does not suddenly make post-Brexit Britain a happy place. We know that the dreamlike quality of the 2012 games, kicked off by Danny Boyle’s bonkers and brilliant opening ceremony, where everyone went mad for Mo Farah and felt the love, did not last. Anti-immigrant and out-and-proud racist discourse has absolutely flourished in the intervening years. But again in Rio we saw that winners come in all sizes, shades and sexualities and when they do brilliantly everyone gets behind them. I am not always fond of folk wrapping themselves in flags but nationalism is always an imaginary concept that can be mobilised in whichever way we choose. This nationalism – inclusive, warm, sentimental, hardworking – is the one the left should embrace, but is too often embarrassed about. So it leaves nationalism for others to remake in their own brutal image. The refusal of so many people to understand that globalisation does not work out for everyone, or that mumbling at rallies about internationalism makes few hearts sing, is precisely why so many were out of touch with the result of the EU referendum. Yes, some of it was about Little England, but some of it was about how we define ourselves as a nation. Can we go it alone? Can we punch above our weight? Is this just a post-empire hangover? The answers are complex. The nation represented at the Olympics was at ease with multiple identities – sometimes Andy Murray is Scots, sometimes British. Bradley Wiggins, Nicola Adams and Mo Farah all belong together as champions here. Telling people that nationalism is wrong and infantile seems to me to misunderstand the mood. Right now we need to ask what kind of country we want to be. As Albert Camus once said, “I should be able to love my country and still love justiceâ€\x9d. Surely that is possible. After the ugliness in the run-up to the Brexit vote and immediately afterwards, we were reminded of the best of ourselves in Rio. That is a real victory.',
 'Nostalgia for things that never happened After recent events, some will already be nostalgic for a pre-Trump world. Yet nostalgia is a feeling of familiarity which doesn’t always connect to actual memories. Indeed those who wanted Trump to make America great again were harking back to a version of the country that never really existed. Research has found that the brain systems which control recognition and familiarity are quite different from each other. The two usually work together but can be activated separately, meaning it’s possible to feel a strong sense of acquaintanceship with a place or thing, when in fact you have never been here or used it before. This is why you can completely forget where and when you were introduced to someone, but just know that you’ve seen them before. Familiarity is instant, whereas memory recall can be a slow process - with lots of effort, it’s sometimes possible to remember the room where you met them, or the time of year it was. These details can then help unearth the full memory, something we should rely upon more than fleeting familiarity, especially in the post-factual world we live in. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London',
 'Climate change may have helped spread Zika virus, according to WHO scientists The outbreak of Zika virus in Central and South America is of immediate concern to pregnant women in the region, but for some experts the situation is a glimpse of the sort of public health threats that will unfold due to climate change. “Zika is the kind of thing we’ve been ranting about for 20 years,â€\x9d said Daniel Brooks, a biologist at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “We should’ve anticipated it. Whenever the planet has faced a major climate change event, man-made or not, species have moved around and their pathogens have come into contact with species with no resistance.â€\x9d It’s still not clear what role rising temperatures and altered rainfall patterns have had on the spread of Zika, which is mainly spread by mosquitos; the increased global movement of people is probably as great an influence as climate change for the spread of infectious diseases. But the World Health Organization, which declared a public health emergency over the birth defects linked to Zika, is clear that changes in climate mean a redrawn landscape for vector and water-borne diseases. According to WHO, a global temperature rise of 2-3C will increase the number of people at risk of malaria by around 3-5%, which equates to several hundred million. In areas where malaria is already endemic, the seasonal duration of malaria is likely to lengthen. Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that carries Zika and other diseases, is expected to thrive in warmer conditions. As climate change reaches almost every corner of the Earth’s ecology, different diseases could be unleashed. Increased precipitation will create more pools of standing water for mosquitos, risking malaria and rift valley fever. Deforestation and agricultural intensification also heightens malaria risk while ocean warming, driven by the vast amounts of heat being sucked up by the oceans, can cause toxic algal blooms that can lead to infections in humans. “We know that warmer and wetter conditions facilitate the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases so it’s plausible that climate conditions have added the spread of Zika,â€\x9d said Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a lead scientist on climate change at WHO. “Infectious agents in water will proliferate with more flooding. It’s clear that we need to strengthen our surveillance and response to a range of diseases. Globalization, the movement of people, is an important factor too. In a world where we are disrupting the climate system we’ll have to pay the price for that.â€\x9d WHO estimates that an additional 250,000 people will die due to climate change impacts – ranging from heat stress to disease – by 2050, but Campbell-Lendrum said this is a “conservative estimateâ€\x9d. “It is based on optimistic assumptions that the world will get richer and we’ll get better at treating these diseases,â€\x9d he said. “We do need to get better at controlling diseases at their source and we do need to drive down greenhouse gases because there is a limit to our adaption. By moving to cleaner energy sources we will also help relieve one of the largest health burdens we have, which is the air pollution that kills seven million people a year.â€\x9d Until now, efforts to push back the threat of infectious diseases has been successful. Malaria, for example, used to be found in the New York area – and there is evidence to suggest it was once present in southern England; much earlier, the Romans used to retreat to the hills at certain times of the year to avoid mosquitos carrying the disease. Vaccines have been developed for a range of diseases including, belatedly, Ebola. The eradication of threats like these makes wealthy western countries fret over outbreaks like Zika. As the world warms, there may be a lack of preparation for other diseases not currently considered threats. “This is likely to become an equal opportunity crisis,â€\x9d said Brooks. “The developing, poorer countries are impacted disproportionately but they deal with these diseases all the time, they are not surprised by them. But in Europe and North America, people have lived in a bubble where we think our wealth and technology can protect us from climate change. And that’s not true. “The thing that worries me most is a death by a thousand cuts. I don’t think an Andromeda strain will wipe out all humans. But the amount of time, money and effort needed to combat these many different problems can overwhelm a healthcare system.â€\x9d So which climate-fueled diseases are likely to pop up next? Some experts believe that water-borne diseases could escalate, which would have significant consequences for countries such as Bangladesh – a low-lying nation with plenty of rivers that has a public health system already struggling to meet its population’s current needs. “There’s not nearly enough attention paid to diseases that cause diarrhea, crypto spiridium, Hepatitis A,â€\x9d said Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School. “We’ve seen outbreaks of these diseases in the past due to extreme precipitation. The build environment we live in wasn’t designed for the climate we will soon be living in; when you consider half the world’s waterways have been engineered by man, they won’t be able to contain the extra water that will flood them. “Flooding will certainly lead to mosquito-borne diseases but also cause water-borne diseases and also a lack of drinking water. People in Asia and Africa, particularly those living on the coast, will be very vulnerable, climate change could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in terms of public health.â€\x9d',
 'Nobel prize-winning economists warn of long-term damage after Brexit Ten of the world’s leading economists have issued a warning about the consequences of the UK leaving the EU as the City prepares for the pound to plunge and shares to fall in the event of a Brexit vote in Thursday’s referendum. In a last-ditch attempt to persuade voters, 10 Nobel-prize winning economists, who have all been made professor laureates for research stretching from the early 1970s up until last year, have written to the to say the economic arguments are key. “Brexit would create major uncertainty about Britain’s alternative future trading arrangements, both with the rest of Europe and with important markets like the USA, Canada and China,â€\x9d they write. “And these effects, though one-off, would persist for many years. Thus the economic arguments are clearly in favour of remaining in the EU,â€\x9d they conclude. The City is bracing for a volatile week of trading and as dealers prepare to spend the early hours of Friday morning placing orders for investors as the results start to come in from around 12.30am. Some City sources are warning that trading could “gap downâ€\x9d – or open sharply lower – in the event of a vote for Brexit. Others, though, think the result could having a calming influence after a period of uncertainty. Jasper Lawler, market analyst at spread betting and financial trading site CMC Markets, said that “knowing the results is going to calm nervesâ€\x9d. One of the letter’s signatories, Professor Christopher Pissarides, who is based at the London School of Economics, told the the uncertainty would reduce investment and hit job creation. He also warned that the vote, at the start of Britain’s summer, would trigger a depreciation in the pound that would make holidays more expensive. There are suggestions sterling could slide from its current levels of around $1.42 to $1.20 and reach parity with the euro, from around €1.27 now. In response to criticism by Vote Leave, which accuses economists of scare-mongering, Pissarides said that forecasting was difficult, and economists might disagree or get it wrong, but in this case they were overwhelmingly in favour of remaining. He said it was absurd that out campaigners were trying to dismiss economists as irrelevant. “Britain will not thrive outside the EU,â€\x9d he added. “The biggest negative impact will be felt over the next five years, but it will persist through the lack of investment and the weaker bargaining position that Britain will have in future negotiations.â€\x9d In preparation for the vote, banks have set up war rooms across the City, and senior bankers will be on call through out the early hours of Friday. Cash machines will be fully stocked and IT upgrades put off until the outcome of the vote is known to ensure that customers will not encounter any problems accessing their money. Firms such as Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland along with US groups such as JP Morgan Chase and Citi will have teams working through the night. Brokers are also warning that higher than expected volumes might mean they are not able to complete all their trades as quickly as usual. Stockbroker Charles Stanley has told clients: “Whatever the results, we anticipate that we may experience higher volumes and more market volatility than usual on the 23 June and in the days following the vote.â€\x9d “The immediate impact is likely to be felt most directly by those of you wishing to trade shares during such market conditions. Foreign exchange rates could also witness fluctuations and this has the potential to impact overseas trades placed during this time,â€\x9d Charles Stanley said, warning that order sizes may be reduced and it could take longer to answer phones. Some economists,argue interest rates could be cut, possibly to zero from their record low of 0.5% where they have been stuck since the financial crisis. Analysts at JP Morgan said rates could be cut by a quarter of a percentage point as soon as next month’s meeting of the rate-setting monetary policy committee. Another quarter point cut could take place in August. “The speed and magnitude of the response will be sensitive to moves in financial markets; the MPC likely would interpret a weaker currency as reflecting weaker growth expectations provided it is accompanied by weakness in other UK asset markets,â€\x9d the JP Morgan analysts said. Many investors are expected to go into the vote without any large trading positions which could expose them to losses once the result comes in, reducing volumes and exacerbating any price movements once the outcome is known. “An absence of market liquidity implies that we could see sharp moves in prices and heightened volatility in the hours following the announcement,â€\x9d said analysts at Jefferies. They pointed to the European Central Bank’s scheduled injection of cash into the markets at 10.30am on 24 June as helping to fend off any liquidity crunch. Along with the Bank of England, the ECB will be on alert for a funding crisis facing the banking sector. On Tuesday the Bank will conduct the second of its pre-announced funding calls for banks. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has said another will take place on 28 June. “Beyond providing liquidity, both the BoE and ECB could cut interest rates,â€\x9d the Jefferies analysts said. Sentiment towards the banking sector has already been hit hard by the Brexit vote. Analysts at Bernstein have predicted Barclays would be hardest hit, with its shares falling 40% over 18 months after a Brexit vote while the two bailed-out banks – Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland – could take a hit of 35% and 25% respectively. Falls of that magnitude would impede any chances of cutting the government’s stake in both the banks.',
 'Farage is now Britain’s face at the EU: petty, unlovable, essentially terrified In a crowded field, I think it was the flag that was the killer. The absolute state of that flag. Nigel Farage’s desktop Union Jack, with its little sucker pad leeching obnoxiously on to the unlovely beech of the European parliament chamber. Part of the genius of the TV series The Office was its ability to distil all human life down to a series of recognisable archetypes most people had encountered at work. To see Farage there with his desktop flag was to suddenly and irrevocably understand it: the UK is the Gareth Keenan of Europe. This is how we must look to those still condemned to share continent-space with us: petty, unlovable, essentially terrified, our workplace set up in a show of cod-martial defiance, which in fact only flags up our raging insecurity. Farage has been building up to this moment his entire political life, as he tells everyone at every single opportunity. In which case, how is it humanly possible that his speech to the European parliament today could be so artless, so crass, a scarcely refined version of some England fans’ infamous recent chant: “Fuck off Europe, we voted outâ€\x9d? To couch it in the sort of imbecilic historical inaccuracy which is the only language Farage understands: this speech was so bad that they’re now quits with us for saving them in the second world war. You may disagree with this reading of the war; Nigel would regard it as hugely overcomplicated. This, he repeated once more, was a victory against “big politicsâ€\x9d. “Virtually none of youâ€\x9d, he bellowed at the MEPs, “have ever done a job in your lives.â€\x9d Watching him was like watching the live abortion of Churchill’s oratorial legacy. As the latter’s grandson Nicholas Soames observed: “Appalling ghastly performance by that dreadful cad Farage in the European parliament. #hownottoinfluence.â€\x9d Agreed. There is soft power, and then there is politics as erectile dysfunction. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to speculate as to the psychological underpinnings of the Farage condition. “When I came here 17 years ago,â€\x9d he shouted, failing to hide his nervous elation, “you all laughed at me. Well I have to say: you’re not laughing now, are you?â€\x9d He made it, you losers! He got out. He’s in the big leagues now. He’s the guy who just turned up to his school reunion in a white limo with two dead-eyed escorts on his arm. Above all, the performance offered a reminder that Farage makes everything in which he is involved a race to the bottom. The opposite of a Midas, he may as well be nicknamed Brownfinger. His excruciatingly aggressive display eventually drew boos from the chamber. “Ladies and gentlemen, I understand you’re emotional,â€\x9d urged the assembly president. “But you’re acting like Ukip.â€\x9d Farage was loving it, just as his financial backer in the provisional wing of the leave campaign is revelling in their legitimisation. Arron Banks has spent much of his time since the weekend laughing at reports of racist and xenophobic incidents on Twitter. Two weeks ago he couldn’t even book 75% of Bucks Fizz for his Brexit concert ; now he’s taking a triumphalist dump on 50 years of race relations policy. Meanwhile, presumably in a doomed attempt to own it – certainly out of an inability to transcend it – Farage embraces his smallness. The victory against “big politicsâ€\x9d, he stressed again to the European parliament, was for “the little peopleâ€\x9d. Incidentally, during the general election campaign last year, I was in a Grimsby pub where Farage’s supporters were waiting for him in a long-scheduled visit . He blew them out to go and have fish and chips with reality television star Joey Essex. Footsoldiers of Ukip, they were crestfallen and couldn’t understand it. Yes, Farage is as elitist as the rest of them. Even the central London victory party for his senior referendum campaign staff was stratified, featuring a VIP snug into which he retreated for most of the night. And still he rises. This time, the political leader who’s had more farewell tours than Barbra Streisand isn’t going anywhere. Whenever I touched on Farage’s malevolent guiding spirit during the referendum campaign itself, I was pleased to take all sorts of optimistic correspondence explaining that as soon as a successful leave vote was achieved, Farage’s work would be done, and he would retire triumphantly into the sunset. How’s that working out for ya? As reports of racist and xenophobic incidents across Britain intensify, Farage appears on Channel 4 news to warn ominously against what he detects as “backslidingâ€\x9d in the leadership of the official Vote Leave campaign. My suspicion is that these two strands of post-referendum fallout will come together in what we might call “ever closer unionâ€\x9d. All sides of leave know they can’t deliver all they promised – even most of what they promised – and the coming anger will serve as Farage’s greatest recruiting sergeant. Indeed, he may seem like the cuddly option compared to some. Still, don’t take it from me. Let’s play out with the UK’s second biggest cheerleader in the European parliament, Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front. Turning to Farage after his speech, she smiled, and declared: “Look at how beautiful history is!â€\x9d',
 '‘It was actually heartwarming’: Grimsby residents review Grimsby the film ‘Nobby is a good character, not a lowlife’ Alan Brown, 57, a taxi driver with Taxi Cabs Grimsby I thought it was an excellent film. The action scenes would put any James Bond movie to shame and the cast was brilliant. The whole cinema was laughing out loud. To me, it doesn’t matter that it was called Grimsby because it’s just a piece of entertainment. The film could just as easily have been called The Brothers, for instance. There are people like Nobby [Sacha Baron Cohen’s character] in Grimsby, but there are people like that in every other town and city. There are people in Grimsby who just want to have a drink and don’t think life is worth living unless you’re out partying, but it’s a small minority. As a taxi driver, I’m meeting and greeting people in Grimsby all the time, and I’ve come across people exactly like Nobby and his family and friends, but I’ve also come across doctors, lawyers, explorers, scientists, actors and musicians. I would recommend that everyone goes to see it because it’s a great film. Less than one-tenth of the film is actually about Grimsby, and most people are sensible enough to know that this film focuses on one particular type of person and that not everybody in Grimsby is like that. I was brought up on a council estate in Grimsby, but I was brought up properly and working was the only way to get on. I don’t think any of us knew anything about benefits when I was growing up. You just had to get a job and it was as simple as that. I don’t think there’s any snobbery in the film. It was actually heartwarming. Nobby is a family man and he is loyal to his wife and kids, and loyal to his brother. The plot is about him giving up his adoption place so that his younger brother can have a nice life, so he’s a good character, not a lowlife. I think anybody would warm to Nobby because his heart is in the right place and, in the end, he’s always doing the right thing. ‘The accents weren’t from the local area’ Rose Kelly, 55, operations manager at Grimsby leisure centre I was really pleasantly surprised. I thought it was going to be brash and crude and not pleasant to watch at all, but it was very funny. People at work kept saying: “Oh, what have you let yourself in for?â€\x9d and it wouldn’t be something that I would usually choose to go and see. But I came out smiling and it really had that feelgood factor. I didn’t find it offensive at all. You could have named the film after any town in this country and people would have said it wasn’t very complimentary to that town because every town has a bad area. It really could have been set in any backstreet area of any town. I don’t think the fact that it was set in Grimsby affected my enjoyment of the film at all. Having lived in Grimsby all my life, I could tell that it wasn’t actually filmed in Grimsby. The accents weren’t from the local area. It was just a really fun film, but the thing that stood out to me was the sense of family values. Although the characters had supposedly come from the rough area of Grimsby, they still had that family bond between them. I’ll also always remember the scene where they hide inside a live female elephant and then another elephant decides to mate with it. I laughed a lot at that. ‘It’s too daft to attack Grimsby’ Steve Hipkins, 59, head of Grimsby libraries It is probably the most ridiculous film I’ve ever seen in my life. It was complete and utter nonsense, but – I have to admit – it was quite funny. It certainly wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea and it’s exceedingly crude, but you’ve just got to relax and enjoy it. The question here in Grimsby is, well, does it attack Grimsby? But it’s simply too daft to attack Grimsby. It mocks everything. It mocks Grimsby, it mocks working-class people, it mocks the establishment. I think the person it mocks the most – and if I were his lawyer I’d be asking questions – is Liam Gallagher. Because Baron Cohen’s character is supposed to be a Grimsby lad, but he’s not. He’s a 1990s Mancunian, like Gallagher. They even play Oasis songs halfway through. The character has a Mancunian accent, too; it isn’t a Grimsby accent. His wife also sounds American, and you don’t hear too many Americans in Grimsby. I was trying to work out which bits of the film were actually filmed in Grimsby. They had made an attempt to make the streets look as though they were in Grimsby, but I don’t think they were. There was a pub scene which was a 1960s pub that I do know in Grimsby, but all the dock scenes were filmed in London. The railway station in the film isn’t Grimsby railway station. It had an electric line, and there’s no electric line in Grimsby. Probably the only reason it is set in Grimsby is that the name has the word “grimâ€\x9d in it. It could have been set in Scunthorpe, which sounds like “scumâ€\x9d, or Hull, which rhymes with “dullâ€\x9d. The trouble is that, ultimately, these sorts of northern, poor, Benefits Street stereotypes do stick with people. Whether or not it puts off investors, I don’t know. But it might contribute to the general idea that the south is more affluent and that is where people should be investing in business, rather than the north. It is possible to find deeper meaning in the film? It is about two brothers being separated when they are young boys, with one going to an affluent family and one going into care in Grimsby, so it could be seen as being about the inequality that comes from your environment and your upbringing. But I think it’s probably too daft for that, really. • Alan, Rose and Steve watched Grimsby at the Parkway Cinema in Cleethorpes.',
 'Economists overwhelmingly reject Brexit in boost for Cameron Nine out of 10 of the country’s top economists working across academia, the City, industry, small businesses and the public sector believe the British economy will be harmed by Brexit, according to the biggest survey of its kind ever conducted. A poll commissioned for the and carried out by Ipsos MORI, which drew responses from more than 600 economists, found 88% saying an exit from the EU and the single market would most likely damage Britain’s growth prospects over the next five years. A striking 82% of the economists who responded thought there would probably be a negative impact on household incomes over the next five years in the event of a Leave vote, with 61% thinking unemployment would rise. Those surveyed were members of the profession’s most respected representative bodies, the Royal Economic Society and the Society of Business Economists, and all who replied did so voluntarily. Paul Johnson, director of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the findings, from a survey unprecedented in its scale, showed an extraordinary level of unity. “For a profession known to agree about little, it is pretty remarkable to see this degree of consensus about anything,â€\x9d Johnson said. “It no doubt reflects the level of agreement among many economists about the benefits of free trade and the costs of uncertainty for economic growth.â€\x9d The poll also found a majority of respondents – 57% – held the view that a vote for Brexit on 23 June would blow a hole in economic growth, cutting GDP by more than 3% over the next five years. Just 5% thought that there would probably be a positive impact. The economists were also overwhelmingly pessimistic about the long-term economic impact of leaving the EU and the single market. Some 72% said that a vote to leave would most likely have a negative impact on growth for 10-20 years. Just 4% of respondents who thought Brexit would mostly likely have a negative impact on GDP over the initial five years said it would have a positive effect over the longer term. The findings – which come as 37 faith leaders write in a letter to the warning that Brexit will damage the causes of peace and the fight against poverty – will bolster David Cameron and George Osborne, who have both argued strongly that the economy will be hit hard in the event of Brexit. But the prime minister and chancellor have been criticised by the Michael Gove and Boris Johnson-led Leave campaign, which has claimed they are trying to scare the electorate and are buying into the establishment views of EU-funded international organisations. Last week Vote Leave accused the Institute for Fiscal Studies of being a “paid-up propaganda armâ€\x9d of the European Union after it said that leaving the EU would result in an extra two years of austerity. The main reasons cited by economists as to why the UK would suffer were “loss of access to the single marketâ€\x9d (67%) and “increased uncertainty leading to reduced investmentâ€\x9d (66%). The leading Leave campaigner Michael Gove has said Britain should leave the single market as well as the EU. Economists working in the public sector tended to be slightly less negative about the economic impacts of leaving the EU than average. Non-UK citizens living in the UK were more likely to think a vote to leave would most likely have a negative impact on GDP over five years (96%) compared with British or Irish economists living in the UK (86%). By contrast, relatively few economists have publicly come out saying that leaving the EU would be good for British growth, and only a handful have signed up in support of the pro-Brexit group Economists for Britain. Most studies of the impact on Britain’s economy of a decision to quit the EU show the uncertainty will hit growth in the short term and the loss of access to the EU’s single market will damage growth for decades to come. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research agree that there will be a loss of output as foreign investment shrivels and international businesses and banks shift work to the continent. Any cuts to migration would also have a huge impact on growth. The Treasury, which has predicted Brexit would cost each household £4,300 by 2030 in lost output and extra taxes, has gone further with warnings that house prices will tumble and pensions values collapse by £300bn. Economists for Brexit, who base their forecasts on a model developed by the Cardiff University professor and arch-monetarist Patrick Minford, argue that a fall in sterling, a bonfire of labour protections and the abolition of import tariffs will boost trade after a brief period of uncertainty. The free market group has said job losses in areas of the economy protected by the EU, such as agriculture and manufacturing, will be more than made up for by a booming services sector. Analysis released by the IFS last week showed that leaving the EU in the vote on 23 June would lead to a £40bn hole in the public finances. The Stronger In campaign fronted by Cameron said this would lead to spending cuts of at least £15.9bn to the NHS – equivalent to 200,000 doctors, 487,000 nurses or 37 hospitals. It would also mean £7.6bn of cuts to education, equivalent to 395,000 teachers, 393 new schools, or 2.8 million primary school places. In total, 639 respondents completed an online survey, sent to non-student members of the Royal Economic Society and the Society of Business Economists, between 19 and 27 May 2016: a response rate of 17%. Data is unweighted and reported figures should only be taken as representative of the views of those who responded',
 "A timeline of Donald Trump's alleged sexual misconduct: who, when and what At least 24 women have accused the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, of inappropriate sexual behavior in multiple incidents spanning the last 30 years. Of those, 12 have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including groping and kissing them without permission During the second presidential debate, Trump denied ever having kissed and touched women without their consent, following the release of a 2005 video in which Trump bragged about how he could grab women’s genitals and “just start kissingâ€\x9d women with impunity because he was famous. “Have you ever done those things?â€\x9d moderator Anderson Cooper asked in the second debate. “No I have not,â€\x9d Trump said. His statement arguably opened the floodgates. Trump has denied the women’s accusations, dismissing them as “liesâ€\x9d and “fabricationsâ€\x9d. In the final presidential debate, Trump suggested that the rush of accusations was either orchestrated by the Clinton campaign or the product of women seeking “10 minutes of fameâ€\x9d. He previously called his accusers “horrible, horrible liarsâ€\x9d. Here is a timeline of allegations of inappropriate behavior by Trump, many of which have only been made public in recent days. 1980s Who: Jessica Leeds When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: around 1980 What allegedly happened: The now 74-year-old told the New York Times that Trump groped her on a plane after she sat next to him in a first-class cabin during a business trip to New York more than 30 years ago. She says Trump lifted the armrest between them and then touched her breasts and attempted to put his hands up her skirt. “It was an assault,â€\x9d she told the Times. “He was like an octopus … His hands were everywhere.â€\x9d Trump’s response: Trump denies the incident took place. “This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr Trump on a topic like this is dangerous,â€\x9d said the Trump campaign in a statement. His lawyers have sent a letter to the New York Times demanding a retraction and threatening further legal action. The New York Times is standing by its story. Who: Ivana Trump When the allegations became public: 1993 When the incident allegedly took place: 1989 What allegedly happened: Trump’s first wife Ivana said that she had been raped by her then husband after an argument, according to her divorce deposition, a claim which was reported in a 1993 book called Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J Trump. As a condition of her divorce settlement, Ivana is not allowed to comment publicly on her marriage without Trump’s permission. The book was printed with a statement from Ivana clarifying the incident: [O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape’, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense. Trump’s response: “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody,â€\x9d Michael Cohen, special counsel at the Trump Organization, told the Daily Beast when it reported on the comments in July 2015. He also threatened to sue if the Daily Beast published a story on the allegations, although no legal action took place. 1990s Who: Unnamed young girl When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1992 What allegedly happened: Video from a 1992 Entertainment Tonight Christmas special emerged, in which Trump, who was 46 at the time, is heard talking to a young child. Trump asks if she is going up the escalator. When she tells him she is, he responds – and it’s not clear exactly who he’s talking to, as Trump’s face doesn’t appear onscreen – “I’m going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?â€\x9d Trump’s response: Trump has not spoken about the incident and did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Jill Harth When the allegations became public: 1997 When the incident allegedly took place: 1992-93 What allegedly happened: Harth, a makeup artist, gave a presentation to Trump at his offices in Trump Tower with her then romantic (and business) partner George Houraney. She said Trump made advances on her, including groping her under the table during a dinner the following night at the Plaza Hotel. In January 1993, Harth and Houraney travelled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to celebrate their business deal. During a tour of the property, Trump pulled Harth into one of the children’s bedrooms, she claimed. “He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again,â€\x9d Harth said in an interview with the in July, “and I had to physically say: ‘What are you doing? Stop it.’ It was a shocking thing to have him do this because he knew I was with George, he knew they were in the next room. And how could he be doing this when I’m there for business?â€\x9d Harth filed a lawsuit against Trump in 1997 alleging the harassment, which she later dropped. The pair then briefly dated in 1998. Trump’s response: “Mr Trump denies each and every statement made by Ms Harth as these 24-year-old allegations lack any merit or veracity,â€\x9d his campaign said in July. Who: Kristin Anderson When the allegations became public: 14 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: early 1990s What allegedly happened: Anderson told the Washington Post she was at China Club, a Manhattan nightclub, when Trump put his hand up her skirt while she sat on a couch speaking with friends. “This is the vivid part for me. The person on my right, who unbeknownst to me at that time was Donald Trump, put their hand up my skirt. He did touch my vagina through my underwear,â€\x9d said Anderson. “As I push the hand away, I got up and I turned around and I see these eyebrows. Very distinct eyebrows of Donald Trump.â€\x9d Anderson noted that her friends also identified the man as Trump. Trump’s response: “Mr Trump strongly denies this phoney allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity,â€\x9d said spokeswoman Hope Hicks in a statement. “It is totally ridiculous.â€\x9d At a rally in North Carolina, Trump appeared to reference the event. “One came out recently [that said] I was sitting alone in a club, I don’t sit alone in a club … it’s unbelievable,â€\x9d he said. Who: Lisa Boyne When the allegations became public: 13 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1996 What allegedly happened: Boyne, now a health food entrepreneur, told the Huffington Post she witnessed Trump looking up women’s skirts and commenting on their underwear and genitalia at a dinner. Then 25 and a thinktank employee, Boyne said she was invited to dinner with Trump, John Casablancas, the late modeling agent, and other women. Seated at a semi-circular table with Trump on one end and Casablancas on the other, she said the men refused to get up to allow the women to leave the table and instead made them walk across it. Trump “stuck his head right underneath their skirtsâ€\x9d though he didn’t do that to her because she was not a model, she said. One woman who was at the dinner, when contacted by the Huffington Post, confirmed it took place but did not recall this behavior from Trump. A roommate of Boyne’s denied that she called her that night. Trump’s response: Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, told the Huffington Post: “Mr Trump never heard of this woman and would never do that.â€\x9d Who: Cathy Heller When the allegations became public: 15 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1997 What allegedly happened: Heller was attending a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago when, she said, she met Trump and he immediately kissed her on the lips, fighting her when she pulled away. “He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips,â€\x9d said Heller. She leaned backwards to avoid the kiss. “And he said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips.â€\x9d Trump then kissed her on the side of her mouth, she claimed. “He was pissed. He couldn’t believe a woman would pass up the opportunity,â€\x9d she said. Trump’s response: “There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother’s Day at Mr Trump’s resort,â€\x9d said spokesman Jason Miller. “It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades.â€\x9d Who: Temple Taggart When the allegations became public: 14 May 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1997 What allegedly happened: The former Miss Utah told the New York Times that when she was a 21-year-old pageant contestant, Trump kissed her on the mouth when she was introduced to him. “He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh my God, gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate,â€\x9d she told the newspaper. Trump also kissed her on the mouth during a meeting at Trump Tower, she claimed, where he recommended the 21-year-old lie about her age to advance her career. “We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,â€\x9d she recalled him saying. Trump’s response: Trump disputed the allegation, with the New York Times reporting he said “he is reluctant to kiss strangers on the lipsâ€\x9d. Who: Mariah Billado and four other anonymous former Miss Teen USA contestants When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1997 What allegedly happened: Former 1997 Miss Teen USA contestants said Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants, some as young as 15, were changing. Billado recalled that Trump, the new owner of the contest, announced : “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.â€\x9d “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s a man in here’,â€\x9d the former Miss Vermont Teen USA told Buzzfeed. Trump’s response: Trump did not respond to Buzzfeed’s report and did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Karena Virginia When the allegations became public: 20 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1998 What allegedly happened: Virginia, a yoga instructor and life coach, was waiting for a car after the US Open in New York, when, she said, Trump touched her breast. “He was with a few other men. I was quite surprised when I overheard him talking to the other men about me. ‘Hey, look at this one,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen her before. Look at those legs.’ As though I was an object rather than a person,â€\x9d recalled Virginia, who said she had never met Trump before. In a press conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, she said Trump then walked up to her, “reached his right arm and grabbed my right arm. Then his hand touched the right side of my breast. “I was in shock. I flinched. ‘Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?’ That’s what he said to me. I felt intimidated and I felt powerless.â€\x9d Virginia was 28 when the alleged incident occurred. Trump’s response: “Discredited political operative Gloria Allred, in another coordinated, publicity seeking attack with the Clinton campaign, will stop at nothing to smear Mr Trump. Give me a break. Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton,â€\x9d said Jessica Ditto, Trump’s deputy communications director. 2000s Who: Bridget Sullivan When the allegations became public: 18 May 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2000 What allegedly happened: While she was competing as Miss New Hampshire at the 2000 Miss USA contest, Sullivan said, Trump, then owner of the contest, came backstage while contestants were changing. “The time that he walked through the dressing rooms was really shocking. We were all naked,â€\x9d she told Buzzfeed. Trump’s response: Spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in May the allegations were “totally falseâ€\x9d. However, in a 2005 appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show unearthed by CNN, Trump bragged about walking into contestants’ dressing rooms at pageants. “Well, I’ll tell you the funniest is that before a show, I’ll go backstage and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it,â€\x9d Trump told Stern. “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good. You know, the dresses. ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.â€\x9d Who: Tasha Dixon When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2001 What allegedly happened: The former Miss Arizona told Los Angeles’s CBS affiliate Trump walked through the Miss USA dressing room in 2001 while contestants were naked and changing. “He just came strolling right in,â€\x9d Dixon said. “There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.â€\x9d Trump’s response: His campaign released a statement denying the allegation: These accusations have no merit and have already been disproven by many other individuals who were present. When you see questionable attacks like this magically put out there in the final month of a presidential campaign, you have to ask yourself what the political motivations are and why the media is pushing it. Who: Unnamed Miss USA 2001 contestant When the allegations became public: 13 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2001 What allegedly happened: Trump walked into the shared dressing room of two Miss USA 2001 contestants while they were changing, even though security warned him the women were naked, one of the women said in an interview with the . “Mr Trump just barged right in, didn’t say anything, stood there and stared at us,â€\x9d she recalled. “He didn’t walk in and say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I was looking for someone,’â€\x9d she added. “He walked in, he stood and he stared. He was doing it because he knew that he could.â€\x9d Trump’s response: The Trump campaign did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Mindy McGillivray When the allegation became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 24 January 2003 What allegedly happened: McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post Trump groped her while she was assisting a photographer friend working at an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Ken Davidoff, who was Mar-a-Lago’s official photographer, said he remembered McGillivray telling him on the night: “Donald just grabbed my ass!â€\x9d She recalled the incident to Palm Beach Post. “All of a sudden I felt a grab, a little nudge. I think it’s Ken’s camera bag, that was my first instinct. I turn around and there’s Donald. He sort of looked away quickly. I quickly turned back, facing Ray Charles, and I’m stunned,â€\x9d said McGillivray. Trump’s response: The Trump campaign did not respond to the ’s request for comment. What: Access Hollywood leaked footage from 2005 When the allegation became public: 8 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2005 What allegedly happened: Leaked tapes from Access Hollywood in the Washington Post reveal Trump, boasting to then host Billy Bush, that being famous means he can touch and kiss women without their permission. Actor Arianne Zucker arrives to take Trump and Bush on a tour of the set of Days of Our Lives, and the men start speaking about her. She cannot hear them. “I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,â€\x9d Trump said. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.â€\x9d “And when you’re a star, they let you do it,â€\x9d Trump adds. “You can do anything.â€\x9d “Whatever you want,â€\x9d said Bush. “Grab them by the pussy,â€\x9d Trump said. “You can do anything.â€\x9d Trump’s response: Trump recorded an apology video, published on social media, saying he “regrettedâ€\x9d the comments. “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,â€\x9d he said. “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.â€\x9d During the subsequent presidential debate he dismissed the comments as “locker-room talkâ€\x9d and said he had never kissed or grabbed women without their consent. Who: Rachel Crooks When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2005 What allegedly happened: Crooks, then a 22-year-old receptionist at real estate firm Bayrock Group, whose offices are in Trump Tower, said she introduced herself to Trump outside the building’s elevator one morning. Trump began kissing her cheeks, and then “kissed me directly on the mouthâ€\x9d, she told the Times. “It was so inappropriate … I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,â€\x9d said Crooks. Trump’s response: Trump’s campaign manager said he intended to sue the New York Times over the story and had asked for a retraction. In a tweet and at a rally in Florida, Trump repeated that the story was “a total fabricationâ€\x9d. Who: Natasha Stoynoff When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: December 2005 What allegedly happened: People Magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff said she was sent to Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump for a story about his first wedding anniversary with Melania, where he forced himself on to her. “We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat,â€\x9d wrote Stoynoff. “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?â€\x9d she said Trump told her. He then turned up at the salon where she was due to get a massage the following day. Trump’s response: At a Florida rally, Trump denied the incident took place, following an earlier tweet: Who: Ninni Laaksonen When the allegations became public: 27 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2006 What allegedly happened: Laaksonen, a former Miss Finland in the Miss Universe competition, said Trump groped her during a photoshoot for an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. “Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt. He really grabbed my butt,â€\x9d she told Ilta-Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper. “I don’t think anybody saw it, but I flinched and thought: ‘What is happening?’â€\x9d Laaksonen said: “Somebody told me there that Trump liked me because I looked like Melania when she was younger. It left me disgusted.â€\x9d Trump’s response: The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Who: Jessica Drake When the allegations became public: 22 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2006 What allegedly happened: Drake, a pornographic film actor and sex educator, said Trump kissed her and two female friends on the lips without permission and then offered her $10,000 to have dinner with him and attend a party, after they met at a golf event. “He asked me for my phone number, which I gave to him,â€\x9d she said at a press conference. “Later that evening, he invited me to his room. I said I didn’t feel right going alone, so two other women came with me. In the penthouse suite, I met Donald again. When we entered the room he grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each of us on the lips without asking for permission. He was wearing pyjamas.â€\x9d A man later called on Trump’s behalf asking her to return to his room, she said, and she refused. Trump then called her. “Donald then asked me ‘What do you want?’ ‘How much?’â€\x9d said Drake. She declined, she said, and a man called and offered her $10,000 and the use of Trump’s private jet. Trump’s response: After Drake came forward, Trump issued a dismissive statement. He also dismissed all claims against him in an interview with New Hampshire Today: “These are stories that are made up, this is total fiction. You’ll find out that, in the years to come, these women that stood up, it was all fiction.â€\x9d He then specifically mentioned Drake, saying sarcastically he was sure no one had harassed her before: “And she’s a porn star. You know, this one that came out recently, ‘He grabbed me and he grabbed me on the arm.’ Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.â€\x9d Who: Summer Zervos When the allegations became public: 14 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2007 What allegedly happened: Zervos, a contestant on The Apprentice, accused Trump of groping and kissing her on two occasions. During a meeting at Trump Tower, she said, Trump greeted Zervos and said goodbye to her by kissing her on the mouth. Later in the year, she said, she met Trump for dinner in Los Angeles, and met him at his hotel beforehand. “He came to me and started kissing me open-mouthed and he pulled me towards him,â€\x9d said Zervos. “He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast … he walked up, grabbed my hand, and walked me into the bedroom.â€\x9d After she rebuked him, she said, he thrust his genitals towards her. Trump’s response: In a statement, Trump said he “vaguely rememberedâ€\x9d Zervos but “never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade agoâ€\x9d. 2010s Who: Unnamed woman When the allegations became public: 8 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2010 What allegedly happened: A friend of CNN anchor Erin Burnett recounted the story to Burnett about a meeting in a boardroom at Trump Tower where Trump tried to kiss her on the mouth. “Trump took Tic Tacs, suggested I take them also. He then leaned in, catching me off guard, and kissed me almost on lips. I was really freaked out,â€\x9d the woman said, according to Burnett. “After, Trump asked me to come into his office alone. Was really unsure what to do. … Figured I could handle myself. Anyway, once in his office he kept telling me how special I am and gave me his cell, asked me to call him. I ran the hell out of there,â€\x9d Burnett reported the woman saying. Trump’s response: Trump did not respond to CNN’s report and did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Cassandra Searles When the allegations became public: 17 June2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2013 What allegedly happened: Searles, Miss Washington State 2013, posted a photo to Facebook of Trump posing with her and her fellow contestants from the Miss USA 2013 contest. “He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room,â€\x9d Searles wrote in the comments under the photo, reported Yahoo. “Do y’all remember that one time we had to do our onstage introductions, but this one guy treated us like cattle and made us do it again because we didn’t look him in the eyes? Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property?â€\x9d she wrote alongside the photo. Other contestants chimed in agreeing with Searles, with one noting her story was “so extremely true and scaryâ€\x9d. Trump’s response: Trump did not respond to Yahoo’s report and did not respond to the ’s request for comment.",
 "'Mental health is not only about darkness and depression' It was James Routledge’s own battle with anxiety while winding down his first startup that led him to launch Sanctus. He was also experiencing stress, panic attacks and sleepless nights, but didn’t feel he could confide in his new colleagues. “I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t want to admit weakness or vulnerability,â€\x9d he says. Through Sanctus, Routledge offers coaching sessions to businesses to help them improve their approach to mental health. In a small business environment, he says it’s the founders who must set the precedent. “Create a culture where vulnerability is accepted and it’s OK for people to say: ‘I’m not feeling so good, this didn’t go so well or I’m feeling a little bit stressed.’ Mental health is not only about the darkness and depression, that’s like only talking about obesity and disease in physical health.â€\x9d A report from Business in the Community (BITC) found that mental health is still shrouded in a culture of silence and stigma in UK workplaces. Of the 20,000 people surveyed, three in four said they had experienced symptoms of poor mental health at some point in their lives. At that scale, the impact on business is, unsurprisingly, significant: the estimated total cost to employers is £26bn per year, according to the Centre for Mental Health. But its research shows that £8bn of that could be saved by employers taking simple steps to manage mental health in the workplace. The BITC report reveals a clear discrepancy between how workers and business leaders think the issue is handled: 60% of board members felt their organisation dealt well with mental health, but only 11% of workers had recently discussed mental health with their line manager. So why are employees keeping their difficulties hidden? “I think there’s a perception that someone with mental health issues is weak and that they will use it to not work,â€\x9d says Natalie Weaving, director at digital marketing agency, The Typeface Group. Weaving heads up a small team of three employees and three contractors. Among them is copywriter Shannon Valentine, who is 20. Valentine has mental health conditions including anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but, unlike many others, she regularly talks to her boss about her mental health. Valentine told Weaving about her mental health conditions after a few weeks in the job. Valentine was coming off antidepressants and was experiencing physical side effects. She says that Weaving noticed and guessed the cause. “I have a tendency to worry about silly things, which she noticed too,â€\x9d Valentine says. Now she feels comfortable discussing it in the office and says practical changes, such as flexible hours, are a great help. Today, if Valentine is going through a rough patch, she and Weaving agree on one of her preferred coping mechanisms, whether that’s taking the day off and making up the time at a later date, or simply going for a walk. “Working with Shannon has really opened our eyes,â€\x9d Weaving adds. It should be noted that under the Equality Act 2010, employers can’t ask a candidate about their health until they have offered them a job. However, managers need to be open about mental health if they are to effectively support staff, says Madeleine McGivern, head of workplace wellbeing programmes at mental health charity Mind. “When someone starts in a role [it’s a good idea to have] a conversation about what keeps them well at work and what signs to look out for if they’re doing less well, so that people can step in early [to help]â€\x9d. Encouraging all staff to talk about their mental health works well for Stuart Gray. He owns four small businesses based in Warwick, including Portus Consulting, all of which are in the employee benefits industry. The number of staff in his businesses range from 12 to 45. During regular one-to-one meetings, line managers in Gray’s businesses ask staff how stressed work is making them feel on a scale of one to 10. “It’s about trying to get them to open up,â€\x9d Gray adds. If a staff member feels stressed at a level of seven or above then the manager will try to get to the bottom of why that is and see if their workload needs to be lightened. Additionally, Gray’s management team aims to pick up any clues that an employee might be experiencing mental health difficulties, from a lack of engagement to a long-term change in mood. His line managers have taken part in training to help them spot mental health conditions in staff. Developing this awareness helped Gray’s managers identify that a senior member of staff had depression. “They were quite emotional on occasion, particularly if it was a really busy day and there was pressure on a deadline. My CEO explored the situation and it wasn’t work that was the problem, it was stuff that was happening outside that was affecting their ability to work effectively and cope with that.â€\x9d Due to the size of the business, and an insurance policy that covers days lost to ill health, Gray was able to support the staff member with around three weeks of paid leave. He adds that all company projects are a team effort, and other staff were able to pick up the work that was left behind. McGivern says that providing support doesn’t need to be costly. It’s most important that there’s a culture of communication, she says. She does suggest investing in training for staff, through programmes such as Mental Health First Aid (for which course costs can range from £77 to £300 per person) to teach people how to identify, understand and help a person who may be developing a mental health issue. Simple adjustments to workplace culture such as approving flexible hours, making sure staff take their breaks and encouraging them to get involved in decision-making and planning their own workload as much as possible can all help better support the team, no matter the size of the organisation. “You don’t need to have an HR department to support someone with a mental health issue, but you do need to have line managers who are aware of mental health problems,â€\x9d McGivern adds. “It’s a bit of a misnomer that people who have mental health problems can’t function in fast-paced or stressful environments. In fact, a lot of people, with or without mental health problems, thrive in those environments because small amounts of stress can heighten our performance. It’s just about giving people support.â€\x9d Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.",
 "Motörhead's Bomber – watch an exclusive track from Lemmy's last tour Up until his death in December 2015, Lemmy Kilmister continued to front those thunderous titans of rock’n’roll, Motörhead. “For as long as I can walk the few yards from the back to the front of the stage without a stick,â€\x9d he told the in August last year. “Or even if I do have to use a stick.â€\x9d In November 2015, UDR Records made the decision to record Motörhead’s two sold-out shows at the Zenith in Munich, Germany; footage that would turn out out to be the last documentation of the group performing live. Following Lemmy’s death on 28 December, two days after he was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive cancer, drummer Mikkey Dee confirmed that without their frontman and bassist, the band would no longer continue. Scheduled for a June release, Clean Your Clock – a live DVD, CD, Vinyl and Blu-ray album – captures the bone-rattling impact of the Motörhead live experience and features a career retrospective, including Stay Clean, Metropolis, When the Sky Comes Looking for You, Ace of Spades and Bomber, an exclusive video of which you can watch below. • This article was first launched on 29 April 2016 and temporarily removed because of a rights issue with the video. It was relaunched on 3 May 2016.",
 'Emma Stone and Alicia Vikander set for rival Agatha Christie biopics The Danish Girl star Alicia Vikander and The Amazing Spider-Man’s Emma Stone have both been lined up to play a young Agatha Christie in biopics being developed at rival Hollywood studios. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Vikander has been approached by Sony to play the celebrated crime author in her formative years as a “proto-feministâ€\x9d unhappy with traditional wife-and-mother expectations. Stone, on the other hand, has been pencilled in for Paramount’s take on Christie’s “missingâ€\x9d 11 days in 1926 – a subject already covered in Michael Apted’s 1979 film Agatha, which starred Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman. The resurgence of interest in Christie follows a flurry of interest from film-makers in getting film versions of the writer’s work off the ground. A forthcoming adaptation of her 1934 yarn Murder on the Orient Express has Kenneth Branagh in the director’s chair and Angelina Jolie in the cast, is due to start shooting this summer and will be released in 2017. A version of the 1939 mystery And Then There Were None was successfully aired on BBC1 at Christmas, and leading British film compnay Working Title are moving ahead with a feature film adaptation to be directed by The Imitation Game’s Morten Tyldum. However, a Julian Fellowes-scripted adaptation of Crooked House appears to have stalled, after an announcement in 2012 that Possession director Neil LaBute was on board. The current activity around Christie’s work is ascribed to Acorn Media’s purchase of a 64% stake in the Christie estate in 2013 from entertainment company Chorion, who themselves had bought the rights to Christie’s work in 1998. Chorion had overseen the reworking of the Miss Marple stories for TV – a series which began in 2004 – but Acorn, who were the DVD distributors for Marple, are thought to have ambitions in the feature film arena. The last set of major big-screen adaptations arrived in the mid-1970s, with a cameo-studded cast coming together on Murder on the Orient Express in 1974 and Death on the Nile in 1978. Any film adaptation of the writer’s work will also have to secure the approval of Christie’s descendants, who are thought to hold a 36% stake in the company that holds licensing rights.',
 'The EU: An Obituary by John R Gillingham – the neoliberal case against the European Union A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of disintegration. The European Union, argues John R Gillingham, is on the verge of “collapseâ€\x9d, defended only by an alliance of old elites. While we focus on Brexit (which he confidently predicts in a postscript), the issues imperfectly covered in his book suggest that it is a parochial distraction from the much bigger question of how Europe is to be organised in the 21st century. We are at a “turning pointâ€\x9d in European history. Euroscepticism creates some strange bedfellows. Many rightwing nationalists view the EU as a Trojan horse of unstoppable multiculturalism. Some on the left see its focus on the single market as institutionalised “neoliberalismâ€\x9d and austerity. And some “neoliberalsâ€\x9d such as Gillingham see it as a relic of the postwar decades that binds free markets in red tape. Gillingham is not a typical author for the radical-left publishing house Verso – presumably at least one commissioning editor there has Eurosceptic leanings. From all sorts of angles, the EU seems to be the sick man of Europe. Wherever one sits on the political spectrum, many of Gillingham’s charges against today’s EU are fair. It is bloated by bureaucracy and complex inefficiency; it has little democracy and even less transparency; its defence of the single currency has economically punished tens of millions of Europeans; it has benefited and subsidised big corporations and big agribusiness while often neglecting social justice and civil liberties; it has been impotent in Bosnia, Kosovo and Ukraine; and it has let thousands of refugees drown and deported even more. Such an indictment has left even devotees of the European project disillusioned with the status quo. But Gillingham is no impartial judge: his criticism of what he calls the “Eurocultâ€\x9d lurches from historical analysis to ideological bias. His EU is something of a Schrödinger’s cat. The “obituaryâ€\x9d of the title deems it already dead, but at different points it is instead “defunctâ€\x9d, “unravellingâ€\x9d, an institution whose history “has run its courseâ€\x9d, or which is on its “last chanceâ€\x9d and could yet be saved. This is a reflection of both real uncertainty and the disjointed nature of the book. Much of Gillingham’s “obituaryâ€\x9d focuses on the EU’s 20th-century history, condensing some of the narrative of his much larger history of European integration, published in 2006 (which he frequently footnotes). His discussion of the 1940s and 50s features an alphabet soup of organisations from the EDC (European Defence Community) to the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) to the IRA (International Ruhr Authority). Today’s EU was – and is – not the only one possible. He offers two major arguments on the EU’s history. First, that the impetus for integration has always come from outside forces: US foreign policy; the Soviet threat; the collapse of the Bretton Woods financial system; globalisation; technology. The influence of these is often elided in a “mythâ€\x9d of the EU’s complicated origins. Second, he sees a battle between “neoliberalismâ€\x9d and interventionism, in particular in the clashes between Margaret Thatcher and long-time commission president Jacques Delors. His ideological preference for Thatcher’s policies strongly colours his history of the EU from the 1970s onwards. This bias is particularly pronounced in Gillingham’s treatment of the EU’s economic history, where he downplays successes: for example, his assessment of the economic impact of the single market is overpessimistic, although expectations of it were unrealistically high, and have been altered by economic change. He is right to criticise the slow integration of communications, energy, and services – less emphasised in the original single market, but now 75% of the EU economy – and he laments a possible retrenchment to a “patchworkâ€\x9d of national markets. The answer to Europe’s slow growth and mass youth unemployment does not lie in re-erecting economic and social borders. Yet how could a single market work without European institutions to oversee it? Gillingham would prefer a “renationalisedâ€\x9d continent knit together “through a network of purpose-based, practical, and results-oriented bilateral and multilateral agreementsâ€\x9d, which sounds both utopian and even more Byzantine than the EU itself. More importantly, he simply wants much less regulation in general. He derides European environmental, food safety and privacy regulation as “shamsâ€\x9d based on scare stories and anti-American protectionism. But in an age where corporations can exploit the gaps between nation states and globalising markets to evade tax, exploit workers and damage the environment, European citizens should realise national retrenchment and unfettered capitalism would be a toxic combination. Gillingham too often sees integration and “globalisationâ€\x9d as almost natural phenomena, the “exogenousâ€\x9d forces driving change in the world economy. They are not, however, inevitable processes, but reversible ones heavily influenced by institutions and their policies. It is wishful thinking to imagine that economic integration and political cooperation would continue smoothly after the demise of the EU. In the collective institutions’ ruins there would be many populist incentives and opportunities for nationalist posturing, protectionism and conflict, especially in the poorer parts of the continent with young, fragile democracies. The future of Europe cannot be mortgaged to a libertarian fantasy. Underlying all European economic questions is the ongoing saga of the euro. Many commentators would agree with Gillingham that monetary union has become the “masterâ€\x9d of the EU, and that “Europe is now run by a bank boardâ€\x9d (although Mario Draghi would say that if the Greeks and Germans now both dislike him he must be doing something right). It took the US well over a century to make its monetary union work, and Europe does not have that kind of time. We cannot, however, go back in time to undo European monetary union. Barry Eichengreen has argued that a eurozone breakup would precipitate “the mother of all financial crisesâ€\x9d. As Gillingham notes, a fiscal transfer union to strengthen it is a political non-starter, but was the euro the EU’s “point of no returnâ€\x9d? There are many reforms – banking union, debt restructuring, demand-side policies – that are possible. The single currency is not necessarily fatally flawed, and, even if it is, we must not, as Kevin O’Rourke has written, allow the baby of European integration to be thrown out with the euro bathwater. There is no doubt, however, that the EU’s handling of the crisis and its “democratic deficitâ€\x9d have, as Gillingham argues, discredited the idea of integration and stoked the fires of rightwing populism. The possible demise of free movement – Gillingham deems it a “major achievementâ€\x9d but sees the Schengen agreement as a “dead letterâ€\x9d – would be a body blow, cutting off the lifeblood of integration. Dismantling the flawed structure, however, would only encourage those negative forces, and tearing it down in favour of Gillingham’s proposed “mega marketsâ€\x9d of “Schumpeterian creative destructionâ€\x9d would be ideological folly, a vice from which Europe suffered enough in the last century. Those who believe in a cooperative and shared Europe cannot let the EU sink under the mistakes of arrogant and remote leaders. It is not beyond the wit of Europeans to build shared institutions that are democratic, fair and functional. Gillingham writes that there is more at stake in writing the EU’s history than just “setting the record straightâ€\x9d, especially as the European project has too often been closed to “heretics and doubtersâ€\x9d. He is right, which is why debates on its future must move beyond the binary biases of Eurosceptic and Europhile. The EU cannot go on as it is; but it must go on. Let us hope that reports of its death are exaggerated. • To order The EU for £10.39 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.',
 'Copy-and-paste songwriting for a switched-on world Over the last couple of years, there has been a terrible trend in pop music. It most commonly manifests itself in a dance-pop track that lifts a hook or refrain from a well-known song and – with the aid of mind-numbing repetition and a house beat – transforms it into something just far enough removed from its source material to be classed as an original. See 99 Souls’ The Girl Is Mine, which takes samples from Girl by Destiny’s Child and Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine to form something painfully derivative of both, or Duke Dumont’s No 1 hit I Got U from 2014, which took bits of Whitney Houston’s My Love Is Your Love, put them in a different order, and gave them to Kelli-Leigh to sing. Yet as dismal as the situation may seem, the success this half-arsed school of songwriting has enjoyed feels merely like a blip in the history of the sample, still the most significant and exciting characteristic of 21st-century pop music. Now – 30 years since hip-hop brought the technique to the mainstream – a new generation of artists are developing it into something less crude and more creative. But while musicians such as Kanye West continue to layer increasingly jarring samples densely and awkwardly into a new work, for others this age of allusion is materialising in another form. Hold Up – Beyoncé’s staggeringly frank bat-in-hand battlecry against the self-negation of infidelity – is a matryoshka doll of a song. It opens with its chorus, a bastardised dancehall version of the song Maps by 00s indie stalwarts the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; the famous “They don’t love you like I love youâ€\x9d refrain set over a dub rhythm and distant wailing horns, and bookended by the track’s title. For the track’s finale, Beyoncé bursts into Turn My Swag On by Soulja Boy, a song that was transformed into an R&B diva standard by Keri Hilson (which found fame in the UK thanks to Cher Lloyd’s 2011 X Factor audition – to this day probably the high-water mark of the Simon Cowell conglomerate’s output). That idea of singing a bit of somebody else’s song in the middle of yours (known technically as interpolation) might just be the future of pop music. After all, in a world where practically every new track feels like a haunted house beset by ghosts of melodies past, deliberately evoking another song seems like the audacious and self-aware thing to do. Suitably, a new generation of neo-soul and alt R&B wannabes are at it: 19-year-old singer Jorja Smith’s Blue Lights, for example, has her singing the bombastic hook from Dizzee Rascal’s Sirens as part of a sultry soul number, while 5050 by south London singer Ray Blk begins with a warped version of the “love me, love meâ€\x9d portion of the Cardigans’ Lovefool. Unlike the borrowed sentiments of the aforementioned electropop nightmares, these sung snatches are a way to enrich songs with the emotion and nostalgia (Dizzee Rascal is akin to Woody Guthrie for Generation Z) of the original songs. Although currently finding a home in new and inventive R&B, interpolation is a trend that traverses the genres. The Maps segment of Hold Up was originally created by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, who had the idea to supplement the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ lyrics with the refrain “There’s no other God above you / what a wicked way to treat the man who loves youâ€\x9d (changed slightly for the Beyoncé version) and then set it over a plucked Andy Williams track (the segment was completed by Diplo). This cross-genre appropriation is characteristic of the pop-will-eat-itself way Koenig works in his indie songwriting, too: in Vampire Weekend’s 2014 track Step, Koenig sings the lyrics of Oakland rap group Souls of Mischief’s Step To My Girl to the tune of the song’s sampled sax melody, while Vampire Weekend’s most famous track, Oxford Comma, alludes to Lil Jon’s “to the window, to the wallâ€\x9d lyric. Unsurprisingly, rap continues to lead the charge too, with much grime locked in a vortex of references to other lyrics from the genre, while also lifting from other styles: Beenie Man’s Who Am I (Sim Simma) popped up, doomily reimagined, as the chorus to Section Boyz’ Bimma. Although currently there is little distinction made between straightforward sampling (taking a passage from somebody else’s recording and inserting it into your own) and interpolation, the latter does seem significantly different. It suggests not only total submersion in music – echoing the way some people now live their lives, thanks to portable devices that provide unlimited access to an unlimited catalogue of songs – but also the way music is absorbed into the cultural consciousness: in memorable snippets, melodies recreated in people’s heads and with their own voices. It also echoes the copy-and-paste methods of online identity assemblage on platforms such as Tumblr and Instagram, where the clever and cool reference is king. As this type of allusion-heavy songwriting prepares to dominate in line with the resurgence of rap and R&B, get ready for a subtler, stranger style of pop cannibalisation.',
 'Reality check: Even Hillary Clinton could not have passed gun control Nicole Hockley, who lost her son in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, faced a row of television cameras on Tuesday. She and other Sandy Hook families were filing an appeal in their battle against the gun companies who had made the military-style rifle used to kill their children. What was her reaction to Donald Trump’s victory, reporters asked her. Was she scared? Hockley, composed and forceful, offered a reality check: even if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, Congress would not have passed gun control legislation. “We’ve had a very committed gun violence prevention president in place for the last eight years, and we’re not seeing significant federal change,â€\x9d she said. “This is about bottom-up change, not top-down,â€\x9d she told the cameras. “This is more about a community groundswell that’s needed.â€\x9d Hockley’s fight for gun violence prevention has been focused on state and local action – and having Trump in the White House did not change that strategy. Obama, a passionate advocate for gun violence prevention, has “tried everything. He can’t get it passed,â€\x9d she said in an in-depth interview with US. When it comes to guns, “I still don’t think our country is ready yet for federal change,â€\x9d she said. “I think there are still too many people that are uninformed or misinformed on this issue, that believe it’s never going to happen to them, that believe it has nothing to do with access to weapons.â€\x9d “This is not the time to bow out,â€\x9d she said. “This is where we have to double down our efforts. Regardless of who’s in office, people are still dying every day, and there’s an opportunity to save lives.â€\x9d Hockley’s son Dylan was six years old when a disturbed young man shot his way through Dylan’s elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty first-graders and six educators were murdered. Dylan died in the arms of his classroom aide, who was also killed. A photograph of Dylan in a Superman T-shirt has become an icon in the fight for stricter gun control laws. Hockley was among the family members who went to Washington, only weeks after their children were killed, to press senators to vote in favor of a compromise bill to tighten background checks on gun sales. The high-profile effort, backed by the White House, failed to attract enough support to overcome a potential filibuster in the Senate. This rejection of moderate gun control left many Americans stunned that political change on guns was impossible even after first-graders had been massacred. Clinton’s loss, after a campaign where she had made gun violence prevention a central issue, had hit advocates hard, Hockley said. “There’s still that shock and numbness from really strong gun violence prevention advocates,â€\x9d Hockley said. Some advocates and donors are worried that “Nothing’s going to happen now,â€\x9d saying, “I don’t want to waste my effort.â€\x9d “They’re grieving,â€\x9d she said. “I know a bit about grief, and you do want to pull away.â€\x9d Without Clinton, the movement’s progress will be slower, she said. But Hockley said she had been heartened by victories on ballot measures in California, Nevada and Washington state last week, where majorities voted to impose stricter controls on guns and ammunition. And Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit advocacy group Hockley helped to found, has been seeing progress at the local level, in school districts across the country. From the beginning, the group rejected the idea that real change in preventing gun violence and mass shootings could come from gun control policy victories alone. Unlike Clinton, the group decided not to fight for a federal ban on assault weapons like the one used at Sandy Hook. Unlike other leading gun control groups, the group does not endorse candidates for office. Instead, Sandy Hook Promise has also been working with school districts across the country to spread a violence prevention program that teaches students to take action when they see signs of someone who might be about to harm themselves or others. The training programs have already reached more than one million people, Hockley said – and Sandy Hook Promise works closely with schools in both red and blue states, from Florida and Louisiana to Alaska and California. Even parents and teachers who are strong gun rights advocates appreciate this kind of training, she said. In Louisiana, she met with a group of sheriffs who started out skeptical of a Sandy Hook parent – and ended up enthusiastic about having the program in local schools. The need is obvious: when Hockley gives trainings at schools, students sometimes come up to her afterwards and tell her that they are thinking about self-harm, she said. She talks to them, she listens and she walks them over to a teacher or counselor who they trust to talk more. “It kills you, you know?â€\x9d she said. “You think: that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because those are the ones who come forward right then and there. There are so many others who need help.â€\x9d In Eau Claire, Michigan, she heard about a student seeing a Snapchat video of another student saying: “Don’t come to school on Monday, I’ve got a loaded gun.â€\x9d A student told a parent, the parent informed law enforcement, and “the gun was found: potential tragedy averted,â€\x9d she said. “The only thing that keeps me going – I don’t care about anything else other than saving lives,â€\x9d she said. Sandy Hook Promise is about to hire its first political director in Ohio, where it will focus on drafting state legislation on gun violence prevention measures, including securing mental health funding and creating gun violence restraining orders. In Congress, Sandy Hook Promise advocates for mental health reform legislation. “When I do think about the NRA, the opposition, it took them decades to build that base, and to get organized, and to have deep relationships with their team members,â€\x9d she said. “They’re best-in-class in organizing. We haven’t been as organized on the other side.â€\x9d With the National Rifle Association’s candidate heading to the White House, Hockley said she is concerned about federal right-to-carry reciprocity legislation. This Trump-endorsed national law would eviscerate local gun carrying restrictions. If passed, the legislation might mean that tourists from other states would be allowed to carry their guns around New York City. If Trump follows up on his campaign rhetoric about eliminating gun-free zones and pushing guns in schools, “That I’ll fight hard against,â€\x9d she said. “Schools are no place for guns. If he comes out and tries to make that happen, there are a heck of a lot of people who will fight against that … I think that would be a very, very unpopular move.â€\x9d Trump’s second amendment platform does not mention guns and schools, though he has pledged to end gun-free zones on military bases. Asked at the Tuesday press conference if she would agree to meet with Trump to talk about addressing gun violence, as she has met with Obama, Hockley paused. “I will never say no to having an open conversation with anybody regardless of their stated or unstated beliefs, because I believe without conversation we’re not going to see progress,â€\x9d she said. “I can’t foresee a reason that the president elect would have any desire to meet with me, so I’m not anticipating that.â€\x9d Hockley was announcing her appeal of a lawsuit on behalf of several Sandy Hook victims’ families that argued gun companies were negligent to market an AR-15 style rifle to the general public. Last month, a Connecticut judge struck down the lawsuit that nine victims’ families and one survivor had filed against the manufacturer, distributor and seller of the rifle used in the shooting. Hockley is involved in the lawsuit privately, not as part of her work for Sandy Hook Promise. Gun company lawyers had argued that the companies were protected by a 2005 federal law designed precisely to shield gun companies from being held liable when a legally sold, non-defective gun is later used in a crime. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, had killed his mother and then taken her guns, which she had purchased legally. On 14 October, Judge Barbara Bellis of the Connecticut superior court ruled that the companies were protected by the federal shield law. Interest in the case had clearly dwindled by the time lawyers announced their appeal on Tuesday. At an earlier press conference at Koskoff’s law office in February, local and national media outlets had packed the room to ask questions of a line of victims’ family members. On Tuesday, in the pouring rain, only a handful of media outlets showed up. Hockley, who has been working full-time on gun violence prevention since March 2013, just weeks after her son was killed, said she is trying to learn how to prepare better for the long fight. Kickboxing and seeing a therapist both help, she said. “Self-care has not been a priority for me, which is a shame, because this is going to be the rest of my life,â€\x9d she said. “So I need to start focusing on how I’m going to ensure that I maintain the stamina and the emotional wellbeing to do this. “I do think it’s going to take two generations.â€\x9d',
 'Is there too much stress on stress? In 1925 a student at the Charles University medical school in Prague sat through his first lecture in the science of diagnosis, taking careful notes about how to examine a patient, and was struck by an observation that profoundly changed the history of modern medicine. The student, then 19, was Hans Selye, and the observation he made was this: although the patients brought forward for diagnosis by his professor were in the early stages of different illnesses – measles, scarlet fever, the flu, various allergic reactions, duodenal ulcers, shingles – their symptoms all appeared remarkably similar. To a man and woman, they complained of “a coated tongue, more or less diffuse aches and pains in the joints, intestinal disturbances and loss of appetite. Most had fever (sometimes with mental confusion), an enlarged spleen or liver, inflamed tonsils, a skin rash and so forth…â€\x9d. Moreover, the patients “felt and looked illâ€\x9d. Selye was startled to discover, however, that his professor was not much interested in these symptoms that made all illnesses look the same. The professor was, perhaps not surprisingly, more concerned with the symptoms that made each illness look different, in order to make his diagnosis and propose treatment. This concept troubled Selye. Looking back on that particular afternoon, 50 years later, he suggested: “I could not understand why, ever since the dawn of medical history, physicians should have attempted to concentrate all their efforts upon the recognition of individual diseases and the discovery of specific remedies for them, without giving any attention to the much more obvious ‘syndrome of being sick’.â€\x9d When Selye mentioned that “syndrome of being sickâ€\x9d notion to his professor, he received a look of disdain, though it continued to obsess him. Still, he mostly kept quiet about it until 10 years later, when he was an assistant in the department of biochemistry at McGill university in Montreal, researching sex hormones by injecting ovarian tissue into laboratory rats. In the course of this work, Selye was overwhelmed by a similar epiphany to that first one. The rats showed clear and measurable responses to foreign tissue – enlargement of the adrenal glands, shrinkage of the thymus, the spleen and the lymph nodes, a decrease of white blood cells – but, to Selye’s surprise, these impacts were the same, whatever kind of tissue he introduced, and later, whatever toxic substance. He developed from this another hypothesis: that the body produced “a single non-specific reaction to damage of any kindâ€\x9d, what he called, somewhat clumsily, “a syndrome of response to injury as suchâ€\x9d. He felt this universal response might be related to his previous “syndrome of being sickâ€\x9d, and again presented the idea to the director of his research. Again he was laughed out of the lab. Responding to Selye’s suggestion, made in “enrapturedâ€\x9d tones, that he proposed to investigate why any toxicity introduced to the body produced a similar reaction, his professor told him: “Selye, try to realise what you are doing before it is too late! You have now decided to spend your entire life studying the pharmacology of dirt!â€\x9d This time, Selye was not put off. He continued his research by observing the physiological reaction of lab rats to as many physical agents as he could think of: subjecting rats to extremes of cold and heat, to x-rays, “psychologicalâ€\x9d trauma, haemorrhage, starvation, pain or forced exercise, as well as toxins of every kind. He found “no noxious agent that did not produce the syndromeâ€\x9d of responses in the adrenal glands, thymus, spleen and white blood cells. As well as that he determined that those responses underwent a three-stage cycle, a beginning middle and end, of alarm, resistance and exhaustion. He called this pattern “the general adaptation syndromeâ€\x9d, or GAS for short, and he wrote up the results of his experiments in the journal Nature. It was published in a single‑column, down-page note in July 1936. The title was “A syndrome produced by diverse noxious agentsâ€\x9d. Over the next decade, through the war years when there was no shortage of “diverse noxious agentsâ€\x9d, Selye sought to disseminate and popularise his findings, with limited success. What he needed, he decided, was a name for all those diverse agents and the apparently nonspecific effects they produced, effects that he by now had hypothesised – he was not a cautious man – were a root cause of “high blood pressure, angina, disorders of the digestive system, kidney diseases, diabetes, rheumatism, certain cancers and most nervous and mental disordersâ€\x9d. By 1946 he had landed on the single word he needed to get his idea across. He called his syndrome, both cause and effect, “stressâ€\x9d. Selye never looked back. Just before Christmas I sat thinking about Hans Selye and his GAS experiments in the audience in a seminar room at a conference centre in a leafy Birmingham suburb. “WorkStressâ€\x9d was the annual conference of the UK National Work-Stress Network. Ian Draper, a retired teacher and union organiser has been overseeing and promoting this event for 21 years, during which time, he suggested, it had only got bigger. The room, for the weekend event, was packed with representatives of just about every profession and occupation. They were, in general, health and safety officers, mostly union officials, and the reasons for this conference, the facts before them, were fairly stark. The number of cases of work-related stress in the UK, in the year to April 2015, was 440,000, or 1,380 per 100,000 workers. The number of working days lost due to this condition was 9.9m (which equated to an average of 23 days lost per case). In 2014/15 a diagnosis of stress accounted for 35% of all work-related ill health and 43% of all working days lost due to illness. The condition was much more prevalent in public services, particularly education, health and social care. The main work factors cited by respondents as causing work-related stress were workload pressures, including tight deadlines, too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support. Evidence suggested that these problems are only getting worse. The keynote speaker at the stress conference was Gail Kinman, professor of occupational health psychology at the University of Bedfordshire. Kinman opened with a caveat that went back in some ways to Selye’s struggle to find a name for his “adaptative illnessâ€\x9d syndrome. “Put 100 experts in a room,â€\x9d she said, “and you will come up with 100 different definitions of stress.â€\x9d The one she used, in relation to the workplace, was that approved by the Health and Safety Executive: “The process that arises where work demands of various types and combinations exceed the person’s capacity and capability to cope.â€\x9d Stress was an imbalance between environmental demands and personal resources; it was taken as read that this was a dangerous thing. Kinman’s particular concern – and the concern of the thought-provoking conference in general – was whether stress, and its assumed and sometimes proven knock-on effects on health, could be linked to austerity measures and the state of the economy. So far, she admitted, there was not enough evidence to make a definitive case; although perceptions of stress had increased between 2006 and 2012, there was also a sense that much more went unreported. Anxieties about job insecurity led to denial. Two-thirds of British employees agreed that people in their organisation would be “unlikelyâ€\x9d or “very unlikelyâ€\x9d to reveal that they were experiencing stress-related illness. This appeared to go hand in hand with evidence that among people iwn managerial roles a growing number – more than three-quarters – considered creating a work-life balance as the employee’s responsibility, not theirs. Many of those who reported being stressed cited technological changes – email following them home in the evenings and at weekends – as a prime factor. Kinman had worked closely in longitudinal studies of two particular groups – university academics and prison officers. In both groups the perception and fact of stress had grown markedly in the years since 2008 across every perceived measure – demands had increased, personal control over work had reduced, relationships had worsened, roles were less understandable and the ability to adapt to change had decreased. 80% of academics “agreed or strongly agreedâ€\x9d that their work was “very stressfulâ€\x9d. If anything the figures from among prison officers were more disturbing. Falling staff levels, changing shift patterns and rising levels of violence meant that their stress levels were measurable both in impaired problem solving and reduced creativity but also in very high incidence of relationship breakdown, alcohol abuse and the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Kinman was not alone in citing Sanjay Basu and David Stuckler’s book The Body Economic, which examined health and economic data over decades, concluding that austerity was bad for both physical and mental health. “If austerity were tested like a medication in a clinical trial, it would have been stopped long ago, given its deadly side effects,â€\x9d they observed. That conclusion was also used in evidence by the pressure group Psychologists Against Austerity, represented by Laura McGrath of the University of East London and Vanessa Griffin of the University of Essex. They had formed their group to protest at what they saw as the advance of five stress-related “austerity ailmentsâ€\x9d: humiliation and shame, instability and insecurity, isolation and loneliness, being trapped or feeling powerless, and fear and distrust. The collective result of these ailments was that “Mental health problems are being created in the present, and further problems are being stored for the future.â€\x9d There followed from the floor a long series of questions and related experiences about the effects of short-term and zero-hours contracts, the impacts of job insecurity and constant change, and workplace bullying. Each profession had its charge sheet of stressors. “The average working life of a social worker is eight years.â€\x9d “Among teachers, stress is the most common cause of early retirement.â€\x9d “Prison officers [and I had to get someone to repeat and verify this statistic] lived only on average 18 months after retirementâ€\x9d. Certain themes seemed universal. “It gets to the point where every time you read your emails your blood pressure increases,â€\x9d a council official observed. Many people felt threatened by a “culture of constant appraisal and evaluationâ€\x9d. There was growing evidence of people using holidays when they were ill, to avoid taking sick leave and “showing weaknessâ€\x9d; this was particularly prevalent among older members of staff. There was widespread agreement that GPs are routinely asked to keep the word stress out of a diagnosis because the question of whether any days have been lost to the condition routinely turns up on application forms. “People are just terrified of losing their jobs…â€\x9d Though much of this anecdotal evidence was shocking, it seemed to me, listening to those stories, that stress was sometimes being used as a catch-all shorthand for other issues – as had always been the case since Selye created the term. In many cases it sounded like a medicalisation of a cultural or a political trend. Many of the issues described were the result of insensitive management practices and cultures of long hours or unreasonable demands. The more I listened the more it seemed that the mental health of individuals had become the battleground in what might once have involved broader standoffs. (It was tempting to think that the frontline of labour disputes had shifted from picket lines to worry lines and that collective grievances had become individual psychological battles; in the 1980s an average of 7,213,000 working days were lost each year to strikes; that number fell to 647,000 between 2010 and 2015. Meanwhile the days lost to stress-related illness went exponentially in the other direction, including a 30% increase in occupational stress between 1990 and 1995.) Stress appears to be standing in for older concepts like injustice, inequality and frustration, seen at the level of the individual rather than of the wider workforce. I subsequently put that point to Professor Sir Cary Cooper, the most visible advocate of workplace wellbeing in the UK, president of the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) and author of 120 books and pamphlets on stress and related concepts at work. In 2008 Cooper was commissioned by the Labour government to oversee the Foresight programme into “Mental Capitalâ€\x9d; with the help of 350 scientists from across the world he examined factors from birth onwards that cause stress, and developed recommendations for evidence-based policy to enhance wellbeing. Then the recession happened. Hadn’t stress, mental capital, in the years since, I asked him, become a proxy for other more traditional employee relations issues? Cooper thought it had, up to a point. “The fact is there are fewer people doing more work, greater insecurity, fear of job loss. And the stresses we face in the workplace are generally no longer physical, they are other people.â€\x9d But isn’t that just the reality of most working lives now – lack of control, information overload, working more for less? Isn’t stress inevitable? “Perhaps,â€\x9d Cooper says. “But how do we change that?â€\x9d In his view one useful step would be to pin a sign to every office door reading: “Your manager is potentially dangerous to your healthâ€\x9d. “The line manager for all of us is absolutely fundamental to our wellbeing,â€\x9d he says. “The problem is that we recruited people prior to the recession not on the basis of their social and interpersonal skills but on the long hours they worked, and their perceived effect on the bottom line, or whatever. The evidence is clear that [working] long hours will not only do nothing for productivity, it will eventually make you ill.â€\x9d Does that mean not mentally fatigued but physically unwell? “Yes. Core morbidity, we call it. If you have a physical illness, there is a mental health aspect to it. Stress could be the trigger to some of these illnesses: if you are in a really bad marriage, or if you are in a job you value and you fear losing, it can lead to these illnesses…â€\x9d Cooper wrote a book examining the links between such emotional stress and cancer (links that are debatable). Countless other studies have sought to back up Selye’s argument of stress as the root cause of cardiovascular disease; while a strong link between depression, social isolation and heart disease has been shown, there is little persuasive evidence that such things as job stress or anxiety disorders have a measurable effect. I wonder if Cooper thinks it useful to have “stressâ€\x9d as this one-stop term for workplace anxieties and related illnesses. If we have the unsupported sense that unexpected or unreasonable challenges and demands are literally killing us, isn’t that likely to heighten the anxiety? “There may be some of that,â€\x9d Cooper says. “I tend to prefer to think in terms of wellbeing rather than stress.â€\x9d After he first coined the term “stressâ€\x9d, Hans Selye’s big idea became one of the most virulent of all ideas in the second half of the 20th century. You could be forgiven for believing that human existence is currently something like the seven ages of stress. Babies can be stressed from birth by overstressed parents (stress is infectious), and even be stressed prenatally. We stress toddlers with too much TV and too little play; children with too much pressure and too many exams; teenagers with the insistent anxieties of social media; adults with the requirement to juggle all the responsibilities of their lives; and the ageing population with the stresses of ageing. In spite of our relative affluence in comparison with previous generations, and the long years of peace since Selye first publicised his idea in 1946, it can seem that we have become a society that understands itself, both in the workplace and beyond it, through stress. Mark Jackson, in his book The Age of Stress, offers a brilliant account of how that happened. In the first instance Selye himself proved an indefatigable proponent of his own theory. The popularity of stress, as an idea, quickly became international. The French suffered from le stress, Germans from der Stress, Italians from lo stress, and Spanish from el stress. By 2010 “stressâ€\x9d was the best-known foreign-language term in Japan. Selye’s original project was helped by two factors. The decline in mortality rates from infectious diseases focused attention on how cells might age and die (Selye’s seductive proposition was that they were undone by hormonal imbalances caused by uncontrollable reactions to external pressures). At the same time, increased consumption, and a shift from manual work to service economies, emphasised a disconnect between mental and physical health. The growth of technology exaggerated that disconnect. Selye’s greatest propagandist was the futurist Alvin Toffler, with whom he collaborated and whose bestselling book FutureShock predicted “the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a timeâ€\x9d. Selye, who worked with Toffler to create the International Institute of Stress in 1975, had a gift for popularising his idea. He proposed that the best method for the diagnosis of stress should come from the individual. To this end he proposed a 31-point stress test which detailed symptoms that every person should be aware of. Signs of stress included, in no particular order: high-pitched laughter, floating anxiety (we are afraid but we don’t know what of), dryness of the throat, the frequent need to urinate, increased smoking, the overpowering urge to run and hide (who won’t admit to that one?). Many early proponents appeared to find in the concept of a universal adaptive illness a useful metaphor for their political worldview. In his introduction to the UK edition of Selye’s book The Stress of Life, Sir Heneage Ogilvie, an eminent British surgeon, observed that it was “perhaps the greatest contribution to scientific medicine in the present centuryâ€\x9d and argued that the rising incidence of “stress diseases was the result of a failure to balance work with rest, particularly among ‘the more intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking members of societyâ€\x9d. Ill health became a consequence of the inability to adjust to a consumer society “that equated happiness with a 40-hour week, a smart car, a television set and a chromium-plated bathroom. In the less stoutly built, it is the mind that gives way,â€\x9d Ogilvie argued. In 1983 Time magazine put stress on its cover, and the phrase “stressed outâ€\x9d entered the language, and never left it. The developed version of Selye’s theory proposed that the pace and complication of modern life caused the continuous activation of the hormonal responses to danger that cavemen used for flight or fight, and these led to psychological trauma and, because unnaturally sustained and unchecked, to disease. “Stress is now known to be a major contributor, either directly or indirectly, to coronary heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidental injury, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide – six of the leading causes of death in the US,â€\x9d the Time article asserted, based on patchy evidence (and with the emphasis very much on “directly or indirectlyâ€\x9d). Selye himself not only promoted the idea that the stress of life was responsible for such illnesses, he also suggested – funded in part by the Sugar Research Foundation – that a diet rich in carbohydrates but low in salt was capable of moderating them. For more than 20 years after the publication of The Stress of Life, the tobacco industry also funded some of the pipe-smoking Selye’s institute (with $300,000 in 1969 alone). In return he endorsed smoking as a defence against stress, appeared in films questioning any link between smoking and cancer, and emphasised stress itself as far a more significant factor. Stress and its management quickly became a multi-billion-dollar business. Academic departments and behavioural medicine institutions were created to counter its advance, not to mention a new category of pharmacology and whole sections of bookshops devoted to stress management and calm theory, relaxation, yoga and meditation. Living became like a thermostat for stress control; the challenge was to eliminate stress wherever possible. A few dissenters were not convinced that this was necessary. Daniel Thomson, a professor of endocrinology, undertook a famous study of English civil servants in 1968, at the request of Harold Wilson. The study was a forerunner of the current investigations into occupational psychology. Thomson concluded, somewhat against the grain of Selye’s theory, that “Many civil servants complain about the stress, strain and frustrations of modern living. Many of these problems are, however, largely of their own making, because of their failure to reach emotional maturity and to become tolerant, patient and relaxed individuals, aware of their own limitations, having come to terms with their own surroundings, no matter how uncongenial.â€\x9d Criticised by those who argued that stress was in many instances a powerful motivating and creative force, that necessity was the mother of invention, Selye modified his initial theory that any challenge to the norm was a stressor by suggesting that there was good stress and bad stress, or “eustressâ€\x9d and “distressâ€\x9d. “Stress is not even necessarily bad for you,â€\x9d he wrote, by way of revision, “it is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress.â€\x9d Selye himself worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week, selling stress to the world, and claimed to relish every second of it. His distinction between eustress and distress never really caught on. Stress remained a largely pejorative term, and one that seems to plague each successive generation as lives threaten to become more complex and jobs less secure. A survey from the insurer Friends Life last year found that one in four of the UK population had called in sick due to stress in the previous 12 months. And more than one in three of 18-24-year-olds had done so. Another study published last month, however, does at least give some credence to the idea that effects of stress can be mitigated by a certain cast of mind. The large-scale project at the University of California, San Diego, with findings published in the journal Biological Science, looked at the ways certain individuals – extreme sportsmen, special operations soldiers – seemed able to develop resilience to the intense physical and emotional stresses of their jobs. The researchers invited some of these individuals to lie in brain-scanning machines while wearing face masks to which the oxygen supply could be controlled. When the oxygen seemed about to be shut off, the first part of Selye’s GAS process kicked in – the subjects displayed the beginnings of bodily signs of panic – rising heart rate, a burst of adrenaline – but, after sudden activity in the part of the brain that monitors bodily response, the flight or fight reaction was quickly dampened. The subjects experienced stress but they did not overreact to it; they “switched offâ€\x9d the second and third parts of Selye’s three-stage process – there was no resistance or exhaustion, and their bodies remained in a steady state. When people who were not experienced in those fields underwent the same tests, a great range of responses to the imminent stress of suffocation was observed; those best able to “listen’ to their body’s response, who showed most activity in that part of the brain, were most resilient; those who simply panicked went into a full-blown stress pattern, and found it hard to return to any kind of normal or steady state. It was not clear from the study whether the responses could be learned or were innate. Such studies open up the question of the value of monitoring your own stress levels through analysis of brain activity and perhaps attempting to “switch offâ€\x9d a response accordingly. Not surprisingly, given our obsession with stress, the latest generation of “wearable techâ€\x9d attempts to answer that need; various headsets are already available that purport to monitor stress levels by working to measure electrical activity in the brain – much in the way that a Fitbit monitors physical activity. It is early days for such technology, but in the near future some of the gadgets will apparently not only be able to work out when you are in a state of anxiety but also “support you in becoming calmâ€\x9d – by assisting in meditation techniques, turning off your mobile phone, placing your email on hold, or introducing favourite soothing music. The headsets are advertised as an aid to wellbeing, balance and calm. You can’t help feeling, however, that they will just as likely prove one more thing to stress about.',
 'Q&A: Everything you need to know about air pollution What is causing today’s air pollution? Stagnant air from continental Europe, which has picked up pollution from industry and agriculture, is being blown over the UK from the south-east. This air combines with pollutants already present in the air from UK sources, such as nitrogen oxides and particulates from diesel vehicle engines, to produce air pollution. This is resulting in “moderateâ€\x9d levels of pollutants known as PM10 and PM2.5, which are tiny particulates that can lodge in the lungs and cause breathing difficulties in vulnerable people. Ozone, which also causes breathing difficulties, is also present at elevated levels. As the wind is blowing these pollutants inland, “moderateâ€\x9d levels of pollution are likely to occur not just in their usual locations, close to busy roads, but also far beyond, according to a warning from King’s College London. What should people do? Vulnerable people – including those with existing respiratory conditions, children, older people and people with other health problems, such as heart disease – should take care, and avoid strenuous exercise outdoors if they experience breathing difficulties. How can people avoid it? As the pollution is so widespread, it is difficult to avoid. Staying indoors can help, as can cutting out car journeys and paying attention to your body. If you feel short of breath, or develop a cough, sore throat or irritated eyes, then cut out strenuous physical activity and rest inside. How long is it going to last? The official forecast is for moderate pollution to hang over large parts of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland until Monday. The worst day is expected to be Sunday, when people are likely to head outdoors due to the balmy weather. Sunday will see high levels of pollution in some parts of the country. Shouldn’t the government be doing something? Air pollution is an increasingly high profile problem in the UK, despite the government’s obligations to cut pollution to safe levels, agreed under EU rules. These rules have been flouted for years, to the point where earlier this year the number of high pollution days allowed under the regulations was used up in just a week in some parts of London. The government faces fines from the EU and legal challenges in the courts over its failures. In other cities – such as Paris, Athens and Milan – the local authorities have moved on days of high pollution to curb the use of cars in city centres and surrounding areas. But the government and City Hall, both Tory-led, have refused to do so. So what is the government doing about it? The government says it has a plan to cut pollution to legal levels by 2025. This is five years too late according to the rules it has signed up to, and a new legal challenge is going ahead in an attempt to force a rethink. London’s mayoral candidates have also promised solutions, such as low-emissions zones, more cycling routes and changes to public transport to bring in cleaner vehicles. What are the effects of air pollution? Shortness of breath, streaming eyes, coughing and respiratory difficulties are common in the first instance. Longer term, permanent lung damage can develop, along with heart problems and ultimately a shortened lifespan. In children exposed to poor air, lungs may never develop properly, which is incurable. Why weren’t we warned? The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which has responsibility for air quality, tweeted this morning that pollution levels were “lowâ€\x9d across the country. People concerned about air pollution might be better advised to look at sites such as that run by King’s College London, londonair.org.uk. How common is this kind of pollution in the UK? Air pollution was recently described as a “public health emergencyâ€\x9d by MPs, who called for new measures such as a scheme to encourage people to scrap their diesel cars, a leading cause of the pollution. Defra refused to say how often incidents like this happen. A spokeswoman would only say it was “commonâ€\x9d in the spring, because of weather conditions. As the air warms up and photochemicals are activated by sunshine, pollution worsens. However, air quality is now so poor that there are routinely episodes in the winter as well. Is this the worst pollution episode? The “Saharan dustâ€\x9d that blew in two years ago was worse in terms of severity. However, the increasing incidence of air pollution means that people across the country, but particularly in urban areas and in London above all, are now subject on a routine basis to much higher levels of air pollution than are deemed safe by scientists. More than 9,000 people a year are thought to die prematurely in London alone as a result, and as many as 50,000 a year nationally. Equally bad is that children who grow up in polluted air suffer as a result throughout their lives, even if they move away from polluted areas in later life.',
 "Madness pay tribute to Prince Buster – 'A huge impact on everything we did' Madness – who took their name from one his songs, whose first single was about him, and whose breakthrough hit was a cover of one of his tracks – paid tribute to ska legend Prince Buster on Sunday. The band were appearing at Radio 2’s Festival in a Day in Hyde Park in London, and dedicated a version of their first single The Prince to Buster, who died on Thursday. Madness singer Suggs told the BBC how crucial Prince Buster had been to the group. “The fact he came from the streets and he had a terrific sense of humour and energy – it really appealed to us and it had a huge impact on everything we did, really.â€\x9d He added: “It’s like the Monty Python thing about the Romans: ‘What did Prince Buster ever do for us?’ A great deal indeed.â€\x9d Madness’s second single, One Step Beyond, was a cover of a Prince Buster song, and their first top 10 hit. They also covered his song Madness. Other heroes of the Two Tone and British ska movement have paid tribute to Buster. “From hip-hop to grime to dancehall to reggae, there can be very little which hasn’t been influenced to some extent by Prince Buster and his combination of singing and talking over rhythms,â€\x9d said Jerry Dammers, founder of the Specials and the Two Tone label.",
 'Being working class makes you happy – according to Disney In the world of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves even Grumpy heads to work with a spring in his step. A new study by sociologists at Duke University suggests that the class stereotypes reinforced by Disney’s biggest films are introducing young viewers to a life of accepting their lot, until their own hard work pulls them out of poverty. Jessi Straub, an assistant professor of sociology at Duke, and two undergraduates, Miryea Ayala and Colleen Wixted, watched all 36 films by Disney and its subsidiary Pixar that have grossed more than $100m as of 1 January 2014. They categorised the class of each primary character and charted whether the classification changed over the course of the story. They found that only 4% of the primary characters across the films could be classed as “poorâ€\x9d and that the cartoons depicted diligence and strong spirit as the key indicators of social mobility. Only one of the working class characters, who made up 16% of the primary roles, worried about money. “The big theme is that inequality is benign,â€\x9d Streib told the Duke research blog. “Being poor isn’t a big deal. Being working class makes you happy. Anyone who wants to get ahead, and is ambitious and is a good person, can do so. And the rich happily provide for everyone else. Obviously, that’s not exactly how the world works.â€\x9d Streib’s study, titled Benign Inequality: Frames of Poverty and Social Class Inequality in Children’s Movies, found that the majority of characters in Disney and Pixar films could be called upper and upper middle class. In the real world, roughly 25% of American children live in poverty. Streib and her team highlighted a section of the 1992 film Aladdin as representative of the film’s attitude to class and poverty. In one scene, the street urchin Aladdin and the wealthy Princess Jasmine compare their lot and find themselves equally miserable. He is poor, she is unhappy because she has “people who tell you where to go and how to dressâ€\x9d. “Studies have shown that by the time kids are 12, they have internalised a lot of American ideas about class – like poor people are lazy, and rich people are smart and hardworking,â€\x9d Streib said. “Parents don’t really like talking to their kids about class, so I thought that the movies these kids watch are how they get their ideas on class.â€\x9d She accepts that its a tricky line for Disney to walk, as it’s difficult to offer a realistic portrayal of the class system without dissuading kids from working hard. “If you showed these poor characters as trying really hard and still not being able to get ahead, then parents would see that as hard work doesn’t pay off, which may be a troubling idea for little kids,â€\x9d Streib told the Hollywood Reporter. The Duke University study follows work on the representation of women in Disney films that found that Disney princesses typically speak less than male characters, despite being the lead character. The study, by linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, singled out hits like Frozen, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin as particularly poor in giving their female characters voice.',
 "Internet Explorer: the podcast that plumbs the web's depths for gold If you’ve ever been curious about notorious website 4chan, but couldn’t access the site due to your company’s firewall – or accessed the site and had no idea what to make of it – let Internet Explorer serve as your guide. The podcast from BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos and Ryan Broderick serves as an introductory course into the internet’s darkest, oddest and grossest corners. Why you should listen When BuzzFeed wanted to venture into the podcasting world, it started with two podcasts – Another Round and Internet Explorer. “What Katie and I originally pitched was Howard Stern, but about weird internet stuff,â€\x9d said Broderick. The resulting show is not too far from that description, as in each episode the two friends and a variety of guests have frank, funny conversations about online oddities. The idea for the podcast was close to their hearts. Over the past four years or so, Broderick and Notopoulos have done an annual listicle of the Worst Things on the Internet as part of BuzzFeed’s year-end coverage. The list gathers together everything the internet has to offer, from memes to memorable Vines to viral posts on Tumblr, and compiles the worst into one convenient rundown of what you missed. The show was a natural extension of that list. Not that the transition from weird internet gurus to podcast hosts was easy. “The biggest shock for Ryan and me is that it turned out to be a lot harder than either of us thought,â€\x9d said Notopoulos, laughing. “We thought we would just have to get together for half-hour a week and talk. We didn’t realize that oh, maybe we should plan stuff out.â€\x9d Each episode, Notopoulos and Broderick take a deep dive into the stranger parts of the internet, the parts that many people don’t know exist or choose to ignore out of a sense of self-preservation or fear that they may never recover after seeing someone do something untoward to a Christmas turkey. Internet Explorer is not for everyone, but for those who are internet curious, it lets people know what’s happening on the weird web without the risk of having any unsavory images seared into their memory. “The good thing about the podcast is that it’s not visual,â€\x9d said Notopolous. “When we’re describing something gross …â€\x9d Broderick starts, before finishing his thought: “We’re not gross for saying it, you’re gross for visualizing it.â€\x9d They readily admit that some of their content would never make it to print on BuzzFeed, but somehow it works on the podcast. “Describing something in words – and laughing about it – is a little gross, but funny gross,â€\x9d said Notopolous, reassuringly. “I think it’s a good medium for talking about this stuff, actually,â€\x9d agrees Broderick. “We have to see the pictures, but you don’t.â€\x9d Not that every episode is gross. One week will find Notopolous and Broderick talking to Japan’s most viral teenager; another week will have them walking in the online footsteps of a serial catfish, getting to the bottom of ghost sex encounters, diving into the world of financial domination, or reporting the true story of Michael Jackson’s involvement with the Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack. The show can also be very service-oriented, serving up cautionary tales about online misdeeds that would otherwise be whispered about like ghost stories around the internet campfire. Take for instance the time Broderick accidentally sent pornography to the entire BuzzFeed office. In the wake of Gawker’s in-house in-jokes being read aloud in court during their Hulk Hogan sex tape trial, Internet Explorer had an employment law specialist visit the show to deliver a sermon about writing things in Slack or Gchat or other messaging services at work. While the show has lingered in some of the sillier (and raunchiest) corners of the internet, over the past few weeks it has taken a deep dive into more serious reporting in its series on the years that changed the internet. They talked to MySpace celebrity Tila Tequila and gossip maven Perez Hilton about life online in 2005 and spoke to a Geocities archivist and the inventor of Microsoft’s Clippy for a look back at 1999. Another recent episode looked at 2010, a year that had pre-teen Jessi Slaughter face the full brunt of the internet after her father yelled “You dun goofed!â€\x9d in a video that went viral, before “going viralâ€\x9d was a thing. For the show, they tracked Jessi down to ask about how making an appearance on Good Morning America for cyberbullying can affect the rest of your life. “We put in a lot of time and effort into this series. We worked for weeks in advance, so the episodes come across as more polished,â€\x9d said Notopolous. “It wouldn’t work for us to interview someone who has a dark, horrible story, like Jessi Slaughter, in the middle of an episode about silly memes. We wanted to put a little gravity behind it. It’s a story that Ryan and I care about and would write about.â€\x9d “We wanted a series that could be fun and irreverent, but also let us flex our reporting muscles,â€\x9d said Broderick. “We were talking to Jessi Slaughter about an incredibly traumatic event, but also trying to relate, because I also had a very embarrassing emo period.â€\x9d Not that the show is going fully serious, though. Far from it. Just after wrapping their series on years that changed the internet, they took over Facebook Live for a dramatic reading of the infamous vampiric Harry Potter fan fiction story, My Immortal. Where to start: 2010: The Years That Changed the Internet; Cosplaying While Black; How a Serial Catfish Tricked Famous Men and Almost Got Away With It Subscribe to Internet Explorer on Acast or iTunes",
 'British study finds risk of breast cancer nearly tripled by combined HRT Women who rely on the most commonly used form of hormone replacement therapy are roughly three times more likely to develop breast cancer than those who do not use it, according to a study whose results suggest the risk of illness has been previously understated. Those using the combined HRT therapy, a combination of oestrogen and progestogen, were running a risk 2.7 times greater than non-users, according to a study by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London. Previous investigations may have underestimated the increased risk by up to 60%, the study added. Anthony Swerdlow, professor of epidemiology at the ICR, said: “What we found is that the risks with combined HRT are larger than most of the literature would suggest.â€\x9d The study’s leaders added that HRT is an individual choice but one for which accurate information is essential. An estimated one in 10 women in their 50s use HRT to deal with menopausal symptoms including hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings and tiredness. The treatment is effective but controversial because studies published in 2002 and 2003 have previously suggested there is also link with breast cancer. Those findings led to a halving of the numbers of women taking the drugs. In November an NHS watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), sought to reassure women about the safety of the treatment, which replaces depleted oestrogen and – in combined HRT – progestogen to alleviate symptoms. Most women take combined HRT because oestrogen alone can increase the risk of womb cancer and taking progestogen alongside oestrogen is known to help minimise this risk. HRT using oestrogen alone is usually recommended for women who have had a hysterectomy. Breast Cancer Now’s chief executive, Lady Delyth Morgan, said: “Menopause symptoms can be hellish. The really important thing about the generations study is that it’s actually a fine-tuned study that’s looking very specifically and carefully at the issue. “It’s potentially the most accurate assessment that can be made because it’s looking at the menopausal status of the participants and it’s looking at the length of time HRT was taken and on that basis assesses the change in the risk.â€\x9d There were almost 900,000 prescriptions for combined HRT with progestogen last year, according to the NHS. The risk of breast cancer increased with duration of use, with women who had used combined HRT for more than 15 years being 3.3 times more likely to develop breast cancer than non-users. However in women using the other type of HRT – a variant that uses oestrogen only – the scientists found that there was no overall increase in breast cancer risk compared with women who had never used HRT. Scientists have debated the increased risk of breast cancer from HRT, which could be explained by an increased exposure to hormones affecting the development and growth of some tumours. For the study, published in the British Journal of Cancer on Tuesday, 39,000 women were monitored for six years. During that time 775 – or nearly 2% – developed breast cancer and women using combined HRT (for an average, median duration of 5.4 years) were 2.7 times more likely to contract the disease during the treatment period than women who had never used HRT. However, no increase in risk was seen in women using oestrogen-only HRT and a year or two after women stopped taking combined HRT, there was not a significantly increased risk of breast cancer, confirming findings of previous studies. The experts believe the lack of follow-up information on the use of HRT and menopausal status affected the accuracy of other studies. For example failure to account for women who had stopped using HRT during the research period could lead to the risk being underestimated. When the researchers analysed their own data without adjusting for changes in HRT use or women’s known menopause age, it led to a lower estimate of a 1.7-fold increase in risk. Dr Heather Currie, a spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and chair of the British Menopause Society, said: “Women need clear, evidence-based information to break through the conflicts of opinion and confusion about the menopause. “For many women, any change in breast-cancer risk is outweighed by the benefit on their quality of life, bearing in mind that there are many other factors that increase the risk of breast cancer, for example lifestyle factors.â€\x9d The Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which monitors the safety of medicines, said it would evaluate the study and provide updated information to prescribers and users of HRT if necessary. “Medicine safety and effectiveness is of paramount importance and under constant review,â€\x9d an MHRA spokesperson said. “Our priority is to ensure that the benefits of medication outweigh the risks. Current product information on all forms of HRT carries strong warnings on breast cancer, including that the risk increases with duration of use. “The decision to start, continue or stop HRT should be made jointly by a woman and her doctor, based on the best advice available and her own personal circumstances, including her age, her need for treatment and her medical risk factors.â€\x9d HRT treatment should be re-assessed on a yearly basis at least, the agency said. Meanwhile a separate study has found that women who expect the worst from a type of breast cancer treatment are more likely to suffer adverse side-effects. The research, published in the Annals of Oncology, found that women with a negative perception of receiving hormone therapies such as tamoxifen suffered nearly twice the number of side-effects than women with positive expectations or who thought the effects would not be too bad. The authors looked at 111 women in Germany who had had treatment for hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. They questioned the patients about their expectations of the effect of taking hormone therapy at the start of the trial and then assessed them at three months and at two years. Those with higher expectations of side-effects at the start of the study saw a 1.8 increase in their occurrence after two years. Prof Yvonne Nestoriuc, from the University Medical Centre, Hamburg – who led the study – said: “Our results show that expectations constitute a clinically relevant factor that influences the long-term outcome of hormone therapy. “Expectations can be modified so as to decrease the burden of long-term side-effects and optimise adherence to preventive anti-cancer treatments in breast cancer survivors.â€\x9d The headline of this article was amended on 23 August 2016 as it incorrectly stated that combined HRT increases the risk of breast cancer by 300%. The actual figure, according to the study’s findings, is 170%.',
 'Ex-Libor chief accepted claim that rate could not be rigged, court told The man formerly in charge of overseeing the Libor benchmark lending rate took banks at “face valueâ€\x9d when they said it could not be rigged, a jury has heard. Testifying at the trial of five former Barclays employees accused of conspiring to manipulate Libor, the former British Bankers’ Association (BBA) director John Ewan said he had not been concerned that banks were trying to influence the rate. The Serious Fraud Office has charged Jonathan Mathew, a former Barclays rate submitter, and his former colleagues at the bank – derivatives traders Stylianos Contogoulas, Jay Merchant, Alex Pabon and Ryan Reich – each with one count of conspiracy to defraud by manipulating US dollar Libor rates between June 2005 and September 2007. The five men have pleaded not guilty. Ewan was asked about a meeting with senior Barclays employee Miles Storey at which the banker told him that it would “not be feasibleâ€\x9d for banks to conspire to change the Libor rate. According to minutes taken at the meeting, and submitted as evidence to the trial at Southwark crown court, this was partly a reaction to “rumblingsâ€\x9d from other banks about the Libor rates that Barclays was submitting to the BBA. Ewan said: “It’s very difficult to un-know what we now know. But at the time I didn’t think about it very much and I took it at face value when Barclays told me it wouldn’t be possible for them to get together and try to manipulate Libor rates.â€\x9d Asked whether he had received complaints from banks that they believed that rivals were submitting false Libor rates in order to make money, Ewan said: “I really don’t remember.â€\x9d The BBA oversaw Libor, a key financial benchmark underpinning contracts worth trillions of pounds worldwide, from the mid-1980s until it was stripped of responsibility for setting the rate in 2013. During the financial crisis, Ewan was in charge of producing a report on reforming Libor following allegations of abuse. The jurors were told by the prosecution earlier in the trial that the defendants conspired to manipulate the Libor rate for US dollars. The court heard that the group were paid big bonuses and offered each other wine and coffee in return for favourable rates. However, defence lawyers for the accused have told the court that they only did what they were told to by their Barclays bosses, without realising it was wrong, and that they did not benefit financially. The trial is expected to last three months.',
 'Simon Pegg: I respectfully disagree with George Takei over gay Sulu Simon Pegg, who has co-written the latest Star Trek movie, as well as starring as Scotty, has responded to criticism by the actor George Takei at the film-makers’ decision to make the character he used to play openly gay. Takei was Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, in the original TV series as well as the first six films. Pegg has said he intended the revelation in the new film that the character – now played by John Cho – is in a same-sex relationship as a tribute to Takei’s gay rights activism. But on Thursday the actor responded by saying he thought the move was “really unfortunateâ€\x9d, as he felt it suggested sexuality was something that could be retrofitted. He also said his concerns had been ignored by the film-makers. In a statement released to the on Friday, Pegg reiterated his respect for Takei, while taking issue with his thinking. “I have huge love and respect for George Takei, his heart, courage and humour are an inspiration,â€\x9d he wrote. “However, with regards to his thoughts on our Sulu, I must respectfully disagree with him.â€\x9d Pegg expressed sympathy with Takei’s sentiment that mainstream gay heroes were belatedly coming to the big screen, but rejected the idea that this meant a new character needed creating. “He’s right, it is unfortunate, it’s unfortunate that the screen version of the most inclusive, tolerant universe in science fiction hasn’t featured an LGBT character until now. We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character’, rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism?â€\x9d Pegg continued: “Justin Lin, Doug Jung and I loved the idea of it being someone we already knew because the audience have a pre-existing opinion of that character as a human being, unaffected by any prejudice. Their sexual orientation is just one of many personal aspects, not the defining characteristic. Also, the audience would infer that there has been an LGBT presence in the Trek Universe from the beginning (at least in the Kelvin timeline), that a gay hero isn’t something new or strange. It’s also important to note that at no point do we suggest that our Sulu was ever closeted, why would he need to be? It’s just hasn’t come up before.â€\x9d In his attack, Takei said he felt Pegg and the team had failed to pay due deference to creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision – especially galling given the film is released in Star Trek’s 50th anniversary year. But Pegg said that Roddenberry’s pioneering work exploring diversity in the series indicated he would have welcomed such a move. “I don’t believe Gene Roddenberry’s decision to make the prime timeline’s Enterprise crew straight was an artistic one, more a necessity of the time. Trek rightly gets a lot of love for featuring the first interracial kiss on US television, but Plato’s Stepchildren was the lowest rated episode ever. “The viewing audience weren’t open minded enough at the time and it must have forced Roddenberry to modulate his innovation. His mantra was always ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations’. If he could have explored Sulu’s sexuality with George, he no doubt would have. Roddenberry was a visionary and a pioneer but we choose our battles carefully.â€\x9d Pegg concluded by urging that Sulu’s sexuality shows the multiplicity of human experience across the space-time continuum, showing that “we are all LGBT somewhereâ€\x9d. “Our Trek is an alternate timeline with alternate details,â€\x9d he wrote. “Whatever magic ingredient determines our sexuality was different for Sulu in our timeline. I like this idea because it suggests that in a hypothetical multiverse, across an infinite matrix of alternate realities, we are all LGBT somewhere. “Whatever dimension we inhabit, we all just want to be loved by those we love (and I love George Takei). I can’t speak for every reality but that must surely true of this one. Live long and prosper.â€\x9d',
 "'We are all so devastated': tributes pour in to Alan Rickman from acting world The world of stage and screen is in mourning for one of its most singular and best-loved stars. Alan Rickman died on Thursday morning aged 69 after suffering from cancer. His agent said that he died at home, surrounded by family and friends. Emma Thompson, who had collaborated with Rickman on the likes of Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually and Rickman’s directorial debut, The Winter Guest, spoke of her immense sadness, having “just kissed him goodbyeâ€\x9d. “What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humour, intelligence, wisdom and kindness,â€\x9d she wrote. “His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word.â€\x9d Thompson continued: “I couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do with his face next … He was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.â€\x9d An actor whose arch features and languid diction were recognisable across the generations, Rickman began his career in the theatre but found international stardom with a clutch of high-profile film roles including Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988) and a charming, dastardly sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). But it was his part as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films which found him a fresh legion of fans. Cast and crew on those movies were also quick to pay tribute to the actor. Daniel Radcliffe wrote that Rickman was “one of the greatest actors I will ever work withâ€\x9d as well as “one of the loyalest and most supportive people I’ve ever met in the film industryâ€\x9d. The younger actor recalled how Rickman came to see every play he was in, and how all Rickman’s acquaintances enjoyed his attentive friendship: “If you call Alan, it doesn’t matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he’s doing, he’ll get back to you within a day.â€\x9d Said co-star Emma Watson: “I feel so lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you.â€\x9d Rupert Grint said he was “devastatedâ€\x9d and that “[e]ven though he has gone I will always hear his voiceâ€\x9d. Rickman’s illness had not been publicly known and the seeming suddenness of his death was reflected in many of the tributes. Jason Isaacs said he was “[s]idestepped by the awful newsâ€\x9d. “The polar opposite of the icy, manipulating characters he became best known for, Alan was hilarious, warm-hearted and fabulous company.â€\x9d JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books, said: “There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman’s death. He was a magnificent actor & a wonderful man.â€\x9d Ralph Fiennes, who played Voldemort, described Rickman as “a dear friendâ€\x9d. “I cannot believe he is gone and we are the poorer for it,â€\x9d he said. “But his spirit and great generosity live on the hearts of everyone who knew him. Funny, acutely perceptive, extraordinarily loyal and giving - Alan cared.â€\x9d Meanwhile Michael Gambon – Dumbledore in the latter films – said: “Everybody loved Alan. He was always happy and fun and creative and very, very funny.â€\x9d Last year, Rickman made his second film as director: A Little Chaos, set in the gardens of Versailles and starring Kate Winslet (the object of Rickman’s affection in Sense and Sensibility). Winslet, who was also Oscar-nominated on Thursday, remembered “the kindest and best of men [who] had the patience of a saint. He was a warm-hearted puppy dog, who would do anything for anyone if it made them happyâ€\x9d. Winslet said that, aged 19, she had initially been intimidated by Rickman before realising he was “an exceptionally warm and giving man and an utterly phenomenal actor and gifted director. And that voice! Oh, that voice … We are all so devastated to lose Alan.â€\x9d Rickman has two films still to be released, including Eye in the Sky, a drone warfare thriller in which he features alongside Helen Mirren. The two starred together in a 1998 stage production of Antony and Cleopatra. Mirren remembered Rickman as “a great friendâ€\x9d and “a towering person, physically, mentally and as an artistâ€\x9d whose voice “could suggest honey or a hidden stiletto blade, and the profile of a Roman Emperorâ€\x9d. Rickman had been in a relationship with economics professor and former Labour councillor Rima Horton since 1965; the two married in 2012. He remained politically active throughout his life: he was born, he said, “a card-carrying member of the Labour partyâ€\x9d, and was highly involved with charities including Saving Faces and the International Performers’ Aid Trust. In 2005, he directed the award-winning play My Name is Rachel Corrie, which he and Katharine Viner – now editor-in-chief – compiled from the emails of the student who was killed by a bulldozer while protesting against the actions of Israel’s armed forces in the Gaza Strip. Sigourney Weaver, Rickman’s co-star in 1999 comedy Galaxy Quest and 2006 drama Snow Cake, cited the play, saying: “He used his talent always to make a difference, his production of Rachel Corrie being one of the most powerful examples. “Alan’s enormous strength of character infused every character he played,â€\x9d she continued. “Who else could have brought such pain and wit to Snape? I can’t believe he’s gone.â€\x9d Ian McKellen, who starred alongside him in an HBO film about Rasputin, said Rickman “put liberal philanthropy at the heart of his lifeâ€\x9d and was “a super-active spirit, questing and achieving, a super-hero, unassuming but deadly effectiveâ€\x9d. Others paying tribute to the actor remarked on his almost hypnotic hold over audiences – and his countless devoted fans. His close friend Ruby Wax said that when she first saw him on stage, “he was the most charismatic, sexiest thing I’d ever seenâ€\x9d. Rickman directed Wax’s standup shows for 20 years – a little-known career credit for the actor. “He had brilliant comic timing,â€\x9d she said. “He’d say my lines and I would weep with laughing. But he could also play dry: the eyes would go slit-like and he’d deliver unbelievable lines. I don’t think Alan was appreciated as much as he should have been.â€\x9d Stephen Poliakoff, with whom Rickman worked on 1999 psychodrama Close My Eyes, said the people often underestimated Rickman’s capacity for career-anxiety – as well as his allure for audiences. At a party before Rickman’s breakthrough stage performance in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the RSC, he recalled Rickman saying: “I’m nearly 40 and nobody here knows who I am.â€\x9d Said Poliakoff: “People said he wasn’t sexy enough, heterosexual directors in the theatre didn’t think he was attractive to women – just about the greatest miscalculation in showbiz history!â€\x9d Rickman was a man with whom many enjoyed long-lasting associations. Richard Wilson had known him since 1980, and they remained close despite never again working together. “Even when he was ill, he had that great stillness and great dignity,â€\x9d said Wilson, who credited Rickman’s professional success to his ability to be “very metamorphic, he could take on anythingâ€\x9d. “The thing about Alan is that although he became a film star, one continually met him in tiny fringe venues all over the country. He was just so generous with his time, and with his encouragement. He was just very, very giving.â€\x9d Harriet Walter first met Rickman in 1981 and described him as “the most generous man I ever met … a mentor and a brother figure to a generation of usâ€\x9d. She was another of the many friends who said Rickman was loyal enough to see every stage production they were in. Brian Cox, who starred with Rickman in a 1980 TV version of Thérèse Raquin as well as Poliakoff’s play The Summer Party, said: “He was empowering – if you had a problem and you told him it he would empower you to do what you did best. He could have been a great teacher.â€\x9d He described his acting as “centrifugal... He had the ability to draw an audience into him.â€\x9d Catherine Bailey, a fellow student of Rickman’s at Rada, had remained in touch with him for half a century; the pair made a short film together in 2014. “He could make the impossible happen,â€\x9d she said. “I saw him two days before he died and he wanted to hear about me and my family and how we were … A man of great integrity, fiercely loyal and discreet, a friend to so many, loved by so many.â€\x9d Bailey also paid tribute to his wife. “My heart goes out to Rima,â€\x9d she wrote. “Mutually supportive, devoted in life and there for each other in death.â€\x9d • This article was amended on 15 January 2016. An earlier version used the word “intimatedâ€\x9d where “intimidatedâ€\x9d was meant.",
 'Even after Brexit, hard borders won’t be returning to Ireland Brexit has been referred to as the biggest foreign policy issue facing Britain since accession to the European economic community in 1973. In many ways, this is true of Ireland too. As the process unfolds, one of the biggest challenges for Ireland is how we maintain a strong and close relationship with our UK friends and neighbours while remaining at the heart of the European Union. While we deeply regret the outcome of the UK referendum, Ireland remains, and will remain, a committed member of the EU. Since the referendum I have engaged extensively with both my UK government counterparts and each of my foreign ministerial colleagues all across the EU. I’ve spoken to the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, on several occasions, and I was pleased to welcome the secretary of state for exiting the EU, David Davis, to Dublin for discussions. Several other EU foreign ministers have also visited Dublin and last week, the EU commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, visited Dublin – the sixth capital he visited on his tour of 28. And Ireland’s taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has had extensive discussions with Theresa May, Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Donald Tusk and many others. In my discussions with EU colleagues, I have emphasised the importance of the Irish and Irish-British dimensions to Brexit for our citizens, our economy and trading links, our common travel area with the UK and, of course, Northern Ireland and its invisible border with the rest of the island. I’ve also stressed the need for a strong EU, characterised by partnership, peace and prosperity. I have been heartened by the strong support across Europe for the peace process and the understanding about our special circumstances on the island. Overall, we will be working for special arrangements that take account of Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances. The process ahead is extremely complex and multi-layered. We are currently auditing and assessing the implications of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU across a range of sectors through dialogue between the north and south, between London and Dublin, through bodies such as the British Irish Council and with our EU partners. This in no way pre-empts the wider negotiations between the UK and the EU 27. Ireland’s relationship with Britain is unique in every possible way – politically, economically, culturally, legally and in terms of people-to-people links. One in four people in Britain can claim Irish heritage, while in the business world almost 60,000 UK company directors are Irish-born. The Dublin-London route is the second busiest air route in Europe. We trade over €1.2bn a week between us, and Ireland is the UK’s fifth largest trading partner. We must do everything we can to protect these hard-won positive links. Northern Ireland is a core priority for Dublin in terms of the Brexit process. While the peace settlement is by now well-established, we can never afford to be complacent. Twice in the two years after I became foreign minister, I have spent long periods of time in Belfast participating in political talks. These ultimately led to the Stormont House agreement in December 2014 and the Fresh Start agreement last November. I witnessed at first hand how the still delicate political stability in Northern Ireland can be shaken. The Good Friday agreement provides the framework for our engagement in Northern Ireland, and we have worked alongside the UK government and Northern Ireland’s political leaders to stabilise the devolved institutions in Belfast and deliver important initiatives. Last month, honouring commitments under the Fresh Start agreement, James Brokenshire and I signed a treaty to establish an independent reporting commission to help tackle the legacy of paramilitarism which continues to plague some vulnerable communities in Northern Ireland. We want to see that scourge removed from people’s lives. Brexit presents a substantial challenge to this remarkable but still incomplete progress. Across the UK as a whole, 52% of voters opted to leave the EU. However, in Northern Ireland, 56% voted to remain. The people of Northern Ireland are in a unique position both in the UK and the EU, entitled to define themselves as British, Irish, or both. Common British and Irish membership of the EU has been a fundamental element in the political context which allowed the peace process to move forward. When the UK leaves the EU, Northern Ireland will be the only region that shares a land border with another EU member state. One of our key concerns about Brexit is any risk to the effective invisibility of the border between north and south. The Northern Ireland executive and the Irish and UK governments have been unanimous in their view that we must maintain the openness of the border which is enjoyed today. The common travel area, where citizens of Britain and Ireland have enjoyed free movement in each other’s countries since 1922, is highly valued on all sides. The reinstatement of any kind of hard border would also have obvious negative consequences for cross-border trade and economic activity. Equally serious would be the effect of resurrecting a potent symbol of division in a society emerging from conflict where many communities and groups are working hard to foster greater reconciliation, shared understanding and partnership. Future arrangements between the UK and Ireland, and between the Irish government and the Northern Ireland executive, will have to be placed in the wider framework negotiated between the UK and the 27 other EU members – including Ireland. The Irish government will work hard to make sure all sides are fully conscious of the need to work together to ensure the transformed Irish-UK relationship and the enormous achievements of the peace process are safeguarded for future generations.',
 "Architect of 2008 bailout says US banks still pose 'nuclear' threat to economy America’s biggest banks present a “nuclearâ€\x9d threat to the US economy and should be broken up, a Federal Reserve policymaker and architect of the 2008 banking bailout said Tuesday. Neel Kashkari, the head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, said the US’s biggest banks were still “too big too failâ€\x9d and Congress should consider “bold transformational solutions to solve this problem once and for allâ€\x9d. “I believe the biggest banks are still too big to fail and continue to pose a significant, ongoing risk to our economy,â€\x9d Kashkari said in his first public speech since becoming a Fed policymaker in January. “A very crude analogy is that of a nuclear reactor. The cost to society of letting a reactor melt down is astronomical. Given that cost, governments will do whatever they can to stabilize the reactor before they lose control.â€\x9d Kashkari, who is best known for organising the $700bn government-funded bank bailout in 2008, said “serious considerationâ€\x9d should be given to “breaking up large banks into smaller, less connected, less important entitiesâ€\x9d. Another solution, he said, was to turn the big banks into public utilities by “forcing them to hold so much capital that they virtually can’t failâ€\x9d. He said existing measures under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to prevent another banking system collapse do not go far enough and warned that “we won’t see the next crisis comingâ€\x9d. “The financial sector has lobbied hard to preserve its current structure and thrown up endless objections to fundamental change,â€\x9d said Kashkari, who was previous an executive at Goldman Sachs and former Republican politician. “The time has come to move past parochial interests and solve this problem. The risks of not doing so are just too great.â€\x9d Kashkari’s comments, in a speech to the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, come as presidential candidates battle over whom has the best solution to prevent another banking crisis, and prevent a repeat of the economic collapse. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a break-up of big banks and the introduction of a new financial transaction tax to pay for free college education. “There are lines in your speech I can imagine a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren saying,â€\x9d David Wessel, a former journalist who moderated the Brookings event, told Kashkari during a panel discussion after the speech. “It’s not what one expects.â€\x9d Kashkari responded that he was calling things as he saw them. “If I’m not wiling to stand up and share my concerns, then I wouldn’t be doing my job,â€\x9d he said.",
 'Labor plans to use fresh whistleblower testimonies to pressure bank bosses Labor and the Greens are preparing for a showdown with the chief executives of Australia’s biggest banks this week during three days of questioning in Canberra. Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite has said he will use fresh evidence from whistleblowers that reveals more unethical behaviour in the banking industry relating to the sale of insurance products and financial advice. Greens MP Adam Bandt says this will be the chance for bank bosses to persuade parliamentarians that a banking royal commission is not needed. The heads of Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Westpac, ANZ and the National Australia Bank will appear before the standing committee on economics in Canberra from Tuesday. The CBA chief executive, Ian Narev, will appear on Tuesday, a week after a shareholder backlash over his $12.3m pay packet. In March the insurance arm of the CBA was revealed in a joint sitting to have conducted unethical practices, giving impetus to the ALP’s call for a royal commission into the banks. But the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, maintains there is no need for a royal commission because it would be too costly and slow. He has instead asked the banks to start appearing annually before a parliamentary committee, which meets for the first time on Tuesday. Labor and the Greens are critical of the process, saying the hearings will be a sham because each committee member will only have 20 minutes to ask questions of each bank chief. Thistlethwaite told Australia the hearings would just be a “showâ€\x9d for the Turnbull government to look like it was getting tough with the banks and holding them to account. “In reality it’s nothing more than a bit of a charade to try to take some pressure off the government,â€\x9d he said. He said scandals and unethical behaviour were still occurring in the banking industry and customers were “still being ripped off,â€\x9d and he’d be using fresh evidence from whistleblowers to demonstrate that. “If we’re really going to get to the bottom of what’s occurring in this industry we need a royal commission to thoroughly investigate their activities and to recommend reforms to government,â€\x9d he said. Bandt said the banks had been leading the charge against a royal commission by saying they had changed their practices, so this hearing would give them the chance to convince parliamentarians of that. “I remain sceptical,â€\x9d he said. “I think a royal commission would have the powers to, not only hear what the CEOs have to say, but find out what’s actually happening behind closed doors, to see if practices have changed in any material way.â€\x9d The committee’s chair, Liberal MP David Coleman, said the hearings were important because they would ensure the bank bosses were regularly and permanently accountable to parliament. “The committee will now have an ongoing review function over the activities of the commercial banks as it has historically with the RBA,â€\x9d he said. “The hearings will provide important, ongoing oversight of the activities of the banks.â€\x9d Last week South Australian senator Nick Xenophon slammed the growing trend of major banks and other big companies paying million-dollar bonuses to chief executives for hitting vague performance targets. The Greens Treasury spokesman, Peter Whish-Wilson, said the Greens would soon be pushing again to rein in executive pay. The CBA will appear before the committee on Tuesday, ANZ will appear on Wednesday, and NAB and Westpac will appear on Thursday.',
 'What to do with Boris Johnson, Michael Gove et al Jonathan Freedland is absolutely correct; we must not forget “those who for the sake of their career or a pet dogma, were prepared to wreck everythingâ€\x9d (Let the vandals know – we won’t forget what they did, 2 July). Johnson and Gove deserve all the criticism coming to them for the Brexit vote, but the list of those, in recent years in this country, whose “appetite for statusâ€\x9d led them to take the path “to disasterâ€\x9d does not stop with those treacherous Tories. Blair and the Iraq war is obvious, but what about Osborne’s unnecessary austerity to balance the books, while at the same time reducing the rich’s taxes, and selling off the country’s assets at knockdown prices to friends in the City? Few will be persuaded that his quest to reach the “top of the greasy poleâ€\x9d has not been determining his policies for the last six years. Wasn’t “vanity and ambitionâ€\x9d behind Clegg’s duplicitous decision, against the wishes of the majority of Lib Dem voters, to agree to five years of Tory-led coalition? Isn’t that same ambition at the crux of many Labour MPs’ willingness to rid their party of a leader hell-bent on reducing inequality and unfairness, and putting principles first. Most politicians, it would appear, ply their trade for a variety of reasons, mostly selfish ones, which explains the popularity of those such as Corbyn and Jo Cox, who break the mould. Bernie Evans Liverpool • While Jonathan Freedland rightly directs our anger at the Brexit campaigners, we should not ignore the bigger picture. Yes, blame Cameron for his culpability in calling a referendum and Johnson, Gove et al for their deceitful and successful campaign. But the promise of a referendum was official Tory policy. It was in their manifesto at the 2010 election and the whole party signed up for it. In our understandable desire to blame individuals we should not be deflected from the fact that it is the whole Conservative party who have led us to this disastrous result. We now have the terrifying prospect of leaving it to those same Conservatives to deliver us from the mess that is wholly of their making. David Carter Allendale, Northumberland • Your correspondent Peter Cave asks “What’s to be done with Boris?â€\x9d (Letters, 2 July). Remove him from the House of Commons; revoke his citizenship; deport him to either his birthplace (USA) or the land of his fathers (Turkey). This may not do much to solve the Brexit catastrophe but would at least offer some retributive justice and give the rest of us a badly needed laugh. John Starbuck Huddersfield',
 'Trying to predict the election? Forget about Twitter, study concludes Twitter mentions are not a reliable way too predict elections and only indicate whether candidates are creating interest, not how many votes they will receive, a study has concluded. Researchers also found that Twitter’s “highly skewedâ€\x9d user base did not represent the voting population overall, and that Google searches might give a better indication of intentions at the ballot box. The study in Social Science Computer Review focused on the 2013 German federal election and found that Twitter data was a more accurate measure of the level of interest in candidates than the level of support they would receive. “Negative events, such as political scandals, as well as positively evaluated events, such as accomplishments, can [both] underlie attention for a party or candidate,â€\x9d said the study. Yet scandals and accomplishments affected the level of support for a candidate in completely different ways. “The analysis does not support the simple ‘more tweets, more votes’ formula,â€\x9d the study found. For example, a video clip of a candidate’s campaign gaffe might lead to a spike in Twitter attention but not result in more overall political support. “The daily volume of Twitter messages referring to candidates or parties fluctuates heavily depending on the events of the day – such as televised leaders’ debates, high-profile interviews with candidates – or the coverage of political controversies and scandals,â€\x9d the study said. The data also showed that Twitter users did not necessarily reflect the demographics of the population as a whole. In the United States social media platforms like Twitter and Yik Yak are often more popular among millennial voters. “Twitter’s user base is highly skewed and far from being representative of the population at large,â€\x9d the study said. Other data showed Google might be a more reliable indicator of voter support. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, respective winners of the Republican and Democratic primaries in the state of New Hampshire, were the two parties’ top-searched-for candidates in the state, according to a report from Bloomberg. Republican and Democratic contenders are vying for their parties’ nominations for the 8 November election to succeed President Barack Obama. With Reuters',
 "Paris climate deal: Trump says he now has an 'open mind' about accord Donald Trump has said he has an “open mindâ€\x9d over US involvement in the Paris agreement to combat climate change, after previously pledging to withdraw from the effort. Asked by the New York Times whether he would pull the US out of the Paris climate accord, which has been signed by 196 nations, Trump said: “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it.â€\x9d The president-elect also wavered on his previously stated position that climate change is a “hoaxâ€\x9d and just a “very, very expensive form of taxâ€\x9d. Questioned over the link between human activity and global warming, Trump said: “I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much.â€\x9d He added that he was thinking about how the issue “will cost our companiesâ€\x9d. Trump’s partial acceptance of the overwhelming scientific view that burning fossil fuels is changing the climate, along with his equivocation over American involvement in the Paris deal, are subtle departures from the position he took during the presidential campaign. Trump has said he would “cancelâ€\x9d the Paris climate agreement, which was ratified earlier this month and requires a three-year notice period to quit. The president-elect has said he would also cut all money spent on climate change aid to developing nations and slash clean energy funding. The election of an apparent climate change denier to the US presidency has caused consternation among scientists and overseas climate negotiators, but some have voiced hope that Trump will follow a more pragmatic path that will avoid political fallout over the issue. In Trump’s recent pronouncements on his first 100 days in power he has pledged to cancel money for climate change programs and lift restrictions upon fossil fuel exploration on public land, but made no mention of quitting the Paris deal. Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, said of his latest comments: “Talk is cheap, and no one should believe Donald Trump means this until he acts upon it. We’re waiting for action, and Trump is kidding nobody on climate as he simultaneously stacks his transition team and cabinet with climate science deniers and the dirtiest hacks the fossil fuel industry can offer. Prove it, president-elect. The world is watching.â€\x9d",
 'Why I will vote against triggering article 50 Theresa May has just announced her plans for Brexit and they are crystal-clear. At the heart of her proposal is membership of the single market – and the long sought after reassurance that jobs, particularly in the north of England, will be safe. There’s good news for EU nationals, who can continue to live and work here, and free movement for workers will continue in the future too – meaning our economy will be better off and our communities enriched. Environmental rules and workers’ rights are safe – the prime minister’s decision to remain a part of the biggest trading area in the world will safeguard those protections. We’re set to leave the EU, as the British people voted for by a small majority, but the government has a plan to retain and enhance the many benefits of EU membership, and an interim arrangement with the EU is in place in case the negotiations don’t get done in the two years allowed. May’s promise of “Brexit meaning Brexitâ€\x9d remains true but, at long last, she’s given MPs the details we need to make an informed choice about our vote on triggering article 50. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. The reality of the situation couldn’t be more different. Five months after the referendum, and with a supreme court appeal on article 50 looming, we’re still left with little more than hot air from a government that is driving us towards the Brexit cliff edge, with the doors of the car locked and its eyes firmly shut. What will Brexit mean for the EU nationals who live and work in our neighbourhoods? Will our beaches and wildlife still be protected? What kind of trade agreement will we have with Europe? Ministers just keep shrugging their shoulders, demanding our trust when they’ve done nothing discernible to earn it. Though I’m proud to have fought as hard as I could to stop Britain from leaving the EU, I’m not one of the MPs who immediately pledged to vote against article 50 after the high court’s ruling on the issue earlier this month. In the heat of the moment it would have been easy to offer an immediate kneejerk refusal to trigger article 50 in any circumstance. Similarly rash is the response of those, like the Labour leadership, who have gone too far other way – making an early promise to support the government in beginning the Brexit process. By doing so they’ve given away any bargaining power they had – and given the government’s agenda a real boost. Instead, I’ve come to a considered conclusion, given the circumstances and based on both principle and logic: I won’t be voting to trigger article 50. Without any plans to properly involve parliament before a vote, to call a general election or offer the protection of a referendum on the terms of any deal, how could I – as a democrat and someone who believes in social and environmental justice – possibly vote to throw the country into the potential nightmare of leaving the EU within two years without any proper plan? I don’t know whether it’s primarily arrogance or incompetence that’s causing such anti-democratic posturing by the Conservatives, but I do know it’s extraordinary they expect MPs to simply fall in line without knowing what we’re voting for. Ultimately, voting to trigger article 50 – without any firm guarantees about what Brexit would mean, for everything from the security and family life of the many EU nationals working in places such as Brighton’s universities to whether there’s any way to enforce standards for the quality of the air we all breathe – would risk undermining the work that the constituents of Brighton Pavilion put me in parliament to do, and the pledges my party made to the more than 1 million people who voted for us. The government seems to have morphed a marginal vote in favour of leaving the EU into a phantom majority that wants us out of the single market – and all of the benefits it entails – despite the public never being asked their opinion on it. Without any solid proposals for an interim deal after two years of negotiation, the Conservatives’ plan is particularly reckless. I still believe that Britain is better off as part of the European Union, and I’ll be campaigning in the next election for our continued membership of the biggest peace project in history. As a constituency MP and co-leader of a national party, I believe that I have a duty both to represent my constituents and to act in the country’s interest – and I firmly believe that voting to trigger article 50, with things as they currently stand, runs counter to both of those roles. Our country has been shaken to the core by the EU referendum campaign and the divisions it revealed – and what happens next will define us for generations to come. That’s why I’m more committed than ever to both exposing and opposing government recklessness on Brexit, and looking to build a more united, fairer and more democratic Britain – whatever the outcome of negotiations with Europe.',
 'It is easy to despair of our leaders, but Brexit has exposed Britain’s rotten core David Cameron has had a good week. Never mind that he took a gamble with the UK’s future, lost his bet and then opted to retire from what seem likely to be protracted and unpleasant consequences; in media terms he has been able more or less to recede from view. Instead, the spotlight has been on other individuals: on the delicious backstabbing among competing Conservatives, on the struggles between the Corbynistas and their opponents and on Chilcot’s weighty verdict on the failings of an earlier prime minister, Tony Blair. But what if the essence of our present problems is more than a matter of individuals? It is unlikely to be an accident, for instance, that Blair and Cameron, skilful political players both, each came to grief over matters to do with foreign affairs. This is a sector of government where traditionally prime ministers are given a great deal of leeway. Perhaps too much leeway. Perhaps one lesson of our current difficulties is that Westminster and other UK agencies need to find better ways of monitoring, amending and regulating prime-ministerial actions. Cameron did not, for example, opt for a referendum on the EU chiefly to cater to democracy. He did what he did to placate his party’s Eurosceptic wing and in an attempt to scuttle Ukip. Shouldn’t some thought be given as to how, in the future, we might better protect our politics from such partisan, cynical and lazy deployments of this device: a device that by definition reduces the most complex and technical questions to a crude “yesâ€\x9d or “noâ€\x9d? There are other respects, too, in which the Brexit vote only exposes afresh structural and governmental challenges and deficiencies in the UK that have been longstanding and which, by itself, it will do nothing to resolve, and may indeed make worse. Self-evidently, Brexit underlined again some of the actual disunities of the United Kingdom with very different voting patterns emerging in Northern Ireland, and still more in Scotland, than in Wales and in most of England. The vote confirmed something else: a sense of bereftness that is disproportionately (though not uniquely) felt in England. Lots of people in that country seem to have opted for Brexit out of a near mystical sense that it would somehow give them their country back. This did not simply stem from worries over immigration. Since the 1990s, devolution has done something to enhance the sense of self-government and distinctiveness in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but nothing comparable has yet been done for England. George Osborne, like Labour before him, has certainly made something of a push for elected mayors. But this has been a gesture to local and civic identities, not a celebration of collective English identities. Will the crises and fierce debates set off by Brexit, which are likely to be long running and deep, do something to focus attention on these longstanding issues and force some substantial attempts to address them? Historically, and across the world, major crises have often resulted in acts of constitutional and political reconfiguring. Since the 17th century, for instance, it has tended overwhelmingly to have been war – whether international war or civil war – or the experience of military defeat, or invasion and the fear of invasion, or revolution, or decolonisation, that has obliged states to devise and venture on new political constitutions. This is not just because traumas of this kind often compel states to undertake some political change and reorganisation. More positively and creatively, traumas often lead to widespread demands within a country for a fresh start. So might the Brexit crisis possibly contribute to some kind of process of political renovation and reimagination here? The opportunities – and the need – certainly exist. In an ideal world, which of course we do not have, a future UK government could, say, consider holding a special convention or set of meetings with elected representatives from the four nations specifically to discuss, and thrash out, and consider new ideas about what a post-Brexit United Kingdom might ideally look like and what its challenges and opportunities are likely to be. Such a convention might well resolve – finally – to forge a more explicitly federal system. This would make it rather easier for each of the different component parts of this polity to forge their own distinctive residual relationships with the EU if that was their people’s choice. An explicitly federal structure to the UK would also be able to give England its own local parliament, situated perhaps in the north, thereby applying an effective but responsible salve to the sense of bereftness that currently affects both the northern sector of England and English nationalists more generally. Any kind of new UK federal system would almost certainly demand the creation of a written constitution. Properly drafted, such a document could, among many things, pin down more effectively the proper dimensions of prime ministerial power. More importantly, it could function as a new script for identity, beliefs and rights amongst the UK’s millions of very miscellaneous citizens. Bills of rights and written constitutions, both of which these islands have experimented with at different times in the past, are not remotely magic bullets. They sometimes fail badly. But they can, with luck and care, help to bring into existence the identities, the cohesiveness and some of the ideals that they set out in words. Will any of this happen? Probably not, for all that the opportunities and the need are very much there. Like many other polities gripped by a sense of extreme flux and/or decline, the UK in recent decades has succumbed more obviously to a cult of strong or at least charismatic leadership. It has been striking how much of the language surrounding the current Tory leadership contest has harped on the need for a new Margaret Thatcher. By the same token, while Jeremy Corbyn is hardly a conventionally charismatic politician, many of those at grassroots level who are still passionately devoted to him seem to believe, quite as much as do old and new Thatcherites on the other side, that all that is needed is to get the right kind of individual at the top. Yet, thus far, Corbyn’s expressed ideas for a renovated UK hardly seem to be very imaginative or wide-ranging – or sufficient. Nor, probably, are Theresa May’s. A clever, thoughtful and careful politician, the essence of her appeal – and why she will probably become prime minister – is that she is so obviously cast as the nation’s nanny. She will be tough but fair. She will stand for no nonsense. She will calm down the nursery and bandage up knees. But what if that is no longer enough?',
 "'At Thriller Live, there's a fight in the stalls' … my three-week journey into jukebox musicals On Saturday afternoon at 4pm, a landmark was passed. Thriller Live opened its 3,000th performance at the Lyric theatre in London. A cheerful tribute to Michael Jackson, it was already the longest-running show in the Lyric’s history – and seven years after opening, the theatre still sells an average of 80% of its 915 seats for each performance. It is already booking until April next year, and a regional tour that started last week is taking in eight towns and cities between now and July. It’s all testament to the boundless appetite of the British public for hearing songs performed by people who sometimes – but not usually – look like the people who first performed them, and who sometimes – but not usually – sound like the people who first performed them. The first jukebox musical in Britain was Jack Good and Ray Cooney’s Elvis, which opened in 1977, the show that helped turn Shakin’ Stevens from a John Peel favourite and stalwart of Communist party benefits into a staple of light entertainment. A decade or so later, Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, opened in the West End, running for 13 years, and ensuring a generation of Londoners became incapable of hearing Holly’s name without appending the Sun quote from the posters – “It’s Buddy brilliant!â€\x9d The explosion in jukebox musicals, the point at which they became the go-to shows for impresarios seeking a guaranteed buck, came when Abba granted permission for their songs to feature in Mamma Mia!, which opened in 1999 and is still running. Since then, pretty much any artist with a catalogue greater than a couple of albums and a fanbase wealthy enough to pay for theatre tickets has had their own show. The fact is, though, that they aren’t a guaranteed buck. For every We Will Rock You, there’s a Viva Forever – the Spice Girls show that lost £5m and closed within a year. Nevertheless, they are still thriving, and so with Motown the Musical opening, I was set the challenge of going to as many West End jukebox musicals as I could, and trying to work out – as the ’s music editor, rather than a theatre critic – the appeal. There are five on my list, culminating in Motown. Before that, in three weeks, I have to fit in Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, Thriller Live, Jersey Boys and Sunny Afternoon. At Thriller Live, I’m sitting next to a group of women who want to know why I’ve been taking notes. I tell them, and ask in return why they’ve come to see a particularly slick Britain’s Got Talent version of Michael Jackson’s music. Colette, in the seat next to me, explains that it’s not all about the music, and it’s not all about the theatre. It’s a social thing – she and her friends come down from Cheshire two or three times a year to do some shopping and see a show. And they like jukebox musicals – they know the songs, it’s a bit of fun. They’ve already seen most of the shows on my list, but they’re ruling out Motown, at least until good seats are available at more reasonable prices (top price tickets in the stalls are an eye-watering £120). It’s certainly true that jukebox musical audiences are not like the crowds at gigs or plays. They’re chattier than you get at Wolf Hall, for starters. During Thriller Live, excitingly, a fight breaks out in the stalls – just at the point we are being told what a great force for good in the world Michael Jackson was – which you rarely get at the Donmar. They’re also more forgiving than crowds at gigs; they greet every performance with enthusiasm, and it only takes the slightest encouragement for an audience to be on its feet, clapping along. There are three kinds of jukebox musical: the one in which the song-and-dance routines are churned out one after the other, with no pretence at plot, just a little bit of narration (Thriller Live); the one that shoehorns songs from one artist or genre into a plot unrelated to the artists concerned (We Will Rock You, Rock of Ages – the hair metal musical that was by some distance the worst night I’ve ever had in a theatre, in which Starship’s We Built This City was cued up by a discussion about urban planning); and the biography. Apart from Thriller, all the shows I see fit into this last category. The big problem with the biographical format, as everyone who’s ever watched a rockumentary knows, is that there’s really only one story: it begins with camaraderie and passion and excitement, it progresses to conquering the world, at which point ennui and conflict creep in (often exacerbated by drugs and alcohol), and the principals start to hate each other. Finally, but not always, there’s resolution – the reunion, the realisation that the best times were before they got famous, when it was all for fun and no one was making money out of them. Motown, Beautiful, Sunny Afternoon and Jersey Boys all cleave to that path to varying degrees. Motown sees the soul label through the eyes of its founder, Berry Gordy, portraying its story not as about Gordy managing to alienate key artists and writers by screwing them over, but how – like an R&B Lear – he was betrayed by those he had made great, until finally they come to honour him (bizarrely it also manages to almost completely excise Stevie Wonder, the label’s presiding genius, and portray Smokey Robinson as Detroit’s genial village idiot). Beautiful has the slight problem that Carole King is the least interesting person in her own story – a writer of incredible melodies, whose greatest aspiration appeared to be living in a nice house in the New York suburbs – and so has to rely on the characters of Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to generate drama. Sunny Afternoon has the story of the wars between the Kinks’ Ray and Dave Davies to provide its heart, and it’s also the only one of the shows that does something with its songs other than set them up with a series of “Gee, you’ll never guess what I’ve just written!â€\x9d – as when Stop Your Sobbing becomes a commentary on his relationship with his first wife, Rasa. Jersey Boys, the tale of the Four Seasons, has a surprisingly strong story arc, thanks to the group’s links to the New Jersey mob, and the conflict that generated between their artistic heart – Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio – and their founder, Tommy DeVito. Everyone’s stories are condensed into a series of snapshots from a brief period. Beautiful begins in the late 50s, and ends with Carole King releasing Tapestry in 1971. Sunny Afternoon, to all intents and purposes, ends with the release of Lola in 1970, despite an encore that shifts us forward to the band headlining Madison Square Garden in 1981. Both Motown and Jersey Boys dwell on the 60s, skipping through the subsequent decades in moments. But you’re not going to these shows for the history, you’re going for the songs. Sadly, Motown fails here. Too many songs are truncated, too many minor tracks included at the expense of classics (in this version of the story, Diana Ross going solo is the defining moment in Motown history). Thriller Live can’t really go wrong, given the riches at its disposal. Jersey Boys makes a decent stab at making the case for Bob Gaudio as the Brian Wilson of the east coast. Beautiful passes in a blur of wonderful songs, but the winner is Sunny Afternoon. That’s not because Davies’ songs are better – he has perhaps written fewer unimpeachable classics than King, and no individual artist has a catalogue to match Motown – but because Sunny Afternoon is the only show that treats its music as rock’n’roll. It’s a surprise and a thrill to realise You Really Got Me is going to be played at gig volume rather than cabaret volume, and it’s the only show in which you feel the thwump of the bass in your sternum. By the end of my run, I’m starting to feel as if I’m starring in my own rockumentary. What started in enthusiasm has progressed to ennui – another night, another show. The interval drinks begin to assume a central role. Like a touring musician carping about hotels and tour buses, I’m obsessing over legroom in the theatres, and beginning to hate the people sitting around me – put away your phone! Stop kicking my seat! Don’t take up the whole armrest! Come the last night, at the Motown show, I finally crack. I slip out before the encore begins, to the surprise and irritation of the other people in my row. All I can think about is getting to the pub. It’s time to stop this madness. Stop! In the Name of Love. This article was amended on 16 March 2016. Mamma Mia! opened in 1999, not 1989 as originally stated.",
 "London mayor under fire for remark about 'part-Kenyan' Barack Obama The shadow chancellor has accused Boris Johnson of dog-whistle racism for writing an article in which the London mayor quoted claims that Barack Obama’s “part-Kenyanâ€\x9d heritage had driven him towards anti-British sentiment. John McDonnell joined fellow Labour MPs Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna in questioning Johnson’s judgment in referring to the president’s ancestry in an article for the Sun newspaper. “Mask slips again. Boris part-Kenyan Obama comment is yet another example of dog-whistle racism from senior Tories. He should withdraw it,â€\x9d McDonnell tweeted. Johnson, a high-profile figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wrote about the decision of the Obama administration to remove a bust of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. “Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,â€\x9d said Johnson in an article designed to hit back at Obama after the US president waded into the EU referendum debate on Friday. The mayor and Tory MP said Obama’s country would “not dream of embroiling itselfâ€\x9d in anything similar to the EU, which he said was inching towards a federal superstate. Cooper told the : “As ever, it’s more bad judgment from Boris Johnson. Is this really how a man who wants to be prime minister should be talking about the president of the United States?â€\x9d Umunna tweeted: “These Tory mayoral types are beyond the pale.â€\x9d He said the Conservative mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith had played on his opponent Sadiq Khan’s Muslim heritage, repeatedly attacking Khan for having shared a platform with a man who has been accused of extremist views. Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames, a Conservative MP backing the remain campaign, called Johnson’s article “appallingâ€\x9d and said it was “inconceivableâ€\x9d that the wartime leader would not have welcomed Obama’s views. He said Johnson was “unreliable and idle about the factsâ€\x9d, claiming there was still a Churchill bust inside the White House. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said the decision to remove the Churchill bust was taken before Obama took office. Bust story debunked Ted Cruz, the Republican senator who is locked in a battle with Donald Trump to become their party’s nominee for the presidential election, made a similar claim last year, saying Obama was responsible for removing the bust. The claim was debunked by the Washington Post, which concluded after a detailed investigation that the bust had been returned to the British embassy in Washington before Obama took office. Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the US president to “buttâ€\x9d out of intervening in the UK’s referendum on EU membership. Attacking the president’s intervention in support of the ‘Remain’ side at the outset of a visit to the UK, Farage said said that he took Obama’s description of himself as a friend of the UK “with a pretty large pinch of salt.â€\x9d “Look, I know his family’s background. Kenya. Colonialism. There is clearly something going on there,â€\x9d he added. “It’s just that you know people emerge from colonialism with different views of the Britsh. Some thought that they were really rather benign and rather good, and others saw them as foreign invaders. Obama’s family come from that second school of thought and it hasn’t quite left him yet.â€\x9d Obama made an emotional plea to the British public to “stick togetherâ€\x9d with the rest of the European Union as he arrived in the UK to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Obama argued that Britain’s influence in the world was magnified by its membership of the EU. “As citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their relationship with the EU, you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery,â€\x9d he wrote.",
 'These anti-Brexit posters show just what we lose by leaving the EU The artist Wolfgang Tillmans has said what I feel: “What is lost is lost forever,â€\x9d he warns over a blue and violet image of the Earth from above, apparently one of the photographer’s pictures taken through the window of a passenger jet – an image of boundless space, longing and desire. He is talking about the EU. Tillmans has created a series of passionate posters arguing why Britain should stay in Europe and urging young voters in particular to make sure they are registered to vote in the EU referendum before 7 June. Should artists weigh in and lecture people on why we should vote to remain in the EU? This is territory where many have already been stunned into silence. In a pre-emptive strike, the Brexit side scored easy points against cultural celebrity Emma Thompson after some comments she made at a film festival about what Britain might look like out of Europe. The lesson appeared to be that members of the cultural elite – who include Turner prize-winner Tillmans – are advised to stay quiet, or risk being mocked as part of the Europhile establishment the leavers scorn. Nobody commissioned Tillmans to make these 25 overtly political works, which combine lyrical images with bold words. He is acting on his own initiative (aided by his London and Berlin studio assistants) as a citizen concerned the remain campaign lacks passion. “We have reached a critical moment that could prove to be a turning point for Europe as we know and enjoy it – one that might result in a cascade of problematic consequences and political fall-out,â€\x9d he writes on his website, where the posters are available to download and share. “What is lost is lost foreverâ€\x9d is the one that moves me most because it expresses exactly what is at stake. All the passion about the EU debate may seem to be on the Brexit side, with their enthusiasm for national sovereignty and visions of a sceptred isle. This emotion has suddenly turned from a strength to a weakness, as damning data on the potential economic woes of a Brexit piled up and Barack Obama delivered his cool blow. Patriotic feelings are all the Brexiteers appear to have. In place of economic reason, they resort to absurd vitriol. But there’s a long way to go, and emotions continue to matter. Tillmans’ image of a lost horizon captures what I suspect is the hidden emotional truth for millions of people. We may not be out there ranting, but if Britain voted to leave we would wake up on 24 June with a terrible sense of loss and isolation, a sadness that would be hard to shake. Britain outside Europe would feel like a foreign land to its own people. Whose country would such an isolationist island be? Not mine – I’d be lost there. Incredibly, leave campaigner and justice minister Dominic Raab has conceded that Britons may need visas to visit Europe if they vote to go. What kind of backward step in history are these people contemplating? A visa to visit Europe? Tillmans expresses the tragedy of such an outcome in a poster that adapts the words of the poet John Donne: “No man is an island. No country by itself.â€\x9d In another, over an ethereal blue and orange photograph, he asks: “If people like Rupert Murdoch, Nigel Farage, George Galloway, Nick Griffin, and Marine Le Pen want Britain to leave the EU … Where does that put you?â€\x9d I suspect Tillmans is not on Nigel Farage’s radar. But he can use his more selective fame to directly address younger voters who need to register and vote. And other artists should follow his lead if they can express themselves as naturally and sympathetically as he does in these posters. The photograph he matches with his revision of Donne’s immortal lines is a view from the sky of a coastline battered by the waves. Instead of white cliffs with green grass behind them, as in some Brexit fantasy island, the land here is cut off from a wider world and looks like a desert. Isolate this island and it will die.',
 'How big tobacco lost its final fight for hearts, lungs and minds There was a finality about it all, a sense that after half a century something was coming to an end. As David Anderson QC, one of “big tobacco’sâ€\x9d senior lawyers, put it, the battle against the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes had become the industry’s equivalent of Custer’s Last Stand, its “last battlefieldâ€\x9d. Legal hyperbole perhaps, but also an indication of just what the tobacco industry believed was at stake last week when the high court handed down its landmark judgment rejecting a coordinated attempt by the world’s four largest cigarette manufacturers to derail the new EU regulations that came into effect on Friday. The new tobacco directive means graphic health warnings with photos, text and cessation information must cover 65% of the front and the back of cigarette and roll-your-own tobacco packs. Member states have 12 months to sell old stock, and up to four years to sell menthol and flavoured cigarettes, which were banned outright. The EU directive also allowed the UK to go further and parliament voted last March by a majority of 254 MPs to introduce its own regulations, requiring all tobacco products to be sold in uniformly drab green-brown packaging with large images designed to act as health warnings. Having failed to overturn the changes at the European court of justice last month, big tobacco hoped it could succeed in front of a British judge. However, hailed by health campaigners as something that will save lives, not just in the UK but around the world, Mr Justice Green’s ruling – rejecting an application for a judicial review into the government’s regulations – laid bare, in embarrassing and irrefutable detail, how cigarette companies have targeted young people. The ruling was the full stop to a story that had its glamorous beginnings in the Mad Men era of the 1960s, when Hollywood made smoking fashionable, but which became ever darker as the tobacco industry connived to suppress evidence of the health risks posed by cigarettes, its role in smuggling its products around the world, how it routinely bribed governments and officials not to legislate against it and the way it identified developing countries as lucrative markets for exploitation. Then the narrative shifted. An increasingly muscular tobacco control lobby fought back, identifying the battle to strip the firms of their marketing weapons as a key priority, and big tobacco suddenly found its arsenal heavily depleted. Barred from promoting its product on billboards, in magazines and on television, it came to the view that packaging was essential to the identity of its brands, a piece of intellectual property that it could never afford to lose. As a cigarette packet designer, John Digianni, explains in an interview on the tobacco industry website Tobacco Today: “A cigarette package is part of a smoker’s clothing, and when he saunters into a bar and plunks it down, he makes a statement about himself. When a user displays a badge product, this is witnessed by others, providing a living testimonial endorsement of the user on behalf of that brand and product.â€\x9d Boring old packaging, it transpires, is not so boring after all. The court was shown what seemed to be a normal pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes that went on sale in 2006. To open the pack, the consumer needed to slide a tray containing the cigarettes out of its side. Printed on the tray was an aphorism attributed to GK Chesterton: “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice and then going away and doing the exact opposite.â€\x9d Japan Tobacco International, owner of the Benson & Hedges brand in the UK, credited the packaging innovation with a near 47% year-on-year rise in sales. Cigarette manufacturers acknowledge that such innovations boost sales among adults. However, they vigorously deny their products are targeted at young people. Yet the court was shown clear evidence of how even very young children can be drawn to cigarette packaging. A video made by Cancer UK, in which young children discussed the look of various packs, brought home the point forcefully. One girl, around six or seven years of age, was delighted with the pink packaging of a particular brand. “It’s actually quite pretty,â€\x9d she said excitedly. A young boy described a yellow pack as “funâ€\x9d and declared: “It makes you feel almost happy by looking at it.â€\x9d It is hard to see children of a similar age enthusing about the new-look packets – drab cartons adorned with gruesome images of people with smoking-related diseases. “This was a devastating defeat for big tobacco,â€\x9d said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, whose evidence submitted to the court was also shared with MPs before they debated the introduction of the regulation. “First Australia, now the UK and France, have gone ahead with removing all branding, except the name in a standard-size font. Coming up fast behind are Ireland, Hungary, Norway, Canada and New Zealand, with others soon to follow. Before too long, glitzy, brightly coloured and highly branded tobacco packs will be a relic of the past, which children born today will never see.â€\x9d The tobacco giants’ failure to win their case has left them picking up a multimillion pound legal bill and scrambling to calculate the devastating impact it will have on the value of their brands. In hearings last year, Anderson, on behalf of his client, Japan Tobacco International – which alongside Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco brought the case against the government – expressed outrage at the idea this could happen without financial redress. “However strong the objective for taking property away, you will normally compensate,â€\x9d he told Green. “Your lordship will remember the slave owners were compensated when slavery was abolished.â€\x9d It was an unfortunate example. Big tobacco’s profits were built on slavery: even many smokers would feel queasy with this argument. But the case was not really about compensation, the manufacturers maintained. Rather, it was about preventing bad law that would have repercussions for other industries – a favourite big tobacco argument. As Geoffrey Hobbs QC, a lawyer for BAT, who, along with JTI has said it plans to appeal the ruling, observed: “This case is not just about tobacco … there are proposals coming from different sources for the same sort of reasoning and approach to be applied in relation to foods with high salt content, foods with too much fat, too much sugar.â€\x9d More importantly, the new regulation was disproportionate and would not work, the cigarette giants argued. There was no evidence that it would discourage young people from smoking, as the government insisted. Rather, it would encourage the counterfeiting of cigarettes, because non-branded packets would be easier to make, something that would deprive the Treasury of much-needed tax revenues. Ultimately the illicit trade would help only criminal networks and terrorist groups. But all of these arguments, Anderson implied, fell on deaf ears because of what he called the “myth of tobacco exceptionalismâ€\x9d – the view that manufacturers are “uniquely deviousâ€\x9d. He told the court: “We have been trying at the bar to imagine whether we can think of any other group of legal or natural persons, terrorist suspects, arms dealers, Jews, in respect of whose evidence one might even begin to think that one could tenably say, ‘Well, of course, in looking at this evidence I have been very careful because I know from the past that these people are a bit devious and a bit unworthy, and the only thing they’re really interested in is subverting public health.’ â€\x9d Yet last week’s judgment, running to 1,000 paragraphs, confirmed in excoriating detail just how determined big tobacco has been down the decades to achieve precisely this goal. It noted how the court had been made aware of some 14m internal tobacco industry documents that had been revealed as a result of a raft of legal settlements in the US. Among the treasure trove, its attention was drawn to a damning internal memo from Marlboro manufacturer Philip Morris, written as far back as 1981. “It is important to know as much as possible about teenage smoking patterns and attitudes,â€\x9d the memo read. “The smoking patterns of teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris … it is during the teenage years that the initial brand choice is made.â€\x9d Other internal Philip Morris documents made the same points. “The success of Marlboro Red during its most rapid growth period was because it became the brand of choice among teenagers who then stuck with it as they grew older,â€\x9d one memo stated. “Younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years,â€\x9d another stated. “They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future.â€\x9d A memo written in 1992 was even more blunt: “The ability to attract new smokers and develop them into a young adult franchise is key to brand development.â€\x9d The court was also made aware of evidence cited by the World Health Organisation, held in several online archives in the US and the UK and running to almost 50m pages. The evidence prompted the WHO to conclude: “Tobacco companies and their public relations firms have always insisted that advertising does not cause non-smokers to take up the habit, but is intended to get those already smoking to switch brands. And the companies deny vigorously that they ever marketed to children. “The documents reveal the complete opposite to be true. The marketing experts in the tobacco companies knew the essential arithmetic: current smokers quit or die; therefore new smokers are always needed. Since the majority of adult smokers begin in their teenage years, this is the group that had to be targeted by advertising and promotions. The tobacco companies have created ‘children shouldn’t smoke until they are adults’ campaigns around the world, without ever mentioning the health reasons for not smoking. Internal company documents show these campaigns to be a public relations effort to deflect the severe criticism against the industry for such successful promotions as those using the Joe Camel character, which may have hooked millions of teenagers into smoking.â€\x9d The court also discussed the landmark Kessler judgment of 1999, which followed a legal case brought against the tobacco companies in the US. “The evidence is clear and convincing – and beyond any reasonable doubt – that defendants have marketed to young people 21 and under, while consistently, publicly, and falsely, denying they do so,â€\x9d Justice Kessler declared. “Defendants intensively researched and tracked young people’s attitudes, preferences and habits. As a result of those investigations, defendants knew that youth were highly susceptible to marketing and advertising appeals, would underestimate the health risks and effects of smoking, would overestimate their ability to stop smoking, and were price sensitive. Defendants used their knowledge of young people to create highly sophisticated and appealing marketing campaigns targeted to lure them into starting smoking and later becoming nicotine addicts.â€\x9d A breakdown of the sales figures of the three most popular brands confirms this claim. Once confidential company documents reveal that in 2003 88% of youth smokers bought the three most heavily advertised brands – Marlboro, Camel and Newport. In contrast, fewer than half of smokers over the age of 25 purchased the same three brands. Marlboro, the most heavily marketed brand, held a staggering 49.2% of the 12- to 17-year-old market in the US. The tobacco giants insisted that many of the documents cited as evidence against them were 40 years old and no longer relevant. Instead they sought to shift the focus to Australia, where plain packaging was introduced in 2012. The court heard that the industry had commissioned two reports from KPMG codenamed “Project Starâ€\x9d and “Project Sunâ€\x9d, which purportedly showed that plain packaging was responsible for a rise in illicit sales of cigarettes in Australia. But in a letter to public health minister Jane Ellison, dated 2 May 2014 and released under the Freedom of Information Act, Robin Cartwright, a KPMG partner, admitted that: “The report we released recently, Illicit Tobacco in Australia – 2013 Half Year Report, has been somewhat misrepresented by others, without our consent, to suggest it supports the contention that plain paper packaging could lead of itself to an increase in tobacco smuggling and duty avoidance.â€\x9d Ultimately, despite the mountains of evidence they submitted to the court, there was an extraordinary lacuna at the heart of the tobacco companies’ case. In public they claimed that the new regulations would not achieve their chief goal of discouraging children from taking up smoking, but they failed to submit any of their own private analysis to explain how they reached this conclusion. Green was astonished by this failure. “It is common sense that the claimant tobacco companies will have conducted some analysis, internally, of the economic and financial implications for each of them of the introduction of the regulations,â€\x9d he noted in his ruling. “None of that analysis is before the court or has been (apparently) seen by the experts instructed by the tobacco companies.â€\x9d As a result, much of the evidence produced by the experts on behalf of big tobacco to counter the government’s case was dismissed by Green who, one by one, shot them down. The evidence of Jonathan Klick, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, who was “retained by BAT to offer an opinion upon the literature regarding the effects of plain packaging on smokingâ€\x9d, was described as “unsatisfactory in multiple respectsâ€\x9d. Neil McKeganey, professor of sociology at the University of Glasgow and director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, produced a review of some of the main pieces of research literature that failed to confront “the contrary evidence, including that from the tobacco companiesâ€\x9d which would have made it “hard to see how he could have advanced the opinions that he didâ€\x9d. Gregory Mitchell, professor of law at the University of Virginia, who produced a report on how adolescents make health decisions, submitted “evidence unsatisfactory at almost every levelâ€\x9d. Casey Mulligan, professor in economics, University of Chicago, who developed economic models examining the impact of plain packaging on the Australian market, “employs an unforgiving approach which never admits of even the possibility of error on his part whilst simultaneously taking the view that any and all opposing experts’ reports are flawedâ€\x9d. As the smoke cleared from the battlefield after last week’s landmark ruling, one question lingered: why had the cigarette giants not shared the vast amounts of data they had accumulated over more than half a century with their own expert witnesses? Green had a view: “The experience in the US shows that there are likely to be a multiplicity of relevant documents, and that they might well not be supportive of the claimants’ case.â€\x9d For Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, the risk that such documents would become public was just too great. They had waged a ferocious rearguard action to prevent the truth from coming out. In the end they went down fighting. But they were firing blanks.',
 'Tottenham lose title hopes and all control in draw with Chelsea Well, you can’t say they didn’t go down fighting. It took until the final half-hour for Tottenham Hotspur’s title challenge finally, definitively to unravel but from the seventh minute, when Mousa Dembélé initiated a snarling squabble with Mikel John Obi, to the seventh minute of stoppage time, when the final whistle blew and players and managers brawled on their way down the tunnel, this was a display full more of malice than of merit. In this astonishing season, now embellished with its 5,000-1 champions, how Dembélé made it all the way to stoppage time before he was booked might be the greatest miracle of all. In the dying moments of the first half, after Danny Rose slid in late on Willian in front of the Spurs dug-out, players and coaches from both sides came together in a mêlée that distracted the officials sufficiently for the Belgian to push his nails into one of Diego Costa’s eyes and down his face and emerge unnoticed and unpunished. Costa is used to winning trophies and being unpleasantly aggressive to others; here it was he who was bullied, and then he helped present a trophy to someone else. Earlier Kyle Walker had pushed Pedro to the floor and then kicked him, gently but deliberately, in the shin. And so it continued. Érik Lamela, booked early in the first half for a two-footed foul on Cesc Fà bregas, later appeared to tread on the Spaniard’s hand. Of Tottenham’s outfield players, by the end only Toby Alderweireld had not been booked and it would be a surprise if Dele Alli, retrospectively banned from this and Tottenham’s remaining two top-flight fixtures after punching a player in their previous game, did not have company on the sidelines as Spurs’ season peters out – potentially quite a lot of company. Guus Hiddink spoke afterwards about how these bad-tempered occasions “happen a lot in the Latin worldâ€\x9d, alluding perhaps to Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham’s Argentinian manager, who twice entered the pitch to get involved in the bad-tempered action, at one stage had to be separated from Steve Holland, Chelsea’s assistant first-team coach, and was at the centre of the post-match brawl, which began when Hiddink attempted to chaperone Fà bregas past him and down the tunnel (the Dutchman, who speaks Spanish, said later that his player was being threatened in the language). Pochettino has fashioned a young and vibrant team and minutes after the game’s end spoke calmly and genially to the media, but he showed here that the spirit of Antonio Rattin, famously, furiously sent off in a World Cup quarter-final 50 years ago and eight miles away, lives within him. “It’s football,â€\x9d he said. “We are men, they are men and we need to show we are strong.â€\x9d The irony is that it was supposed to be Chelsea who were motivated by spite. There was little for them to play for but professional pride – which has not always been evident in their performances this season – and a refusal to cede the title they won a year ago to local rivals. It proved motivation enough, with Eden Hazard, whose assertion that “we don’t want Tottenham to win the league, if we can beat them it will be goodâ€\x9d, represented the apotheosis of the pre-match trolling, coming off the bench wonderfully to complete their comeback from a two-goal half-time deficit. There was a moment before kick-off, as a giant “Pride of Londonâ€\x9d banner was carried across the Shed End by Chelsea’s fans, when it was tempting to wonder if they would continue passing it around the stadium until it reached the other end. Failing that, perhaps they could be tempted to stuff it into a large bag and hide it in a cupboard for the foreseeable future. There is, after all, a shelf in the club’s trophy cabinet that has just become available. But within this performance Chelsea’s players showed that perhaps they share with their fans a desire to wrest back the status they have so emphatically and humiliatingly lost this season. Of course, there were always three teams in this marriage. As Asmir Begovic prepared to take the free-kick, deep on Chelsea’s left-wing, that followed Walker’s first, early foul on Pedro, a fan in the front row immediately behind him held up a placard that read, “Let’s do it for Ranieriâ€\x9d. But few Chelsea supporters at that stage seemed to be thinking of Leicester, just of their club’s own superiority, temporarily misplaced. “Champions of Europe,â€\x9d they bellowed repeatedly, “you’ll never see that.â€\x9d It is just four years since Chelsea won the Champions League; in the build-up to this game Hiddink described his side’s remaining fixtures – against Sunderland, Liverpool and Leicester, of which only one now seems at all important in any real sense, and that only to Chelsea’s opponents – as “massive gamesâ€\x9d, an illustration of how far, how fast they have fallen. But then, in the final moments, as the game headed towards its savage and definitive conclusion, the home fans burst into the loudest song of the night: “Leicester, champions!â€\x9d They are no longer the kings, but they took to the role of kingmakers rather well.',
 'Standard Chartered shares surge despite profit slump Standard Chartered has reported a sharp drop in profits in the first quarter of the year but reassured investors over its financial strength, sparking a 10% jump in its shares. Bill Winters, chief executive of the London-listed emerging markets focused bank, said it had reviewed its operations since the publication of 11.5m leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Foncesa shed light on the way wealthy individuals use secretive offshore tax havens. Winters said the bank had looked at its operations more broadly than the Panama Papers but had “not identified anything out of the Panama Papers per seâ€\x9d. Within days of the publication of the Panama Papers, the Financial Conduct Authority had contacted 20 financial firms to ask them about their dealings with Mossack Fonseca. Shares in the bank were the biggest risers in the FTSE 100, up more than 10% to 574.5p, even as it reported a 59% fall in first quarter profits to £589m and warned of a challenging period ahead. A year ago the shares were trading at over £11 and Winters – who replaced longstanding boss Peter Sands in June – raised £3.3bn from shareholders at 465p a share by giving investors two shares for every seven they already hold. For 2015, he reported the bank’s first loss since 1989 as a result of embarking on a huge restructuring, scaling back of riskier operations and incurring rising bad debts. While the bank weathered the financial crisis relatively unscathed it started to run into trouble after being hit by regulatory charges in 2012 and then suffered falling profits. But the shares rose on Tuesday after investors were reassured over its capital position and the fact that its debt charge of $471m was also down on the fourth quarter. “It seems like the new management team is settling in well, and the new chief risk officer hasn’t found any other unexploded ordnance,â€\x9d said Sandy Chen, analyst at Cenkos Securities. Standard Chartered also incurred regulatory costs of $243m for the first quarter, down on a year ago. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK is conducting two investigations into the bank’s internal safeguards against financial crime. When Winter’s appointment was announced in February 2015, the bank also said it would replace chairman Sir John Peace this year. Winters would only say that the bank was making good progress with its search. The bank has been held back by slower growth in China and falling commodity prices. “Given the ongoing challenging market conditions and the early implementation of our strategy, we expect group performance to remain subdued in 2016,â€\x9d the bank said. “Trading conditions in the first quarter of 2016 remained similar to the final quarter of 2015, including depressed commodity prices, volatility in Chinese markets, weak emerging market sentiment and concerns around interest rate and other policy actions. Despite the external environment, we have made good progress on our strategic objectives, tightly managing costs, implementing our investment programme, further reducing areas of risk concentration, and maintaining a well capitalised and liquid balance sheet.â€\x9d',
 "Theresa May rejects £50bn EU 'divorce settlement' figure Downing Street does not accept the proposal for the UK to pay up to £50bn in a divorce settlement with the EU, Theresa May’s spokesman has said. The £50bn bill has been widely reported as under discussion by senior EU diplomats at a European council meeting in Brussels on Thursday. It would represent Britain’s share of long-term liabilities such as pensions – one of the many issues that would need to be resolved during the article 50 talks. But May’s spokesman rejected the £50bn figure, saying: “Negotiations have not begun and so that figure does not actually exist.â€\x9d He added: “As was set out last night by my colleagues in Brussels, that is one of a range of issues that will have to be dealt with. The outcome of those negotiations will be something for the future.â€\x9d A hefty one-off divorce bill would eat into the funds that Vote Leave campaigners promised could be kept in Britain and spent on other priorities such as the NHS. Separately, ministers including the Brexit secretary, David Davis, have conceded that Britain may end up making ongoing payments to the EU in exchange for access to the single market. May left the summit to fly back to London late on Thursday night, cancelling a planned press conference after talks ran on into the evening. Her 27 EU counterparts remained there to discuss how they would manage the process of Brexit – but in the end devoted little more than 20 minutes to the subject. No 10 also confirmed on Friday that May had sought an assurance from fellow leaders that the rights of UK citizens living in the EU and those of EU citizens living in the UK would be resolved early on in Brexit discussions. The prime minister told her EU counterparts that the topic should be a priority in negotiations, with Britain ready to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK as soon as British citizens in other EU countries were protected in the same way. She had sought a deal even earlier than the start of formal negotiations, likely to begin in March, but the EU has declined to start talks without article 50 being triggered. “What happens in the negotiations is a matter for the negotiations. But we have made it very clear it is a matter we want to see resolved as soon as possible,â€\x9d May’s deputy official spokesman said. He defended May’s decision to leave without giving a press conference, saying the Brussels council had overrun. The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, has called for May to make a unilateral commitment that she would protect the rights of EU citizens already living in the EU, as a goodwill gesture to kick off the article 50 talks in a positive spirit. Helena Kennedy, the chair of the House of Lords subcommittee on the acquired rights created by EU membership, has urged EU migrants to start collecting documentation that would help prove how long they have lived in the country, to ready themselves for the post-Brexit regime.",
 'Seven-and-a-half years on, this is a distressingly fragile recovery Stock markets in turmoil. Nervous investors seeking out safe havens for their money. Rumours swirling about the vulnerability of some of the world’s biggest banks. February 2016 is starting to smell suspiciously like early September 2008 and the days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. To be sure, the comparison between now and that September seven-and-a-half years ago, when the global financial crisis came to a head, is not exact. The big banks say they are better equipped to withstand losses now, a view supported by their official regulators. Rising energy prices were squeezing real incomes in the summer of 2008, but today consumers and businesses are getting quite a windfall from the drop in the price of crude. But there have now been six weeks of unrelenting turmoil in the financial markets since the start of 2016 and the argument that this represents a fleeting spasm of panic before life returns to normal is wearing thin. The sell-off in shares, the collapse in commodity prices and the flight to gold have forced a long overdue reassessment of the sustainability of the uneven recovery that has been under way since spring 2009. One lesson from those dark days of crisis is that the time to start worrying is when bank bosses feel obliged to insist publicly that their institutions are rock solid. The story starts with China and the fear that the problems of the world’s second biggest economy mark the third iteration of the global crisis that began in the US in 2007, and subsequently moved to the eurozone in 2010. Like the US, and some peripheral eurozone countries, China pumped up its economic growth using cheap credit and is now finding that many of the loans are going sour. The economy is clearly slowing, with debate over whether China is expanding at close to 7% a year, as the official figures suggest, or a much lower rate. Danny Gabay, who runs the Fathom consultancy, thinks the real rate of growth could be 3% or lower. Countries that supply commodities – from Angola to Australia – did well out of China’s industrial boom. They could sell all the oil, aluminium, iron ore and copper they could produce at premium prices. Many of these countries – especially the ones that spent and borrowed freely in the expectation that high commodity prices would last forever – now look vulnerable. So when the sell-off in the markets started in January, the main concern was that the slowdown in China and the crash in commodity prices would have a domino effect on some of the weaker emerging-market economies. That source of anxiety remains, but has now been pushed slightly into the background by speculation about the health of the big European banks. Four separate factors have come together. Firstly, eurozone banks still have a lot of non-performing loans on their books from the last crisis. Secondly, the belief is that they have lent money for shale oil exploration and high-end property deals that will make losses. Thirdly, weaker growth prospects are hurting profitability. Finally, the increased use of negative interest rates is adding to financial pressures, because it now costs the banks to deposit cash at central banks. In past economic cycles, central banks had no need for recourse to unconventional tools such as negative interest rates and quantitative easing. The fact that they are still being used seven years after recovery worries investors – and rightly so. Central banks feel obliged to take action to prevent the deflation caused by China’s slowdown and the big fall in oil prices from becoming entrenched. But some of the unpleasant side effects of QE and ultra-low interest rates are now becoming obvious: QE pumps up asset-price bubbles through its encouragement of reckless lending, while low and negative interest rates add to financial pressures on commercial banks. To sum up, the past seven-and-a-half years have seen the most colossal use of monetary stimulus in recorded history, yet recovery has been weak by past standards and has been accompanied by a drift towards deflation. As policy becomes ever more unconventional, markets are starting to think central banks have lost control of the situation. The fundamental problems of the pre-crash economy – rising income inequality, over-reliance on debt, weak effective demand – have not been solved: merely papered over.',
 'South Carolina: Hillary Clinton seeks to build on old strengths as campaign rolls on At a tired-looking service station in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Shante Richbow steps off a Greyhound bus and sits down to lunch from a polystyrene container. In the coming election, the black single mother prefers Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders – but not enough to go out and vote for her. “It’s a big joke,â€\x9d she said. “I don’t think it’s going to matter. I don’t see any action so I won’t be voting.â€\x9d Richbow, 30, has three children, including an 11-year-old son, Deshawn, who has cerebral palsy. She said she gets no help from the government except a wheelchair every five years, which he quickly outgrows. “If one of the candidates talked about that, I would listen to them,â€\x9d she says. This most extraordinary of US presidential elections is hitting its stride with 14 state votes in the coming three weeks. For Democrats, the question is whether Sanders’ momentum following his victory in New Hampshire can penetrate Clinton’s “firewallâ€\x9d of support among African Americans and Hispanics in the south and west. For Republicans, there are half a dozen candidates left and numerous subplots within the main talking point: can anyone stop Donald Trump? South Carolina, where Republicans vote on Saturday and Democrats a week later, is by tradition “Bush countryâ€\x9d and “Clinton countryâ€\x9d: on Monday, former president George W Bush will make his campaign debut on behalf of brother Jeb, while Bill Clinton can also be expected to bat for Hillary. The state is bigger and more diverse than the first two to have their say, Iowa and New Hampshire. It is home to rich and poor, black and white, young and old, entrepreneur and student, Christian evangelical and military veteran. It is a place where slavery thrived, where the first shot was fired in the civil war and where a statue of Strom Thurmond, the longest-serving senator in US history, notorious foe of racial integration, stands outside the state house – near a monument to African American history. Keefer Crosby, a 53-year-old from Sumter, is black and has been unemployed since 2001. “Right here, African Americans don’t get a fair chance,â€\x9d he said. “They can’t get a decent job. Because of the history. There is definitely still racism in the state of South Carolina.â€\x9d He does not believe Sanders is the solution, however. “Hillary is the better person because she’s more intelligent. Bernie is old school; he’s too old to really get out there. He’s not going to be able to handle the pressure.â€\x9d Sanders, 74, a leftwing insurgent who has energised millions of young people angry about the economic status quo, is pouring agents and money into South Carolina, to make the case that he can also heal America’s racial divisions. They will remind voters that he attended the 1963 march on Washington, at which Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech, and defied criticism as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, to endorse Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1988. In Charleston, where southern charm and historic homes draw tourists while the homeless camp out under highway bridges, a handful of Sanders signs can be seen. But truck driver Charles Jones, 41, who is African American, said: “I’ve always been a Clinton supporter. I’m not really impressed with Sanders. I don’t think he’s talking about the things I want to hear. He has a problem connecting.â€\x9d African Americans made up more than half the voters in the 2008 Democratic primary. If that trend is repeated, it is expected to favour Clinton because she and her husband, Bill, have commanded loyalty in the black community since his days as president. Rae Kwon, 20, a student, said: “If I vote, it will be for Hillary, because my mother voted for Bill Clinton and we felt positive changes for people living in poverty and living in the middle class. Someone close to Bill would have the same mentality. Sanders tells people what they want to hear and he’ll back it up, but it’s real hard versus the Clintons because he doesn’t have a strong background here.â€\x9d Kevin Lorenzo, 42, working as a cook at Chick-fil-A, said: “I’d take Hillary Clinton any day. Even when her husband did wrong, she stuck with him. We need diversity; we need change. Hillary is a woman and we all come from women.â€\x9d His anger towards Trump, meanwhile, was raw: “He says, ‘I want to send all Mexicans back and put blacks back on the bus.’ If I were to meet this dude, I’m going to slap the toupee off his fucking head. It’s just big business to him.â€\x9d But the disaffection with the political establishment that has been evident in both parties also poses a challenge to Clinton. Robert Robinson, 62, jobless and living off $1,200 a month social security, said: “I hope she wins but I won’t vote for her. I last voted for Obama in 2008 and there hasn’t been a day of benefit for me. They all make promises they can’t keep.â€\x9d ‘More harm to black communities than Reagan’ Nationwide, the battle for the black vote is intensifying. In an essay published last week in the liberal magazine the Nation, Why Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve the black vote, academic Michelle Alexander argued that Bill Clinton “caused more harm to black communities than Reagan ever didâ€\x9d, presiding over the biggest increase in the prison population in American history and record unemployment among black men in their 20s without a degree, all while shredding the welfare safety net. Sanders has gained the backing of singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte and the daughter of Eric Garner, whose death at the hands of police in New York in 2014 became one of the key causes of the Black Lives Matter movement. But civil rights hero John Lewis joined the Congressional Black Caucus in endorsing Clinton and played down Sanders’ involvement in the early movement, saying pointedly: “I never saw him. I never met him.â€\x9d The morning after his thumping 22-point defeat of Clinton in New Hampshire, the senator had breakfast with the Rev Al Sharpton in Harlem, New York. Sharpton, who will meet Clinton this week, said he had impressed upon Sanders that inequality – his defining stump issue – has a specific racial dimension. In an interview with the , Sharpton said he told the candidate: “I’m more concerned about where you are with those issues of criminal justice, voting rights, in terms of what we’ve been leading on with voter IDs, than I want to hear about what you did 50 years ago. “I want to know about now and, though I think that what you’ve done years ago gives me a hint of your character, what you’re doing now is what’s going to move or not move the voters of today, young and old.â€\x9d Sharpton added: “To have them both competing for the black vote is only to the benefit of blacks. The Clintons have a loyalty but that does not mean that [Sanders] cannot make a serious impact. Let’s not forget she lost in ’08 [to Obama] and they had a lot of loyalty, so if I were her I wouldn’t take it for granted, and if I were Senator Sanders I would not write it off. Clearly it’s an uphill battle but sometimes uphill battles can be won. “The key for him in South Carolina and Nevada [where Democrats caucus on Saturday] is going to be can he bring out the new voters like he did in Iowa, because loyalties are harder to change. But if he can excite new voters and be specific, I think that’ll make the difference on whether he can close the gap.â€\x9d ‘This will be a national security primary’ Another upshot of the New Hampshire primary is that millions of Republicans are realising the Trump phenomenon is real, not a polling anomaly. He won resoundingly and is leading surveys in South Carolina, a state where, traditionally, the gloves come off. On Friday he traded barbs with conservative Ted Cruz and launched a TV ad featuring Jamiel Shaw, whose son was murdered by an undocumented migrant. Cruz is working hard to court the big Christian evangelical population, just as he did to win the Iowa caucuses, while Senator Marco Rubio is trying to show a human side after his disastrous debate performance in New Hampshire. Jeb Bush has a different take, hoping to appeal to the state’s large population of military veterans. He explained to reporters in Columbia: “Our belief is that this will be a national security primary, that it’s a commander-in-chief election, if you will, that people here want to know you’re going to support the veterans, support the troops, rebuild the military, modernise the military.â€\x9d Bush also hopes to reactivate the family’s old patronage networks. Last week he made a pitch to the party’s establishment wing, or “country club Republicansâ€\x9d, before a crackling fire at an upmarket community hall in a suburb of Charleston. The former Florida governor, who has cut a well-funded but forlorn figure on the campaign trail (“Please clap,â€\x9d he told one audience), seemed re-energised as took swipes at Trump, presented his education credentials and sold himself as the voice of reason on foreign policy. He was joined by his godfather Jon Bush, brother of former president George HW Bush and uncle of ex-president George W Bush, both of whom won South Carolina primaries twice. Courtly and courteous, the 84-year-old told the : “Now we’re getting into Jeb Bush country. Way up north, that’s not his forte. Now we’re coming to his strong suit and I think he’s going to have a big victory here in South Carolina and then do really well on Super Tuesday.â€\x9d Reflecting on his godson’s struggles in the campaign so far, Jon Bush, a veteran fundraiser for the family, added: “The whole thing was such a farce. “His early poll ratings were based on a couple of answers in a debate where a whole lot of clowns were seeking attention for themselves and diverting away from the main issues. Now we’re into the main issues and who’s the best qualified and he’s started to make his move now because he’s clearly the best qualified … “I don’t think there’s ever been a candidate who’s more knowledgeable about more issues than he is.â€\x9d But Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant and pollster, believes evangelicals and a discourse around faith-based values will be more important. “I think Jeb will struggle,â€\x9d he said. “It’s more conservative and ideological and that’s not Jeb; there are other candidates. But George W will be a help: he’ll give Republicans another reason to look at Jeb.â€\x9d The next three weeks are expected to winnow the field down decisively in one of the most confounding, turbulent and zany American elections in living memory. When South Carolina, Nevada and Super Tuesday – 1 March – are done, it is fair to assume the House of Clinton will have taken a hit or two but still be standing, ready for the battles ahead. The House of Bush? Not so sure.',
 "Carson defends Trump against racism charge: 'What's the alternative?' – campaign live Here are some of the key takeaways from today in political news: In an appearance on the talk show The View, former candidate Ben Carson was confronted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who said that Donald Trump, whom Carson has endorsed, “is a racist.â€\x9d “He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country,â€\x9d Goldberg said. “What’s the alternative?â€\x9d Carson replied. Donald Trump’s doubling down on his criticism - okay, full-on insulting - of Ted Cruz’s wife is pushing the Texan senator to a place he rarely goes: unironic criticism of the billionaire frontrunner. (Although Cruz did immediately refuse to say that he would not support said “sniveling cowardâ€\x9d if he won the Republican nomination.) A survey from Bloomberg Politics that showed Vermont senator Bernie Sanders edging out former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a single point. Of course, America’s magnificently complicated primary process means that most national polls are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. But! These data are interesting beyond the notion that Sanders is favored by 49% of Democrats while Clinton is preferred by 48%.The reason they’re interesting? It’s all about the economy (stupid). In an interview with the Associated Press, Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared that if billionaire Republican frontrunner successfully wins his party’s nomination, he won’t know who to vote for.“I’m not a Trump fan,â€\x9d Mr. Hogan told the Associated Press. “I don’t think he should be the nominee. At this point in time, I have no idea who the candidates are going to be or who I’m going to vote for.â€\x9d Hogan is so disheartened by the state of the party that he “can’t even stand to watch the debates on TV.â€\x9d That’s it for today’s news in American campaign politics - tune in tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that for up-to-the-minute news from the ’s campaign correspondents around the country. The US pro-gun lobby is entertaining its younger members with its own take on classic fairytales, but they have a unique twist: firearms. The National Rifle Association’s nrafamily.com website is featuring the pro-firearms stories. The latest Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns), written by Amelia Hamilton and posted last week, is accompanied by a picture of the titular siblings lost in the forest, as is traditional, but rather than being petrified of the story’s witch they’re supplied with rifles. The Charlotte has castigated North Carolina governor Pat McCrory for signing a bill into law that stripped nondiscrimination protections from LGBT citizens, putting him in the company of “a dark list of Southern governors.â€\x9d “It was, in the end, about a 21st century governor who joined a short, tragic list of 20th century governors,â€\x9d the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “You know at least some of these names, probably: Wallace, Faubus, Barnett. They were men who fed our worst impulses, men who rallied citizens against citizens, instead of leading their states forward. “This is what Pat McCrory did Wednesday. In just 12 hours. It wasn’t the stand in the schoolhouse door. It was a sprint past the bathroom door and straight into the South’s dark, bigoted past.â€\x9d The bill, which also banned transgender North Carolinians from using public restrooms that comport with their gender identity, was passed in a special session and signed into law in less than 12 hours, over the protests of Democratic members of the state legislature and worries that the bill would put the state in violation of Title IX protections regarding gender. Ted Cruz has dubbed Donald Trump a “sniveling cowardâ€\x9d - but, as NBC News’ Hallie Jackson found out, that doesn’t mean he won’t support him if he wins the nomination. Vice-president Joe Biden has admitted that the White House made a political calculation in nominating “moderateâ€\x9d Merrick Garland to a lifetime position on the supreme court, a choice that disappointed some liberal activists. Biden told an audience of law students in Washington that the administration had a responsibility to be pragmatic at a time of divided government which, in an at times impassioned address, he warned has the makings of a “constitutional crisisâ€\x9d. “It hasn’t been a closed process,â€\x9d he said at Georgetown Law School. “We’ve reached out. Who do you want? Who do you think? What type of person should we nominate? We did our duty. The president did his duty. We sought advice and we ultimately chose the course of moderation. “Because the government is divided, the president did not go on and find another [William] Brennan. Merrick Garland intellectually is capable as any justice, but he has a reputation for moderation. I think that’s a responsibility of an administration in a divided government. Some of my liberal friends don’t agree with me, but I do. It’s about the government functioning.â€\x9d Another day, another Republican official signs the #NeverTrump pact. In an interview with the Associated Press, Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared that if billionaire Republican frontrunner successfully wins his party’s nomination, he won’t know who to vote for. “I’m not a Trump fan,â€\x9d Mr. Hogan told the Associated Press. “I don’t think he should be the nominee. At this point in time, I have no idea who the candidates are going to be or who I’m going to vote for.â€\x9d Hogan is so disheartened by the state of the party that he “can’t even stand to watch the debates on TV.â€\x9d “I don’t even want to be involved,â€\x9d he said. “It’s a mess. I hate the whole thing. I don’t think we have the best candidates in either party that are being put up. I don’t like the dialogue. I don’t like the things that are going on, and I’m sick of talking about it, because it’s not anything I have anything to do with.â€\x9d Why is Donald Trump popular? Travelling around America’s south for his most recent book Deep South, the writer Paul Theroux got some ideas. “It’s the gun show guys,â€\x9d he says, sitting in his Hawaii home. “Virtually everything Donald Trump says, you can find on a gun show bumper sticker. Anti-Obama stuff, anti-Muslim stuff, anti-Mexican stuff, anti-immigrant stuff.â€\x9d The 74-year-old warms to his theme. “Gun shows are about hating and distrusting the government … people who have been oppressed by a bad economy, by outsourcing. They have a lot of legitimate grievances and a lot of imagined grievances. There is this paranoid notion that Washington is trying to take their guns away, take their manhood away, take this symbol of independence away. They feel defeated. They hate the Republican party, too. They feel very isolated.â€\x9d Theroux reflects on Trumpmania dominating the Republican primaries and caucuses. “It’s a whole undercurrent of feeling that runs all the way through the United States. The mood I saw in southern gun shows seems to resonate even with educated, white-collar, Massachusetts Republican voters. Because Trump won my state of Massachusetts, he won a fairly sizable majority.â€\x9d He’s got us there. The ’s Tom McCarthy is best known for anchoring this liveblog, but he’s also anchoring a new politics podcast pilot we’re testing out for the ! McCarthy spoke with the ’s campaign correspondents on Barack Obama’s historic trip to Cuba, Ted Cruz’s “patrol and secureâ€\x9d comments regarding surveillance of Muslim communities in the United States and much more - check out the first installment here: Muslims are the new Mexicans in US politics. References to Muslims by politicians have become interchangeable with references to refugees, immigrants andterrorists in much the same way that Mexicans have long been synonymous with drug dealers, criminals and rapists. And this week, following the attacks in Brussels, a number of presidential candidates had things to say. As the target of so much attention, it’s worth fact-checking some of those claims made recently about Muslims... Ben Carson, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race earlier this month, is grilled on ABC’s The View for endorsing Donald Trump. Whoopi Goldberg, one of the show’s co-hosts, asked Carson how he can endorse someone who many believe to hold sexist and racist viewpoints. Carson says “there is no perfect personâ€\x9d, and that he is “looking at the big picture.â€\x9d New York congressman Chris Collins told a New York radio host on Wednesday that billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is much more popular with rank-and-file members of Congress than has been let on. “Many members are supporting Trump quietly,â€\x9d Collins told WHM’s Bob Lonsberry, as first reported by Buzzfeed. “They don’t like Ted Cruz at all, and for various reasons unique to their particular congressional districts they’re not formally endorsing Mr. Trump.â€\x9d “I’ve had absolutely no negative feedbackâ€\x9d for being the first member of Congress to endorse Trump’s candidacy, Collins said. “On the House floor, people know he will be our nominee. With very few exceptions - four or five individuals - everyone’s saying they will support the nominee ... And if it’s Donald Trump, they’re gonna support him, as we all need to do to defeat Hillary Clinton and the progressive liberal campaign.â€\x9d ...says the man who has endorsed the candidate who once compared him to a child molester. Former first daughter and campaign surrogate Chelsea Clinton appears simultaneously pleased with and disgusted by the current war-of-wives being waged by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. “Well I wouldn’t defend anything that Sen. Cruz and Mr. Trump says or believes in or stands for,â€\x9d Clinton said while stumping for her mother, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. “I think that the level of vitriol goes beyond anything that we certainly have seen in contemporary times in this election, and I think that anyone who is involved in politics.â€\x9d “Thankfully, from President Obama to my mom to Senator Sanders on, the Democratic side continues to both stand up against that type of vitriol and hate speech and the personal attacks as well as continue to stand for the types of substantive debates that they and certainly Democrats believe we need to be having in this country,â€\x9d Clinton said. Rights groups are considering legal action against North Carolina after the government adopted a law that critics say effectively sanctions the discrimination of LGBT people. “It flies in the face of democracyâ€\x9d said Mike Meno, a spokesperson for the ACLU of North Carolina, which is actively looking into a legal challenge against the state with a coalition of rights groups. “They essentially said it’s okay to discriminate against LGBT people, to turn them away from businesses, to fire them because of who they are or who they love – and that is not a North Carolina that a lot of people recognize or want to live in,â€\x9d said Meno. “This is something that was done by extremists in the legislature who are out of step with many communities across our state.“ Another day, another clatch of polls - this time, a survey from Bloomberg Politics that shows Vermont senator Bernie Sanders edging out former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a single point. Of course, America’s magnificently complicated primary process means that most national polls are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. But! These data are interesting beyond the notion that Sanders is favored by 49% of Democrats while Clinton is preferred by 48%. The reason they’re interesting? It’s all about the economy (stupid). Democratic voters feel that Sanders is the more reliable candidate to work for the middle class and do the most to fight Wall Street influence over government by a massive margin: 62% say he’d “fight hardest for the middle class,â€\x9d and 64% say he’d do the most to “rein in Wall Street.â€\x9d While Clinton scores better in areas like temperament, foreign policy and experience, the plurality of voters say that income inequality and unemployment are the most important issues facing the country right now - which gives Sanders the edge. Donald Trump’s doubling down on his criticism - okay, full-on insulting - of Ted Cruz’s wife is pushing the Texan senator to a place he rarely goes: unironic criticism of the billionaire frontrunner. In an appearance on the talk show The View, former candidate Ben Carson was confronted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who said that Donald Trump, whom Carson has endorsed, “is a racist.â€\x9d “He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country,â€\x9d Goldberg said. “What’s the alternative?â€\x9d Carson replied. “You’re Ben Carson, you’re so much better than this,â€\x9d Goldberg said. “I look at the big picture,â€\x9d Carson said. Fellow co-host Joy Behar then called Trump a liar and Carson said, “Tell me a politician that doesn’t tell lies.â€\x9d Here’s the exchange: Goldberg: You have aligned yourself with a man who has bashed women, made countless racist statements, and you’re Ben Carson, why would you align yourself with that?â€\x9d Carson: You have to look at the good and the bad. There is no perfect person. [Carson went on to say that in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump broke barriers on admitting “Jews and blacksâ€\x9d in social clubs.] Carson: I have met a lot of his employees, including African Americans, and they have nothing but good things to say. Carson said. [He adds that Trump has well-raised, respectful children.] Goldberg: He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country. Carson: What’s the alternative? Since Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans in the senate have argued that it would be inappropriate to take up such a nomination in the heat of an election year – and their Exhibit A is a speech that vice president Joe Biden made on the senate floor in 1992. In the speech, which is posted below, Biden did argue against considering a Supreme Court nomination during a presidential election season. But today, in an address at Georgetown University, Biden argued that he had been quoted selectively. Because he was, as chairman of the judiciary committee at the time, willing in principle to hold hearings on a nominee, he said. He never considered, Biden said today, the possibility of not holding hearings on such a nominee. Washington correspondent David Smith watched the speech. He’s live tweeted much of it, as prelude to a news story on the way. Here’s David: Biden: Let me set the record straight. I made it absolutely clear that I would go ahead if the nominee were selected with advice of senate. Biden: We should proceed with the advice and consent of the senate, as the constitution states. Biden: On committee I was responsible for nine nominees for the supreme court, more than anyone alive. Biden: “Every nominee, including Justice Kennedy—in an election year—got an up or down vote by the senate.â€\x9d Biden: “Not much of the time. Not most of the time. Every single time!â€\x9d Biden: Saying nothing, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Deciding to turn your back is not an option the constitution leaves open. Biden: It’s an abdication of responsibility “that has never happened before in our historyâ€\x9d. Biden: Congress has become “almost entirely dysfunctionalâ€\x9d. Biden: When the senate refuses to even consider a nominee, it prevents the court from discharging its constitutional “solemn dutyâ€\x9d. The 1992 speech on the Senate floor in which Biden argued against considering a Supreme Court nomination in a presidential election season: Donald Trump has collected footage of three former presidential candidates who have endorsed Ted Cruz – Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Lindsey Graham – speaking ill of Ted Cruz. Tagline: “With friends like these, who needs enemies?â€\x9d Here’s a live stream of vice president Joe Biden’s imminent address on the topic of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland: Wisconsin votes on Tuesday, 5 April, in an open primary. On the Republican side, there are 42 delegates at stake, awarded on a winner-take-all basis per congressional district and statewide. (If you win the vote in a congressional district, you receive all delegates allotted to that district; if you win statewide, you win additional delegates reserved for the statewide winner.) Donald Trump has scheduled a rally Tuesday for Wisconsin in Janesville. You might know it as the hometown of House speaker Paul Ryan, who gave a speech yesterday deploring the vulgar tone of the current political discourse. Ryan did not name names. Artist makes Donald Trump portrait out of pig snout and sheep eyes - video What do you know, we agree on something: Americans of both major political parties are united in their dislike of free trade, a Bloomberg poll finds. 44% say the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has been bad for the US economy and 29% say it’s been a positive development, according to the survey. Pollsters also found that most Americans say they would be willing to pay a little bit more for goods made in the United States, and that they would rather a US-owned factory employing 1,000 opened in their community than a Chinese-owned factory employing twice that many. Virtually every question of policy has a Republican-Democrat split,â€\x9d said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. “On trade, there is unity.â€\x9d Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have tapped the vein of protectionism, with Sanders advertising “the real cost of Hillary Clinton’s free trade policiesâ€\x9d and Trump as much as promising a trade war. Clinton supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership as secretary of state, although she now opposes it; her husband signed Nafta. Here’s a fun interview with Republican strategist Rick Wilson on the Trump phenomenon: First question, first answer: You’ve gained lots of fans on the left thanks to your vicious descriptions of Trump and his supporters. Once, on MSNBC, you called his base ‘‘childless single men who masturbate to anime.’’ That was in reference to the alt-right part of his base. I wish I could take credit for it being a broader smear. If one is going to insult a group of people who think that Trump is their own private postmodern Hitler, one ought to be specific. Here’s a selection of photos from outside a Bernie Sanders rally yesterday evening in Los Angeles: Trump: “Illegal immigration, take the oil, build the wall, Muslims, NATO!â€\x9d You know what he means. Trump has won 19 state Republican presidential nominating contests. Plus the Northern Marianas. He has 274 more pledged delegates than his closest rival. Three new polls Wednesday night showed him ahead with GOP voters by an average of 8 points. He hasn’t held a public event for three days. “N.A.T.O. is obsolete and must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on!â€\x9d Donald Trump tweeted Thursday. The statement was in keeping with Trump’s critique of the costs of maintaining a US military presence in Japan, the Persian Gulf, Europe and elsewhere. In Trump’s view, the US is spending too much to cover other countries’ security costs. Might the US be paying in part to address US security interests in those places? He doesn’t get into it. The US makes bad deals because the leadership’s stupid, is his take. In a speech Wednesday at Stanford University, Hillary Clinton called the view “dangerous.â€\x9d “If Mr Trump gets his way it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin,â€\x9d Clinton said. “Turning our back on our alliances or turning our alliance into a protection racket would reverse decades of bipartisan American leadership and would send a dangerous signal to friend and foe alike.â€\x9d Read further coverage here: [deep breath] Donald Trump posted an unflattering picture of Ted Cruz’s wife on Twitter, after the magnate threatened to “spill the beansâ€\x9d on Heidi Cruz in retaliation for an anti-Trump ad produced last week by a third party featuring a picture of Melania Trump nude. [deep breath] Here’s Trump’s RT: [deep breath] Here’s Cruz’s valiant reply: [deep breath] And here’s a sample of the indignant backlash, from an advisor to the anti-Trump group Our Principles Pac: [exhales] Here’s the tweet Trump RT’d before the one with the photo split: US data editor Mona Chalabi has a look at claims the US presidential candidates have made about Muslims this week. Here, for example, from the Texas senator: Ted Cruz “If you look here in the city of New York, New York had a proactive policing program that Mayor Michael Bloomberg championed to work cooperatively with the Muslim community to prevent radicalization.â€\x9d - Speaking at a news conference in New York, 22 March 2016 Cruz made the comment hours after the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, in a speech outlining a proposal to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoodsâ€\x9d. His description of NYPD’s “proactive policing programâ€\x9d could make it hard to figure out which scheme Cruz is referring to – because the NYPD Muslim monitoring scheme is generally referred to as their surveillance program. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) certainly doesn’t describe the NYPD scheme, which has been in place since at least 2002, as “proactiveâ€\x9d – their site explains: The NYPD’s surveillance program is based on a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny. New York’s federal courts would seem to agree. In January, the NYPD lost two civil rights lawsuits that accused the force of unfairly monitoring Muslims. Cruz’s claim that the program worked “cooperativelyâ€\x9d with New York’s Muslims is also a very generous reading of practices such as tracking individuals and using so-called “mosque crawlersâ€\x9d. Assessment: A convenient reinterpretation of the facts. Read the full piece here: President Obama dances the tango in Argentina – video Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump not only maintains his polling lead among Republicans in three new surveys – most Republican voters agree with him that if he wins the most delegates before the national convention, even if it’s not an outright majority, he should be the nominee. A Bloomberg poll found 63% of Republicans who have voted or plan to vote in the primary process think Trump should be nominated if he leads the delegates race in July. One problem, for Republicans, is that the same poll found that Trump was viewed unfavorably by 68% of Americans. That’s a lot – even more than the fairly unpopular Hillary Clinton, whose disapproval rating was measured at 53%. In other news, Joe Biden is scheduled to speak today on the nomination of DC circuit court judge Merrick Garland to the supreme court. That’s drudgery compared to what the Obamas, who spent last night in Argentina, are up to: Trump predicts a Brexit: Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments!",
 "Matt Miazga: Chelsea's pull proves too strong for Red Bulls' standout defender With Thierry Henry snarling in his direction, incredulous at the howler made by the New York Red Bulls’ rookie 18-year-old, Matt Miazga looked to have a rather steep learning curve ahead of him. The New Jersey native of Polish descent has certainly scaled that arc in the 18 months since that blunder against the Columbus Crew, but now he has another peak to climb. London is calling. Miazga this week completed a remarkable rise, with Chelsea wrapping up a £3.5m move for the centre-back. At 20, he in the vanguard of Major League Soccer’s homegrown crop, and at Stamford Bridge he will be given the kind of platform no American player has had since Tim Howard also made the move from New York to the Premier League over 12 years ago. The past year was unanimously acknowledged to have been a good one for Miazga – lifting the Supporters’ Shield as one of the Red Bulls’ standout performers – but maybe not this good. So what are Chelsea getting from their new American stopper? At 6ft 4in, the lanky Miazga certainly commands a presence, but there is a technicality to his game too. Athleticism is indeed his greatest – and most obvious – asset, yet his ability on the ball will serve him well in a more technically demanding division. Miazga can pass. He arrives with an international background too, although his track record makes Timothy Chandler look like a flag-waving nationalist. Miazga turned out for the United States’ Under-14s, -16s and -20s sides, but also played for Poland’s Under-16s and -18s. His future was the subject of discussion – Poland wanted him to commit – but his substitute appearance for USA in a World Cup qualifier against St Vincent & the Grenadines put paid to Polish hopes. It was for USA that Miazga first caught the eye of Premier League scouts. Last year’s Under-20 World Cup was a breakthrough event for the defender, with Tab Ramos’s side only knocked out on penalties by eventual winners Serbia. He might not have been Captain America, but in effect Miazga was the USA’s leader at the back, showing the kind of leadership capacity not seen in many players of his age. By his own admission, he is hardly a natural figurehead but has worked hard at that aspect of his game. In MLS terms, Miazga has pedigree, marking David Villa out of a Yankee Stadium derby in a nationally televised game last June, and also finding the net for the Red Bulls in a 3-1 win. At Chelsea, however, the 20-year-old will have to prove himself all over again. First-team opportunities will be at a premium, with some already mooting that a loan deal away from Stamford Bridge might give Miazga the best chance of making an impression in England. “We don’t rush him, but he will be one of the squad members for the future,â€\x9d Guus Hiddink explained when asked about what role Miazga will play at Chelsea. “He’s a young guy stepping up to the national team and it’s always good to have such players here so you can see what they are capable of in training. He’s a young player, a promising player – let’s see if he can get himself to the high demands of this club and the Premier League.â€\x9d 2015 saw the Red Bulls became a very different franchise, with billboard faces like Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill replaced by more shrewdly acquired signings. Head coach Jesse Marsch placed more of an emphasis on organic development, and Miazga was arguably the primary beneficiary of that renewed approach. He became the poster-boy for MLS’s often maligned homegrown program. “I think he’s been one of the best defenders in the league this year and should be considered in that echelon,â€\x9d Marsch gushed towards the close of last season. “His starting points are very high – everything from his mentality, to his awareness, to his athleticism – which means his ceiling is very high.â€\x9d Others aren’t so convinced, though. “He is a really nice guy, but pretty naive and he plays young,â€\x9d a mystery former teammate, who apparently played with Miazga in New York, told the Secret Footballer. “He looks big but he is soft, so hopefully he gets a little stronger and meaner otherwise he will be eaten alive in the Premier League. He is a good kid, so I am happy for him, but he needs to be loaned out to get experience.â€\x9d Miazga has resisted the Premier League’s overtures before – with Leicester City and Stoke City both reportedly interested parties – but this time English soccer’s pull has proven too strong. The defender could probably have used at least another year in MLS, backing up what he achieved last season, but the appeal of joining one of the game’s biggest clubs is understandable. On the flip side, Chelsea fans – with little over 48 hours of the transfer window remaining – will surely question how the signing of Miazga, as well as Alexandre Pato, can possibly turn around their ailing campaign. Why the latter was sought is anyone’s guess, but Miazga has been signed with at least one eye on the future. The past year has taken him further than anyone could have envisaged – providing encouragement that in a better league he will only improve further. And with Henry now working as a TV pundit in England he might still have the Frenchman to send him a well-meaning scowl every so often.",
 'Leicester’s gloom darkens after Romelu Lukaku seals win for Everton After this match it was hard to know which stretched credibility further: Claudio Ranieri’s claim that he did not notice the 30,000 people in the stadium wearing Jamie Vardy masks, or the fact that Leicester City are the English champions. The last time Leicester hosted Everton, in May, they were presented with the Premier League trophy; here all that was on display was a petty public relations stunt and a sad contrast between the title winners of last season and this Leicester side. Everton did not need to excel to claim their first away win since September. Everton finished looking like accomplished travellers but overall this was a low-quality contest that made for particularly painful viewing for supporters of the home side. That included Vardy, who sat in the stands as he began his three-match suspension for his red card against Stoke City. Leicester had been so aggrieved at the Football Association’s rejection of an appeal against that ban that the club arranged for masks of their striker to be handed out before kick-off. Some kind of protest? Ranieri said he knew nothing about it. That, at least, was wise. Vardy’s punishment must have felt particularly severe in view of the calibre of play he had to watch. The first 45 minutes were wretched, amounting to a late but compelling entry for the worst half of football in 2016. Everton were especially pallid initially and must have reinforced Ronald Koeman’s eagerness to bring in new blood during the January transfer window. Koeman’s side improved in the second period, however, finally summoning the wit to take advantage of the fact Leicester had been forced to deploy a weakened defence because of the bans of Robert Huth and Christian Fuchs. The home team’s replacements were a veteran, the 36‑year‑old centre-back Marcin Wasilewski, and a novice, the 20-year-old Ben Chilwell. The latter performed well but the former’s lack of pace alongside Wes Morgan in central defence was exposed by Everton in the 51st minute. All it took was a long punt over the home defence by the visiting goalkeeper, Joel Robles. Kevin Mirallas set off in pursuit of it, easily outrunning the lumbering centre‑backs. Kasper Schmeichel was unable to prevent the Belgian from firing Everton into the lead. That was Everton’s first strike on goal in the match. Their only previous attempt in the general direction of the target, a feeble header by Ramiro Funes Mori after a cross by Mirallas, was so inoffensive that most statisticians are unlikely to have recorded it as a shot. Leicester had gone only a little closer, Daniel Amaratey forcing a routine save from Robles in the 10th minute with a respectable shot from 20 yards after a neat exchange with Shinji Okazaki. There was a grievous lack of creativity from both sides. Ranieri tried to change that at half-time by replacing introducing Danny Drinkwater for Okazaki. After Everton took the lead and began to grow in confidence Ranieri threw on Riyad Mahrez, too. Of his decision to omit from the starting lineup the Premier League player of the year last season, the manager later said: “He’s not in good form and I want to stimulate him. He must give more for the team.â€\x9d Leicester supporters were also in the mood for telling home truths. They booed Ranieri’s third substitution, not because they had anything against the new arrival, Leonardo Ulloa, but because the man he replaced, Demarai Gray, had been Leicester’s brightest attacker. Ranieri said the switch was made for the sake of team balance. Ulloa’s header within moments of arriving was easily saved by Robles. That was the closest Leicester came to infiltrating Everton’s three-man defence. Everton controlled the game as it wore on, with Tom Davies a vibrant midfield presence after his introduction midway through the second half. Idrissa Gueye should have made certain of victory in the 82nd minute but shot over the bar from close range after a low pass across goal by Romelu Lukaku. In the 90th minute Lukaku did the job himself, racing on to another long ball forward before outmuscling Morgan, outwitting Wasilewski and finishing smartly. What began as dreary fare ended up as a highly satisfying trip for Koeman’s team.',
 "Leicester fans celebrate football's unlikeliest win Fairy tales really do come true after all it seems. Less than 10 months after starting the season as 5,000-1 outsiders, Leicester City is celebrating its first Premier League title after rivals Tottenham Hotspur failed to clinch the victory needed to keep their own hopes alive. As well as gifting Leicester with one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time, Tottenham’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea set off a chain reaction ranging from a multimillion-pound hammering for bookies to the prospect of Gary Lineker now having to make good on a promise to present Match of the Day in his underwear should the club where he started his sporting career win the league. In the Midlands, fans and players got down to the serious business of celebrating at venues ranging from heaving pubs to the home of talismanic striker Jamie Vardy. For the team’s players – who could have clinched the title on Sunday at Old Trafford but could only manage a 1-1 draw with Manchester United – the cauldron of Old Trafford had been swapped for hospitality at Vardy’s house. In the end, the title was delivered to Leicester courtesy of an equalising goal by Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, whose 83rd-minute strike squared the game with Spurs. As a wave of emotion surged from homes, pubs, community centres and other gatherings of fans in Leicester, the moment when the team’s players at Vardy’s house learned that they were champions was captured by defender Christian Fuchs in a video that immediately went viral. Vardy himself also didn’t disappoint those expecting a reaction on social media, posting an riposte to his Tottenham counterpart, Harry Kane, whose recently tweeted image of a pack of lions had been seen as a message designed to suggest that his side were hunting Leicester down. Without words, Vardy posted an image of the moment when one of the characters from the Lion King, Mufasa, falls to his death after struggling to gain a clawhold on a cliff face as a stampede takes place below. As car horns hooted outside his window, Leicester’s mayor, Peter Soulsby, told the : “We thought it couldn’t get any better 12 months ago when the eyes of the world were on us as we reinterred the bones of Richard III, but this is even better. “We are very proud of what is probably the most diverse city in Europe and in fact many people see the team as a metaphor because it shows what you can really achieve when you bring a diverse group of people together.â€\x9d He added that the official celebrations will take place after the end of the season “although we will have two weeks of parties before then of courseâ€\x9d. Alan Sugar, a former Spurs chairman, was among the first to send his congratulations, tweeting even before the final whistle: “Well done Leicester. Very well deserved and a demonstration that you don’t need £50m players.â€\x9d There were also immediate congratulations from Downing Street, where the Twitter account of David Cameron sent out the message within seconds of the game finishing: “Many congratulations to Leicester. An extraordinary, thoroughly deserved, Premier League title.â€\x9d On the other side of the political divide, shadow chancellor John McDonnell was drawing parallels between Leicester’s unlikely triumph and the elevation of another rank outsider: “Who would of predicted a year ago that Leicester would win the Premier League & Jeremy Corbyn would be Labour leader? Congrats to Leicester.â€\x9d Lineker, no doubt turning some of his thoughts quietly to the garments he would soon have to don, described the result as the biggest shock of his lifetime, later telling the BBC: “If it means that I have to wear pants during Match of the Day then I suppose I look forward to it.â€\x9d Having returned to Italy to fulfil a lunch date with his 96-year-old mother, Leicester’s manager, Claudio Ranieri, was meanwhile reported to have flown back on a private jet in time to watch the game at his flat in the Midlands. In the run-up to kick-off, pubs in Leicester had been heaving for a second night in a row with fans decked out in the club’s blue – even if some had initially appeared to be saving their pennies on a bank holiday weekend by watching the game at home before properly indulging themselves next weekend. Hazard’s equaliser changed all that though, sending thousands on to the streets of the city. At least 1,000 fans arrived at the team’s King Power stadium, where crowds chanted “Leicester ’til I dieâ€\x9d and “Championes!â€\x9d to mark the Foxes clinching the title. Richard Hamilton, 23, said: “It’s just amazing, the city has come out for this and it’s just brilliant for the fans and the city as a whole.â€\x9d Other groups of fans celebrating in the city included Steve Robinson, 26, who told reporters: “This year I got married and had a baby, but this tops it all.â€\x9d",
 'Freedom for migrant workers – or slavery? The head of Manpower claims Brexit would make it more difficult to attract the brightest and best (Report, 14 June). I wonder what proportion of Manpower’s placements are the brightest and best? Or is it more a case of an endless supply of cheap labour on which it can make good margins? The issue has been exacerbated by successive governments restricting young people’s entry to work, and society considering any work that is lower paid, lower skilled or just getting your hands dirty as demeaning and worthless. When we leave the EU, the government must address this as a priority. Simon Warde Bognor Regis, West Sussex • Now we know the underside of the EU accord on the free movement of workers (Poultry workers win compensation in high court for slavery, 11 June). A British company was found guilty of severely exploiting six Lithuanian workers. Given the inhuman conditions and starvation wages, it’s no wonder British workers shunned the jobs. Yugo Kovach Winterborne Houghton, Dorset • It is inconceivable that the UK could get a significantly different deal on freedom of movement to that of Norway and Switzerland, if it is to get the same free-trade arrangements. And it is just not credible to imagine that we will dispense with these arrangements. It is clear many people who would normally support Labour are facing serious problems because of the way this country has failed to deal with the influx of foreign workers. But if they get Brexit, they will be bitterly let down, because that influx won’t stop, and the government we face having will be even worse at dealing with that. Kevin McGrath Harlow, Essex • The great problem with the EU debate is that there hasn’t been one. I am staying in a place where there are many “greyâ€\x9d voters. The only thing I have heard them discussing is immigration – and sadly some of that discussion has amounted to racism. Isobel Lane London • Employers in retail distribution would presumably seek to employ stock-pickers and drivers under a points-style immigration system and have to guarantee minimum pay and working hours. Would this leave UK workers alone on zero-hours contracts? Richard Davies Southport, Lancashire • Matthew d’Ancona (Opinion, 13 June) is right: pragmatic border controls are part of any social contract – and that’s precisely what we cannot have if we remain in the EU. Freedom of movement of workers is enshrined in the EU constitution. Fawzi Ibrahim Trade Unionists Against the EU • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'Polls show Tory voters are pushing Britain towards staying in EU This has been the week when the polls – though not all of them – appeared to shift towards Remain. The scale of the move varied across the range of pollsters, but the big thing in all polling analysis is to look for the general direction of travel, paying particular attention to the fieldwork dates. The “poll of pollsâ€\x9d maintained by Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University now has a 10% average lead for Remain after the undecided have been stripped out of the numbers for each survey. This has been helped by four new phone polls completed since last weekend, all of them with comfortable margins for Remain. The biggest, and the one that has had the most impact, was the margin of 18 points recorded in the London Evening Standard’s Ipsos MORI poll. The Daily Telegraph ORB poll was not far behind on 15 points, the /ICM poll was at 8 points and ComRes for the Mail had 11 points – the latter being the only one where the gap was narrowing. One of the factors driving the change is that a number of pollsters are finding that more Conservative voters appear to be edging to support David Cameron’s position rather than Boris Johnson’s. Until last week, not many surveys had more Tory voters supporting Remain than Leave. A big question over all referendum polling is that the online polls have been showing a very different picture from those conducted by phone. This was highlighted in the /ICM poll when a separate test asking the same questions in the same manner online was completed at the same time. Instead of an 8-point Remain lead, the online survey had Leave leading by 4 points. Why this should be so is hard to say. It is argued on behalf of online polling that people feel able to give their true feelings when a live interviewer is not involved. Those supporting phone polls say that internet samples can be distorted because participants are more politically engaged. The online/phone debate within the polling industry spilled out into a public Twitter spat after Peter Kellner, former president and one of the founders of the internet polling pioneers YouGov, went on record backing phone referendum polls. This drew a sharp response from Kellner’s former colleague and now chief executive of YouGov, Stephan Shakespeare. YouGov also published details of its own split-mode test in support of its contention that phone poll samples include too many graduates – a segment that is markedly more pro-Remain. However, the gap between the two modes may be narrowing. The latest online survey by Opinium has a Remain lead of 4 points, up from 1 point in late April. It is also the same margin as in last week’s YouGov poll for the Times. Both these online pollsters, it might be noted, got the winning gap for Sadiq Khan in the London mayoral election exactly right. Referendums have a long history of shifting to the status quo the closer it gets to polling day. That happened in the 2011 alternative vote referendum; in the last vote on Britain’s relationship with Europe, in 1975; and in the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014. The propensity of British voters not to support change has been seen, as well, in the 52 referendums in England on whether local authorities should switch to having an elected mayor. Only 16 have resulted in yes outcomes. Mike Smithson is a polling analyst and editor of PoliticalBetting.com',
 "'No hate in our state': undercover protesters take on Trump in Wisconsin “I’m nervous,â€\x9d said Mary Sanderson, her heart thumping as she scanned the Janesville convention center minutes before Donald Trump was due to address the crowd. “I can’t find any of my friends.â€\x9d The 67-year-old medical interpreter from Madison, Wisconsin, had queued alone for more than four hours to get inside the 1,000-person capacity venue on Tuesday. But, unlike the vast majority of attendees, Sanderson was not here for the full speech. She was prepared to be arrested. “I think it’s time us older people stepped up to shut down his hate,â€\x9d Sanderson said on the Saturday before Trump’s Janesville event. On Tuesday, she had stuffed a fabric sign under her bra, which read: “No hate in our state.â€\x9d She had planned to pull it out “like a parachuteâ€\x9d and wave it as Trump spoke. Sanderson was part of a bigger plan, concocted days before Trump’s appearance in this small, majority white town in southern Wisconsin, to disrupt and perhaps cancel the Republican frontrunner’s town hall event. But as the cat-and-mouse game between Trump and the growing, diverse band of protesters willing to throw their bodies on the line intensifies, it became clear on Tuesday afternoon that the billionaire had won this round. Another group, about 10 people strong, had been asked to leave the venue just before they made it inside. They had concealed large banners and planned to tape their mouths shut to condemn what they described as Trump’s hate speech. Following raucous scenes in Chicago earlier in the month, where Trump was forced to cancel a large rally, and mass arrests in St Louis at an event on the same day, Trump’s schedule in Wisconsin, which will hold a crucial primary next Tuesday, shows that he has taken these damaging PR losses into account. The Republican presidential candidate looks set to avoid Wisconsin’s bigger, more diverse cities, and has planned town hall events – rather than rallies – in low-capacity spaces within smaller towns. “He has completely lost control of the big venues,â€\x9d said Stephanie Roades, a 38-year-old organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (Surj) and the leader of the group ejected before Trump’s town hall on Tuesday. “It’s easier with a crowd of a thousand people to know who the disrupters are going to be.â€\x9d In Janesville, the strategy succeeded in flushing out protesters seeking to enter the event who were overwhelmed by the volume and dedication of Trump supporters. Roades said her group was photographed and aggressively questioned by supporters in the line, who then tipped security off about their presence. The fact the group had a single black member, who stuck out in the overwhelmingly white crowd, appeared to have alerted suspicions, she said. “It’s like people are little vigilantes.â€\x9d In recent weeks, following the shutdown in Chicago, online groups such as Lion Guard for Trump have formed, aimed at spotting planned disruptions on social media and tipping off the authorities. Before Trump took to the stage on Tuesday, an announcement was made on the loudspeaker calling on supporters to hold Trump signs over theirs head and chant “Trump, Trump, Trumpâ€\x9d if they spotted anyone inside seeking to disrupt. Hundreds of protesters picketed outside the Janesville event, and a 15-year-old was pepper-sprayed by a Trump supporter, according to Janesville police, after punching him during a heated argument. But protesters, too, are trying to stay one step ahead. In the lead-up to the Janesville event, the was granted extensive access to the diverse band of activists who had carefully planned their attempts in the days before. During a series of meetings held in Milwaukee, Madison and in Janesville itself, protesters from a variety of campaign groups, including those affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement and immigrant justice campaigns, studied previous actions against Trump around America, devised methods to evade local security and law enforcement as well as the secret service, which ultimately ended unsuccessfully. Roades, who watched the Chicago shutdown unfold on a live stream, presented a brief PowerPoint presentation on previous Trump protests. She suggested people wear only one layer of clothing to avoid suspicion they could be concealing banners, she advised them to bring signs made of cloth, stuffed away where pat-down searches would not reveal them. Others discussed sewing their messages into the inside of their T-shirts, and planned to pull them off later, or bringing in a pair of crutches to hoist smuggled banners into the air. All agreed that black protesters should be protected by their white counterparts, by keeping them in the middle of any group, rather than on the outside where they risked more violence. “It’s going to be an intense crowd there,â€\x9d said Ricky Diaz, a black 28-year-old whose involvement in direct action began after the fatal police shooting of Dontre Hamilton, a black 31-year-old with paranoid schizophrenia who was shot 14 times by a white officer who was later fired, but not criminally charged over the incident. “Folks of colour are clearly at a higher risk. Full stop. Everyone in there’s probably got a gun,â€\x9d Diaz said. In recent weeks black protesters at Trump rallies have been punched, kicked, shoved, violently arrested and heckled by Trump supporters in overwhelmingly white crowds. Diaz backed out from the event in Janesville, a 92% white city, that had been the site of a large national KKK rally in 1992, which prompted protests and violent clashes. “A lot of people were just really scared and backed out at the last minute,â€\x9d Roades said. Mary Sanderson elected not to unfurl the banner stuffed inside her bra. “I couldn’t find the right moment of hate,â€\x9d she said after Trump’s speech concluded. But one man, 54-yearold Greg Gelembiuk, an evolutionary biologist also from Madison, unfurled an A4 piece of paper that photoshopped Trump’s face on to a clown mask. Gelembiuk calmly refused to take it down as the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trumpâ€\x9d and he was escorted away. The disturbance was minor in comparison with previous disruptions. But, as primaries loom in New York and Maryland, where larger, more robust protest movements in major cities have longer histories, it remains to be seen whether Trump will be able to keep the protests shut out. This article was amended on 6 April 2016. The previous version incorrectly identified Showing Up for Racial Justice as Standing Up for Racial Justice.",
 'As MP for Port Talbot, I believe Brexit would be disastrous for British steel On Tuesday Tata Steel announced its intention to sell the entire Strip Products division of its UK steel business, including the Port Talbot works in my Aberavon constituency. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the Tata Steel announcement, on both local and national levels. Locally, the Port Talbot plant is the beating heart of the community and economy, and nationally steel is a vital foundation industry: it is fundamental to the cars that we drive, the homes in which we live, the offices in which we work, and the bridges that we cross. Just under 11,000 men and women are directly employed by Tata Steel Strip Products division, and once you take supply chains into account that number rises to around 40,000 jobs. So, it’s no exaggeration to say that the decisions that were taken in Mumbai this week were amongst the most important business decisions in our postwar history. I travelled to Mumbai for the crucial Tata board meeting this week, as part of a delegation that was headed by Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of Community, the steelworkers’ union. While I am deeply disappointed that Tata chose to reject the turnaround plan, we can take some heart from the fact that we secured our primary objective, namely to ensure that the UK continues to be a country that produces steel. The top priority now is to find a responsible buyer, and it is imperative that the UK government now does everything it can to support Tata Steel through the sale process. To do this there must be a set of temporary financial support interventions to help Tata Steel get through this interim period before we find a buyer. There needs to be a realistic timeline for that, which should be in terms of months not weeks. The more support that the British government provides to Tata Steel, the more time that will be bought. Of course there are no risk-free options in this situation and it is possible that a buyer will not be found in the right timeframe, in which case we must do whatever it takes, including looking at nationalisation. Since getting back to the UK from Mumbai, I have been infuriated by the spectacle of the leave campaigns cynically attempting to hijack and exploit this crisis for their own advantage. Their central argument seems to rest on the absurd claim is that if only the UK were to leave the EU, then we would be able to protect the British steel industry. The reality is that the European commission has been trying to tackle the steel crisis for years now, but has consistently been hamstrung by a British government fighting tooth and nail to undermine those efforts. The government is not only actively working against the commission’s attempts to toughen up its anti-dumping measures, where it has been the ringleader of a backroom campaign against trade defence reform, it is also lobbying hard for China to be granted market economy status (MES). MES would mean the World Trade Organisation would consider China to be a market economy, and we would therefore be unable to impose effective tariffs on dumped steel from the 80%-state-owned Chinese steel industry. Ever since 2010 when the prime minister declared he would “make the case for China to get market economy statusâ€\x9d, he and George Osborne have been Beijing’s chief cheerleaders in Europe. Cameron and Osborne know that the granting of MES would dramatically reduce the European commission’s ability to impose tariffs on dumped Chinese steel. These are not party-political points. These are the views of the steel industry itself. It has repeatedly urged the government to act, and to stop promoting China’s cause in Europe. But it is not just on MES and trade defence instruments that the government has undermined the ability of the EU to help the steel industry. The Conservatives’ ideological opposition to accessing the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) has removed our ability to help those steelworkers who have been made redundant. The EGF is designed to help national governments with regeneration following redundancies and global shocks. Britain is the only major EU member state never to have accessed the fund. The Treasury has made it clear that it would block any application to the EGF on behalf of steelworkers. Let that sink in for a minute: George Osborne is blocking moves to apply for ring-fenced EU finance to help retrain and re-skill workers, and to invest in Port Talbot. The EU accounts for over half our steel exports. A Brexit based on the so-called “Canada modelâ€\x9d would mean paying hefty tariffs on every tonne of steel that we sell into the EU, which would surely be a killer blow for an industry that is already struggling to compete. And we would not only be hit by tariffs, we would also lose access to the 53 countries that have a trade deal with the EU. Or perhaps the leave campaigns think that a Brexit based on the so-called Norway model would solve the steel crisis? Well, the Norway model would enable us to continue tariff-free trade with the EU, but that just leaves you having to accept EU directives and regulations without being in the room when they are being shaped. This could cause considerable problems for the steel industry, as it would have to accept new and evolving legislation, without having had any opportunity to influence its development in Brussels. The chaos and uncertainty that would be unleashed by Brexit also weighs heavily on the UK steel industry. What impact would Brexit have on the order book? Will it be a Canada or a Norway model? Could Brexit open up the floodgates to Chinese dumping even further, as we will be out on our own, lacking the leverage and shelter that being part of a trading bloc of 500 million people brings? Sajid Javid’s attempts to scapegoat the EU for his own failure to engage effectively will not wash. The fact is that he and his colleagues have been asleep at the wheel, and as a result thousands of steelworkers all over the country now find themselves facing a deeply troubling and uncertain future. I therefore hope that the leave campaigns will now stop peddling mistruths and start facing up to the fact that we are in this crisis not because of Europe, but because of a Tory government that has singularly failed to stand up for British steel.',
 'Men in Northern Ireland blackmailed in online sex scam A number of men in Northern Ireland who were filmed performing sex acts have been targeted by blackmailers. A spokesman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland said there had been several local reports of cyber-related blackmail relating to men in Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus and Antrim. Later the police said that there were up to 62 victims over a seven month period who had been targets of the scammers. The scam involved men being encouraged to film sex acts by blackmailers who then threatened to publish the footage on the internet. The PSNI said victims were told to pay into a Western Union bank account in west Africa or the recordings would be published on social networks. DS Neil Maxwell said: “In the most recent cases, men of various ages have been asked to perform or participate in a sexual act online, which is recorded and then used to blackmail the individual with threats to upload the material on to social media platforms. “Some victims have paid money because they have felt embarrassed and this usually involves a Western Union transfer to an account in the Ivory Coast. We want anyone who has been the victim of this type of crime to come forward. Do not feel pressurised into paying money as this is unlikely to resolve the issue,â€\x9d the officer added. A teenager in the region killed himself in June after what his family described as a “relentlessâ€\x9d campaign of online bullying by a Nigerian gang. Ronan Hughes, 17, from County Tyrone, was duped into posting intimate photos online after receiving pictures of a girl. He was then blackmailed for £3,000 by the gang who threatened to upload the images to his friends’ Facebook pages.',
 'Lois Smith obituary My aunt Lois Smith, who has died aged 96, put her extraordinary energies into people and causes. An enthusiast, a starter, a provocateur, she set the scene in 1948 when she sought out a young Oxford film buff called Lindsay Anderson, who was set to train as a teacher, and persuaded him to make a film about her husband Desmond’s Yorkshire colliery equipment company. It was his first stab at directing, and they called it Meet the Pioneers. So began a friendship that continued until Anderson’s death in 1994 at Lois’s house in the Dordogne, where he was holidaying. It was Lois who looked after the funeral arrangements. Also in 1948, Lois had met the Hungarian-born artist Jean-Georges Simon when she saw a painting of his on a Wakefield gallery wall and demanded Desmond buy it. Death stalks this story, too, since when Desmond died tragically young in 1950, Lois installed Simon in the garden of her cottage in the Yorkshire Dales to carve the headstone for Desmond’s grave in Burnsall churchyard. Although she later trained as a social worker, Lois’s calling was as a sort of super groupie, intuitively understanding artistic talents and needs. She was a prime mover in setting up the Lindsay Anderson Memorial Foundation and the film-maker’s Stirling University archive, as well as the Jean-Georges Simon Trust: his paintings, drawings and archive had been left to her by the artist’s widow. Lois was the youngest child of Daisy (nee Raby) and Frank Martin, her father being a busy GP in Heaton, Bradford. She attended Cheltenham Ladies college, and at 20 married Desmond Sutcliffe; their children, Perry and Robin, were born in short order. Following Desmond’s death, she met and married Mickey Smith; their son, Stephen, was born in 1962. Mickey’s surveying job took the couple to London and Cornwall, but they returned to Yorkshire in 1976, divorcing in the mid-80s yet still interdependent. Lois set about shaking up Calderdale’s civic dignitaries, pinning down those she saw as offenders with her mixture of bluster, charm and ruthlessness. Indeed, she would argue the toss with anyone, stating opinions as if they were facts. Because she could also be open and warm, however, she made more friends than enemies. Lois is survived by Perry, Robin and Stephen, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.',
 'Study supports Zika link to microcephaly About one in 100 women infected by the Zika virus in early pregnancy may be at risk of having a baby with microcephaly, according to a new study of an epidemic that occurred in French Polynesia. The study, published in the Lancet medical journal, offers further evidence that the virus is implicated in microcephaly – a condition in which babies’ brains do not develop properly, resulting in abnormally small heads. “Our analysis strongly supports the hypothesis that Zika virus infection during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of microcephaly,â€\x9d says Dr Simon Cauchemez, co-author of the study from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. “We estimated that the risk of microcephaly was 1 in 100 women infected with Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy. The findings are from the 2013-14 outbreak in French Polynesia and it remains to be seen whether our findings apply to other countries in the same way.â€\x9d Although the risk that they calculate through mathematical modelling – 1% – is low by comparison with a virus such as rubella which causes birth defects in 50% of women infected in early pregnancy, the attack rate of the Zika virus itself is very high. There may be other co-factors in Brazil, where the rise in cases of microcephaly has triggered an international alert from the World Health Organisation. But if the findings from French Polynesia are applicable, “in Latin America right now we are speaking about relatively small risks which apply to a very large population of pregnant women,â€\x9d said Professor Arnaud Fontanet, co-author of the study, from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. The rate of 1% is lower than that found by a previous study earlier this month. Researchers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, enrolled 72 women who had a rash – the most identifiable symptom – and who tested positively for Zika. Out of 42 healthy women who agreed to an ultrasound examination, 29% had a foetus with microcephaly or some other sort of congenital malformation. The Institut Pasteur scientists, however, were searching past data from the French Polynesia Zika outbreak in 2013-14 specifically for microcephaly – a small head accompanied by evidence of calcifications in the brain. Their study, they say, had the advantage of very good, complete data. Congenital abnormalities were always reported. They found eight microcephaly cases in the two years, seven of which followed the Zika epidemic. The other they consider their baseline – one case a year would have been the norm for the French Polynesian population and is the equivalent of two per 10,000 live births, a similar prevalence to that of Europe. They constructed a number of mathematical models to attempt to explain the increase during the Zika epidemic. The best fit was with infection of the mother by the virus in the first trimester of pregnancy. The researchers set out to look at microcephaly and not the larger number of congenital malformations that were reported during the epidemic in French Polynesia. “It may well be that infection during the second trimester or the third trimester could lead to a different type of congenital malformation,â€\x9d Fontanet told the . The first trimester is crucial for the development of the brain, “but if you infect later you can imagine there might be other malformationsâ€\x9d. That would fit with the study of pregnant women in Rio de Janeiro. Writing in a linked comment, Dr Laura Rodrigues from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “The finding that the highest risk of microcephaly was associated with infection in the first trimester of pregnancy is biologically plausible, given the timing of brain development and the type and severity of the neurological abnormalities.â€\x9d More research is needed however, she said. “Further data will soon be available from Pernambuco, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, and maybe other sites … The fast production of knowledge during this epidemic is an opportunity to observe science in the making: from formulation of new hypotheses and production of new results that will provide confirmations and contradictions to the refinement of methods and the gradual building of consensus.â€\x9d Dr Melissa Gladstone, senior lecturer in paediatric neurodisability at the University of Liverpool, welcomed the research, but cautioned: “Unless direct links are made and/or full investigations of babies are undertaken to exclude other causes and to identify Zika infection in infants, it will be difficult to entirely link Zika with microcephaly,â€\x9d she said. “Furthermore, we may have a long way to go in terms of knowing whether there are more subtle effects of Zika virus on infants and children in the long term which span beyond microcephaly to developmental and learning difficulties.â€\x9d Dr Derek Gatherer, a lecturer in biomedical and life sciences at Lancaster University, said the study helped scientists begin to think about defining a risk period during pregnancy, with major implications likely for travel advice for pregnant women travelling to affected areas.',
 'Claudio Ranieri wants Leicester City’s stars to stay for the long haul Claudio Ranieri has warned his Leicester players they could end up “carrying the bagsâ€\x9d at another club if they are tempted to leave in the summer, with the Italian hoping to add to his squad at the end of their remarkable season regardless of whether they qualify for Europe. Leicester head into Monday night’s meeting with struggling Newcastle knowing they will still be top of the Premier League even if Tottenham defeat bottom side Aston Villa on Sunday. Ranieri’s side have been leading the race for the title for almost every week since a 3-0 victory over Newcastle at the end of November and are now nine matches away from what would be the club’s first top-flight title. It is a measure of how far his side have come that the Italian was forced to swat aside rumours linking his playmaker Riyad Mahrez with a move to the European champions, Barcelona, at his pre-match press conference. But despite the Algerian, the 19-goal Jamie Vardy and the defensive midfielder N’Golo Kanté being among those likely to be on the wishlists of several clubs in the summer transfer window, Ranieri is confident he can keep hold of them. “I think the players want to stay here. I am very confident. This is my idea,â€\x9d he said. “I spoke to them some time ago. I said: ‘We are building a very good team’. I spoke with everybody. They can be a big player with us, they can improve with us. If they change team – my experience says to them: ‘Ok, you are very ambitious but remember Leicester will be in a very high position. You go to another team, I don’t know what will happen’.â€\x9d Asked if he meant they would play less, Ranieri added: “I laugh and I say: ‘Hey, look, why do you go there? To bring the suitcases? Stay with me, you will play’.â€\x9d Leicester were frustrated in their attempts to add to their squad in January, with moves for the Nigeria forward Ahmed Musa of CSKA Moscow and Loïc Rémy of Chelsea not coming to fruition. Yet Ranieri believes they will require a much deeper squad for next season, having used less players than any other club in the Premier League so far. “We will try to sign maybe two or three to improve because I am very, very hungry,â€\x9d he said. “We lost the FA Cup, the League Cup. I want to move forward more. So we need more strength, more players. “The players who come must be better than we had if we want to build together and grow up together. Now we know very well, this season is out. Doesn’t count. This season is strange. Our target at the beginning was save the team, this year. “Next year was to build slowly the foundation, to grow up, to achieve the Europa League, the Champions League, maybe one day fight for the title. This is our programme. Next season we restart with a new mentality. For example: ‘I don’t know what happened last season’. We must continue to build our team.â€\x9d Of Leicester’s current squad, only the reserves Marcin Wasilewski and Gökhan Inler have any experience of winning a domestic league title, with Anderlecht in Belgium and FC Zürich in Switzerland respectively. But Ranieri believes the rest of his players have proved they have the necessary hunger to maintain their run until the end of the season. “Now I know them much better than at the beginning and I can compare how they are working … they are getting better, getting better, getting better,â€\x9d he said. “The team is the superstar, but there are no superstars. And everyone must be working. Of course, my experience can help them. Maybe they believe more. I don’t know because I don’t speak about that. “It is important for me when I tell you something and I see you are trying to do what I want – not for me, for the team.â€\x9d',
 "Lily Cole: 'Businesses are running the world' After seven years and three businesses, Lily Cole still doesn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur. Aged 28, the model turned actor turned businesswoman has already spent half her life working and the last four years focused on Impossible, a social network that enables people to help out others for free. Users can offer or request almost anything in its gift economy, from piano lessons to restaurant recommendations to a chat about shared interests. Cole has never taken a salary for Impossible and recently returned to work after having a baby with Kwame Ferreira, the founder of venture fund Kwamecorp, who helped her develop the site. “It’s been a rollercoaster,â€\x9d she says of her journey starting the business, which she says “happened by accidentâ€\x9d. The business evolved from an idea she had during her time at Cambridge university – she wanted to find out if technology could replace money. “The idea was: can technology play the same role in life that money plays so that we’re not so dependent on money as a society? It felt like a really simple idea. I became quite obsessed with it.â€\x9d Starting a business has been full of highs and lows. “There have been amazing moments and difficult moments and it’s still a total learning process,â€\x9d she says. “You’re not just turning up at your job and doing your small part. You’re taking responsibility for a whole thing to move or not move. It’s all encompassing. You really have to believe in what you’re doing.â€\x9d Clothed head to toe in a black and white outfit that brings out her dramatic auburn hair, Cole is in Kensington to support Chivas the Venture, a global competition in which social entrepreneurs from Israel to Guatemala compete for mentoring and $1m (£690,000) in funding. She is taking part in a panel discussion on the role of social enterprise. After years spent supporting social and environmental causes through charities – she is a patron of the Environmental Justice Foundation and used to be an ambassador for international development charity Global Angels – Cole has come to the conclusion that supporting social enterprise is a more effective way to change the world. “Businesses are running the world,â€\x9d she says. “I used to work with a lot of amazing charities who I still support and who play an important role. But charities are separated off in a really unsustainable way to almost band aid a lot of the problems that are being created in the first place through how we operate and do business.â€\x9d But social enterprise needs more support to make a difference, she says. “Financial support [for social entrepreneurs] is massive. Funding is potentially the biggest barrier for social enterprises.â€\x9d Although social enterprises in the UK are outperforming mainstream SMEs in terms of turnover, the sector is being held back by lack of access to capital, according to 2013 research by Social Enterprise (SEUK). Cole cites the social investment tax relief introduced in 2014 as progress but says more needs to be done. “We need to go a bit further so [social enterprise] can become more competitive with normal business and charity. It’s something I’ve struggled with in this space. You’re not getting the tax benefits of a charity but you’re also not giving investors the upside that they get with normal business. So how do you persuade people to operate in that space?â€\x9d Is Cole worried, then, that despite operating in 120 countries, Impossible is yet to make a profit? “We’re only at the beginning of trying to monetise the platform. I think it will take a while – I don’t know how soon we will make a profit, but most businesses take a while. We’re doing what I think most businesses do: be lean and trust that in a few years time that it will get to financial sustainability.â€\x9d Last year the company launched its own marketplace for sustainable fashion and started a membership scheme with rewards including a free magazine. But is it possible for the company, which has received help from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus, to find a financial solution when the core principle of its product is that it operates without money? It’s a paradox Cole still struggles with. “We’re trying to encourage free transactions – there’s no inbuilt business model for that. The way I’ve squared that circle in my own head is to make it a social business. It may be one day we open source the platform and everybody becomes a volunteer and we have no running costs. Then it won’t be a business, it will be a free thing to connect people. Of course there is something very attractive about that but the reality is making it operational to this point in time has taken resource.â€\x9d It was an easier task to monetise her first business, The North Circular, she says. Co-founded with fellow model Katherine Poulton, the company sells sustainable knitwear created by a network of “granniesâ€\x9d knitting from home. “It was a simple idea,â€\x9d says Cole. “We had grandmas who knit, and this feeling that older generations are often quite disenfranchised from society. I was really interested in transparency on products – can we get grandmas to knit goods and put names on the labels and try make people think about the people behind products.â€\x9d Would Cole start a business without a social aim, I ask? “Never say never, but I don’t think so.â€\x9d She pauses and laughs. “I wouldn’t see the point really.â€\x9d Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.",
 'Indiana brawl: Cruz takes on Trump mob Ted Cruz crossed the street in Marion, Indiana, to talk with people holding Donald Trump signs. “What do you like about Donald?â€\x9d Cruz asked. The reply: “Everything.â€\x9d It went downhill from there. “America is a better country …â€\x9d Cruz began. “Without you,â€\x9d a protester said. “A question everyone here should ask …â€\x9d Cruz began. “Are you Canadian?â€\x9d the protester said. Indiana primary: what’s at stake Trump does not need to win Indiana tomorrow to clinch the presidential nomination, but victory for Trump would be a big blow for Cruz, John Kasich and others hoping for a contested convention. Trump leads Hoosier state polls Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton leads rival Bernie Sanders in polling averages of Indiana, but the Sanders camp told reporters his criticism of trade pacts would endear him to voting Hoosiers. Indiana primary: what’s at stake Asked about a comedian’s relentless flogging at the White House correspondents’ dinner of a joke rumor that Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer, Heidi Cruz said she has known her husband a long time. Well, I’ve been married to him for 15 years and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all. There’s a lot of garbage out there. – Heidi Cruz, on rumors that her husband is the Zodiac killer Nearly half (48%) of North Carolina voters told a pollster they want to repeal a state law restricting bathroom access, compared with 34% who wanted to keep the law. North Carolina speaks',
 'Pirate Bay founder and Adblock maker offer web users a way to pay publishers The Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde is teaming up with the creators of the world’s most popular adblocker to give web users a way to make small donations for articles, music and videos they enjoy. The tie-up between Sunde’s startup Flattr and AdBlock Plus maker Eyeo, Flattr Plus is designed to solve a problem the companies claim has been present since the web’s invention 27 years ago. Rather than requiring users to allocate donations manually, Flattr Plus will automatically assign payments from a pool set by a user based on how much the use a particular site. The companies said the aim was to reach 10 million users each paying about $5 (£3.41) a month by 2017, at which point they say they would be able to pay out around $500m to publishers. Flattr and Adblock will take a cut of around 10%. Adblock Plus head of operations and communications Ben Williams said the 10 million user figure was “ambitiousâ€\x9d but “not so far fetchedâ€\x9d given Adblock Plus already had 500 million users who could be encouraged to sign up. He added that the idea was an attempt to find a “holistic solutionâ€\x9d that complemented Adblock’s existing service. Williams said: “People forget a lot of times that the web was established as an information sharing platform. A public good. Advertising came second. Some of the early founders of the web tossed around the idea of having some direct way for users to fund content.â€\x9d “What happened in place was advertising people, even adblockers, we all had the false impression that advertising is what pays for content online.â€\x9d Eventually, Williams said, the plan was to integrate Flattr Plus into the Adblock software. Though the new service promise an easy way for publishers to get paid directly by their readers, many will treat the initiative with caution in part because of the people behind it. Sunde’s background with Pirate Bay made him a bugbear for anyone trying to make money from content such as films and music, and AdBlock has taken on a similar role for digital publishers by helping readers block the ads that many rely on to fund their work. Flattr was founded in 2010, and claims to have paid 30,000 “creatorsâ€\x9d. Shortly after launch it stepped in to provide a way for people to donate to Wikileaks after Visa, Mastercard and PayPal froze access to its funds. Along with his co-founders, Sunde was imprisoned in Sweden for setting up and running Pirate Bay, which was one of the most popular ways for people to find films, TV shows music and computer games to download illegally. Sunde has since distanced himself from the site. Writing when ThePirateBay.org went offline following a police raid in late 2014, he welcomed its disappearance, saying he had “not been a fan of what The Pirate Bay has becomeâ€\x9d. However, although the original site has remained offline, numerous copies have sprung up faster than authorities can get them eliminated.',
 'Watership Down too violent for tots? Probably, but parents should take control of the remote Victory for outrage! After they unwittingly let their kids watch an animation featuring scenes of bloodied bunnies tearing the merry hell out of each other, a group of parents “slammedâ€\x9d Channel 5’s decision to screen Watership Down on Easter Sunday. The people screamed so loud, in fact, that the system buckled. If it was released now the film, rated U by the British Board of Film Classification in 1978, would receive a PG rating, according to the BBFC chief David Austin. Not that the film’s being reclassified, but … sweet, meaningless pacification. The violence of Watership Down, a children’s film about a group of rabbits trying to find new home, was “arguably too strongâ€\x9d, Austin told the BBC. “The film has been a U for 38 years, but if it came in tomorrow it would not be,â€\x9d he said. “Standards were different then.â€\x9d He’s right. Kids back then were tougher. Born in a recession, they played Connect Four just for fun and wore corduroy without complaint. Watership Down’s challenging moments – Fiver the rabbit’s apocalyptic visions, the bloody turf war between rival broods, the Black Rabbit of Inlé (the bunny Grim Reaper) – would wash like so much gore off a mangled pelt. Oh wait, hold on: reviewers in the hard-nut 70s thought the film a little strong for kiddies, too. Kids haven’t changed, but the BBFC has. Over the years, they’ve got broadly more lenient about sex on screen, while violence – especially sexual violence – has rightly pushed a film into the more restrictive categories. For example, The Wicker Man was given an X certificate in 1973 (roughly equivalent to 18 in 2016). It was reclassified to 15 after the BBFC’s guidelines changed in 2000. The contemporary censors found the violence (the burning of Sergeant Howie in the titular effigy) tame and the sex (blurry nudie shots of women on horseback) pretty silly. Not many tots are likely to want to watch a tweedy horror about pagan sacrifice. But there are films, some perhaps unsuitable, that older kids do get drawn in by. It’s at the midpoint of the scale – your PGs, 12s and 12As – that the BBFC faces the really tough job. For a start, the market is against them. Franchise-holders such as Marvel and Warner Brothers want to attract young audiences to their superhero flicks. Anything higher than a 12A knocks out a significant portion of their market. This has led to the studios making tame versions of adult stories (Terminator: Genisys was bloodless, as well as charmless) and the BBFC occasionally awarding a 12 to films that, while not viscerally violent or sexually explicit, probably deserve something stronger. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a 12A. There’s an argument that its tone (grim), themes (grownup) and content (thumpy and quite nasty) push it into 15 territory. And that’s the problem when it comes to Watership. Everyone’s idea of what is right and wrong for their kids is different. When we think the BBFC have fouled up, we treat them as if they’re careless child minders, because in a sense, they are. But it’s the parents’ choice to let someone else do the minding. Is watching a bunny tear chunks out of another bunny on Easter Sunday damaging to your kids? Probably not. Would a PG rating, instead of a U, have stopped shattered parents from plonking their sprogs in front of those bunnies at the end of the long weekend? Probably not. Is it important to have a target to vent at – Channel 5, the BBFC – when we slip up while looking after our own kids? Definitely. Before Easter, billboards for one supermarket chain showed off a selection of its seasonal confections. The centrepiece was a chocolate rabbit. “I’ll have the ears,â€\x9d said the slogan, written by “Harry, aged sevenâ€\x9d. He’d seen Watership Down and was ready for the slaughter to begin. No one, not even the BBFC, can fix damage this deep.',
 'Mac Miller: The Divine Feminine review – gentle G-funk from a one-track mind There’s one thing on the mind of Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller, and it’s swinging between his legs. But he’s honest about his constant horn, and, audibly high off natural perfumes, parlays it into an album that worships and ogles in equal measure. The touchstones are D’Angelo, Aquemini-era Outkast, Chance the Rapper’s muted trumpets, and the psychedelic soul of Cee-Lo Green’s early solo LPs, with the latter turning up for some ruminative vocals on the gorgeous, sure-footed We. Other killer tracks include ever-moistening slow jam Skin, and smooth boogie workout Dang!, featuring a brilliantly wet-behind-the-ears turn from Anderson.Paak. Few lyrics are particularly arresting (on My Favourite Part, new girlfriend Ariana Grande is told that she doesn’t know how beautiful she is) and there’s some mid-album filler as Miller struggles to add hooks to cosmic G-funk. But the whole thing sits in an enticing spot between the barbecue and the bedroom.',
 'Swansea earn Bob Bradley first point as manager in draw with Watford Suited and booted, Bob Bradley at least looked the part this week after opting for a wardrobe change, yet the transformation on the pitch under the new manager will have to wait after Swansea City’s winless run stretched to eight matches. There were positives for the American to take, notably the performance of Modou Barrow and the sight of Alfie Mawson playing so well on his Premier League debut, yet the harsh reality is that this was two points dropped. Without a victory since the opening day, Swansea remain in the relegation zone, second from bottom and with a tricky run of fixtures to come, starting with a trip to Stoke on Monday week. A win in Bradley’s first home game in charge would have lifted some of the gloom and it so nearly arrived during a second half when Barrow tormented Watford with his pace and trickery, Gylfi Sigurdsson hit the upright and Heurelho Gomes denied Mike Van der Hoorn from point-blank range. It was that sort of day for Swansea at the end of a very difficult week, during which the club’s supporters’ trust voiced their unhappiness that Huw Cooze, their elected director on the board, was not notified by the owners of the decision to replace Francesco Guidolin with Bradley. In the match programme, Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan, who bought a majority stake in Swansea in the summer, apologised for their actions. “Not informing him sooner as to our ultimate choice was an error on our part and for which we take full responsibility,â€\x9d they wrote. Bradley, in fairness, received a warm ovation from the Swansea fans before the match. He also showed that he is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers among the players when he made five chances to the team, including dropping both centre-backs, Jordi Amat and Federico Fernández. Whether Bradley can find firepower in this team, however, is another matter, with the lack of confidence in front of goal brutally exposed. “We have to trust the fact that if we work the right way, if our football gets better, if we compete better, if we do all these little things to improve, the points will come,â€\x9d he said. “I’m disappointed. As we were going through the second half, there were a number of occasions where I thought: ‘Here it is.’ But when it doesn’t come, I don’t want to forget the things that for me were very positive.â€\x9d Mawson’s display was among them. Signed from Barnsley in the summer, the 22-year-old acquitted himself well alongside Van der Hoorn, who had arguably the best chance of the game when he stabbed Sigurdsson’s free-kick towards goal only for Gomes to block with his legs. Sigurdsson later shot tamely into the arms of the Watford keeper and swept a 20-yard effort on to the foot of the post – both opportunities arriving following excellent work from the lively Barrow. Watford, who are ninth in the table and on a decent run of form, seemed content to play on the counterattack, especially after the interval, and threatened only sporadically. Valon Behrami was aggrieved that Paul Tierney, the referee, failed to point to the spot when he went down under a challenge from Kyle Naughton – it looked more like a tangle of legs – and the substitute Nordin Amrabat snatched at a half-chance after breaking through in the inside-left channel. As for Bradley, at least his attire was an improvement on the all-black outfit he wore at Arsenal. “I have to wait to see the reviews tomorrow,â€\x9d he said, smiling. “I’m still trying to figure what out works over here.â€\x9d',
 'Demand for NHS care is dangerously high, says thinktank Demand for NHS care has reached record levels, with unprecedented numbers of patients being treated in A&E units, a new report reveals. But that has left hospitals dangerously full and growing numbers of patients who need to be admitted are having to wait longer than they should because no bed is available, according to health thinktank the King’s Fund. A total of 5,873,998 patients sought help in all types of A&E units in April, May and June – the largest number ever to do so in any three-month period – leading the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to warn that the NHS had become “a pressure cookerâ€\x9d and was buckling under the weight of demand. An unusually high number of patients were admitted to hospital during the same period, in a sign that the NHS is dealing with growing numbers of people who are so unwell they need inpatient care. In all just over 1 million of those who attended A&E ended up being admitted, one of the largest numbers on record. Overall there were an extra 54,000 A&E attendances a month and 14,200 extra emergency hospital admissions a month in the first quarter of 2016-17 than in the same period the year before. Experts said that the record high, revealed in official NHS statistics analysed by the King’s Fund, was surprising because it occurred in a period when hospitals used not to be especially busy. “Increased demand for services is placing the health system under huge strain, with more than 90% of beds occupied by patients, well above the threshold that is considered safe,â€\x9d the thinktank said. Internationally, 85% is considered the safe maximum bed occupancy rate. “Relentless demand for servicesâ€\x9d is a key factor that is “fuelling deteriorating performanceâ€\x9d against a whole set of NHS waiting time indicators, it added. The number of people waiting to receive non-urgent treatment within 18 weeks had risen to 3.8 million by June, the highest level since December 2007. More than 307,000 patients were still waiting in June to start treatment at least 18 weeks after they were referred to it. That is 8.5% of the total waiting list and was the fourth month in a row the NHS had missed the target to treat at least 92% of such patients within 18 weeks. Some 6,100 patients were stuck in hospital at the end of June unable to leave, despite being medically fit to go, often as a result of inadequate social care locally. “The NHS is now struggling to cope all year round. It is a pressure cooker and with bed occupancy at such constantly high levels and community services stretched, there is nowhere for the pressure to escape to. It would now take very little for hospitals to be fully overwhelmed,â€\x9d said Lara Carmona, the RCN’s associate director of policy, international and parliamentary affairs. A Department of Health spokesman said: “Since 2010 the NHS has dealt with significantly rising demand from our ageing population while improving the quality of care – 5.8 million people were seen in A&E in the first three months of this year and the number treated within the four-hour target continues to rise in the thousands.â€\x9d',
 'NatWest paves way for introduction of negative interest rates A major high street bank has paved the way for the introduction of negative interest rates for the first time in Britain by warning customers it may have to charge them to accept deposits. The warning by NatWest was made in a letter changing the terms and conditions for the bank’s 850,000 business customers, which range from self-employed traders, charities and clubs to big corporations. It could mean that an account holder with £1,000 in a NatWest account could see that shrink to £999 or less the following year as the bank charges a negative rate of interest. In its letter to customers, NatWest said: “Global interest rates remain at very low levels and in some markets are currently negative. Dependent on future market conditions, this could result in us charging interest on credit balances.â€\x9d The taxpayer-owned bank – whose parent is Royal Bank of Scotland – said it had no plans to make changes to the terms and conditions of personal account holders to allow it to charge negative rates. Interest rates on government and corporate bonds fell steeply in the political turmoil that followed the Brexit vote. The Bank of England is now under intense pressure to cut its already historically low base rate from 0.5% to kickstart the economy, although a move into negative territory is not likely in the short term. NatWest business customers are asking if negative interest rates are legal. They are asking whether they should take their cash out of the accounts and put it under the mattress to maintain its value. One treasurer of a local community council, who received a letter but asked not to be named, said: “Can they do that, is it legal? The letter goes on to say that they ‘value our relationship with you’, but I may need to review how much I can afford to have a relationship with them!â€\x9d Another customer, who holds funds for her grandchildren in a business bank account, said: “Will this spread to all high street banks? I can’t access it myself to put it under the mattress.â€\x9d Other high street banks contacted by the said they had no plans, for now, to change contracts to allow them to impose negative rates. The prospect of banks levying a charge on deposits rather than paying interest turns traditional banking upside down. “It is going to make businesses much less keen to hold significant balances in their accounts,â€\x9d said mortgage and savings expert Ray Boulger. “If NatWest start doing this, other banks are likely to follow. Eventually personal customers with large balances could be hit, but the banks may decide that is going too far and take the hit themselves.â€\x9d Negative interest rates could have widespread undesirable effects across the economy. Not only may customers decide to hoard cash rather than deposit it, banks may take excessive risks in lending in order to obtain returns, while pension companies will struggle to meet their liabilities. So-called “voodoo bankingâ€\x9d is already happening in some countries gripped by deflation. The European Central Bank charges other banks 0.4% to deposit cash, while the Swiss National Bank charges domestic banks up to 0.75%. Last week, ABN Amro, a major Dutch bank, told customers that because of “exceptional market conditionsâ€\x9d, it may be necessary to charge negative interest rates at some time in the future. After the Brexit vote, interest rates on government bonds – otherwise known as the “yieldâ€\x9d – dived to record lows. When rates drop below zero, it effectively means people are paying the government to lend money to them. The Bank of England this month chose to hold base rate at 0.5%, but in the City it is widely anticipated that governor Mark Carney will cut the rate to 0.25% on 4 August, as well as introduce other measures to boost the economy. The prospect of negative interest rates has been mooted by individual policymakers but they are not seen as likely for the UK any time soon. In April, Jan Vlieghe, a member of the Bank’s nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC), floated the possibility of interest rates being cut below zero, meaning companies would pay to deposit their money with banks. His fellow MPC member, the Bank’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, also raised the prospect of cutting official borrowing costs to zero or perhaps even lower in a speech last September. But governor Mark Carney has appeared to oppose negative interest rates. Questioned by MPs in April, Carney said: “We think we could move base rate closer to zero but have not said we have an appetite for negative interest rates.â€\x9d Millions of customers with savings accounts in Britain are already suffering from historically low returns, with many accounts paying close to zero. The Financial Conduct Authority last week named HSBC, First Direct and the Post Office as having easy access accounts that in some circumstances pay no interest. The introduction of negative interest rates on deposits could spark a legal challenge from customers. Shortly before the credit crunch, Cheltenham & Gloucester building society launched a mortgage deal that tracked the main Bank of England lending rate minus 1.01%. When the Bank cut interest rates to 0.5% in 2009, that suggested borrowers would have to pay -0.51%. Instead, C&G cut the rate to 0.01% – its computers could not handle mortgages at 0% – but did not actually go negative. Any challenge to negative interest on deposit accounts may cite the example of C&G. But there will be winners if interest rates move to zero or below. Since the Brexit vote, a number of lenders have cut interest rates on mortgage deals, with the biggest change to five- and 10-year fixed-rate deals, now on offer at little more than 2% interest.',
 'Labor wins votes in lower house to force Coalition to debate banking inquiry The Turnbull government has lost its first votes on the floor of the House of Representatives as Labor intensified its political attack on the prime minister and the Coalition using the spearhead of the banking royal commission. Labor moved on Thursday night to bring a motion calling for a banking royal commission that had cleared the Senate earlier in the day to the lower house for consideration, catching the government entirely flat-footed as the House was set to adjourn. The government lost the initial procedural votes because senior figures, including the immigration minister Peter Dutton, and two Western Australians, the justice minister Michael Keenan and social services minister Christian Porter, were not in the chamber. Government sources later claimed Labor MPs had deliberately created the impression they were leaving the parliamentary precinct after the sitting week, only to return to bring on the procedural bunfight. As well as the absence of ministers, one Liberal backbencher, Craig Kelly, went for a walk outside the building minus his mobile phone. The lost votes enabled Labor to capture control of the chamber and argue the case for the banking royal commission for around three hours on Thursday evening. The opposition claimed the last time a majority government lost a vote on the floor of the House was 1962. Over the course of a fractious and heavily contested parliamentary day, the government moved to return fire on the opposition, intensifying pressure on the Labor senator, Sam Dastyari, over his decision to ask a Chinese donor to cover a $1,670 expenses bill when he overshot his parliamentary entitlements. In addition to the payment, Dastyari subsequently gave a public assurance that he would respect China’s stance on the South China Sea at a press conference held during the federal election, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review. Senior government ministers compared Dastyari’s actions to conduct by the Liberal MP Stuart Robert, who lost his spot in the ministry after a fundraising controversy. The trade minister, Steve Ciobo, declared the Labor man, like Robert, had to be dumped from the frontbench. The leader of the government in the Senate, George Brandis, questioned whether Dastyari had been “compromisedâ€\x9d. Over the course of Thursday in Canberra: Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, moved a motion calling on the government to establish a banking royal commission, and for that resolution to be communicated to the House of Representatives for concurrence. That motion passed despite government opposition, resulting in the government’s first lost Senate vote of this term – and then the political fight cascaded into the House, with debate stretching into the evening; The government lost a second Senate vote. A motion moved by Labor’s Lisa Singh, and opposed by the Coalition, criticising the treatment of asylum seekers on Nauru in the wake of the publication of the Nauru files, and calling for the establishment of a children’s advocate, passed the Senate; Labor also succeeded in referring to the privileges committee questions about whether there had been “improper interferenceâ€\x9d or “attempted improper interferenceâ€\x9d with Labor’s deputy Senate leader Stephen Conroy’s free performance as a senator during controversial raids in the election campaign and last week related to leaks from the NBN Co. Labor set up the evening procedural ambush in question time, where the Labor leader Bill Shorten made the case for a royal commission after first meeting with a group of banking victims in parliament house. The group also met with Peter Whish-Wilson, the Greens’ treasury spokesman, who is a former banker. They did not meet with Malcolm Turnbull despite Shorten’s invitation to the prime minister last week. Naomi Halpern, a spokesperson for the Holt Norman Ashman Baker Action Group – said the meetings went well, and that Shorten had agreed to meet her again, in Melbourne next week. Halpern’s group included members of the Timbercorp financial scandal. Turnbull criticised Labor for the tactic, reasoning the royal commission would only be a forum for the legal profession, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, go on for years and deliver no practical improvements. The prime minister declared “populismâ€\x9d would not help the victims of banking industry scandals, but practical action would, and practical action was being taken by the government. “What we have in place are ombudsman services. We have legal services. We have Asic,â€\x9d the prime minister said. “The only beneficiaries from a royal commission would be, frankly, the legal profession.â€\x9d In the evening debate the treasurer, Scott Morrison, rounded on the opposition. He said the motion in the House was “a stunt from an opposition to promote their stuntâ€\x9d – meaning the banking royal commission.',
 'One-click checkouts and pay-by-selfie: the rise of mobile commerce Buying stuff from mobile phones has been talked about since Coca-Cola and Nokia first installed vending machines in Finland in 1997 that accepted payment via text message, or SMS as it was then. It’s been a long and tortuous road since but, according to recent Nielsen figures, mobile technology (including tablets) is now fully embedded into the modern shoppers’ psyche. Certainly millennials or Generation Y (the generation born in the 80s and 90s), who Rebecca Huntley says, in her book The World According to Y, see technology as “their natural ally, a necessity rather than a luxuryâ€\x9d, have been largely responsible. This generation has been the principal target for mobile retail strategies, which makes sense. Why target the mixed bag of dabbling Generation Xers, who still talk about the days before the internet, when you can target the group that doesn’t feel stupid talking to a smartphone? “Every brand we deal with talks about millennials,â€\x9d says Ryan Hall, founder and managing director at agency Nice, which works with a number of brands on developing mobile platforms including Flybe, Ticketmaster, First Direct and Trainline. “If you get it right for the millennials you will get it right for everyone else.â€\x9d All the numbers are pointing to a steady shift towards mobile. We’ve known that for a while now, having witnessed the frenzy of the annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping sprees where websites fall over and everyone seems to go into a sort of digital funk – and yet the numbers always improve. In February an IMRG report claimed that in the fourth quarter of 2015, over half of online sales (51%) were made through mobile devices, a rise of 11% on the previous year. The consensus from a number of mid-sized businesses polled is that there has been a shift this year from consumers using mobiles to browse and then buy in a shop or on a desktop to actually completing purchases via mobile apps or browsers. Skyscanner, a travel booking site launched in 2003, agrees, saying it is increasingly seeing people not just plan but also book trips on a mobile device. Between 2014 and 2015, mobile web bookings grew by 24% and they accounted for 42% of all conversions. On top of that, mobile visitors grew 60% in that time period, representing 59% of total visitors. So why the sudden change? It correlates with the launch of a new flights app at the end of last year, which the company says has improved the overall experience for mobile users. It’s an interesting point. The native apps versus mobile browser argument has been raging for a while now and most businesses tend to straddle both camps, developing apps but also optimising sites for mobile browsers. Google’s instant apps announcement last month could reshape the market as it advocates an approach based on both but, until then, it’s all about focusing on covering as many bases as possible. Tom Jeffrey, head of e-commerce at clothes chain Jules B, says that naturally the company pushes its customers towards its app, offering incentives such as 10% discounts. The reason is that it is “quicker and the experience is optimised for a particular deviceâ€\x9d, he says. Like many businesses, Jules B has seen a surge in online with mobile driving growth. Interestingly it is spread across age groups with even the 60- to 70-year-old age bracket holding its own. Recent A/B testing revealed that its customers preferred a practical checkout over a “sexy looking, well designed oneâ€\x9d, says Jeffrey, but it is now looking to improve its four-stage checkout, perhaps reducing the number of clicks to two or even one. “It’s a big divide at the moment between one-stage and four-stage checkouts,â€\x9d adds Jeffrey, who admits that as a smaller business, it tends to watch how the likes of Asos and Selfridges fare with various technology changes and then pick off the best bits. Certainly Amazon has done well with its one-click ordering – so is the shopper mindset changing? Have Amazon, Apple Pay and the rise of contactless cards boosted consumer confidence in technology but also raised the bar of expectancy? Rytis Vitkauskas, founder and CEO of London events and ticketing business YPlan, says: “There’s an expectation that any transaction will take a minimum amount of effort. The Gen-Y person doesn’t really think about buying something as a transaction any more. It’s an act of consumption where payment is an afterthought and must be seamless.â€\x9d YPlan’s answer to this is a two-tap buying process regardless of venue or event. It is, says Vitkauskas, “no longer a choice but rather a requirement for any consumer-facing commerce platformâ€\x9d. The trade-off between ease of use and traditional card security is lessening it seems, particularly with biometrics, but that is probably as much a cultural thing as an actual technology shift, especially given that paying for goods in-store with a mobile device still takes time and often demands a pin to be entered anyway. Maybe we are expecting too much? Certainly new technology can have a big impact on sales. Fernando Fanton, chief product and technology officer at online takeaway ordering service Just Eat, says that adding Apple Pay as a payment method in July last year (it was an early adopter) saw the business complete “over half a million orders using Apple Pay in the UK alone – faster growth than any other payment methodâ€\x9d. Perhaps this suits the nature of the business with its high-volume, micro-payments fast food for fast money? But there again, if it’s a process consumers want, surely all businesses should be looking to move this way across all sales channels? Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, smart watches and wearable devices are not going to go away, at least not until there is something better. Research firm Novonous believes these payment technologies will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 36.26% by 2020. Amazon, of course, plans to be a large part of this growth. The irrepressible online retailer recently announced plans to start selling groceries online in the UK (it has been operational via a mobile app in the US since 2011). In March it submitted a patent application for payments by selfies. It’s the sort of crazy idea that just might work, especially as recent research by Lux Research highlights the growing need for biometrics to improve m-commerce confidence and adoption. And that’s surely the point. If you can make it easy and remove the fear, any generation will use it. For the moment at least, its future remains in the hands of those to which it is second nature. For the rest of us, don’t ditch the wallet and purse just yet. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for byâ€\x9d – find out more here.',
 "I see dead people. It's normal and more people should talk about it This will be my 17th year in the fire and rescue service. In the course of my duties I have responded to a range of incidents including accidents on motorways, train and aircraft crashes, and the fatal fire at Atherstone-on-Stour in 2007, where four of my fellow firefighters lost their lives. We worked for days to recover the bodies of our fallen colleagues from an unsafe structure, still in the process of collapse. Much could be written about the mental impact of this one incident alone. It was during the critical incident debrief that followed the fire at Atherstone-on-Stour that I first became aware of intrusive thoughts. My service had contracted a counsellor to discuss the incident with all those who had been there. He explained that the brain is not able to process traumatic incidents in its usual way. Instead, it randomly accesses pieces of your memories at a later stage, which can result in intrusive memories or flashbacks. I was informed that this was normal, and that far from being an indication that my mind was out of control, it was actually essential to my mental health. I know that I will never forget being stood to attention in a guard of honour, formed by the emergency services staff on site, as the grieving families of the deceased passed by to witness their loved ones being solemnly carried from the building to the waiting funeral cars. I will never forget how heart-wrenching it felt, and that even though I didn’t know any of them personally, they were part of what we often refer to as the 999 family. My 999 family. These are my conscious thoughts, for times of quiet reflection; they do not simply arrive uninvited, causing disruption, unlike my intrusive memories. Sometimes I see dead people. It is perfectly normal and more people should talk about it. I was told that memories of specific incidents become less frequent as the mind puts the pieces back together and files them away. I was also told that if they don’t, or if they start to interfere with everyday life, it might be worth seeking help. My experiences over the past 17 years have changed me. The things that I have seen, heard, and felt in that time have left me with new thoughts about life, death, and everything in between. While I don’t personally feel I have a mental health problem, perhaps without support I may have developed one. That possibility exists for any of us. As part of its blue light programme to improve the mental health of emergency services staff, the charity Mind conducted a survey of 3,627 workers – 87.5% of whom said they had experienced stress, low mood, or poor mental health. The support offered by my service following this incident has stayed with me, and I am thankful for it. Having been educated in the natural reaction of my mind following a traumatic incident, I am quite happy to discuss it, and this is key. But a recent YouGov poll revealed that nearly a third of us feel uncomfortable talking about mental health. And 71% of emergency services staff responding to the Mind survey felt their organisation did not encourage them to talk about mental health. As a consequence, many people suffer in silence, or turn to other coping mechanisms such as alcohol. There will always be specific triggers for these recurring memories, such as returning to the scene of an incident. One example for me is the heartbreaking death of a father and his three-year-old son. We had been called to help with the search of a river after a boat had capsized. Two children had been rescued before we got there, and as I arrived on the river bank, the limp body of a third child was being taken from the water and frantically worked on by paramedics. As I struggled to comprehend the scene in front of me, I desperately hoped for some signs of life. There were none. I remember helping to launch the rescue boat in the shallow water downstream, and the struggle of my teammates to get upstream, passing under a bridge, as the boat made its journey to the site where, later, we recovered the body of the children’s father. Occasionally I drive over that bridge. Sometimes I don’t even realise I have done it, and my day continues as normal. Other days I spot the sign for the small village as I approach, and I see that father and son once again. As cuts to the fire service continue, firefighter numbers are decreasing, meaning those that remain are likely to be exposed to critical incidents with greater frequency. The nation’s emergency services need to be talking about mental health. I am not suggesting that all emergency responders are clinging to sanity by our fingernails. Far from it. Everything I experience reminds me of what really matters in life: that in the blink of an eye, everything can change. Even with education, intrusive memories will catch you unawares. I was recently leaving a coffee shop with my wife, and as she pulled her scarf around her neck, my mind jumped back to a middle-aged man who had taken his own life. He had hanged himself from a canal bridge, using his scarf, and had been there for several hours. After we recovered him, the police found a note in his pocket, along with a plain gold wedding band that matched the one he was wearing on his left hand. I spared my wife the additional detail, and mentioned I had just had a flashback to an incident. She asked if I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t. It’s just my mind filing things away. I understand this. But I do hope that by writing this, I can encourage more people to talk about mental health. Thursday 4 February is Time to Talk Day, run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. Everyone should join the conversations about mental illness, and help end some of the misconceptions around it. The Blue Light Infoline, for emergency service staff, volunteers and their families, can be contacted on 0300 303 5999. It offers confidential support and advice on mental health and wellbeing. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.",
 "Malaysian film promoting LBGT rights banned for 'mocking national security' An irreverant comedy from the Malaysian director and YouTube star Namewee was banned by authorities for promoting homosexual lifestyles, mocking troops and ridiculing national security issues, a government ministry has revealed. Namewee’s film Banglasia, which centres on a group of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds who find themselves forced to accept each other’s differences, was banned from cinemas last year after 31 scenes were deemed inappropriate by local censors. Efforts to resolve the dispute failed when it became clear the entire movie would have to be reshot to assuage the authorities. Now the Malay Mail reports that the Malaysian home ministry has published its official reasons for refusing the film a licence, in response to a written request from MP and human-rights activist Sivarasa Rasiah. “This film has a title, theme, storyline, scenes and double-meaning dialogue with implicit messages that were feared could raise controversy and public doubt,â€\x9d the response reads, adding that it “mocked national security issues, specifically the Lahad Datu intrusion … ridiculed the capacity and role of security troops in maintaining peace as well as national security … includes allegations and negative perceptions towards government agencies related to citizenship … and accentuates negative sociocultural lifestyles such as lesbian gay bisexual transgender (LGBT).â€\x9d The Lahad Datu land intrusion was a 2013 incident in which 235 militants, led by a claimant to the defunct Sultanate of Sulu, landed in Malaysian Borneo with the aim of resolving a centuries-old territorial dispute. After a three-week standoff, Malaysian security forces attacked and routed the invading force, killing at least 27 militants. In the wake of Banglasia’s banning, Namewee – real name Wee Meng Chee – took to Kickstarter in an effort to recoup funds and release the film on the internet for free. However, the crowdfunding campaign stalled in January, after attracting $186,468 towards a goal of $500,000. Banglasia, whose main character is a poor Bangladeshi immigrant hoping to return to his hometown to marry the love of his life, now faces an uncertain future. “We are now in a dilemma what to do next to still release it to the world, while not incur significant financial losses,â€\x9d reads the blurb for the unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign.",
 "‘Call me a racist, but don’t say I’m a Buddhist’: meet America's alt right Every few weeks, William Johnson, the chairman of the white nationalist American Freedom Party (AFP), holds a lunch for members, the goal being to make America a white ethnostate, a project that begins with electing Donald Trump. This week, it’s at a grand old French restaurant called Taix, in Echo Park, Los Angeles – an odd choice on the face of it. Echo Park is a trendy hood. It’s hipster and heavily Hispanic. In fact, given the predominance of Latino kitchen staff in this city, it may be wise to hold off on the Trump talk until the food arrives. “About three months ago,â€\x9d Johnson begins, “I was talking to Richard Spencer about how we need to plan for a Trump victory.â€\x9d Spencer is another prominent white nationalist – he heads the generic-sounding National Policy Institute. “I said: ‘I want Jared Taylor [of American Renaissance] as UN Ambassador, and Kevin MacDonald [an evolutionary psychologist] as secretary of health and Ann Coulter as homeland security!’ And Spencer said: ‘Oh Johnson, that’s a pipe dream!’ But today, he’d no longer say that, because if Trump wins, all the establishment Republicans, they’re gone… They hate him! So who’s left? If we can lobby, we can put our people in there.â€\x9d Around the table five young men, roughly half Johnson’s age (he’s 61), nod and lean in. They all wear suits and ties, address the waiter as “sirâ€\x9d and identify as the “alt rightâ€\x9d, the much-discussed nouvelle vague of racism. “Are you guys familiar with the Plum Book?â€\x9d Johnson asks. “It’s plum because of the colour, but also because of the plum positions – there are 20,000 jobs in that book that are open to a new administration.â€\x9d “So we need to identify our top people!â€\x9d says Eric, one of the men at the table. “Just anyone with a college degree!â€\x9d Johnson says. “Right.â€\x9d Eric is practically bouncing in his seat with excitement. “We need to get the word out. We are the new GOP!â€\x9d It’s not every day that a brown journalist gets to sit in on a white-nationalist strategy meeting. But these are strange times. Racism is trending. Like Brexit, Trump has normalised views that were once beyond the pale, and groups like the AFP have grown bold. Their man’s stubby orange fingers are within reach of actual power, so maybe it’s time to emerge from the shadows at last. I first met Johnson in May after he signed up as a Trump delegate before being swiftly struck off by the campaign when the press found out. He’s a surprising figure. An avid environmentalist, fluent in Japanese and, in person, not the bitter old racist I’d expected but rather a jolly Mormon grandfather, bright eyed and chuckling, a Wind in the Willows character. Eric is even more unexpected. Tall and impassioned, he came to racism via hypnotherapy, of all things. He sells solar panels for a living and practises yoga. Together with his friends Matt and Nathan, who are also here at lunch, he runs an alt-right fraternity in Manhattan Beach – “a beer and barbecues thingâ€\x9d. They’re called the Beach Goys. “We’re starting a parody band,â€\x9d he beams. “We’ve found a drummer!â€\x9d Between them they represent two poles of a racist spectrum, young and old. And judging from this lunch, it’s the millennials who are the more extreme. Johnson wants white nationalists to appear less mean and he finds the “JQâ€\x9d, the Jewish Question, archaic. But Eric loves the meanness of the alt right. “We’re the troll army!â€\x9d he says. “We’re here to win. We’re savage!â€\x9d And antisemitism is non-negotiable. In fact, he’d like to clear up a misnomer about the alt right, propagated by the Breitbart columnist Milo Yiannopoulos, who is often described, mistakenly, as the movement’s leader. Milo casts the alt right as principally a trolling enterprise, dedicated to attacking liberal shibboleths for the “lulzâ€\x9d– there’s precious little actual bigotry. But Eric insists otherwise. Yes, they like to joke, they have memes, they’re just as funny as liberals – have I heard of their satirical news podcasts, the Daily Shoah and Fash the Nation? But make no mistake, the racism is real. Eric especially enjoys The Daily Stormer, a leading alt-right news site, which is unashamedly pro-Hitler. What unites Johnson and Eric is what they describe as “the systematic browbeating of the white maleâ€\x9d – namely all this talk of privilege, the Confederate flag, Black Lives Matter and mansplaining. But beyond that, it’s the “looming extinction of the white raceâ€\x9d. This is the language they use. Also: “Diversity equals white genocide.â€\x9d The alt right loves to evoke genocide while harbouring Holocaust deniers. Their point is that white people are melting away like the icecaps, and they have a primal drive to stop it. In 2044, non-Hispanic whites will drop below 50% of the US population. “The generation of the white minority has already been born,â€\x9d Eric says. “Look at South Africa and Rhodesia. That’s where we’re headed. Total disenfranchisement.â€\x9d I want to reassure him that his Brown Rulers will be gentle and that slavery isn’t so bad when you get used to it. But it’s not me they want to hear from, it’s white people. This is the white nationalist’s burden – the very people they’re trying to save are the ones who most fiercely oppose them. “The only group I cannot get along with is white people,â€\x9d says Johnson. “Because white people hate white people who like white people.â€\x9d A couple of days later, Johnson is at his cluttered desk in downtown LA, nattering merrily in Japanese to a woman in Tokyo. He gets lots of media requests these days, but especially from Japan. There’s an uncanny connection between Japan and white nationalism in America. Jared Taylor, white nationalism’s foremost intellectual, is another fluent speaker. “It’s an ethnostate and it’s deeply nationalist,â€\x9d he says. “And they have resisted the pressure to admit refugees. I say: ‘God bless them!’â€\x9d For his part, Johnson’s racism was shaped in Japan. He grew up in Eugene, Oregon, a state founded as a white utopia, in a modest Mormon home, back before the LDS church gave black people the priesthood in 1978. But it was his two-year mission to Tohoku, Japan, that turned him. As he went from door to door, locals would opine on the greatness of white America. “They had an inferiority complex after the war, so we were treated like celebrities,â€\x9d he says. “Oh, it was just the funnest time!â€\x9d A few years later, while working in Japan as an attorney, he wrote a book advocating the repatriation of all non-whites with appropriate reparations, because “I thought America was going to collapse unless I did something.â€\x9d When he returned to LA, he sent a copy to every congressman. He was 32. Clearly things didn’t work out as planned. His forays into politics floundered and then his offices were bombed. So he retreated from activism for nearly 15 years, only returning in 2009 to form the AFP – just in time for the rise of the alt right. We head to his 67-acre ranch near Pasadena, a hilly lot backing on to a national forest. I asked to meet his family, but his wife refused, so we tour the farm instead – his persimmon orchard, his horses and ducks. And there on his pick-up truck is a stencil of Jimi Hendrix. “My daughter likes to paint,â€\x9d he says proudly. None of his five children are white nationalists, though they have promised to marry within the race. “You’re a white supremacist with a black artist painted on your truck,â€\x9d I tell him. And he flinches. “That’s the meanest, most hurtful swearword there is. Just because I say different races have different strengths doesn’t mean I think I’m superior.â€\x9d He doesn’t like “racistâ€\x9d either. “It’s a pejorative. I prefer ‘race realist’.â€\x9d “But it’s not my reality, Bill. I’m sticking with racist.â€\x9d “Well, OK. But people who embrace ‘racist’ are mad at everybody. I get along with people. You cannot function in Los Angeles without encountering other races, so I look for areas of similarity and agreement. It’s important to treat everyone with the highest respect on a micro level.â€\x9d On a macro level, however, darkness falls – multiculturalism is doomed, the different races will never get along, and our only hope is Balkanisation: separate territories for separate tribes. And whatever accelerates that transition is welcome, even racial strife. “I don’t think friction is a good thing,â€\x9d he says, “but it would help facilitate the split that is necessary.â€\x9d We stop to feed his alpacas. There’s a brown one, a black one and a white one, standing peacefully together against the chicken wire fence. “See Bill, they’re getting along.â€\x9d He laughs. “I wish people were like alpacas.â€\x9d I’m with Eric at a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan Beach where he lives, an upscale, white neighbourhood in the South Bay. He clears space on the table and grins. “OK, you ready? Your first tarot card reading with the Hitler Youth!â€\x9d It’s been an odd afternoon. We walked along the beach and I asked about his gmail address which includes the number 1488, a potent number for white supremacists. The “14â€\x9d stands for the 14 words coined by the late David Lane of the group The Order: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.â€\x9d And the 88 refers to HH (H being eighth in the alphabet) – or Heil Hitler. Eric sighed. “OK, but this stuff’s hard to talk about,â€\x9d he said. “It depends how red-pilled you are.â€\x9d Alt-righters love talking about the red pill. It’s a reference to The Matrix – blue-pilled people bumble through a life of illusion, while the red-pilled have seen the truth and there’s no turning back. Like all conspiracy theorists they see the hidden hand that guides all things, but for the alt right that hand is Jewish. The red pill is classic antisemitism, rebooted for a younger generation. As we walked, he laid it out – the banking, the media, the globalism. We passed games of beach volleyball and family picnics, while he explained why the Holocaust was exaggerated and Hitler got a bad rap. “Have you noticed that kombucha isn’t as fizzy as it used to be?â€\x9d he asks, along the way, because Eric isn’t your average Nazi. He trained as a spiritualist. He has taught meditation. He brought his tarot cards in case I wanted a reading. “Don’t tell me – it’s the Jews,â€\x9d I tell him. He laughs. “You said it, not me!â€\x9d In the late 70s, the Klansman David Duke swapped his hood and robes for a suit and tie, and took white supremacy out of the cross-burning fields and into the boardroom. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center describes the alt right in similar terms, as Racism 2.0, “a rebranding for the digital generationâ€\x9d. It’s a trendy reboot – “alt rightâ€\x9d makes white supremacy sound like an art collective. And Eric, the kombucha Nazi, just takes it a step further – into the aisles of Whole Foods. He’s a locally sourced, wild-caught bigot high in omega-3s and antisemitism. It makes him more sinister in some ways, and more harmless in others. As Nazis go. “Hmm, Nazi.â€\x9d Like Johnson, he’s squeamish about terms. Warriors against political correctness can be awfully sensitive. “It’s such a slur,â€\x9d he says. But come on – he’s a Hitler apologist. “OK, fine,â€\x9d he says. “Just don’t say I’m a Buddhist, because I’m actually more into Norse and Celtic mysticism now.â€\x9d It’ll come as no surprise that someone who’d rather be called a Nazi than a Buddhist has a strange story to tell. Originally from a well-off white suburb of Chicago, he moved to Las Vegas to pursue music. Then one day, in the gym of his condo building, he met a guru figure we’ll call Frank. A spiritualist and businessman, Frank introduced Eric to New Age mysticism and Japanese Buddhism. And it was under Frank’s guidance that Eric moved to LA to study hypnotherapy and began a career giving readings and tarot shows at a psychic bookshop. Frank, he says, was his “mentor and best friendâ€\x9d. But then Eric took a turn. He radicalised himself. He left the New Age life, finding it too feminine, and spiralled down a sinkhole of conspiracy theory. He and Frank have been estranged ever since. Frank is black. Today, Eric still meditates and practises yoga. His weeks are spent like David Brent, as a travelling salesman, driving around meeting his solar energy clients. His weekends, however, are all about the Beach Goys, which now has 15 members. Last week, they went on a hike to the Murphy Ranch in the Pacific Palisades, a decrepit old property that was originally built as a refuge for Hitler after the war. Next week is their first band rehearsal. Eric’s going to play guitar and sing. And this is the future he wants – not a plum job with the Trump administration. “I don’t see myself as a bureaucrat,â€\x9d he says. “I want to take the Beach Goys national. I want to inspire people.â€\x9d It could happen. Trump has unleashed something in America. Johnson won’t reveal the AFP’s membership numbers – “Maybe we want to appear bigger than we are?â€\x9d – but Eric insists the alt right is on the march. “We’re growing with every hashtag, every BLM protest, every city that becomes a Detroit, or a London,â€\x9d he says. “We’re everywhere! We’re the guy next to you at yoga, the barista at Starbucks...â€\x9d It’s like Fight Club for supremacists, a deeply unsettling thought (which is why Eric loves it). But his delight in being a secret Nazi detracts from the seriousness of it all, the white genocide stuff. He’s having too much fun. And I wonder, as we finish our beers, if it will pass for Eric, this Nazi phase. He just doesn’t seem that threatening. Then he starts up about a race war, that old white-supremacist chestnut. Because behind the trolling veneer, the alt right is more traditional than alt. What Eric believes is vintage racism, the same old wine in a new ironic cask. And Tony Benn’s words ring as true as ever: “Every generation must fight the same battles again and again.â€\x9d “Our civilisation is at war and we need to secure our people,â€\x9d Eric says. “We must seize power and take control. And the idea that we can do this peacefully is probably not realistic.â€\x9d We get along well enough, Eric and I, but he has the same micro/macro discrepancy as Johnson. And at a macro level, there is only despair and division. “I do not advocate violence, but I will give my life for my blood… and for the honour of my ancestors.â€\x9d He thrums the tarot cards in his hands, his voice getting more animated. “We accept the game that’s being played. We accept that the lion and the gazelle are competition. But they don’t have to hate each other. That’s just how we view it.â€\x9d He shrugs. “It’s scary. The world is scary. This is not a game for children.â€\x9d",
 'RBS: no evidence of criminal behaviour, rule prosecutors Eight years after the £45bn taxpayer bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland, prosecutors have concluded there is insufficient evidence of criminal behaviour to bring charges against the bank or any of its directors. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scotland’s prosecution service, said a team of specialist forensic accountants and banking experts had examined 160,000 documents before reaching its conclusion. The Crown Office focused on the cash call to raise £12bn that RBS embarked on between April and June 2008, just before its taxpayer bailout in October that year. The investigation was prompted by the December 2011 publication of the report by the then Financial Services Authority into the bank’s near collapse. The report found “multiple poor decisionsâ€\x9d caused the crisis that led to the £45bn bailout. The prosecutor said: “The failure of RBS is an issue of great public concern..... The Crown’s investigation focused on the rights issue of April – June 2008, and involved detailed consideration of whether there was any evidence of criminal conduct associated with the rights issue. “If there were such evidence those responsible would face prosecution. If not, the public in Scotland could be reassured that the matter had been properly investigated. “Following careful examination of all the evidence seen to date, Crown Counsel have decided that there is insufficient evidence in law of criminal conduct either in relation to RBS as an institution or any directors or other senior management involved in the rights issue.â€\x9d At the time of the rights issue – the cash call on investors in 2008 – the bank was run by Fred Goodwin, who was stripped in January 2012 of the knighthood he was awarded 10 years earlier. Goodwin had no right of appeal, and in accordance with custom was given no right to make representations to the forfeiture committee, a group of four permanent secretaries. The Crown Office said its investigation had required co-operation from the Financial Conduct Authority - which replaced the FSA - the Prudential Regulation Authority, part of the Bank of England, as well as the Serious Fraud Office, the Financial Reporting Council and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “If any further evidence comes to light which is relevant to this enquiry it will be considered by the Crown and we reserve the right to make further enquiry, if considered appropriate,â€\x9d the Crown Office said. RBS has not yet reported an annual profit since its bailout and has amassed more than £50bn of losses in the eight years since taxpayers stepped in to stop its collapse. The government has also found it difficult to extricate itself from the bank, selling off a 5% stake in August for a £1bn loss. Taxpayers still own 73% – and the shares are trading at 213p – below the 330p at which George Osborne sold shares in the summer and below the 502p average paid for the stake. RBS said: “We cooperated fully with this investigation and we note today’s decision.â€\x9d The Insolvency Service has also ended its enquiries.',
 "Romanian ambassador defends country's contribution to NHS The Romanian ambassador to the UK has said his country has made a significant financial contribution to the NHS as a result of the number of highly qualified health workers who have moved to Britain. Dan Mihalache said his country paid more than €100,000 to train up one medical student to become a doctor in Romania. “That is our contribution to your National Health Service,â€\x9d he told a committee of peers in the House of Lords, adding that there were 10,000 or more Romanians working in the NHS. Mihalache argued that there were “two sides of the coinâ€\x9d when it came to free movement within the EU, “one good and one badâ€\x9d. The positive impact for Romania was that its citizens working abroad across the world sent back €7bn in a good year, and between €3bn and €4bn during the economic crisis. But both he and the Polish ambassador, Arkady Rzegocki, said their governments had considered policies to stem the loss of skilled workers, including ideas around making graduates work for a number of years or pay back the cost of their courses. “Of course we are worried about that,â€\x9d said Rzegocki, who said there were 1 million Poles living in the UK, with the vast majority in employment or studying. “We hope that they will start to be coming back. I hope that the situation will improve because we’ve had a huge economic success ... our GDP is growing every year.â€\x9d He said an improvement in benefits for children in Poland, bringing the levels almost up to those given out in Britain, had persuaded people to remain in the country, and said the numbers coming to the UK had fallen over time. The men were appearing in front of the Lords’ EU justice committee, which is carrying out an inquiry into the impact that Brexit could have on the acquired rights of EU migrants in the UK and British migrants elsewhere. Rzegocki said there had been concern about reports about hate crime against Poles, although he had tried to reassure people that the incidents were few in number. He said he wanted people to have better knowledge about Poland including its contribution during the second world war. But he said the biggest problem with Brexit was the uncertainty faced by Polish citizens. “They are asking about their future, the future of their children, the NHS,â€\x9d he said, arguing that not knowing what might happen was not good for individuals or the economy. Mihalache said that Romanian citizens had been calling his embassy to express similar concerns, including asking questions about their status, rumours that they could be expelled, and questions about permanent residence. “What will happen to people who paid their social contributions here in United Kingdom? What will happen to the mechanism, will payments made in UK be paid back – do they have to have registration certificates?â€\x9d he added. The ambassador added that the “rhetoricâ€\x9d he had heard about registering foreign workers, along the lines of Amber Rudd’s proposals for a visa scheme post-Brexit, “are not encouraging for our communitiesâ€\x9d. The men said their plea was for all existing rights for their citizens to be protected. Lady Kennedy of the Shaws, who chairs the committee, said she had set up the inquiry after hearing that embassy phone lines had been jammed by EU citizens asking “what is going to happen to us? We have bought a house, our children go to school, how do we learn our futures?â€\x9d. The committee will present its recommendations by the end of the year.",
 "Beyoncé launches new 'visual album' Lemonade on HBO The surprise of releasing an album with no warning is perhaps a slightly overdone trick now, but the news that Beyoncé released her sixth solo album, called Lemonade, on Saturday night still managed to be the kind of event that confirms her status as arguably the world’s leading female pop star. The album was debuted at 9pm EST on Saturday night on the cable channel HBO. It took the form of a succession of music videos linked by poetry by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire. The directors of the videos included heavyweights like Mark Romanek. By the end of the hour-long broadcast, the album was available to stream on Tidal, backed by Jay-Z, Beyoncé’s husband. However, the state of the pair’s marriage is sure to come under scrutiny given the angry tone of the first few songs. The first video, for Pray You Catch Me, saw Beyoncé walking down the street and smashing up cars with a baseball bat, singing about a man who had betrayed her trust. Musically, the album is eclectic, moving into rock, country and jazz in places and including collaborations with Jack White, Diplo, James Blake, Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd. Meanwhile the title seems inspired by the old adage, “If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.â€\x9d Lemonade also demonstrates Beyoncé’s increasing willingness and desire to express her political views. One of the films for Lemonade depicted the mothers of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin holding photographs of their sons. The album is also strongly feminist in tone, one song declaring “women don’t quit on themselvesâ€\x9d. The arrival of Lemonade didn’t produce quite the same shockwaves as the release of Beyoncé, her previous album, on 13 December 2013. There had been no warning of that album, and for it to arrive – like the latest album, with a complete accompanying set of music videos – felt like a seismic event for the music industry. Though albums had been released with little or no notice, never before had an artist with as much commercial power as Beyoncé been able to release an album with no warning to complete surprise. This time, however, there had been hints that something was happening. First, Beyoncé released a new single, Formation, in February – her first new music since the 2013 album – then performed it at the Super Bowl halftime show. If it were possible for Beyoncé to raise her profile any higher, the Super Bowl show did it: her performance, a vigorous spectacle that paid tribute to the Black Panthers, of a song whose lyrics and video were clearly linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, provoked anger among police unions, some of whom threatened to withdraw security services from her concerts. That tour – the second clue that an album was imminent – begins on 27 April in Miami and comes to the UK at the end of June, with stadium shows in Sunderland, Cardiff, Manchester, London and Glasgow. It is part of a cluster of Beyoncé activity that also suggested there would be music coming imminently. Last week she launched a range of fashion sportswear, Ivy Park, selling through Top Shop in the UK. On Monday she released a trailer for Lemonade, a mysterious “world premiere eventâ€\x9d that will be broadcast on the US network HBO on Saturday. The surprise release of her last album did not harm it commercially. Beyoncé entered the US Billboard chart at No 1, and became the fastest-selling album on iTunes worldwide. It’s estimated total sales of 5m beat the 3m copies sold of its predecessor, 4. Track listing for Beyoncé’s new album, Lemonade",
 'European referendum campaign kicks off as rivals roll out big guns The first day of the official 10-week EU referendum campaign kicks off on Friday after months of in-fighting and backbiting, with the leave campaign arguing that Brexit would save the NHS and the remain campaign claiming that a vote to leave could risk a 2008-style financial crash. The official campaign period includes rules on spending and in other areas ahead of the vote on 23 June. The two official campaigns can spend up to £7m each on campaigning, with £600,000 in public funds, and get a free mailshot and national TV broadcast. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, a prominent figure in the official Vote Leave campaign, will use a rally in Manchester on Friday night to argue that Brexit would give the NHS a multibillion-pound boost, claiming a large chunk of the UK’s £10.6bn net contribution to Brussels could be diverted to pay for hospital beds. He will go on to make speeches in Leeds and Newcastle this weekend as Vote Leave points to predictions showing the health service could face a shortfall in funding of £12.3bn by 2020-21. The move has been interpreted as an attempt to reach Labour voters. Meanwhile, the former chancellor Alistair Darling will issue the latest in a long line of dire warnings from the campaign to stay in the EU. Giving a speech in Westminster, Darling, who led the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, will say dark clouds are gathering on the horizon and point to what happened when economic confidence collapsed in 2008. “The single most important determinant of the health of our economy is confidence, and it is waning as the risk of leaving comes in to focus,â€\x9d he will say. “We know what happens when confidence plummets. We saw that in 2008 and we are still living with the consequences of the global financial crash. Confidence remains low and uncertainty is making that worse. “When the IMF single us out as facing what will be a self-inflicted wound, we can’t ignore it. We can’t afford to take a decision where no one on the other side has any clear idea of where we would end up if we left.â€\x9d Darling’s speech comes after the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, speaking to an audience of Labour-supporting students and trade unionists in London on Thursday, made his case for staying in the European Union in his first major speech on the subject. Responding to calls for him to step up the fight for Britain to remain in the EU, Corbyn warned that Brexit could give a Conservative government the opportunity to slash protection for workers, in a “bonfire of rightsâ€\x9d. Remain campaigners are concerned at a fall in support from Labour voters, with the coverage of the debate so far primarily focused on Connservative party splits. Labour voters are twice as likely to vote to stay in the EU, but concerns are mounting that they could be put off from turning out to vote. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, Darling admitted there were similarities between the campaign to persuade Scotland to stay in the UK and the pro-EU campaign, both of which have been dubbed “Project Fearâ€\x9d by rivals. “There are similarities actually, in that we are being invited – in both cases, in the Scottish referendum and now – to take something of a leap into the unknown, a leap into the dark,â€\x9d he said. “What I’m saying is that there is overwhelming economic evidence that we are better off, stronger and more secure being part of the European Union, the largest market in the world.â€\x9d The leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, will become the first Conservative cabinet minister to share a platform with the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, on Monday, as the rival Brexit groups seek to adopt a united front. The Vote Leave campaign, which counts Tory government ministers in its ranks, was designated the official anti-EU campaign on Wednesday, causing outrage among the rival campaigns.',
 "Northern Irish women 'treated as second-class citizens' over abortions Women from Northern Ireland who travel to England to terminate pregnancies are being treated as “second-class citizensâ€\x9d by the NHS, the supreme court has been told. The health service’s refusal to fund abortions for Northern Irish women is a breach of their human rights and NHS guidelines, the panel of five justices at the UK’s highest court heard on Wednesday. The barrister was opening a legal challenge brought on behalf of a woman , identified only as A , who travelled to Manchester in 2012 aged 15, at a cost of £300, and was required to pay £600 for an abortion . Abortion is only available in Northern I rish hospitals when there is a direct threat to the mother’s life if the pregnancy continues. In all other cases, abortion is illegal. An estimated 2,000 women travel to English hospitals and clinics from Northern Ireland every year for terminations. All of them have to find enough money to go to private clinics in England . Stephen Cragg QC, representing A and her mother, told the court: “When it comes to abortion services , women from Northern Ireland are essentially second-class citizens. “Criminal penalties are still imposed on those who seek access to abortion services in Northern Ireland. Life imprisonment is still on the statute books. The most recent penalty was a three-month suspended sentence for a woman who accessed [abortion] drugs via the internet . “It’s not surprising that, as the mother explains in this case, this was far more stressful and humiliating for a 15-year-old girl than it needs to be.â€\x9d One of the justices, Lord Reed, questioned whether the case could set a broader precedent across the devolved regions by making other services, such as university, free for all UK citizens. Cragg said this was not the desired outcome of the claim. “The law governing abortion in Northern Ireland is one of the most restrictive in both the European Union and [within] the Council of Europe,â€\x9d he argued in a written submission. “The maximum criminal penalty imposed – life imprisonment for both the woman undergoing the abortion and for an individual who assists her – is the harshest in Europe and among the harshest in the world.â€\x9d Reproductive rights organisations including the Alliance for Choice, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Birthrights, the Family Planning Association and the Abortion Support Network have intervened in the case. In submissions on their behalf, Helen Mountfield QC argued that the 2006 National Health Services Act required the UK to “make universal non-discriminatory provision which supports women so as to enable them to exercise dignity and autonomy over their reproductive health, in a way which is practical and effective. “Once a woman is within the country’s jurisdiction for the purposes of protecting her fundamental rights, then as a matter of international law, these must be protected on a non-discriminatory basis.â€\x9d But Jason Coppel QC, for the government, said it was not irrational for the provision of non-emergency healthcare to be divided between the different countries of the UK according to the place of residence of the patient. If there were any discrimination, he argued, then it was “plainly justifiedâ€\x9d. “A devolved, residence-based system for allocation of certain health services, including abortion services, [allows for] fair and efficient allocation of responsibility for provision of health services among authorities in England and other countries of the UK,â€\x9d Coppel said. Judgment in the case has been reserved.",
 'Extremism thrives because of cowardly collaborators Anglo-Saxon democracies, which were never invaded in the 20th century, have produced a rich series of alternative histories of resistance. When the Nazis win the Second World War, audiences can flatter themselves that they would never have collaborated with Robert Harris’s Fatherland or Amazon’s Man in the High Castle. No one is more prone to imagining how well they would have behaved in conflicts that they never experienced than American conservatives. The cult of Churchill in the US would embarrass even his most devoted British admirers. From George W Bush, who placed a Jacob Epstein bust of Churchill in the Oval Office in 2001, via the CEOs who put Churchill their most admired leader, ahead of Steve Jobs, to today’s Republican leaders in Congress, the mainstream right is unanimous and unctuous in its admiration. In truth, they are only admiring themselves. When the House of Representatives’ leader, Paul Ryan, said that for Churchill it was an “unforgivable sinâ€\x9d for a politician to fail to warn the electorate about an impending threat, or when John McCain compared Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain as he cut a deal with the Castros, they were signalling their courage. Churchill and the minority of anti-Hitler Tory and Labour MPs were abused in their own parties, and beyond, until appeasement fell apart in late 1938. No matter. Like them, today’s Republicans would rather be right than be popular. Donald Trump has proved that they are destined to be neither. I don’t throw the word “fascismâ€\x9d around, but can we at least accept that Trump follows the Führerprinzip? He has no colleagues, only followers. He is a racist. Not a closet racist, or a dog-whistle racist, but a racist so unabashed that the Klan endorses him. Above all, he has the swaggering dictator’s determination to bawl opponents into silence with screams of “loserâ€\x9d, “dummyâ€\x9d, “fraudâ€\x9d, “puppet,â€\x9d “biasedâ€\x9d, “disgustingâ€\x9d, “liarâ€\x9d and “kookâ€\x9d. As with the web trolls Trump so resembles, it is never the point and always the person. Female news presenters have to explain that they are not asking him difficult questions because they have “blood coming out of whateverâ€\x9d or surrender to him, as Megan Kelly of Fox News did to her shame. Latinos have to explain why they are not rapists and murderers or shut up and give up. Muslims have to explain that they are not terrorists or they lose the right to a hearing. At every stage, the argument is shifted on to the troll’s terrain of ethnic and religious loyalty tests. Except here the troll could become the world’s most powerful man. Conservatives boasted too that they knew that the old-fashioned virtues of good character mattered as much as a man or woman’s ideology. By this reckoning, Trump’s bragging, vainglory, dark fury and towering vanity should disqualify him from the presidency regardless of his politics. Republican grandees must agree with Hillary Clinton when she said: “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weaponsâ€\x9d, not least because Marco Rubio, one of their own, has said as much himself. Yet McCain and Ryan, those enemies of appeasement, have folded and endorsed Trump. Rubio, that piercing judge of his character, has decided that, after all, Trump’s finger should be on the button. Presidents Bush père et fils are bravely abstaining. Bobby Jindal, who described Trump as a “narcissist and egomaniacal madmanâ€\x9d, wants him in the White House. Nearly all the Republican names you remember follow suit. The Dick Cheneys, Rand Pauls and Condoleezza Rices are backing Trump or refusing to commit. Confronted with a dictatorial menace in their own time and their own country they lack the courage to risk the unpopularity that Churchillian dissent would bring. Even when Trump followed his years of promoting the interests of a dictator of a hostile foreign power by urging Vladimir Putin to hack Clinton’s emails, they held steady in their cowardice. The Republicans, the party of red-baiters and Cold Warriors, is now in the pocket of a Kremlin “useful idiotâ€\x9d and the best its national security conservatives can manage are embarrassed mutters. Only Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz openly oppose him, among prominent Republicans. And when a once mighty political movement relies on Cruz to uphold its honour it is so deep in the dustbin of history it is already composting. My friend and comrade, the American journalist Jamie Kirchick, coined the phrase “Vichy Republicansâ€\x9d to describe its leaders. They don’t quite support Trump, you understand, but you surely can’t expect them to oppose him either. It is not as if America is under occupation. It is not as if the man in the high tower will order the secret police to herd them on to cattle trucks. The only suffering they will face is challenges in Republican primaries and many won’t even face that. A little fear goes a long way. Just the possibility of being told off for challenging a candidate that they fear to be mentally unstable has been enough to persuade them to conform. Optimists say that America’s founding fathers designed its constitution to cage men such as Trump. “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for,â€\x9d said James Madison in 1788, “but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits.â€\x9d But where are Madison’s checks today? Trump has already made his contempt for judicial independence clear by race-baiting and bullying a judge who was investigating one of the many accusations of fraud against him. As for the legislature, a Trump victory would ensure a Republican-dominated Congress – those same Republicans who are too frightened to raise a word of protest against him today. Compare them to the British Labour MPs fighting Jeremy Corbyn. They are everything that conservatives despise: hand-wringingly PC, eco-conscious, emotionally literate, bleeding-heart do-gooders every last one of them. Christ, some of them may even read the . But after the killing of Jo Cox by an alleged rightwing extremist, Angela Eagle, Jess Phillips and all the other anti-Corbyn MPs who are speaking out know that the death and rape threats from left-wing extremists may not just be bluster. They are showing true courage. Not just moral courage but physical courage. A courage that those American conservatives, who are so loud in the determination to fight the threats of the past, and so silent before the dangers of the present, entirely lack.',
 'Polio cases could be wiped out within 12 months, says World Health Organisation The World Health Organisation is confident polio is in its dying days and could be eradicated within 12 months, despite challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the virus is still endemic and vaccination campaigns are sometimes targeted by extremists. If the virus is wiped out, polio will become only the second human-hosted virus to be eradicated since the end of smallpox in 1980. “We absolutely need to keep the pressure up, but we think we could reach the point where we have truly interrupted the transmission at the end of the year or the end of the low season [winter] next year,â€\x9d said Michel Zaffran, the WHO’s director of polio eradication. So far this year, just nine cases of wild – as opposed to vaccine-derived – polio virus have been recorded: two in Afghanistan and seven in Pakistan. Noting that there were generally fewer cases of polio in the cold winter months, Zaffran said that, even if there was a spike in recorded cases during the summer, the WHO believed it could still end transmission by early next year. “It is going to be an extraordinary achievement. This has been an ongoing effort since 1988. We started with 150 countries and we are now just down to two countries and nine cases [so far this year],â€\x9d said Zaffran. Since the start of the global polio eradication initiative in 1988, transmission of the wild polio virus, which used to paralyse hundreds of thousands of children every year, has ceased in all countries apart from Afghanistan and Pakistan. There have been false dawns in this battle, such as in 2013, when the virus re-emerged in Nigeria, Syria and Iraq, where it had previously been eradicated. All three are now free from polio once again. The WHO is concentrating its efforts in three areas known to be reservoirs for the virus – the Pakistani city of Karachi and two cross-border corridors, around Quetta Block and in the Peshawar district. Zaffran said 47 districts in Afghanistan have been prioritised for vaccination and surveillance, of which 32 are under control of anti-government forces. “In these cases it is difficult to reach the children. We are vaccinating at transit points but we are still confident, because we’ve only had two reported cases this year so far compared to 22 [total cases] last year. We know when polio strikes because when a child is paralysed, the parents seek help and when they cannot find it locally they move,â€\x9d said Zaffran. In Karachi, the WHO is intensifying its efforts to reach pockets of children missed during previous vaccination drives. “If we can achieve this, it is enormous: not only will it be the second human pathogen to be eradicated ever but it will be a great legacy for the world in terms of efficacy of vaccination programmes,â€\x9d said Joël Calmet, a doctor with Sanofi Pasteur, a polio vaccine manufacturer. Calmet said the end of polio will be a “landmark for humankindâ€\x9d because it has created a public health model for vaccination even in the most difficult and challenging places. “The original deadline for eradication was 2000, which was said to be too challenging at the time, but now I think they set the barrier too high to mobilise everyone to collectively step up as there were too many cases and not enough was happening to reduce them,â€\x9d he said. “A 20-year delay might seem enormous, but polio has been around for thousands of years and to have got rid [of it] will be amazing.â€\x9d',
 'Bob Dylan: Fallen Angels review – unfaithful and lovely The thought strikes, part-way through Bob Dylan’s second album of standards from the mid-20th century American songbook, that it sounds like nothing so much as the unreleased soundtrack to a later Woody Allen movie. It has the same tastefully muted jazzy arrangements, the same love for the music combined with a slight sense of didacticism (Listen! You WILL love these songs as much as I do), the same oddly absurd disconnection from modernity. The arrangements aren’t faithful in any way to those that made these songs famous – That Old Black Magic becomes a rockabilly shuffle – but there’s a certain loveliness to them. It Had To Be You had yet another lease of life on the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack in 1989, but the version here makes you think not of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal cracking wise to each other, but to the old couples interspersed throughout that film, reminiscing about when they fell in love. Fallen Angels sounds like another love letter to Dylan’s own youth, and it’s charming. Whether you would prefer listening to his readings of the songs, rather than to those by Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and so on is entirely your choice.',
 'Swansea City 1-1 Manchester City: Premier League final day – as it happened Ah yes, the transfer season European Championship is upon us! Yes! So, we’ll see you for that, and in the meantime, thanks all for your comments and company. Bye! So, that’s that for another season, and, despite a squid of a final day, what a season it’s been. Leicester champions, Sunderland relegating Newcastle, Chelsea imploding, Arsenal and Spurs collapsing, West Ham progressing, two promoted teams staying up - and all the rest. However will we fill our days until August? And that’s that for Manuel Pellegrini. City take the fourth Champions League spot - unless United beat Bournemouth by 19 clear goals. Swansea finish a deeply creditable eleventh. We all wonder quite what the Old Trafford abandonment will mean. 90+3 min “I’m no great lover of Navas, he’s consistently been an odd weak point in this team,â€\x9d emails Matt Dony. “But I’d kind of like to see what Klopp could do with him. I’d be quite happy to see a sly Liverpool bid for him.â€\x9d I don’t know - maybe he’d coach him better, but it seems too late to have him play with his head up. 90+2 min Aguero won’t win the golden boot this season - he departs to be replaced by Toure, making perhaps his last appearance for City. And what a player he has been for them, if not the best in their history certainly the best in big games. 90 min There will be three added minutes. 90 min Swansea look to go forward at the same as they look to knock the ball along the back-four. They’ve barely threatened this half. 88 min Crivens, Spurs are 5-1 down at Relegatednewcastle; it was 2-1 when Mitrovic was sent-off. This is an absolutely world-class paddy from them. 86 min This game is phutting and sputtering to a finish. 85 min Sky News are reporting that a controlled explosion has taken place at Old Trafford. And dearie me, what a state of affairs: people can’t just go to a football match for fear other people might blow them up. I fear this isn’t the end of that story. 84 min Around the grounds: Leicester and Chelsea are drawing 1-1-, Olivier Giroud has scored a hat-trick for Arsenal against Villa, and Newcastle, down to ten men, lead champions-elect, best team, best football in the league players Spurs, 3-1. 82 min Sagna goes down with no one near him, rarely a good sign. While he receives treatment, Gomis replaces Montero. 81 min While Jesus Navas gives City balance of a sort - pace on the wing, a natural right-side who looks to go on the outside - you’d think not playing well much might restrict his appearances. 80 min Leroy Fer tries a stepover, and is robbed by Clichy. It’s bit like this. 78 min Brilliant from City. De Bruyne breaks through the centre with the ball and finds Aguero, who moves across the face of the box from right-to-left before swivelling into a reverse-pass for Nasri. His low cross is a dangerous one, but eludes all those in the middle and Kingsley wallops clear. 75 min He may be a kind of Silva-lite, but I’m surprised Nasri hasn’t played more recently; he’s composed on the ball, a goal threat, and a bit nasty, none of them qualities with which City are replete. 74 min Ayew finds Barrow on the right, but he can’t find a way past Clichy, and City break; Britton slides in and lifts a leg to halt De Bruyne, for which he is booked. 73 min Nasri has taken up a position on the left, with De Bruyne moving in behind Aguero. 73 min Nasri replaces Iheanacho. 71 min Bony warms up and is cheered by the home crowd. It was put to me recently that he’s bulked up and lost whatever pace he had and that looks a fair explanation; he used to be quite good. 70 min Hart, Silva, Aguero, De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Iheanacho: the only City players safe when Guardiola arrives, I’d say. 68 min Montero runs at Sagna, played into trouble by Navas, and forces the foul. It earns him a yellow card, and Swansea a free-kick, close the by-line and box, but the cross is too high and ill directed. 67 min This Navas-Fernando situation highlights the dangers of scouting according to job description, rather than quality. City needed players in their positions, but neither is good enough to be a first-teamer. 66 min Lovely play down the left between Navas and Fernando, a one-two allowing the former to cross, low. Naturally, he hits the first man. 64 min Back to United, you wonder if they’ll be watching this game wondering if they might, somehow, have avoided conceding two goals in eight minutes after taking the lead at West Ham. 62 min Aguero lifts a lovely scooped ball into the box and follows it like a ferret, unwinding for a shot - but Amat does just enough, sliding in and forcing him to slice wide. 60 min Lovely ball from Clichy, slotted behind Rangel for Iheanacho, taking up another dangerous position. Without looking, he squares gently for Aguero, but Rangel recovers well to concede a corner - it comes to nothing. 60 min Stoke have equalised against West Ham, Imbula with the goal. 58 min Change for Swansea: Barrow replaces Routledge. 58 min And Fernandez’s corner is a good one, picking out Fernandez 10 yards out at the back post. He heads it back from whence it came, but the ball loops wide. 57 min And there he goes, roadrunning at his man and winning a corner... 55 min Swansea have barely been able to get Montero on the ball so far - they might look to address that in the next bit. 54 min This game is getting stretched - 1-1 will not be the final score. 52 min Huge let-off for Swansea and Nordfeldt! Iheanacho, more or less dead centre, slipped right to Aguero, who advanced and rolled in Navas. His low cross was straight at the keeper, but he somehow directed it into Iheanacho’s path - the goal was gaping, only for him to trip over the ball readjusting his feet. 51 min Swansea make space down the left and Kingsley nashes into it, absolutely slamming his cross aeons and hectares past the backpost. 48 min I wonder how many of this back four Guardiola will keep when he arrives at Eastlands. I suppose Kompany is safe as captain and totem - though I’m not sure he’ll be a regular, given his injury record. But Otamendi and Mangala are not exactly what Guardiola’s type. 46 min City immediately win a corner down the left, De Bruyne’s kick headed clear by Fernandez. But the loose ball finds its way back to him, now at the corner of the box, and he whips a brilliant cross towards the far post, where Mangala heads over the top. Great chance. 46 min And off we go again... Sky reckon that at some point, there’ll be a controlled explosion at Old Trafford. “What’s the protocol for an abandoned game? Do you bother replaying it if it doesn’t change anything?â€\x9d asks St Fual on Twitter. I’m pretty sure they’d replay it whatever, but with money on offer for where teams finish, plus potential Europa League issues, this one doesn’t fall into that category. Well, that was a rather unexpected ending to the half. Swansea have actually played some okay stuff in safe spaces, unable to muster any kind of threat save the disallowed goal. City, on the other hand, looked dangerous throughout thanks to De Bruyne’s invention, Aguero’s hold-up play and Iheanacho’s movement. I’ve no idea what’ll happen in the second half, but both managers have work to do. Fer runs over the ball in peculiar style, fooling everyone, and Ayew then steps up looking to bend over the wall and into the top right corner. But Fernandinho waves a head in its road, sending it careering into the top left and leaving Hart flummoxed. Game on, cat pigeoned, and all that. 45 min And there’s Otamendi’s yellow card - Mangala sent a tricky ball into Iheanacho, he bumped it back, and Britton seized upon it, weaving some space and coaxing the foul. Free-kick, 25 yards out, just right of centre... 44 min After landing awkwardly challenging for a header, Iheanacho is limping - looks like one he can run off, but. 43 min Mike Dean allows Swansea an advantage and Montero cuts in, losing Sagna, but then scuffs a low swipe past the near post. 41 min More aesthetic interplay from Swansea and as Otamendi hurtles into a two-footed challenge on Rangel, Iheanacho trips him from behind - probably accidentally. He’s booked, and here comes the free-kick, 25 yards out, right of centre; Cork drifts it gently over the wall and into Hart’s hands, one bounce. 40 min Thanks to Tim O’Brien for pointing out that, thanks to Jordon Ibe’s equaliser, Liverpool are no longer losing. However, Newcastle now lead Spurs 2-0. 37 min Fantastic play from De Bruyne, finding himself on the right touchline and unfurling a majestic crossfield pass for Navas as City break. He then absolutely bousts towards the box and is there waiting for a return just as Navas wallops a useless shot over the top. 36 min Ayew pulls wide to the left by-line and digs out a cross that’s deflected behind by Mangala - the corner is a funny, midriffy height, and headed back towards the taker by Fernandez, who was held by Mangala. How Mike Dean would’ve loved gesticulating a penalty, but he either denies himself or failed to spot the offence. 36 min I should also mention that Liverpool are losing at West Brom and West Ham are winning at Stoke. 34 min Little flurry of Swansea, Ayew weaving into space 25 yards out, right of centre, and absolutely pounding a shot into Otamendi’s excellent block. And they then won the ball back, Angel floating a cross towards the back post that Montero won but could only squirt square. 33 min More on that Urawa abandonment from Patrick O’Brien, who reminds me that lightening hit the ground, and also mentions that the previous time it had happened at Old Trafford was at home to Villa in 1991. 31 min “Okay I know the situations are different but look at Liverpool’s starting 11,â€\x9d emails Mike McKenzie. “Bogdan, Flanagan, Skrtel, Lucas, Smith, Stewart, Allen, Brannagan, Ibe, Ojo, Benteke. So 5 junior players start with 3 (Randall, Canos, Chirivella) on bench. And it isn’t the first time Klopp has given young guys a match. It can only be beneficial both for the players and for Klopp to evaluate them. Didn’t Fergie always say that you have to see what the kids can do?â€\x9d As you say, it’s different - Klopp is resting players for the Uefa Cup Final, United were chasing 4th place. And, though there are infinite reasons to criticise Van Gaal, giving kids a chance isn’t one of them; that’s the reason United have a small squad. 29 min Montero passes back from halfway, stuck out on the touchline, and it’s nowhere near hard enough - Iheanacho is right onto it. But after transferring it into his stride, he can’t quite zone in towards goal as intended, losing his direct run at it. Even then, though, he might slip a reverse-ball into Aguero but instead lamps one over the bar. 27 min Excellent save from Nordfeldt, making his first Premier League start. Iheanacho, at inside-left, flicks outside him for Fernandinho, who crosses low to the near post. Aguero darts towards the goal then towards the ball, losing Amat and turning a low shot that’s well saved via leg extension. 24 min Ayew, Britton and Routledge do very well moving the ball from centre to right, but again, they can’t get it into a dangerous area - they’ve yet to register a shot on target. City then break and Iheanacho again takes up a dangerous position, but the ball to him is overhit and he can’t quite regain control. 22 min Iheanacho slams one over the bar from 20 yards as we learn that Spurs are losing at Newcastle. With Arsenal winning at home to Villa, of the scores stay the same, they’d finish above their rivals, having their greatest season in a generation, yet again. 20 min Swansea look sharp, as you’d expect from a team in such smart form, but hard to see them restricting De Bruyne, Aguero and Iheanacho to no more goals. 19 min More news on that United-Bournemouth abandonment, here. 17 min The last time a game as Old Trafford was abandoned - I think - was the pre-season friendly against Urawa Red Diamonds in 2004. That time, the cause a storm; it must’ve been bad to be worse than this one against Boro in 1997. 15 min Routledge causes mither down the left, moving inside to slot a ball through for Montero - but he’s wandered offside. On which point, Routledge has come on a lot the last couple of seasons. Players sometimes need patience. 13 min Surely this is it now - surely City, despite it all, can’t make a mess from here? 10 min Swansea have the ball in the net - Rangel’s swinging cross bounces in front of Sagna and Montero and the former can’t decide whether to head or kick so falls over instead, leaving the latter to bundle home. But Mike Dean mikedeans a signal that there was a push, and Niall Quinn agrees; they’re both probably right, but it’s not entirely easy to be certain. Gosh. A long, searching ball into the left corner is well held up by Aguero and then laid back for De Bruyne. His low shot was shoved away by Nordfeldt and tapped in by Iheanacho - what a knack he has. The confusion was whether or not he was offside. It looked to me as though he was, Niall Quinn was certain to the contrary, we are, of course, both neutral, so we’ll have to wait for another replay. ... 5 min On which point, my guess would be that this delay does not suit United - they need to up the pressure on City, which means scoring goals and such. 4 min 3 min City ease forward with Iheanacho, Aguero and De Bruyne, the latter arcing a venomous low cross that narrowl eludes the former, Nordfeldt snatching on the dive. Good start to the game. 2 min Lovely from Swansea, playing like a side in form and moving the ball rapidly from centre to right. Rangel, marauding down the flank, then chipped a cross that went behind off Fernandinho’s arm; no penalty, and the corner is wasted. 1 min Apparently the “Premier League works hard to synchronize everythingâ€\x9d - by telling teams to all kick-off at the same time on the same day. Today’s game will be United’s third late kick-off in recent weeks after they got stuck in traffic en route to Spurs and were waylaid at West Ham - you may have heard. Out come the players at the Liberty. Apparently, supporters outside the Stretford End have been asked to move away from the ground. 45 minutes sounds unlikely to me, on which point Swansea-City will kick-off at 3pm. Swear down Manuel Pellegrini just said City have had a good season. Nice guy and all, but, well, y’know. Meanwhile … Turns out that, amazingly, Rojo wasn’t dropped for consistent abjectivity but, amazingly, is injured again; Schneiderlin is ill. “For Utd, I’d keep all of the first XI,â€\x9d emails Laim Searle. “But the subs are the problem. Would keep Pereira, Jones and Varela, ditch the rest.â€\x9d Heh - I disagree, to the extent I even know - anyone even knows - what the first XI is. The, er, “strengthâ€\x9d in depth isn’t too bad, there just isn’t enough quality among the better players. The North Stand and Scoreboard End are still populated - more news regarding what’s going on as I get it, but on a footballing note, this could make things better or worse: Swansea-City will presumably start on time, so we’ll know whether the Battle for Fourth PlaceTM is either on or off. There’s an incident somewhere in the ground that the authorities are dealing with. The ground is emptying, and it looks like a minimum delay of 45 minutes. Let’s hope everything and everyone is ok. Let’s play a parlour game: of the City and United squads, who would you bin and who would you keep? “Is anyone taking bets on United finishing 4th, winning the FA Cup and still sacking Van Gaal?â€\x9d emails Thabo Mokaleng. “I’d put down a fiver.â€\x9d I’d say the first is the least likely of those... Graeme Souness reckons if United finish top four and win the Cup, Van Gaal should keep his job. Tangentially, here is some information on his time at United: BREAKING NEWS: Michael Carrick’s kids are United’s mascots today. Read into that whatever you please. Anyway, what of Bournemouth and Swansea? That’s a rhetorical question. Both have been superb this season, the former all the way through, the latter when they really needed to be The question for both is how they progress from here... Nostalgia corner: 25 years ago today, United beat Barcelona in Rotterdam to win the Cup Winners’ Cup, and English teams were back to dominate Europe. Here’s Elton Welsby and Denis Law, perhaps the only man able to wear overcoat over shoulders and still look smart as. And here’s ITV’s post-match coverage, along with some news reports. As for United, Marcos Rojo is left out following the longest jetlag on record - Cameron Borthwick-Jackson comes in. Also dropped are Ander Herrera and Morgan Schneiderlin, who, along with Rojo, isn’t even on the bench. All three were signed by Van Gaal and thought to be quite good at the time. Bournemouth make five changes: out go Boruc, Stanislas, Gradel, Afobe and Grabban; in come Federici, Surman, Pugh, Wilson and King. What does it all mean? Well, Swansea bring in Nordfeldt, Rangel, Britton and Montero for Fabianski, Naughton, Barrow and Ki; Ki is on military duty and was outstanding in their win at West Ham. City, on the other hand, are playing so well as to be unchanged. Which also means that Yaya Toure, who may well never play for City again, is on the bench. Swansea City: Nordfeldt, Rangel, Fernandez, Amat, Kingsley, Britton, Cork, Fer, Routledge, Montero, Ayew. Subs: Vickers, Naughton, Fulton, Gorre, Barrow, Emnes. Gomis. Manchester City: Hart, Sagna, Otamendi, Mangala, Clichy, Fernando, Fernandinho, Navas, De Bruyne, Iheanacho, Aguero. Caballero, Sterling, Kolarov, Demichelis, Nasri, Toure, Bony. **** Manchester United: De Gea; Valencia, Smalling, Blind, Borthwick-Jackson; Carrick, Rooney, Lingard; Mata, Rashford, Martial. Subs: Romero, Jones, Varela, Young, Herrera, Pereira, Memphis. Bournemouth: Federici, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Arter, Surman, Pugh, Wilson, King. Subs: Holmes, O’Kane, Gosling, Iturbe, Gradel, Grabban, Afobe. It’s been a funny old season. Well, provided your team doesn’t play in Manchester, where mirth has been conspicuous by its schadenfreude. Because, let’s be clear: City and United have both been absolutely appalling. Yes, they sit 4th and 5th in the table, but standards are relative and neither are anywhere near those demanded of them. Naturally, they have accomplished this in different ways: where City are a debacle, United are a travesty. The Blues started well then fell apart, generally defending badly and mainly struggling to score against the better teams, entirely devoid of purpose or plan; the Reds started tediously and continued similarly, occasionally defending badly and routinely struggling to score against everyone, entirely devoid of conviction or élan. So, to today. If City beat or draw with Swansea, they take the final Champions League qualifying spot; if City lose at Swansea and United beat Bournemouth, United usurp them. Which, on the face of it, it barely matters. Neither deserve to be anywhere near the competition, neither is any sort of threat to those who might win it, and neither is likely to be next season. Or, put another way, the only fitting outcome this afternoon is for City to lose and United to draw, which probably means City will score early, get the job done comfortably, and that’ll be an end to it . But, just look at the state of them! Kick-off - or kicks-off - 3pm BST',
 'Brexit referendum could destabilise UK recovery, says IMF The International Monetary Fund has warned that Britain’s steady growth could be jeopardised by the uncertainty in the run-up to the referendum on EU membership in June. The Washington-based organisation, which broadly backed the government’s handling of the economy, said on Wednesday the decision to hold an in-out vote injected another risk to UK growth when it was already under pressure from slowing global trade and turmoil in financial markets. IMF chief Christine Lagarde told CNN: “Uncertainty is bad in and of itself. No economic player likes uncertainty. They don’t invest, they don’t hire, they don’t make decisions in times of uncertainty.â€\x9d Lagarde also argued that Britain had benefited from trade and financial ties with the EU, and from migration of workers back and forth, though she sidestepped calculating the damage Brexit might cause. “My hunch … is that it is bound to be a negative on all fronts. For those that stay, because there are fewer of them, and for those who go, because they lose the benefit of [that] facilitation of exchange.â€\x9d Lagarde’s comments reveal her frustration with one of the developed world’s few growing economies and that, rather than the UK providing a calming influence, concerns over the impending referendum add to the already febrile atmosphere in global markets. Britain’s economy has remained resilient in recent months to shocks from plunging stock markets and fears of a dramatic slowdown in China, the eurozone and the US. In a report on the UK, the IMF, the global lender of last resort, praised George Osborne’s efforts to calm the property market with stamp duty tax reforms and a strengthening of banking regulations. It also welcomed the chancellor’s plan to bring down the deficit in public spending over the next five years while the Bank of England maintains loose monetary policy with low interest rates. But the IMF’s annual health check said “the relatively positive outlook is subject to risks and uncertaintiesâ€\x9d, including a global slowdown, sluggish productivity growth, a large trade deficit, still-high levels of household debt, and the forthcoming referendum on EU membership. It said any sign of weakness in growth should be met with higher spending by the Treasury. The UK authorities should explore “both revenue and expenditure measures, while protecting spending in priority areas, including healthcare, education, and infrastructureâ€\x9d. The report emphasised that “flexibility in the fiscal framework should be used to modify the pace of adjustment in the event of weaker demand growthâ€\x9d.',
 'Never mind immigrants, let’s clamp down on nasty Euro moths! With all the frantic panic going on around the EU referendum next week, it’s easy to overlook the fact that this is a distraction from the real issue. Never mind immigration, or terrorism, or economic concerns, or who controls what; the real danger facing the UK at the moment? Moths! Millions and millions of greedy selfish European Diamondback moths are set to invade our glorious land, devouring our crops, hassling our women, taking our jobs and claiming benefits. You won’t have heard a peep about this from the government though, thanks to the liberal pro-moth lefty PC agenda that controls our media for some reason despite us having the most right-wing government for a generation. You can’t argue with the facts! Unless they’re facts you don’t agree with, in which case argue all you want. Fill your boots. Whatever happened to free speech? Where was I? Ah, yes, moths. Thank God for that bastion of honest reporting and insightful journalism that is The Sun, for having the mothballs big enough to warn us of this new threat from the EU while our elected leaders try and distract us with minor concerns like an economy in meltdown. Churchill wouldn’t have allowed this. He’d have scrambled the RAF at the first sign of the flappy terror appearing over the white cliffs of Dover. Simply put: you can’t trust moths. What have they ever done for us? They come over here, uninvited, lay about 150 eggs in a single go, eat our cabbages, and even our clothes! You seen those large bins in car parks and supermarkets where you can donate clothes to “charityâ€\x9d? Yeah, right. There is no charity, they’re all fed to the hordes of freeloading moths, kept here at the expense of your taxes. It’s true, because it stands to reason. And it stands to reason because it’s true. That’s not circular reasoning, that’s watertight logic. Honestly, what kind of person eats clothes? Sure, the bleeding-heart lefty liberals of the will say “It’s not a person, it’s a moth! It doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to think like a human. It’s an insect! The most common form of the order Lepidoptera, in fact. Diamondback moths feed exclusively on vegetables in the family Brassicaceae, which includes things like cabbages and sprouts. Some moths seem to eat clothes, but it’s actually the larvae that do that as they grow. Adult moths don’t have the mouth parts needed to eat threads. But never mind all that, who are you? Why are you constantly yelling? And what are you doing in my house?! Get out or I’ll call the police!â€\x9d Typical lefty nonsense, as ever. But do you want moths infesting this country, pushing up the house prices and influencing your children? Is that what you want? To end up living next door to a house filled with thousands of moths, and your children to only come out at night to hang upside-down from the ceiling and chew on a cabbage stalk? And Diamondback moths? DIAMONDback? They come over here, take our crops and upset our farmers, and they have diamonds on their backs? The most expensive jewel there is? What else, do they have the latest iPhones tucked under their wings too? Do they own a string of houses in Hampstead as well? You know they do. Don’t give me all that “there’s no way any of this could be correct in any logical context whatsoeverâ€\x9d talk, it’s about time somebody came forward and spoke the truth about moths. And these diamondback moths are even pesticide resistant! With typical European arrogance, they refuse to drop dead when exposed to toxic chemicals, like a good honest polite British moth would do. It’s a disgrace, it really is. So what’s to be done? Well moths are attracted to light (I think), so that explains why they’re drawn to the bright shining beacon of hope and democracy that is the UK. Makes sense. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so we need everyone to shut off their lights when it gets dark. Literally everyone in the country (apart from her majesty the Queen of course). Only then will these flying vermin get the message that they’re not welcome anymore. We also need to step up passport control. Tighter rules need to be brought in; we’re already not allowed to smile or wear glasses in our passport photos, surely they can exclude anyone who has anti-reflective compound eyes? Or is about 2 inches long and has wings and is an insect? How hard can it be? But mark my words, if we don’t make a stand now, we’ll soon be swamped with freeloading moths. Maybe in a year, maybe months, weeks, even… tomorrow? What do you mean “don’t get in a flap?â€\x9d Flap? FLAP! YOU’RE ONE OF THEM! Dean Burnett is on Twitter and is currently promoting his latest book The Idiot Brain. Neither contain any mention of moths. The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett ( Faber, £12.99). To order a copy for £7.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.',
 'University mental health services face strain as demand rises 50% The number of students seeking counselling at university has rocketed by 50% in the last five years, according to figures obtained by the . As tens of thousands of teenagers leave their family homes this week and begin to arrive on campuses for freshers’ week, research shows that university counselling services are under increasing pressure as demand grows. Heads of university counselling services say they are seeing more students arrive with existing psychological or mental health conditions. Some counselling services are under-resourced, and students are seeking help against a backdrop of mounting pressure to get the best possible degree, in order to secure a good job to pay off their debts from student loans. “What used to happen was that in the first year people played hard,â€\x9d said one head of counselling. “But now they are coming in already worried that they need to do well. They are far more vulnerable.â€\x9d The increasing number of international students is also a factor, with many under even greater pressure to succeed, coming from families who may have saved up for years to send one of their children to a UK university. But though the overall trend is up, experts in the sector say part of the increase in demand is down to a new willingness among young people to ask for help. Many universities have also become far more proactive in reaching out to students. The figures, obtained through a series of freedom of information requests to higher education (HE) institutions across the UK, indicate that at some universities young men, who are traditionally hard to reach, are increasingly using services as some of the taboo surrounding mental health dissipates. For instance, at the University of Edinburgh, the number of male students approaching support services – including chaplaincy, disability and mental health services – between 2010-11 and 2014-15, more than doubled, with numbers up from 274 a year to 623. Numbers of men approaching services also almost doubled at Glasgow University over the same period, thanks in part to male staff working on the counselling team, and a peer-to-peer support network which attracted a significant number of male students. University College London was the only institution in the sample to include figures for transgender students seeking counselling. The figures were collected for the last three years and have increased slowly to 12 in 2015-16. Catherine McAteer, the head of UCL’s student psychological services, said: “We have 39,000 students, soon to go up to over 40,000. There are 13 clinicians in my team. The reality is 13 people cannot meet that kind of demand.â€\x9d McAteer said her team had looked after 3,022 students in 2015-16, some of whom had lengthy waits before being seen, the longest being 15 weeks. “The problem is the longer they have to wait, the more likely it is that the problem will escalate,â€\x9d she said. When McAteer took over as head of the department in 2002, just 9% of students who accessed the service had existing psychological or mental health conditions. Last year 53% had previously been seen by therapists for a variety of issues including depression, anxiety and eating disorders. The 50% increase in the number of students accessing counselling is based on figures comparing uptake of services in 2010-11 and 2014-15 provided to the by 37 higher education institutions, including many leading Russell Group universities, such as Oxford, Durham, Liverpool and Sheffield. In numerical terms, students accessing counselling services in the sample rose from just under 25,000 five years ago to more than 37,000 in the 2014-15 academic year, a 50% rise. This trend persists even when an overall increase in student enrolment is taken into account. Among those institutions which provided comparable enrolment and counselling figures, the proportion of students accessing these services rose by 47% in the same period. “What’s happening is that students are now coming to university when previously they would not have come,â€\x9d McAteer said. “When they come to a university like UCL or Oxford or Cambridge – one of the top 10 universities – the pressure is enormous.â€\x9d Swansea University, which recorded just 80 students seeking counselling in 2010-11, saw figures shoot up to more than 1,000 five years later, largely as a result of the university’s efforts to raise awareness among students and to destigmatise mental health issues. Kevin Child, the head of student services at Swansea, said: “The significant increase in demand for mental health support is a national trend, with all HE providers identifying the issue as a significant challenge. “We have attracted students to our services who may traditionally have attempted to manage mental health issues for longer periods without coming forward, especially males. This has enabled us to make earlier interventions and provide more specific and effective support at an earlier stage.â€\x9d Ruth Caleb, the head of counselling services at Brunel University London (which was not part of the sample), and chair of the mental wellbeing in higher education working group, said there had been a 22% increase in demand for counselling at her university last year alone, with young men coming forward in greater numbers – 42.5% of Brunel students seeking counselling were male in 2015-16. “Now that students are paying higher fees and are coming away with quite a lot of debt, there’s a lot more concern about getting a job and paying that debt off. They come in with the anxiety that they need to get a good degree,â€\x9d Caleb said. “If the first few assignments don’t go brilliantly, it’s far more of a concern to them than it used to be. “The other issue is the enormous growth in international students and widening participation students. It’s much harder to be a student if you are the first in your family or community to go to university.â€\x9d International students are often reluctant to join in social activities because they feel they should work all the time. Caleb cited “students who are coming from sometimes unstable societies – Syrian students Skyping their families and hearing the guns going off behind the Skype pictureâ€\x9d. She said it was good that more young people felt able to come forward and ask for help, but resources for counselling services had not always grown sufficiently, and in some cases had reduced in spite of the growth in demand. A report on Thursday by the Higher Education Policy Institute said that a number of universities needed to triple their spending on mental health support to meet demand. Some universities are prioritising mental healthcare. The University of York announced on Thursday it was investing £500,000 in mental healthcare provision across its campus after a six-month review, prompted by an increasing demand for services from students and disruptions to mental health provision in the city. The university is planning to expand its in-house counselling service, employing two new members of staff to ensure those who need urgent appointments can be seen quickly. The vice-chancellor, Prof Koen Lamberts, said: “As the number of students considering higher education grows, we must work hard to encourage openness between staff and students to talk about these issues in a supportive environment.â€\x9d The Nightline Association, which offers counselling services to roughly 18,000 students a year through its 39 branches, said that in the last year alone calls rose by 78% in Leicester, 46% in Sheffield, 40% in Durham and 35% in Leeds. Katie Nicoll Baines, a volunteer at Nightline, said: “The rise is perhaps because people are becoming willing to use our services, and perhaps they just need them more because university is becoming such a competitive and trying environment for a lot of young people.â€\x9d Alan Percy, who is head of counselling at Oxford University and on the executive of the Heads of University Counselling Services, warned against “catastrophisingâ€\x9d student mental health. “A lot of these things are normal emotional responses to life challenges,â€\x9d he said. “A lot of students are feeling overwhelmed by life and the pressures of life in terms of having to be perfect. A lot of them feel they’ve got to get everything right.â€\x9d But he added: “It’s not universities that are causing this. It’s a wider social problem.â€\x9d ‘You know that you’re going to come out with around £50,000 of debt. I stress about that all the time’ Struggling to be heard over the din of excited freshers, a small group of students has gathered in Sheffield University’s students’ union to talk about mental health. The committee of the Mental Health Matters Society are not in the least surprised by the statistics showing university counselling services around the country are under huge pressure. They all say they love their university, describe it as “welcomingâ€\x9d and are sure it’s better than most at providing services, but have joined the society, set up a decade ago, to be part of a student support network and to campaign for more awareness and funding for mental health. Joseph Bonnett, a final-year geography student and the society’s men’s health representative says he found help by talking about his problems with friends and with the society. He says that although such societies cannot provide treatment or counselling, they offer a support network outside the official structures for those suffering from mental health problems. With £9,000-a-year tuition fees and a tough graduate jobs market, the group agree that modern student life involves more pressure. When the society’s president, Reena Staves, was managing its online accounts last year she was inundated by people needing help, with depression, anxiety and eating disorders being among the most common problems. “I just really wanted to say to them: ‘I’ve been in a similar place,’ but I couldn’t because that would have been unprofessional, so I just had to point them in the direction of the various services available,â€\x9d she says. Gracie Marlow, a second-year English and philosophy student, says she is constantly stressed about her future job prospects. “You know that you’re going to come out with around £50,000 of debt. I stress about that all the time,â€\x9d she says. “And you’re probably going to end up with a job that doesn’t pay much more than it would if you didn’t have a degree.â€\x9d A commonly raised issue is the pressure to have the stereotypical student experience, with all the heavy drinking and late nights that that entails. “I remember during the first week of uni there was a kind of intro tour and they told us this was going to be the best three years of our lives and that we were going to have the most amazing time,â€\x9d says Lucy Baldwin, the society’s vice-president, who is in the final year of a zoology degree. “My uni experience has not been the same as a lot of people’s and you think: ‘Have I wasted this? Should I have tried harder?’ And a lot of people can get in a rut thinking that their experience hasn’t been what it was supposed to be and feeling like everybody else around them is having the best time ever. I don’t think social media helps with that.â€\x9d The group acknowledges that the growing burden put on university mental health services is also partly the result of a greater willingness to talk about issues. “[Society] is becoming more open, but if we can’t provide support for the people who now feel that they can speak up about [mental ill health], that’s a really difficult position to be in,â€\x9d says Megan Myer, who is doing a master’s in English literature. Myer argues that universities should be prioritising funding for mental health services above all else. “It’s great to have the infrastructure and the resources, but if you as a person don’t have the resources to get through university then there’s no point having the big expensive buildings,â€\x9d she says. “People should be the priority.â€\x9d Louise Knowles, the head of the University Counselling Service, says the wellbeing of students and staff is paramount and that the service works hard to ensure its “free, confidential service is one our students have confidence inâ€\x9d. “It is our work in this area that helped us become the first university counselling service – and one of only seven organisations nationally – to be awarded a new quality assurance accreditation badge through the Accreditation Programme for Psychological Therapy Services last year,â€\x9d she says. “Our accreditation recognises both the extremely short wait times – which have almost halved since 2011-12 – as well as our talented and clinically robust team who offer a varied range of treatments and interventions in a challenging environment. “We are committed to continually improving the quality and standard of the service we deliver, balancing this against increasing numbers accessing our service and looking at new and innovative ways of working with students.â€\x9d Additional reporting by Pamela Duncan and Sophia Schirmer. Producing in-depth, thoughtful, well-reported journalism is difficult and expensive - but supporting us isn’t. If you value the the ’s coverage of mental health issues, please help to fund our journalism by becoming a supporter.',
 'Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The book that declared pop music dead In the spring of 1968, the former Queen magazine pop columnist Nik Cohn rented a cottage in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland. All of 22, he had fallen out of love with pop music, and he hid himself away for two months to write a cross between a memoir and a farewell letter. For Cohn, it felt like the end of an era of pop that was “intelligent and simple bothâ€\x9d, that carried its implications lightly, that was “fast, funny, sexy, obsessive, a bit epicâ€\x9d. He sniffed pretension in the air as pop turned to rock, and he wanted to get it all down on paper before he completely lost interest. The confidently titled Pop from the Beginning moved from Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock in 1955 to the ebbing tide of psychedelia and the return to roots (Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, the Beatles’ “Lady Madonnaâ€\x9d) of early 1968. Published in 1969, just as the Beatles disintegrated, Pop from the Beginning was the first definitive text on pop music. Cohn wrote in fast, short sentences; the book read like a series of 7in singles, with no room for deviation, no long solos, no flab at all. By the time it was reprinted as a paperback a year later, it had a new title – Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom – and a telltale subtitle: “the Golden Age of Rockâ€\x9d. Cohn had predicted the sea change; he had fallen out of love with pop just as the Beatles-led consensus years came to end: pop was split, hard left and right, between Radio 1 factory‑farmed pop (“Sugar, Sugarâ€\x9d) and self-conscious, album-based heavy rock (Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath). For Cohn, a teddy boy at heart, neither came close to the glamour and speed fix of the rapidly receding “golden ageâ€\x9d he wrote about with such dash: Elvis’s “great ducktail plume and lopsided grinâ€\x9d, Phil Spector’s “beautiful noiseâ€\x9d, and James Brown, “the outlaw, the Stagger Lee of his timeâ€\x9d. Among the the reasons Cohn’s book has remained such a thrilling, inspirational read are its total confidence and absolute sense of finality. By 1969, Cohn considered John Lennon “self-pityingâ€\x9d, thought the Who were “going through the same old stuntsâ€\x9d, and dismissed Pink Floyd as “very solemn, most artistic, boring almost beyond beliefâ€\x9d. The new order spurned flash, and dressed down in T-shirts and denims; Cohn, disgusted, reacted in 1971 with a book on fashion called Today There Are No Gentlemen. He has never shown any inclination to write an updated edition of Awopbopaloobop. Nik Cohn grew up in postwar Derry. His father was a renowned historian, Norman Cohn, which may have put young Nik off anything approaching rigour in his writing. At 13, he spent a week in London, where he found a paperback of Alan Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and Inventor of Jazz; the cover promised to explain how “he put the heat into hot musicâ€\x9d. Jazz historians have dismissed large chunks of Morton’s life story as wishful thinking, while confirming that he was also a hugely significant talent and influence, but aged 13, Nik Cohn didn’t care for dry history, wasn’t remotely bothered that Morton had vamped up his past. He was absorbed by tales of pimps and voodoo queens, and pictured Mister Jelly Roll as the dust jacket described him, “wearing a hundred-dollar suit as sharp as a tipster’s sheet … the diamond in a front tooth gleaming like gaslightâ€\x9d. The book contained a map of New Orleans – Cohn memorised every street. As a Jewish kid growing up in sectarian Ulster, he felt like an outsider and sought escape in invention; Mister Jelly Roll fed right into a mythology of flash, violence and seven-day weekends that he had first discovered through Elvis Presley’s records, and became the biggest literary influence on Cohn’s career. Awopbopaloobop transferred the underworld grit, diamond-studded teeth and overflowing dresses in Cohn’s imagination to the glamour, the ostentation, the ruthlessness and grubbiness of the pop business. He would soon base the 1970 novel Arfur: Teenage Pinball Queen in his fictionalised New Orleans, now renamed Moriarty (“the foremost city of the nation, a compound of refinement and squalor, grace and depravityâ€\x9d), where there were now beautifully named quarters of Cohn’s own making – Jitney, Cicero and Savoy, “the wealthy St Jude and the shanty Canrushâ€\x9d. Cohn applied this fantastical approach to the real story of pop, cutting down people he thought were likely to diminish the music’s sense of fun and fast-moving disposability (Bob Dylan, the Doors, even the Beach Boys), and to praise outsiders, troublemakers, short-lived stars whose one major hit (Del Shannon’s “Runawayâ€\x9d, for instance) he considered to be worth as much as Van Morrison’s entire career. Trouser-tearing PJ Proby’s profile was elevated monstrously – with all of three top 10 hits to his name, Proby was given a whole chapter in Awopbopaloobop on the strength of his outsized ego and chaotic potential. This was significant and, at the time, outrageous – in 1969, it must have seemed that seriousness had won out for good, with levity confined to novelty singles and bubblegum. After all, it had only taken John Lennon six years to get from the lung-busting liberation of Twist And Shout to a concept album about Arthur Janov’s trauma-based primal scream therapy. Cohn took sides, and it wouldn’t have been a hard choice. Just as he had romanticised New Orleans, Cohn set to perfecting the story of pop, from the beginning. “My purpose was clear,â€\x9d he wrote in 2004. He wanted “to capture the feel, the pulseâ€\x9d of what he called “Superpopâ€\x9d, with no dry discographies or chart positions. In doing this, he latterly admitted to adding baubles and colouring. Some of the stories, he wrote in Triksta (2005), were flat-out invented. I’d lay money on one of the embellished stories being his meeting with Gene Pitney in a hotel room, where Pitney “was talking business on a long-distance telephone … like a full-blown tycoon … tie twisted, sweatmarks under his armpits. Deals – they lit him up like neon.â€\x9d I love Gene Pitney, I own a dozen of his albums and a stack of 45s, but I’d still admit that his public presentation could do with a little ornamentation. Cohn was cheeky. He thought he was doing acts such as Pitney a favour by making them seem more interesting and, most of the time, he was. It was showmanship. It was Hollywood. And it was a little depressing to read in Triksta that Cohn winced at his embellishments, and considered his younger self a fraud. In a new preface for the Vintage Classics edition of Awopbopaloobop, he seems a little more at ease: “Any man, at 70, who claims he relishes being confronted by his raw self at 22 is crazy or lying or both.â€\x9d The main lesson I learned from reading Awopbopaloobop when I was 22, and a budding music writer, is that pop is all about myth-building – there’s really no such thing as authenticity or fraudulence. Many of the judgments he made in 1969 still seem mischievous. The Rolling Stones he considered heroic, but a spent force (the imminent Let It Bleed changed his mind in time for the paperback afterword); if they had “any sense of neatness, they’ll get themselves killed in an aircrash three days before their 30th birthdaysâ€\x9d. Led Zeppelin he dealt with in a single word: “embarrassingâ€\x9d. Cohn liked his black music to come from black musicians, and his soul music on the rawer side. “Softness and tenderness, wistful ironiesâ€\x9d he conceded as blindspots, describing Motown as mere “foot fodderâ€\x9d but having a lot of time for relatively minor practitioners such as Joe Tex, who he saw as “hugely smugâ€\x9d but with “great charm and inventivenessâ€\x9d. Tex didn’t make it easy for you to find your way in to his music. The way Cohn paints it, Tex isn’t just awkward, he’s barely likable. On his Vietnam song “I Believe I’m Gonna Make Itâ€\x9d, a girlfriend’s letter overwhelms him with love and pride, and gives him so much inner strength that stands up and shoots dead two North Vietnamese soldiers. Joe Tex did not exude kindness. You reel back at Cohn’s words, and wonder why anyone would even bother listening to Tex’s records, but then he turns on a sixpence and reels you in with a couple of lines: “He’s funny, he really is, and he obviously enjoys himself. So his records turn into good clean dirt and you can’t resent them. You keep trying to disapprove but your principles slip. That’s how you get corrupted.â€\x9d The writing is so bittersweet and succinct, the cadences so true. Cohn also pulls out plums by being at the heart of the story as it unfolded, chronicling forgotten truths. The Beatles are now regularly credited with making pop acceptable, elevating it from the realms of teenage delinquency, and forcing critics in the Sunday papers to consider pop stars as thinkers, not just purveyors of teenage noise. Cohn doesn’t doubt the group took pop from the back streets and into the art gallery (something he strongly disapproves of), but spots an earlier turning point in Adam Faith’s 1960 appearance on the BBC TV show Face to Face. An interview programme, hosted by John Freeman, Face to Face smelled strongly of importance – guests included Augustus John, Carl Jung and Tony Hancock. Acton boy Faith had quickly become one of the biggest British pop stars of the post rock’n’roll, pre-Beatles era by dint of a hiccoughing, Buddy Holly-like vocal style, so was not expected to do anything other than embarrass himself in front of Freeman. So when he spoke neatly and smoothly on national television about his admiration for Sibelius and The Catcher in the Rye it was a minor sensation. “Pop began to go up in the world,â€\x9d says Cohn. “Slowly and humbly, admittedly, but upwards just the same.â€\x9d Praising Adam Faith was never going to win you kudos from rock classicists, but Cohn wasn’t afraid of appearing uncool, or even plain wrong. Pseuds and bores, no matter how feted, were his real enemy, and he guessed the 70s would be a pretentious decade. At the conclusion of Awopbopaloobop, he predicted “formal works for pop choirs, pop orchestras; pop concerts held in halls … sounds and visuals combined … on something like a gramophone and TV set knocked into oneâ€\x9d. Briskly, he had predicted progressive rock and MTV. Still he didn’t care; his love affair with pop was over. After Awopbopaloobop, he spent the 70s writing novels – the super-bleak King Death (1975), which he now considers a failure – and short pieces including the clubland story “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Nightâ€\x9d, which morphed into Saturday Night Fever. But mostly he left music alone. Even if his thoughts had been entirely negative, I’d have loved to read Cohn on Marc Bolan, Joe Strummer, Prince, even Boyzone. It’s not hard to see why he can’t be bothered now, when you look at Britain’s current crop of top-selling acts: the milky Ed Sheeran, the glum foghorn Sam Smith, and Ellie Goulding, whose major characteristic seems to be that she loves going to the gym – they simply don’t cut it. You’d never call them superstars. It isn’t just that they don’t match up to the “golden age of rockâ€\x9d – even the vulgar neediness of Robbie Williams or Geri Halliwell in the recent past was something to latch on to, to love or to hate. Pop music needs writers like Nik Cohn to kick up trouble, to give albums anything other than four-star reviews, and that way maybe the musicians will also rise to the challenge. •Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom is reissued by Vintage Classics. To order it for £7.19 (RRP £8.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Bob Stanley’s Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé is published by Faber.',
 'Antonio Conte’s adaptability is helping his Chelsea side to prosper At first, the idea was simply to stop the bleeding. Three-nil down at half-time against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium a little over five weeks ago, Antonio Conte switched to a back three. The Chelsea manager had enjoyed success with the approach in his previous jobs with Juventus and the Italy team and, against Arsenal, it restored a measure of stability. Chelsea still lost, 3-0, but Conte could feel the stirrings of something. Look at Chelsea now. This was their fourth Premier League game since Conte’s tactical move and it was also their fourth clean sheet. Even better from a Chelsea perspective, Southampton never looked like scoring. The only time Thibaut Courtois was worked in the Chelsea goal was in the 28th minute, from a Dusan Tadic free-kick, and the save was entirely regulation. Claude Puel’s Southampton had entered on the back of a five-match unbeaten league run, a sequence that took in the impressive 1-1 draw at Manchester City the previous weekend. The manager deserved the plaudits that had tracked him for his dynamic style of football, in which the player in possession is encouraged to take the daring option. Puel does not tolerate sideways tedium. He has given the club’s latest reworked team the platform to play. Here it was dismantled, and Conte could revel in how he brought that about. His system has flexibility, speed and options, and it has also had Chelsea’s recent opponents gasping for breath. Southampton could not find the spaces, they had the life steadily squeezed out of them and, from the moment that Eden Hazard put Chelsea in front early on, it was possible to feel that it would be a long afternoon for the hosts. It was Chelsea who constructed the platform to play. They had 45% of possession but they made it count. It was they who created the chances and they could conceivably have scored more to emulate the 4-0 scoreline that they inflicted upon Manchester United at Stamford Bridge last Sunday. What makes Conte’s work so praiseworthy is how he has adapted. He did not moan when the summer transfer window closed and he had not made the signings he wanted; instead, Conte took what was available and worked with what he already had. David Luiz, who arrived on deadline day, looked assured again in the middle of the back three – in other words, not as though he was about to step on a rake and be smacked in the face – while César Azpilicueta, the right‑back turned left-back turned right central defender, continued to impress with his decision‑making. He did not put a foot wrong. What about Victor Moses? There have been times in the past when his Chelsea future has looked bleak. After a few months under Conte, he seems as if he has been a marauding right wing‑back all of his career. The manager described him as a pleasant “surpriseâ€\x9d. The drive and stamina of Moses and Marcos Alonso, the left wing-back, helped to make Chelsea tick here. On Saturday, three of the major title contenders had made statements – City, Arsenal and Liverpool each scoring four times in victory – and Chelsea had to respond. How they did so, and it was the control with which they won that resonated most loudly. Conte danced around the questions about his club’s title-winning prospects but, on this evidence, the notion is far from outlandish. Conte had moved Azpilicueta back into the back three at John Terry’s expense, after the 2-1 EFL Cup defeat at West Ham United last Wednesday, with Moses and Alonso returning to the starting lineup. The A-team had been reinstated and, with N’Golo Kanté and Nemanja Matic harrying relentlessly in front of the defence, there was a robustness about Chelsea. There were numerous moments when their height and physical power was decisive, particularly in the air on defensive set-pieces and, with Haz-ard and Diego Costa at the other end, Conte had the ruthlessness where it mattered the most. Puel gave Hazard his professional debut at Lille and he could curse Steven Davis for taking his eyes off him in the sixth minute. Hazard’s goal was marked by his presence of mind. He could have crossed when Moses ushered him in but the he believed that there was a better option. For long spells Chelsea were happy to allow Southampton to have the ball, and Conte’s formation was more 5-4-1 than 3-4-3, with the wing-backs and wide attackers dropped back. When Southampton looked forward, it felt like a daunting assignment to plot the way through. Costa’s goal was a beauty out of very little and, in many respects, this was the perfectly balanced away-day performance. It ought not to have been this straightforward. Chelsea have their tails up.',
 'Clive James: ‘Ben Affleck has overcome the handicap of his absurd good looks’ My copy of the 2012 Ben Affleck movie Argo lay around unwatched for a long time. A few nights ago, I fought my way in through the shrink-wrap and took a look. It revealed Affleck to be a terrific director as well as a fine actor. That latter quality was probably the reason I had left the shrink-wrap intact for so long. In Pearl Harbor, Affleck had overcome the handicap of his absurd good looks and done a creditable job of bringing to life his role as a brave young pilot, instead of doing what the script deserved and setting fire to it before placing himself under citizen’s arrest for having signed the contract in the first place. The movie was such a dog’s dinner that I couldn’t stop blaming Affleck for being in it. Though he had acted superbly as a has-been B-movie superhero in Hollywoodland, I still had to be persuaded at gunpoint to watch Gone Baby Gone, which proved that he had immense talent as a director. But, for me, Affleck was still the too-handsome actor who had been in that awful movie where a thousand Japanese aircraft tried to destroy Kate Beckinsale’s career. The only reason I finally took a look at Argo was that I was planning to write an article about Alan Arkin. Take a look at Arkin in Argo (so my article might start), and you’ll see what a great screen actor can do. You will also see (so my article might go on) why a great screen actor is not necessarily a bankable film star. Robert Redford at his peak was more bankable than Lassie, but he could never act like Arkin. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was stand there being gorgeous. He’s still doing it, looking a bit crinkled at the edges. In the 1990 movie Havana, you can see Arkin and Redford on screen together. Arkin convinces you he is a thoughtful expatriate whose complex soul has been eaten away by corruption, and Redford convinces you that he has a profile on each side of his face. Occasionally, Redford got so bored by his own beauty that he would go off and direct something. Affleck probably has the same motivation, but he has a lot more directorial flair. You can already see what this critical article of mine is up to. I might not get the chance to write it, but the theme is set to go. The theme is that it takes a lot of luck to defy expectations. Right now, I’ve got two new poetry books out and I should count my blessings if a camera crew turns up at my door. They might have thought I was just a pretty face and stayed away.',
 'Enough is enough: the 2016 election is now a referendum on male entitlement Lashing out at his accusers this afternoon, Donald Trump attacked all the women who say he has groped, kissed or inspected them naked without their consent. He called them “horrible, horrible liarsâ€\x9d and vowed to sue the New York Times for reporting their accounts. Minutes before the Florida rally where Trump declared war on women and the media, Michelle Obama offered a diametrically opposite view of reality and morality at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. Condemning Trump’s conduct as “intolerableâ€\x9d, she forcefully argued that no woman deserves to be treated this way. The contrast between the two couldn’t have been more dramatic. “This is not about politics. It’s about basic human decency,â€\x9d the first lady said, urging her listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton. “It’s about right and wrong. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough’.â€\x9d Her words echoed the thoughts of millions of women who watched last Sunday’s presidential debate and heard Trump deny he’s ever sexually assaulted women, even though he himself has publicly described having habitually done just that. What Trump didn’t realize was how many of his listeners were thinking about all the times that men had done such things to them. And in the moment future historians may define as an historic turning point, countless women said to themselves, “Enough.â€\x9d By midweek, even before Michelle Obama voiced that thought, the floodgates had opened as a rapidly expanding array of women described various forms of sexual assault they said Trump had inflicted on them – and told their stories, on the record, to the , the New York Times, Buzzfeed, People magazine, and the Palm Beach Post, among a growing list of publications. Since Trump thinks the best way to deal with any charges is to counter-attack as viciously as possible, his campaign immediately promised to dredge up more allegations of Bill Clinton’s past sexual misconduct. But no matter what Bill Clinton has done, he’s not running for president – and nobody has ever accused Hillary Clinton of grabbing the genitals of a stranger or pushing a man up against a wall and shoving her tongue down his mouth. The overwhelming majority of sex crimes are committed by men, and neither Trump nor most of the commentators trying to keep up with the current firestorm seem to understand that that fact alone has transformed this race. What Trump is now up against is not only his own actions, but the lived experience of every American woman. Is there a gender empathy gap? The last couple of decades brought a sea change in women’s sense of empowerment, as well as a new awareness of issues ranging from harassment to sexual consent. And as Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes could attest, women are no longer willing to remain silent about what men have done with impunity in the past. This week, a man finally acknowledged on national television what many women already understood about the 2016 election. “This is a gender war,â€\x9d Donny Deutsch announced on MSNBC’s Morning Joe the morning after the second debate. “Women in America are going to stand up and revolt – every woman in American who has ever been held down, oppressed, harassed. And if you’re not seeing that, you’re missing it.â€\x9d And yet many men are still missing it. Following the second debate, a series of national polls revealed a gender split that showed women opposing Trump by increasing margins. If only women voted on election day, Hillary Clinton would win in a landslide with 458 electoral votes to only 80 for Trump, as Nate Silver reported on FiveThirtyEight.com. As recent days have finally made clear, the 2016 election constitutes a referendum on male entitlement – and a Clinton victory will herald an earthquake that remakes the social landscape as dramatically as it does the national agenda. On one issue after another, polls reveal the widening divisions between men and women. Announcing the results of a survey measuring public reactions to Trump’s infamous “grab her by the pussyâ€\x9d remarks, ABC’s Rachel Tillman wrote, “There was a stark gender gap, with 62% of women less likely to vote for him while 55% of men say it will make no difference on their vote.â€\x9d Such differences should surprise no one, because men lead entirely different lives than women. Over the course of their lifetime, 57% of women report having been touched or grabbed in a sexual way by a stranger in public. Thirty-seven percent of women have had a stranger masturbate in front of them at least once in public. But strangers pose less of a danger than loved ones; more than a third of female murder victims are killed by their intimate partners. One in five women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime – most often by someone they are close to. Trump’s first wife accused him of such acts; in a sworn deposition during their divorce, Ivana Trump used the word “rapeâ€\x9d to describe forced sex in which her husband pulled out fistfuls of her hair. Is it any wonder that the segment of the electorate that is routinely victimized views such offenses differently than the segment of the electorate that commits them? Whether the crime is harassment, domestic violence or murder, the root cause includes an overwhelming sense of male entitlement: “I get to do this to you because I’m the man and you’re a woman.â€\x9d Such privilege carries an assumption of ownership, as with property rights: experts on domestic violence attest that men are more likely to assault female partners when they feel they’re losing control, as when threatened with a divorce or a restraining order. And men who fear they’re losing control have fueled the rise of Donald Trump. The gender gap between Trump’s support and Clinton’s is particularly staggering among men who are ill-equipped in comparison with their female peers. An ABC News/Washington Post poll at the end of September showed Trump with an overwhelming 59-point lead among among white men who don’t have college degrees – 76% of whom supported him. In an era when women make up nearly 60% of college and graduate school students, those men are falling further and further behind. Despite such numbers, any real recognition of their import has been a long time coming. For the last year and a half, as myriad so-called experts struggled to understand the Trump phenomenon, their analyses focused on race, religion, ethnicity, class and income. With notable obtuseness, they resisted the most universal explanation well past the time when it should have been obvious. Throughout this campaign, Trump’s public persona has constituted a textbook illustration of male domination: gaslighting, threatening and insulting at every turn. he has consistently acted like a vicious bully who will stop at nothing to subordinate his foes. At his first debate with Hillary Clinton, he interrupted her 51 times. But Trump’s interrupting and shouting over his adversaries during the debates were only an extension of the domineering traits that have long been clear. This week’s news included reports from Miss USA contestants, some as young as 15, that Trump deliberately walked in on them backstage while they were naked. Trump has even bragged about doing so: “I sort of get away with things like that,â€\x9d he said on The Howard Stern Show in 2005. As the possessor of a penis, celebrity and a fortune, Trump has never questioned his right to inspect and rank women in terms of his own interest in having sex with them. For decades his objectification of women has remained as consistent as the ugliness of his values; as a self-appointed judge of female worth, he and his beauty pageants and reality shows have perpetuated the misogynistic standards that nullify the value of any woman who is not very young, very thin and conventionally attractive. And with Trump, the double standards are so extreme it would be laughable if they weren’t so destructive, from his fat-shaming of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado to the gratuitous insult he lobbed at Heidi Klum when he announced, apropos of nothing, that the supermodel was “sadly, no longer a 10â€\x9d. Nor did Trump – a chronic philanderer currently married to his third wife, having dumped the previous two after each had borne him children – see anything wrong with attacking Hillary Clinton over her husband’s past infidelity. No matter what awful things men do, it’s always the woman’s fault. But women are becoming ever less compliant – and female insurrection is particularly upsetting to men who are already anxious about their ability to maintain their authority. Women have always been penalized for violating conventional gender norms, but no woman has ever had a realistic chance of winning the White House until now – and the backlash against Clinton’s temerity was apparent from the start of her campaign. As Sandy Garossino wrote in the National , “Until she ran for president, Clinton was the most admired woman in the world … So what the hell happened? The woman ran for president, that’s what. Who does she think she is?â€\x9d Clinton’s approval ratings have fluctuated wildly for decades. But the 2016 campaign ratcheted up the stakes to the point where the Republican nominee has promised to jail the female opponent who trounced him in both debates. The confidence of the mediocre white man Invoking the popularity of a tote bag that reads, “Lord, Give Me the Confidence of a Mediocre White Man,â€\x9d Jessica Valenti wrote about how exasperating it is to deal with “a bombastic but woefully under-informed man who is convinced of how much smarter he is than youâ€\x9d. When the article was published in the , its headline was: Why the mediocre male’s days may be numbered. Such predictions are, of course, what those men are worried about. In the early days of the modern women’s movement, Gloria Steinem observed humorously that the reason many men oppose equality is that they fear women will treat them the same way they’ve treated women. Then as now, it’s true that Not All Men behave badly. But the archetype is painfully familiar, as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a New York Times op-ed column headlined: A 7th grade bully runs for president. Kristof’s litany of characteristic behaviors was withering: “The boasts about not doing homework, the habit of blaming others when things go wrong, the penchant for exaggerating everything into the best ever, the braggadocio to mask insecurity about size of hands or genitals, the biting put-downs of others, the laziness, the self-absorption, the narcissism, the lack of empathy – and the immaturity that reduces a woman to her breasts.â€\x9d As Kristof’s list suggests, the less hard-working or accomplished men are, the more threatened they seem by the prospect of having to compete on a level playing field – and the more they resist the prospect of real female empowerment. Despite growing competition, many men – like Trump in the run-up to the first debate – refuse to compensate by working harder, no matter how poorly they fare. Time-use studies show that even when men don’t have jobs, they do far less housework and childcare than their working wives. Whether the issue is slacker husbands or discriminatory bosses who perpetuate the inequities of the gender pay gap, some women remain acquiescent to the unfairness of the status quo – but a lot of others are simply fed up. The question is: how many – and are they exasperated enough to head for the polls in droves? And will enough fair-minded men join them to elect the first female president in American history? The answer depends on how far we’ve come in accepting the idea of women as truly equal human beings who sometimes outdo their male counterparts. Last month Vanity Fair reposted a profile I wrote in 1994, when the then first lady was working on healthcare reform. The article quoted a powerful Capitol Hill insider who compared Mrs Clinton’s performance with that of her husband, the president. “I’ve seen them both make presentations, with dozens of senators at the table, and she’s better than he is,â€\x9d he said. “And these guys know it. They’ve sat in rooms with her, and they’ve sat in rooms with him. He’s good – he’s very good. She’s just fucking perfect.â€\x9d In a globalized world increasingly riven by conflicts of byzantine complexity, Clinton’s hard-earned knowledge and experience constitute her strongest claim to the Oval Office. But her rival – and the male minions who laud him as a “geniusâ€\x9d for evading taxes – fail to appreciate even that obvious point. Is this the president we want for our sons? As election day approaches, the larger question is how much sense of self-preservation will be manifested by the nation’s adult females. Will American women – and the men who actually care about their welfare – support the leadership of a man who feels entitled to kiss strangers on the mouth and brag about grabbing crotches, simply because he is rich and famous and male? Will voters agree that a man should view and rank all women according to their physical attributes and fire those he doesn’t find sexually desirable, because he thinks a woman’s value is measured by her looks? Will voters approve the double standards of a man who publicly humiliates women for their sexual conduct even as he laughs off his own far more lurid transgressions? Will the electorate agree that males don’t have to play by the rules – that men don’t need to do what’s best for their families (like refraining from dumping the mothers of their children in tabloid sex scandals) or for the economy (like paying contractors who provided services instead of cheating them) or for their country (like paying taxes)? The Clinton campaign has been running a commercial featuring some of Trump’s denigrating comments about women, superimposed over pictures of uncertain young girls scrutinizing themselves in the mirror as they struggle to decide whether their bodies define their value in the world. “Is this the president we want for our daughters?â€\x9d the ad asks. That leaves out an equally critical question: is this the president we want for our sons? A vote for Trump is a vote for the continuation of male entitlement – for the arrogance and inequity of unearned privilege, for the acceptance of irresponsibility in personal, familial and civic behaviors, and for the perpetuation of all the hateful biases that oppress women solely because of their gender. Is this the world we want to keep on living in, or is it finally time for us to demand a better one?',
 "Russia praises possible Trump pick Rex Tillerson's 'highly professional manner' The Kremlin has praised the professionalism of Rex Tillerson, thought to be Donald Trump’s leading contender for secretary of state, the ExxonMobil CEO who has forged close ties to Russia. “On account of his work as the head of one of the largest oil companies, he had contacts with our representatives more than once,â€\x9d President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday. “He fulfills his responsibilities in a highly professional manner.â€\x9d Peskov also said “there’s a big difference being secretary of state and directing even a very big companyâ€\x9d and that the Kremlin hoped for a “readiness to demonstrate a constructive attitude and display professionalismâ€\x9d from Washington. Putin had hosted Tillerson on several occasions, Peskov added. The Russian president honoured the oil executive with an order of friendship award in 2013. Although US president-elect Donald Trump has not yet nominated Tillerson, several news outlets have reported he is likely to do so in the next few days. Sergei Markov, a consultant to Putin’s staff, said that Tillerson’s likely appointment, combined with jobs offered to Michael Flynn, the president-elect’s national security adviser, and Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, retired General James Mattis, added up to “a fantastic team.â€\x9d “These are people that Russia can do business with,â€\x9d he told Bloomberg. Carter Page, an American energy consultant with ties to the president-elect who has criticised US sanctions against Russia, also lauded Tillerson on Monday during a trip to Russia. Trump named Page as one of his foreign policy advis ers in March, but his campaign subsequently denied any connection to the consultant after reports that US intelligence was probing Page’s ties to Russia. “The US and Russia still have 99 problems to address at home and around the world. But this marks the start of a new era where they can now work on them together, instead of remaining consistently obstructed by a long history of toxic personal relationships,â€\x9d Page said of the expected Tillerson pick, news agency Sputnik reported. Russian officials have greeted the possible appointment warmly. Senator Alexei Pushkov, a leading voice in foreign affairs, said the choice of Tillerson “confirms the seriousness of Trump’s intentionsâ€\x9d to improve relations with Moscow. “Judging by his appointments to key positions in his administration, Trump wants to see America decisive and strong, but doesn’t see any reason for a conflict with Russia,â€\x9d Pushkov tweeted after the news broke. Tillerson is known to have grown close to Putin and Rosneft head Igor Sechin while working on oil exploration in Russia, which was frozen when the US imposed sanctions in 2014. The three were filmed raising a champagne toast to an agreement between Rosneft and ExxonMobil. Putin also commended the “increasingly close relationsâ€\x9d between Tillerson’s company and Russia. Sechin once said that before sanctions he and Tillerson had been planning a motorcycle road trip in the US.",
 "Health secretary says problems with NHS are 'not just about money' Jeremy Hunt has sought to play down a row about the amount of new funding available for the NHS, saying the health service’s challenges are not just about money. The health secretary was challenged by the BBC’s Andrew Marr over the gulf between the government’s claim that the NHS had been awarded an additional £10bn of funding, and estimates by independent organisations that have put the “trueâ€\x9d figure at about £4.5bn. Last month, MPs on the health select committee threw their weight behind the lower figure, with the Tory parliamentarian Dr Sarah Wollaston warning that the government’s £10bn figure “is not only incorrect but risks giving a false impression that the NHS is awash with cashâ€\x9d. Last week, Nigel Edwards, the Nuffield Trust’s chief executive, warned: “The NHS is going into its toughest winter yet with the odds stacked against it. Demand for healthcare is on the rise, funding for both health and social care is being squeezed and A&E departments are missing their targets.â€\x9d Hunt dismissed a suggestion from Marr that the NHS’s performance was suffering because of a lack of funding: “We do tend to get in the run-up to the autumn statement a coalition of people who will say that the answer to all the NHS’s problems is more money from government.â€\x9d He said: “The big question is: does the NHS have enough money, and the answer to that is that we do need more resources – we are looking after a million more people aged over 75 than five years ago. That’s why we are putting in £4bn more.â€\x9d But he added: “It isn’t just about money – it’s also about standards.â€\x9d Ensuring that lessons were learned from medical accidents could help save the NHS on legal bills, Hunt said. “There’s lots of things we can do in terms of helping to ensure we are better at learning from mistakes, so that we don’t have this huge legislation bill of £1.5bn because of some of the mistakes we have made – that all helps on the money front.â€\x9d He added: “There are, of course, financial pressures, but I think it’s a mistake to say this is only about money. It’s also about getting the culture right.â€\x9d Winter is “extremely toughâ€\x9d for the health service, Hunt said: “I can say I think we are better prepared this year than we have ever been.â€\x9d But he added: “There’s always the unpredictable, the cold spells, the flu outbreaks and so on ... I think it would be wrong for any health secretary in the run-up to winter to say everything’s tickety-boo.â€\x9d",
 'Jane Got a Gun is not a feminist western – unless by ‘feminist’ you mean ‘contains a woman’ Jane Got a Gun was first described to me (by a man) as a “feminist westernâ€\x9d, a notion that got me excited and curious right away. What did they mean by “feminist westernâ€\x9d? Was it written and directed by women? Did it cleverly subvert and comment on the variegated female character tropes of traditional westerns, such as tragic brothel employee, bawdy brothel employee, brothel employee who is just OK with it, brothel employee giggling on a balcony, brothel employee behind a fan while men play cards, brothel employee being watched through a peephole and loving it, and Wyatt Earp’s wife? Did it strive to fill in the blanks about all the women missing from traditional westerns – the negative space around male heroes – their stories rendered invisible by histories and genre fiction written largely by men? I like westerns and I love feminism, so even if Jane Got a Gun was just 110 minutes of public breastfeeding near a cactus, I would take it. Jane Got a Gun is an adequate, conventional western. The performances are good. The writing is fine. I don’t know why you’d watch it when you could watch, say, Deadwood (which, incidentally, has some arguably masterful feminist characters), but if you eat, sleep, and breathe horse troughs and saloon doors and beard grime, it’ll scratch that itch. Natalie Portman is Jane, a grizzled-but-don’t-worry-still-hot frontierswoman homesteading in the New Mexico desert with her husband, a fur trader, and their little girl, a little girl. One day her husband shows up, full of bullets, and groans that the Bishop Boys – a band of ghoulish but dimensionless outlaws led by Ewan McGregor – are coming to put a bunch more bullets in Jane and the kid because of their irrational hunger for man-revenge (hey, instead of plodding hundreds of miles through unforgiving desert waste just to kill some random mom who isn’t even doing anything to you, why not heist a few trains and retire to a place not made entirely of snakes?). To save her family, Jane does what any feminist heroine would do: she rides a horse to her ex-boyfriend’s house to beg him for protection, then brings him back home so he and her husband can spend the rest of the movie having a low-energy slap-fight about who gets to own her while they all wait for death. Much like the work of Betty Friedan. Meanwhile, Jane’s backstory unfurls in a series of diminishingly sunny flashbacks, revealing itself to be – surprise, surprise – the ex-boyfriend’s backstory instead. He is the only character who experiences any growth, revelation or change (however minor) over the course of the film, the vehicle of his growth being horrific sexual violence enacted on Jane. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t make art about sexual violence, or that men aren’t worthwhile film subjects, or that you can’t have feminist characters in movies about men, but leveraging female trauma for male character development is not feminist storytelling. Strangely enough, in the film’s best moments, Jane seems to explicitly address this shortcoming: “You might want to see a day where the sun don’t just shine on your story,â€\x9d she scolds the ex. “Because there’s a whole world out there of other people’s tales.â€\x9d At this point in my life, I have heard many, many white men’s tales. I crave other people’s tales. So, unless your criteria for what constitutes feminist media is “contains a womanâ€\x9d, Jane Got a Gun is hardly a new Fried Green Tomatoes. I wonder if, perhaps, that same confusion lies at the root of feminism’s branding problem. If people think that the mere presence of women evinces equality, no wonder so many young men believe feminism is a selfish, superfluous vanity project. Women are all over the place! At the shop, on the bus, modelling lingerie, bringing my dad coffee while he’s in his board meeting. Equality is achieved! What are you girls still caterwauling about? Jane Got a Gun got me thinking about what does constitute a “feministâ€\x9d movie. There certainly isn’t a single objective model – as we saw last year, even Suffragette wasn’t given a blank cheque by the feminist media – but it is clear that simply putting women on screen and letting them occasionally talk or fire a gun isn’t enough. What I look for are films that portray women the way that I know them: fully formed human beings with complex lives shaped by forces other than sexual trauma, motherhood, heterosexual love and the possessiveness of men. Films that don’t deliver such lines as: “When I finally found you, and seen you holding another man’s child, I knew you weren’t mine no more. And that did something to me that the war never could,â€\x9d and expect me to read them as – ugh – romantic instead of entitled and proprietary. Films that treat every woman as a human being, whether the film-makers set out to create a “feministâ€\x9d work or not. “Feminist westernâ€\x9d has been applied to a few films over the past decade – the dourly verite Meek’s Cutoff, the civil-war thriller The Keeping Room (which I haven’t seen), the A-list drama The Homesman and the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit – and there is clearly a tremendous vein to be mined there. The lawlessness and vulnerability of the west have always felt relatable to me as a woman. There is no escape hatch. No one is coming. It’s just you and the night and the snakes and the villains and your own wits. There are plenty of feminist westerns left to be made – Jane Got a Gun just isn’t one of them.',
 'A lethal combination of secrecy and jargon has overshadowed NHS plans The NHS is in danger of losing control of public debate around the sustainability and transformation plans (STPs). Days after the unnecessary secrecy around STP blueprints for change predictably backfired, with lurid headlines about closures and cuts, both NHS England and the government have been trying to get a grip on public understanding of what all this frantic management work is trying to achieve. At this week’s Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said that in the next few days his organisation will be spelling out expectations on how the public will be involved in discussions. This is a reversal of its previous position, which was to discourage STPs from publishing their draft plans. Meanwhile, at prime minister’s questions, STPs put the prime minister, Theresa May, on the defensive, forcing her to reiterate the importance of taking into account the concerns of local people. The emerging plans are sensitive because a large number involve substantial changes to hospital services. It is far from clear how many of these will eventually go ahead, because there is a desperate shortage of capital funding with which to implement them. While some of the emerging hospital changes, such as those in south-west London, are trying to resolve disputes about the right shape of hospital services which have dragged on for many years, there is a serious risk in some areas of pursuing highly controversial changes of questionable benefit on dubious evidence. The King’s Fund and others warned that major changes to acute services rarely deliver the anticipated substantial savings. It has been repeatedly proved that the quickest way to trigger massive opposition to hospital changes is to make them look like a secret plan that is to be sprung on the public. Yet the NHS keeps on doing it. Local political leaders are key. When councillors – not just the handful involved in the STP process – and MPs are involved early on, understand the case for change and feel their concerns are being taken seriously, they can be engaged in productive public debate. And what about patients? One of the guiding mantras of the NHS is supposed to be patient involvement, but at the Expo a small band of community campaigners gave voice to their complaint that service users are being excluded from these crucial discussions. With much of the work supposed to be completed by December, it is stretching credulity to believe that much more than token consultations with patient groups can take place. One of the difficulties around consultations faced by the STP teams is that some of them have made too little progress to present credible, watertight arguments. It is difficult to overstate the huge variation in STPs. A handful involve organisations that have been working together for years, have well-developed plans and are poised to deliver. These areas are likely to have already carried out extensive consultations through their clinical commissioning groups. Others are trying to work to unfamiliar boundaries and admit privately to having little more than “plans to have plansâ€\x9d. Public understanding of the issues is minimal, the evidence base is thin and they have little of substance to discuss. It is these ones at the back of the queue that are most nervous about consultations. The crucial error NHS England has made is to allow the process to be seen almost entirely through the lens of cuts, obscuring the vast amount of work underway to reshape services around the needs of patients, particularly in the community. As NHS staff giving talks at the Expo proved, across the country from pharmacy management in Wessex to musculoskeletal services in Wigan, clinicians, managers and commissioners are delivering the vision captured in the Five Year Forward View of a patient centred NHS – and driving up productivity along the way. But the lethal combination of unnecessary secrecy and impenetrable management jargon has obscured the most important part of the story – that the health and care system would still need drastic reform even if it was awash with money. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'Taxpayer stake in Lloyds Banking Group falls below 9% The taxpayer stake in Lloyds Banking Group has fallen below 9% after Philip Hammond sanctioned a further sale even though the shares are trading below the average paid by the taxpayer during the 2008 bailout. The reduction was announced to the market the day after the bank said it was taking another £1bn charge for payment protection insurance misselling which knocked its profit in the third quarter of the year. The chancellor announced this month that he was abandoning his predecessor’s plan to offer the public cut-price shares in Lloyds and would instead sell the remaining stake on the stock market at prices below the 73.6p average price taxpayers paid for their stake. Lloyds shares were trading at 56p on Thursday ,prmomg, well below that average price, although the Treasury argues that it will not make a loss on the overall sale because of the profit made on selling off shares earlier. At its peak, the taxpayer stake stood at 43% when £20bn was pumped into the bank. Some £17bn has been received by the exchequer. Hammond said: “Selling our shares in Lloyds and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is one of my top priorities as chancellor.â€\x9d The decision to abandon the retail offering to the public – a key pledge made by George Osborne – has infuriated some of the brokers hoping to handle the sale. Hargreaves Lansdown has set up a petition asking the government to reconsider the decision. “Rather than engage with working taxpayers willing to invest in our economy, the government has favoured city institutions,â€\x9d said Ian Gorham, chief executive of Hargreaves Lansdown. The disposal of the stake began in September 2013 when £3.2bn of shares were sold at 75p to institutional investors. In March 2014, a further £4.2bn tranche was sold at 75.5p and in December 2014 the chancellor began to dribble shares into the market as long as the level was above 73.6p. Hammond has now signalled that shares can be sold below this break even price. The Treasury has to inform the market of share sales only when it falls through one percentage point thresholds.',
 "Al Sharpton: 'This will be the last night of an all-white Oscars' In a strip mall parking lot just yards from the Dolby theatre where the Oscars ceremony was due to start a few hours later, civil rights leader Al Sharpton and his organisation, the National Action Network (NAN), held a rally denouncing the lack of diversity in the Academy Awards. Protesters carried placards bearing the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, and others with the slogan, “Black lives matter.â€\x9d When Sharpton took the stage, from a staircase balcony overlooking the parking lot, he led the crowd in a chant that has been a familar part of racial justice rallies across America in the last two years: “No justice – no peace.â€\x9d He said that in 2015, following the release of last year’s nominee list – in which, as with this year, no people of colour were nominated for awards in major categories – the Academy had promised him and his organisation that they would change. But, he said, no such change had occurred. During his speech, Sharpton held aloft an Oscar statue made of white, rather than the usual gold material, implying that this would be a more accurate coloration. “You are out of time,â€\x9d he told the Academy. “We are not going to allow the Oscars to continue. This will be the last night of an all-white Oscars.â€\x9d After Sharpton spoke, he led protesters in a march, chanting, “Greenlight diversityâ€\x9d and “Diversify the Academyâ€\x9d. Hemmed in by police, who had closed most of the roads surrounding the Dolby theatre, the protesters instead marched in a circle around the parking lot. “In this lot, where you see people have come out to walk in a unity circle, this is the colour of America,â€\x9d Sharpton told reporters after the rally. “What they will see tonight is blacks on stage giving awards to whites that whites decided.â€\x9d “There’s nothing wrong with whites getting awards, but they should not be the only ones making decisions,â€\x9d he continued. “We love Leonardo DiCaprio … but we also love Michael B Jordan. So why isn’t he in consideration?â€\x9d Colleen Williams, a supporter from Los Angeles, said that she was there “supporting for justiceâ€\x9d. She called for more African Americans to be nominated for Academy awards. “[It’s] just fairness. We support the Oscars, but we just want fairness.â€\x9d Yolanda Christian, another supporter, said that she wanted “to make sure that everyone gets equal rightsâ€\x9d. The National Action Network planned a nationwide boycott of the televised ceremony night, calling it the “white Oscars tune-outâ€\x9d. The idea, Sharpton told the in an interview on Thursday, was to put pressure on advertisers, especially event sponsor Kohl’s, to suspend ties with the organisation until it makes concrete changes to its diversity policies.",
 'Is Manchester about to become a global digital leader? From the industrial revolution, to the birth of the computer and the rise of acid house, Manchester has a history of creativity and innovation that is recognised worldwide. But does the city have what it takes to become a global digital leader? Sir Howard Bernstein thinks so. The Manchester council chief executive is highly-regarded across the country for the way he led the city’s rebirth over the past 20 years, encouraging the private and public sectors to work together. He has overseen the transformation of the city centre following the IRA bomb of 1996, the creation of Sportcity for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and the redevelopment of the Spinningfields business district – allowing Manchester to realistically stake a claim as the country’s second city. Sir Howard said: “Over the past 40 years, I’ve witnessed a dramatic change in Manchester’s local economy. But today, the city is on the verge of assuming its potential as a global leader in the digital economy.â€\x9d According to Tech Nation, Manchester is the largest tech cluster outside London – with 51,901 employees in the sector. It also has the UK’s second highest GVA growth – 92% between 2010 and 2014 – while having a total digital turnover at £2.2bn, the fourth highest in the UK. The city’s civic and business leaders are now intent on ensuring Manchester realises its digital potential. A £4m government grant is to be used to create a tech hub in the city centre. The plan, known as Project Forward, is aimed at nurturing start-ups, fostering collaboration and providing mentoring. It is hoped the hub will establish a focal point in the city for attracting inward investment from technology businesses while developing and retaining the country’s best software engineers and entrepreneurs. The city has also secured £10m investment after a team from across industry, academia and the public sector won a competition to become the UK’s Internet of Things (IoT) City Demonstrator. Manchester council worked with global technology giant Cisco UK, the University of Manchester and BT to put forward a proposal that uses technology to improve health and social care, energy and environmental management and transport. The win will lead to the creation of a UK IoT Centre of Excellence at Manchester Science Partnerships’ city centre campus, which will provide the region’s start-ups and SMEs with access to a world-leading open innovation programme. Sir Howard added: “The public and private sector has to work together to ensure that every Mancunian business has the opportunity and resources to reach its potential.â€\x9d Sir Howard has now thrown his weight behind business WiredScore as it launches in Manchester. Founded in New York three years ago, this rates and certifies buildings in terms of internet connectivity. It is hoped the rating system will drive up the standard of connectivity in Manchester’s buildings, which in turn will help digital economic growth. Manchester is the first UK city outside London in which WiredScore has launched, and the company is already working with some big names including Peel, Legal & General and Property Alliance. Ahead of the launch, WiredScore commissioned YouGov to interview 306 technology industry workers about their perceptions of Manchester and produced a report on how the city can grow into a digital leader. According to the report, the most important factor for attracting tech companies to Manchester is closer links with the city’s universities – who could offer incentives such as business accelerators or grants. Meanwhile, 58% of people interviewed said Manchester’s commercial landlords should offer flexible or short-term leases for start-ups, to attract them to the city. The report also found that a local talent pool, the city’s industrial heritage, and its commercial real estate prices were key factors in what makes Manchester attractive as a tech hub. WiredScore invited business and tech leaders to discuss the report at a roundtable event on Wednesday night. Antony Whittle, from KPMG, said Manchester needed its own home-grown success story to help attract talent. He added: “If Manchester had a tech company that came up and took the world by storm, that would be a really useful anchor.â€\x9d Martin Bryant is co-founder of SpaceportX – one of a number of places in Manchester providing space and assistance for start-ups to flourish – along with Rise, The Sharp Project, Innospace and the Landing. He said Manchester was already attractive to tech talent because it was a special city, adding: “There are a few obvious reasons why Manchester is already doing well – such as lower costs than London. “But there is something unique about Manchester, a certain spirit that not many other places have. It makes it a different and exciting place to be based. “I think maybe it’s been guilty of living off its reputation too much in the recent past – that there hasn’t been much substance here – but I feel like we’ve got good momentum now.â€\x9d Bryant also pointed to the work of support organisation Manchester Digital, which has helped foster an active tech community in the city and is trying to brand the city as a global tech leader. He added: “Manchester Digital is running a campaign to attract people to the city by circulating testimonies of people who have moved here and thrived. More needs to be done to market Manchester as a place where individuals can come and thrive.â€\x9d William Newton, UK director for WiredScore, said that Manchester was becoming central to the UK’s digital evolution. But he added: “It is essential that developers and landlords in Manchester consider the important role of technology in business and provide the connectivity that meets the current and future needs of their occupiers. “Manchester has the potential to be a leading global capital of technology if it can demonstrate it’s a future-proofed choice for entrepreneurs and investors.â€\x9d Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.',
 'Met police received more than 500 reports of hate crimes after Brexit vote More than 500 reports of hate crimes were made to police in London after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. The Metropolitan police said they received 599 allegations between Friday 24 June, the day the result was revealed, and Saturday 2 July. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met commissioner, said that the vote had allegedly been “directly referenced or alluded toâ€\x9d in 23 incidents. The force said it had received eight allegations that Polish or other European communities had been targeted. The Met, which is Britain’s largest force, usually averages between 20 and 50 reports of hate crime a day. On Sunday 26 June it received 62 reports and the following Tuesday it had 64. The figures were revealed in a letter from Hogan-Howe to Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs committee, which on Tuesday announced an investigation into hate crime. Suspected incidents in London have included the spraying of racist graffiti on the front entrance of the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in Hammersmith on 26 June. On Monday, police released CCTV footage of a man throwing rotten pork meat at a mosque in north London. Nationally, police say the aftermath of the referendum produced a fivefold increase in reports to a special hate crime reporting website, with 331 received by last Wednesday. Most incidents involved alleged harassment, but Avon and Somerset police said a Polish man suffered “significant injuriesâ€\x9d following a racially aggravated assault by two men on the day the result was announced. The victim, in his 30s, was walking along St Michael’s Avenue in Yeovil, Somerset at about 6pm on 24 June when two men approached him and asked whether he spoke English, before repeatedly punching and kicking him, police said. He required hospital treatment for a potentially life-changing eye injury, a fractured cheekbone and substantial bruising to his body. Other incidents included the distribution of cards saying “Leave the EU/No more Polish verminâ€\x9d in English and Polish outside a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. An official report published last year said there were an estimated 222,000 hate crimes on average per year in England and Wales. The most commonly reported motivating factor was race. Police estimate that only one in four hate crimes are reported to them.',
 'Why did people vote for Donald Trump? Voters explain Despite a lack of political experience, business magnate Donald Trump swept to an improbable victory in the US presidential elections. It is clear that despite a series of controversies, his message resonated with a huge number of American voters in key states, and revealed deep anti-establishment anger and discontent. We spoke to six Trump voters about why they voted for the Republican candidate, and why they think he’ll make a good president. ‘I don’t want the Clinton legacy continued in the White House’ Trump is a self-made man. Regardless of getting a hefty loan from his father, he used that money to make a name and legacy for himself. I hope that Trump’s experience as a businessman will enable our country to operate more effectively when it comes to managing our money. I want to change America to serve the people instead of a political system that wants to serve itself. My life won’t change much, except I will have more hope that my government is trying to make our country strong instead of pandering to its own liberal interests. My main hope is that he will help balance our budget, and secondly that he will help our economy to remain strong. I don’t want the Clinton legacy continued in the White House. We impeached one Clinton, and there is too much scandal that revolves around the other. Why would I want that legacy in my government? He may say controversial things, but at least he tells you what he thinks. I certainly disagree with anyone that has behaved in a racist or sexist way. However, I feel like I know where I stand with Trump. He says what he thinks, right or wrong, and I know what I’m dealing with. I’m so tired of the media and Democrats bellyaching about Trump getting voted in. It’s what the people wanted! It’s pretty sad when all you hear is gloom and doom on the news, which I thought was supposed to be a balanced representation of the two sides. Surprise! There is a whole other part to this country outside of your newsroom walls that actually thinks differently from the mostly liberal ideas that most news outlets put out there. We are middle America, we are the hardworking people who are holding this country together with our roots, and we are ready to have a country that keeps its cheque book in balance like we do with our private bank accounts. – Rachael, 34, Indiana, small business owner ‘He knows how to make deals, deals that will make America prosperous again’ I was a Democrat for 39 years, but my children and grandchildren need an America that is out of debt. All that Obama did was double the debt since he took office. I will feel a whole lot safer than I ever would with Hillary. The biggest question is to ask why he kept sending troops and flooding us with Syrian refugees that are not vetted for the proper amount of time with the possibility of terrorists mixing in and coming to our homeland? My great nephew is still asking that question as he did two tours in Afghanistan. He got out because he felt the president didn’t care about him or his comrades. We have the greatest veterans in the world; I am one of them. The last two presidents didn’t care about what happened to us. Obama created jobs, but minimum wage jobs. You can’t support a family on a minimum wage. Our manufacturing plants are gone, the coal industry is gone from my area and Hillary would just shut it down the rest of the way. Obamacare is a failure. Thank God I don’t have to use it. But there are families that need it and if they can’t afford it they get fined. That in itself is the mindset of a dictator. Hillary was going to expand it and make it available for illegals too. I believe Trump will be a good president because he knows how to make deals, deals that will make America prosperous again. We need to bring our nation together. I like the fact that all three branches are controlled by the same party, now we can get down to the business of straightening out our country, taking care of our people, our veterans, getting the economy moving again and repealing Obamacare. – Nate, 58, Pennsylvania, retired from the federal government ‘I want conservative laws’ I cried when I left the polling location because I don’t like Trump at all. I was deeply saddened to vote for him. His personality, his mannerisms and his inexperience repulse me. I wish there had been another conservative choice without simply throwing away my vote. I know if I travel outside of the US I will be deeply disliked because of him. However, he is only a four-year investment and I am trusting in the checks and balances of our country to prevent him and his poor-judgment from damaging the country too much. Hopefully Trump will not affect my daily life. I personally do not have a gun but I strongly support the right to bear arms recognising it as a right that ensures protection from government tyranny. I am also against abortions. Trump has the opportunity to elect a supreme court member, maybe even two or three members considering the current health and age of some justices. Justices serve for a lifetime and I do not want the justices to be liberal. I want conservative laws therefore conservative justices. I can deal with a somewhat low four years, but I couldn’t deal with a supreme court that swings liberal and I couldn’t deal with losing gun rights. I hope the years fly by and that he will do as little damage as possible. I am deeply saddened by these options and I am not proud of our president in the least. – Andrea, Florida ‘Trump is exactly what you get, with Hillary you can’t know what’s real’ I couldn’t decide who to vote for until the day before voting. It was one the hardest decisions I have ever made. I decided on Trump for one reason: no-fly zones. Hillary guaranteed full scale war with Syria on day one. I mean how do you expect to initiate a no-fly zone over a sovereign nation? That would then in turn guarantee a conflict with Russia, which will assuredly lead to war. I know Hillary would have been business as usual as we spiralled ever closer to a full-scale nuclear war with Russia. Four years is a long time but there is always impeachment, and the next election. It’s a risk but one the American people are willing to take. I’ve previously voted Al Gore, Bush, Obama, Obama, and now Trump. I hope for a sincere shake-up and a breath of fresh air. Trump is a slimy scumbag, who wears it like a badge of honour. But Trump is exactly what you get, Hillary is a phantom and you can’t know what’s real about her. Fainting in New York saying it was heat when it was a mild day, then saying it was pneumonia finally. Lying straight-faced about her emails. Countries may be laughing at us but it took some balls to elect Trump last night. I don’t think a single person who casted a vote for him felt good about it. I sure didn’t, but felt like there was no other choice. It was either Trump or guaranteed war. I think Trump knows he is under-qualified but I sincerely think he will fill his cabinet with people who perform their functions effectively. His legacy is banking on this and right now it isn’t secure because the whole world, even Americans, are laughing when they say Trump won. It’s sincerely hard to believe. I feel Hillary would have been business as usual, she would have had nothing but political favours. – Paul, Ohio, software engineer ‘Obama has put a wedge between the people of this country’ The first woman president should have integrity and that historic moment should not be tainted by someone like Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump might not have political experience but I truly believe he has the American people’s interest at heart. We need to bring jobs back to our country, make the economy stronger and hopefully unite all people. I feel Obama has put a wedge between the people of this country. We should be looked at as individual merits and not by the colour of our skin. Trump won’t take nonsense from anyone and he doesn’t have any special interest he has to make happy. He’s for the people! – Arlene, New Jersey ‘Under Trump the American dream is revived’ Trump understands and supports the American dream; no matter what you have now, if you work hard you can better yourself and positively shape your wealth and future. Clinton made it known that she would continue Obama’s agenda of redistribution. What dream is there in working to see your future gains chopped up by taxation and welfare? Under Clinton I would have just held out my hand and stopped dreaming. Under Trump the American Dream is revived! I may not like the Trump he shows his buddies in the locker room, I may not agree with his too-rich-to-care insolence or his private life with women, but I agree with his platform and passion. He gets things done and his drive is proven. He fails and he fails better. I voted for Trump to keep the minimum wage hike down, retain our constitutional gun rights, and keeping close to the constitution and immigration. I can now start planning my next boutique without the threat of a minimum wage hike. I can afford to get sick while I’m working 60 hours a week to get my business off the ground. The fear of the taxation-to-death threat will lessen. Trump is a businessman. He will pave the way for me to start dreaming again. Until this election I was independent. This election I declared myself Republican for the first time. My friends are mostly liberal Democrats. They say I’m the poorest Republican they know. I hope that the silent majority stops being bullied by the loud minority. Trump promises to rebuild our army and fight for our safety, I look to see terrorism defeated and the war on cops to end, a solid declaration of war on Isis and a halt to the preference of immigrants before citizens. I hope welfare will be scaled back and employment will once again become the preferred way to support oneself. I cried when I heard Trump won. There is once again hope for the American Dream! – Heather, 43, Kansas, small business owner *Some names have been changed.',
 'Eagles of Death Metal review – exultant crowd radiate a protective positivity Halfway through this cathartic show, Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes shouts: “Rock and roll will never die!â€\x9d It’s the sort of off-the-peg, in-the-moment war cry you might hear at many gigs. From Hughes, however, it comes freighted with additional meaning. Eagles of Death Metal were originally conceived as a joke in a bar in 1998. Now the band will always be associated with violence after their gig at the Bataclan in Paris last November was interrupted by three extremists armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades and suicide vests. The terror attack left 79 people dead. After surviving that atrocity, it would have been understandable if Eagles of Death Metal had decided to quit. Instead they have thrown themselves back into playing. After appearing as guests of U2 in Paris within a month of the attack, the Californian garage-rockers returned to life on the road in February and have barely stopped since, clocking up almost 70 gigs and festival appearances on their Nos Amis (“Our Friendsâ€\x9d) tour. There have been speed bumps. Hughes, a gun enthusiast who has long cultivated an outlaw image, has made several inflammatory remarks in interviews. His claim in May that he had seen Muslims celebrating in the streets after the Paris attacks were provocative enough that his band were removed from the bill of two French music festivals taking place this weekend. (Instead, Eagles of Death Metal will play Reading and Leeds.) At their first UK show since the attack, the band take the stage to the unlikely stomp of Shang-a-Lang by the Bay City Rollers. They’re cheered loudly and at length, the sort of reaction usually heard at the end of a triumphant gig rather than before the band have played a single note. It allows Hughes to ritually undo perhaps one too many buttons on his shirt and carefully primp his bushy Doc Holliday moustache. In a scuzzy 90-minute set of raucous, ratbag rock, the Bataclan experience is referenced only obliquely. It remains unclear whether the Eagles of Death Metal gig was targeted because the band were from the US; for his part, Hughes seems happy to symbolise his country. During the rattling two-chord boogie of I Only Want You, large banners unfurl to reveal Uncle Sam’s iconic recruiting posters recreated with Hughes’s likeness. You could arguably read something into their plangent reading of Save a Prayer, but the Duran Duran cover was a mainstay of their set before last November. There are no lengthy sermons, despite Hughes’s habit of hollering like an impassioned tent preacher. Instead, there is exhilarating rock burlesque. Hughes vamps. He struts. He repurposes jokes from Airplane. He pulls on a bright red jacket with “Bowieâ€\x9d embroidered on the back before the band play a roughed-up but rather beautiful version of Moonage Daydream. The closest acknowledgement of their horrific experience comes near the end. “It’s been a strange fucking year and I am so grateful,â€\x9d says Hughes. His ramshackle band represent the right to make preening, priapic, occasionally obnoxious rock’n’roll, a sentiment that goes over well with the exultant crowd, who radiate a protective positivity. Before a last splurge of excessive guitar solos, Hughes offers one final piece of advice: “Stay horny!â€\x9d',
 'Andy Carroll and Mark Noble fire West Ham to victory against Watford This was no surprise result given the circumstances but a first win in eight for West Ham United and one in which Andy Carroll fired his calling card in the direction of Roy Hodgson once more. Carroll set West Ham on the way to a comfortable victory against a depleted Watford and was his usual swashbuckling self throughout, just weeks before England name their squad for the European Championship. The striker scored his sixth goal in five Premier League appearances and, backed up by Dimitri Payet and Diafra Sakho, was at his troublesome best against this makeshift Watford side who rested players in preparation for their FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace on Sunday. The opposition may not have been the strongest, but on this evidence Carroll is a man in as good nick as he has ever been. Payet was also excellent and Mark Noble accomplished in midfield. It was the West Ham captain who scored twice from the penalty spot before Sebastian Prödl pulled one back for Watford with a fine finish, Troy Deeney missed a late penalty and Nordin Amrabat was sent off. Yet despite their penalty miss, Watford were never in this game and their manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, insisted afterwards that he was not concerned about reports that his position is under threat even though he has steered the club to safety in their first season back in the top flight. For Slaven Bilic, there was satisfaction. A first win since early March and, following the recent Cup defeat against Manchester United and late draw at Leicester, a smile. “We said before that every game is important at this stage of the season but this was a decisive game that will determine if we look up, or if we don’t win look down,â€\x9d he said. “Of course Liverpool are in good form but it’s nice to have five-point cushion [over Southampton in eighth].â€\x9d Asked if the pressure was on the teams above West Ham, who will attempt to make a late push for a top-four finish, Bilic said: “The pressure is on us as well, it’s great pressure and positive pressure. It’s not like the pressure that Sunderland, Newcastle and Norwich have. It’s the pressure you are grateful for, worship for, go to church and pray it’s going to be the same for the next six years.â€\x9d It did not take long for West Ham to exert control here. Watford made seven changes following the weekend victory against West Bromwich Albion – a first Premier League win in seven attempts – ahead of their FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace at Wembley on Sunday. However, they were undone within 11 minutes. Payet, who has been in sublime form all season following his move from Marseille last summer, cut inside and lifted a precise ball over the defence for Carroll, who prodded home with his left foot past Heurelho Gomes. West Ham’s second came controversially as José Holebas grappled with Cheikhou Kouyaté and the referee, Mike Dean, awarded a penalty. Noble sent Gomes the wrong way from the spot. Bilic’s men did not have to wait long for another, following a few minutes to forget for Almen Abdi. Watford should have pulled one back through their Swiss midfielder and moments later he gave away a blatant penalty after lunging at the West Ham right-back Michail Antonio, who had made a bustling run forward. Again Noble stepped up and again he scored, down the middle. Watford’s fans had something to cheer. in the 64th minute when the centre-half Prödl timed his run well from Steven Berghuis’s free-kick and finished sweetly with a left-footed half-volley. It was a dramatic last few minutes as Deeney, brought on at the death, had a penalty saved by Adrián after Prödl was adjudged to have been fouled by Angelo Ogbonna, before Amrabat was sent off following a second yellow card. Asked about his job security, Flores said: “I am happy. I feel good. I think it is an amazing time we have now, four matches to finish and we have 41 points, it’s amazing. We are in a position that is very comfortable. We are in the semi-final of the FA Cup, but my future does not depend on one thing. We will see what happens.â€\x9d',
 'Matt Damon and Ben Affleck surprise fans with Good Will Hunting reading Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reprised the roles that made them famous onstage in New York on Friday night, with a surprise appearance in a one-off live reading of the screenplay of Good Will Hunting. The childhood friends were almost unknown when they wrote and insisted on starring in the tale of a young working-class polymath who is mopping floors at MIT when his life is turned around by a therapist, played by Robin Williams, and a Harvard student, played by Minnie Driver. It won the two an Oscar for best screenplay, was nominated for eight more (Williams also won), and provided them with a route to the big time. Today, they occupy numbers three (Damon) and six (Affleck) on the 2016 Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid male actors. John Krasinski reunited the pair on Friday as part of a Film Independent and New York Times series of “live readsâ€\x9d, in which actors read the screenplay of a film to a live audience. The cast list was not released in advance, allowing Krasinski a moment of pure showmanship before the reading began. Introducing his cast one by one – including his wife, Emily Blunt, in the Driver role – Krasinski finally came to the leads, announcing that he himself would be playing Will … before Damon unexpectedly marched on to the stage, to a standing ovation from the crowd at New York University’s Skirball theatre. “Thirty seconds before that, you were happy to see me do it!â€\x9d Krasinski said. Preparing to sit down and take Affleck’s part instead, he said: “Chuckie’s a better role anyway …â€\x9d On cue, the Batman star followed Damon out from the wings, bringing the delighted audience leaping back to their feet. The 1997 screenplay has held up well, and is often laugh-out-loud funny, much of its charm resting on the witty, wisecracking, believable banter between the dumb but protective Chuckie and his best friend, the brilliant, defensive and confrontational Will. Affleck and Damon slid easily back into characters based presumably on young men they had known or witnessed growing up in Boston, and Affleck in particular – now bearded, tanned and heavy-set – seemed to take great delight in revisiting the ribald put-downs and convoluted anecdotes which pepper the script. Damon, whose DiCaprio-like quicksilver charisma has become something more stolid and workmanlike, was able to recapture that early magnetism. He was devastating in that indelible scene in which he tells Williams that when his father used to give him a choice of wrench, belt or stick for a beating, he would always choose the wrench – “because fuck him, that’s whyâ€\x9d. Blunt approached the part of Damon’s student girlfriend with something of the English naturalism that Driver brought to the film in 1997, and Krasinski, who read the stage directions, stumbled for comic effect over some of her love scenes with Damon, altering the ending of one to: “They do not kiss,â€\x9d tripping over the word “postcoitalâ€\x9d in another. “It was really good!â€\x9d his wife blurted out, to which Krasinski asked rhetorically: “You’re really going to take Jason Bourne over Jim from The Office?â€\x9d Less successful was his casting of The Americans’ Margo Martindale in the crucial Williams role. The gender switch might well have worked, but she was hesitant and seemed under-rehearsed. Introducing the event, Krasinski made the case for Good Will Hunting as a modern American classic. “As a kid from Boston, I think we all get tattoos of the poster of this movie on your back,â€\x9d he said, calling it “unbelievably well-writtenâ€\x9d. In truth, Affleck and Damon lay it on a bit thick in establishing Will’s genius – what is meant to come off as autodidactic brilliance occasionally teeters over into insufferability – and it’s a more sentimental film than it thinks it is, emotionally manipulative in a way that seems mercilessly machine-tooled for maximum effect, particularly towards the end. But it works. And looking back, it laid the groundwork for Affleck’s career as a director producing compelling thrillers such as Argo and The Town that use tension as shamelessly as Good Will Hunting uses emotion, pleasingly calling to mind the crime dramas of the 1940s and 50s in which taciturn men find themselves forced into intractable situations, weighing up dilemmas about love and corruption and morality. Which, come to think of it, doesn’t sound a bad template for the Batman film Affleck is currently writing.',
 "Royal Bank of Scotland 'plans further 900 job cuts in UK' Royal Bank of Scotland plans to cut 900 jobs in the UK, taking the total number of staff losses to 2,700 over the past four months, according to Reuters. The roles would be lost in IT and back-office positions across the bank’s operations as the bailed-out bank attempts to cut costs in its bid to return to the private sector. At the start of the year, RBS had 64,000 UK staff in the UK but since then jobs have been cut across most of its operations in retail, commercial and investment banking, as well as its IT functions. Ross McEwan, the chief executive of the 73% taxpayer-owned bank, set a target to save £800m in 2016. While he acknowledged this could result in job cuts, he didn’t specify how many roles would be lost. The cuts are part of efforts to scale back the global ambitions of RBS, which had operations in about 50 countries with approximately 180,000 staff at the time of its bailout, to focus on domestic retail banking. RBS said: “We understand how difficult this is for our staff and will be offering as much support as we can, including redeployment to other roles where possible. The bank’s global workforce is 87,800. McEwan, who took over from Stephen Hester in October 2013, is focusing RBS on 13 countries. He is also adapting the bank for the digital age by closing branches and automating services. As part of the move to reduce its global presence, the bank is looking to increase the profile of its NatWest brand in England and Wales. As part of this, it is in talks to sponsor English cricket and have its logo replace Waitrose’s on the shirts of cricket players.",
 'Trump presidency bodes ill for Israel-Palestine peace process As Donald Trump continues to ponder his choice for secretary of state, and other key foreign policy positions, one thing seems clear: the impact on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians is likely to be serious and retrograde. The question now is whether the moribund process, which has weathered presidents both Republican and Democrat since it was sealed in 1993 with the aim of securing a two-state solution, can survive the Trump era at all. The signs are not encouraging. Israel’s far right has greeted Trump’s success with ecstasy, hailing his promises to recognise Jerusalem as the country’s capital and move the US embassy to the city, as well as suggestions from his team he would not stand in the way of Israeli settlement construction. The frontrunners for the secretary of state nomination – Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton – have both been vocal opponents of the idea of a Palestinian state. Trump’s own pronouncements have swerved wildly between suggesting he would be “neutralâ€\x9d on the question, promising to be Israel’s “best friendâ€\x9d, and even suggesting he could secure the best peace deal ever. Meanwhile his advisers have fuelled a sense of deep confusion by making a series of highly contradictory statements. What is clear, for all the muddle, is that the centre of gravity in US thinking is lurching from the two-state solution as it has been understood by US politicians and diplomats for more than 20 years seemingly towards one of two extremes: a maximalist pro-Israel administration or, equally risky, a minimalist and disconnected isolationist position. The dangers of the latter approach were summed up most tellingly in a leaked paper drawn up by two officials at Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs. They paint a picture of Trump’s possible Middle East policy as incoherent, unsettled, and transactional. “The diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians will not be a top priority for the Trump administration and it’s reasonable to assume this topic will also be influenced by the staff surrounding him and developments in the field,â€\x9d they wrote last week. “Trump’s declarations do not necessarily point to a coherent policy on this issue. “As part of his minimal interest in foreign affairs, Trump doesn’t see the Middle East as a good investment and it’s reasonable to assume he will seek to reduce American involvement in the region.â€\x9d The officials are not the only ones to see the risk of Trump’s transactional terms. Some anonymous Israeli officials have warned that the new president might view the peace process “only in terms as currency to pay for things in other fields – for example, in dealing with Russiaâ€\x9d. Beyond lies a more existential question that has been picked up on by several Israeli commentators, among them Ben Caspit in Ma’ariv: whether Trump – beyond his instinctive isolationism – even cares about the issue. “The truth is,â€\x9d wrote Caspit in the aftermath of Trump’s victory, “he is not even a Republican. Trump is Trump. “People who have worked with him for years have a sense that he does not particularly like Jews or Israelis. In his genes, he does not have everything that every American politician (including Hillary) has: a deep, automatic commitment to Israel, in any situation and in any weather.â€\x9d Another who has cautioned the Israeli right against prematurely celebrating has been the former Obama envoy Martin Indyk, who told Israeli radio: “Trump’s position on Israel is quite unclear. He has said different things to different audiences. I would not depend on a real estate lawyer who works for Trump as necessarily the person who will decide these things.â€\x9d That “lawyerâ€\x9d is in fact a pair of them who work for Trump’s business and have advised him on the Middle East: David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt. They represent the more maximalist position that was seized on last week and celebrated by Israel’s pro-settler parties. They have both said that Trump does not believe Israeli settlements should be condemned as an “obstacle to peaceâ€\x9d. Giuliani’s hostile view on the Palestinian question has been as public as it has been consistent. Along with his bitter opposition to the Iran nuclear deal it constitutes one of his most identifiable international policy positions. “Somebody has to question why are we creating a Palestinian state that’s going to be another terrorist state,â€\x9d he said in 2011, welcoming comments by Newt Gingrich that the Palestinians were an “invented peopleâ€\x9d. “Put Israel aside for a minute. Is it in the interest of the United States of America to create another state where they’re going to be training people to come over here and blow us up? Of course it isn’t.â€\x9d Bolton’s stated views do not breach this rightwing consensus. He has suggested the two-state solution is not viable, instead proposing a “three-state solutionâ€\x9d that would dump much Palestinian territory on Egypt and Jordan – willing or not. The maximalist and minimalist positions carry the same inherent risk: that they will push Israel’s most rightwing government even further towards the far-right pro-settlement positions held by the likes of Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party. “Trump’s victory offers Israel a tremendous opportunity to announce that it changes its mind regarding establishing a state of Palestine in the heart of our country,â€\x9d said Bennett in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election. “The era of the Palestinian state is over.â€\x9d Bennett and likeminded ministers have been as good as their word, pushing new legislation to legalise illegal settlement outposts over even the objections of Israel’s rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. All of this is deeply alarming Palestinian officials. “There is a feeling of despair,â€\x9d said one official privately, countering official sentiments of watch and see, adding that whoever Trump selected for secretary of state – and other key foreign policy positions – would be crucial. “In many ways it is too early to know what it means. Our feeling is Trump doesn’t have an opinion. The first time he spoke on the issue he said the US should be neutral. But if he appoints John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gringrich to secretary of state that would be a disaster for Palestine.â€\x9d',
 'Five of the best... rock & pop gigs 1 Wiley Wiley is back and still as self-destructive as ever: this summer he didn’t turn up to his headline slot at east London’s Born & Bred festival, while his highly anticipated Godfather album has seen various delays. That doesn’t mean the grime great’s show at KOKO – which precedes a few dates across the UK – won’t go off, though. KOKO, NW1, Fri 2 Lost In A Moment Osea Island is not your average festival location: for a start you can only get to it twice a day while the tide is out. Yet despite its remoteness, it has musical pedigree: artists such as SBTRKT have decamped there to record albums in recent times. Ame, Marcus Worgull and Job Jobse are booked to get the party started here and let’s hope they do, because if not you won’t be able to get back home in a hurry. Osea Island, Maldon, Sat 3 Sean Paul Recently seen defending dancehall culture from the new wave of magpie imposters (artists he viewed as jumping on the bandwagon included Drake and Justin Bieber), the man behind 2002’s Dutty Rock is back to show us how it’s really done. This week you can catch him in London as well as on the Isle Of Wight as a Bestival headliner. Bestival, Isle Of Wight, Sun; Electric Ballroom, NW1, Tue 4 Flatbush Zombies To understand some of the weird and wonderful directions hip-hop has ventured in recent years, you could do worse than listen to this Brooklyn trio’s debut studio album, 3001: A Laced Odyssey – a druggy, psychedelic affair that deals with lows (in particular, mental torment) as well as highs. London, Mon & Tue; Bristol, Thu; Birmingham, Fri 5 Rat Boy Jordan Cardy channels the likes of The Streets and Jamie T with his scuffed, dancefloor-infused tales of UK life. Live, he’s all about fighting for your right to party – expect things to get very sweaty when he arrives with his teenage fanbase in tow for a Sheffield show this week. The Leadmill, Sheffield, Fri',
 "George Soros: EU exit risks 'black Friday' The world’s most famous currency speculator has warned a vote on Thursday for Britain to leave the EU would trigger a bigger and more damaging fall for sterling than the day he forced Britain out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism almost a quarter of a century ago. George Soros, writing in the , said that a Brexit vote would spark a “black Fridayâ€\x9d for the UK, but the devaluation of sterling would bring none of the benefits to the economy that it enjoyed after it dropped out of the ERM on 16 September 1992 – Black Wednesday. He said that, as in 1992, there would be big financial gains for speculators who had bet on the UK leaving the EU but that such an outcome would leave “most voters considerably poorerâ€\x9d. Soros said that unlike after Black Wednesday, there was little scope for a cut in interest rates, the UK was running a much larger current account deficit, and exporters would be unable to exploit the benefits of a cheaper pound due to the uncertainty caused by a vote to leave the EU. “Sterling is almost Â\xadcertain to fall steeply and quickly if leave wins the referendum,â€\x9d Soros said. “I would expect this devaluation to be bigger and also more disruptive than the 15% Â\xaddevaluation that occurred in September 1992, when I was fortunate enough to make a Â\xadsubstantial profit for my hedge fund investors at the expense of the Bank of England and the British government.â€\x9d In the months following the UK’s departure from the ERM, interest rates were cut from 10% to 5.5% – easing the financial burdens facing consumers and businesses. However, with official borrowing costs currently at 0.5%, Soros said rates were already at the lowest level consistent with the stability of British banks and meant there was little the Bank of England could do in the event that Brexit led to a recession. A vote to leave would force the pound to slide towards parity with the euro – “a method of joining the euro that nobody in Britain would wantâ€\x9d – and plunge more than in September 1992 when his $10bn (£6.9bn) bet against the pound broke the Bank of England. “Too many believe that a vote to leave will have no effect on their personal financial positions. This is wishful thinking. If Britain leaves the EU it will have at least one very clear and immediate effect that will touch every household: the value of the pound would decline Â\xadprecipitously. A vote to leave the EU would also have an immediate and dramatic impact on financial markets, investment, prices and jobs,â€\x9d Soros added. “A vote to leave could see the week end with a black Friday and serious consequences for ordinary people,â€\x9d Soros said. Michael Gove, the justice secretary and leading leave campaigner, said Soros had previously predicted that Britain would be better off with the single currency, a forecast which proved the currency speculator had made mistakes. “George Soros is an advocate of the single currency, an advocate of European integration,â€\x9d he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “If economic forecasters were as reliable as doctors or airline pilots then we’d all be billionaires. When we reflect on what George Soros is saying we also need to remember he has got things wrong in the past.â€\x9d Gove said the EU model was a “sinking shipâ€\x9d which Britain could unshackle itself from, and “send Europe in a better, more progressive directionâ€\x9d. Two days before the polls close a series of high-profile figures warned about the risks of a vote to leave. Enda Kenny, the taoiseach of Ireland, appealed to Britain to vote to remain inside the EU, warning that the return of a stronger border between Ireland and Northern Ireland required by a Brexit vote would play into an old narrative – “one of division, isolation and differenceâ€\x9d. Writing in the , Kenny warned of a psychological effect, saying the reappearance of the old border after decades of work to promote peace and reconciliation “would be a step backwards and present an opportunity for others, with malign agendas, to exploitâ€\x9d. Jeremy Corbyn repeated his careful endorsement of a remain vote. The Labour leader said he was “not a loverâ€\x9d of the EU but had come to a rational decision about his support for remain. He cautioned that either result was possible: “I’m hoping there is going to be a remain vote; there may well be a remain vote, there may well be a leave vote.â€\x9d Amid worries about whether Labour supporters would turn out for remain, Len McCluskey, who heads the Unite trade union, wrote that he was not surprised that they were concerned about immigration. “In the last 10 years, there has been a gigantic experiment at the expense of ordinary workers. Countries with vast historical differences in wage rates and living standards have been brought together in a common labour market,â€\x9d he said. “The result has been sustained pressure on living standards, a systematic attempt to hold down wages and to cut the costs of social provision for working people.â€\x9d Sterling rallied on Monday as polls published over the weekend showed a rise in support for the remain camp after the death of Jo Cox and propelled the pound to its biggest one-day move in almost eight years when compared with the world’s other major currencies. Sterling jumped more than 2% to touch $1.47 against the dollar and headed towards €1.30 against the euro. The FTSE 100 index of leading shares jumped 3% to 6,204 – pulled higher by the banking and property companies that had dragged it lower in recent weeks. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, accused remain supporters of trying to take advantage of the death of Cox. “What we are seeing here is the prime minister and the remain campaign trying to conflate the actions of one crazed individual with the motives of half of Britain who think we should get back control of our borders and do it sensibly.â€\x9d Soros said that speculators – hailed the Gnomes of Zurich in the 1960s by Harold Wilson – had made large profits at Britain’s expense at the time of the 1967 devaluation. “Today there are speculative forces in the markets much bigger and more powerful. And they will be eager to exploit any miscalculations by the British government or British voters. A vote for Brexit will make some people very rich – but most voters considerably poorer,â€\x9d Soros said. Not all economists agree with Soros’s assertion that a rate cut will not be possible: economists at JP Morgan are among those forecasting a cut to zero in August from the historic low of 0.5%. But economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics expect sterling to plunge if there is a vote for Brexit. “If Britain opts for Brexit – as it well could, given the latest neck-and-neck opinion polls – sterling likely will plunge,â€\x9d Samuel Tombs at Pantheon said, warning the market was underestimating how far sterling could fall. Tombs warned that capital outflows could be “gargantuanâ€\x9d.",
 'Twitter adds function to report multiple abusive tweets at same time Twitter has improved its anti-harassment tools, adding the ability to report multiple abusive tweets at the same time. Previously, users had to manually report each abusive tweet individually, filling out the required report repeatedly. This was time-consuming and frustrating for users subjected to online harassment who faced being bombarded by hundreds of tweets at a time. Hao Tang, one of Twitter’s safety engineers, said: “We want everyone on Twitter to feel safe expressing themselves. Behaviour that crosses the line into abuse is against our rules and we want it to be easy for you to report it to us.â€\x9d Twitter has been attempting to help prevent abuse of its users since its former chief executive Dick Costolo made it one of the company’s top priorities. But the company has been criticised for not going far enough to weed out abusive users and protect those subjected to often extensive campaigns of harassment. Tang said: “This update makes it easier for you to provide us with more information about the extent of abuse and reduces the time it takes to do so. That added context often helps us investigate issues and get them resolved faster.â€\x9d The update will be rolling out to users across Twitter.com and users of its iOS and Android apps in the coming weeks. It follows the introduction of muting, blocking and reporting tools and recently the addition of a “quality filterâ€\x9d, which is designed to automatically screen out abusive language from a user’s notifications.',
 "Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop review – Americana's golden duo make sweet music together Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop are so clearly made for each other that they should consider making this professional pairing permanent. The former, who trades as the folk-lounge-Americana outfit Iron and Wine, and the eclectic Californian songwriter Hoop are like a pair of unrelated siblings: their delicate golden harmonies are as instinctive as their genial bickering. Visually, they’re also cut from the same rawboned cloth, he bearded and brimstoneish, she full-skirted and ramrod-spined. Their collaborative album, Love Letter for Fire, played almost in full here, harvests the best of both. Notwithstanding their individual dabblings in hip-hop and funk, as a duo they gravitate to backwoods folk with country accents. Both play guitar, with Hoop the more adventurous player as Beam chunks out the rhythms. From the opening Kiss Me Quick, their vocals puddle mellifluously, often reducing lyrics to a blur. Ironically, it’s hard to discern a word these exceptionally wordy writers are singing. No matter. The autumnal flow of We Two Are a Moon – the first song they wrote as a team – sounds like a more authentic Civil Wars, while solo songs such as Iron and Wine’s Resurrection Fern and Hoop’s Hunting My Dress entice an unexpected earthiness out of Hoop and silvery delicacy from Beam. If anything is lacking, it’s drama: the set ambles along at the same gentle pace throughout, broken only by a wonderfully odd cover of the Parton/Rogers hit Islands in the Stream. Gummed up and creaking, it’s a welcome palate-cleanser during this four-course soft-folk meal. •At End of the Road festival, Salisbury, on 3 September, and Moseley folk festival, Birmingham, on 4 September.",
 'Amy Adams to return for Enchanted sequel Disenchanted, a belated sequel to Disney’s 2007 hit, Enchanted, is set to start shooting next summer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hairspray director Adam Shankman is in talks to direct the follow-up, which featured Amy Adams as an animated princess accidentally transported to contemporary Manhattan. James Marsden co-starred as her prince charming, who follows her down the wormhole, while Patrick Dempsey played a New Yorker who falls for Adams despite being engaged to Idina Menzel. Susan Sarandon was an evil queen. A sequel to the film, which took more than $340m worldwide, has been in development since 2010. This iteration of the script is said to focus of Adam’s character questioning her happily-ever-after life and accidentally triggering events that upend everyone’s lives. Adams is shortly to be seen in Tom Ford’s mordant thriller, Nocturnal Animals, and in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi about aliens on earth, Arrival.',
 'Password strength meters fail to spot easy-to-crack examples The meters that supposedly tell you when you’ve entered enough different characters to make a secure password when signing up for a new site are next to useless, according to a web security consultant. The meters, which often appear as a bar that goes from red to green, rank passwords using traditional measures such as complexity, length and character use, but it turns out most fail to spot easy to guess or predictable passwords. This results in them giving users a false sense of security, or worse, downright terrible advice. Mark Stockley, founder of Compound Eye web consultants, said: “The trouble is that most password strength meters don’t actually measure password strength at all. The only good way to measure the strength of a password is to try and crack it – a serious and seriously time consuming business that requires specialist software and expensive hardware.â€\x9d Instead password strength meters measure entropy – the amount of time or energy needed to crack a password using brute force methods. The longer and more complex the password, the longer it will take to crack by simply iterating through a list of all possible passwords. According to Stockley, however, brute force is a password cracker’s last resort. “Their first line of attack is likely to be based on dictionary words and rules that mimic the common tricks we use to di5gu!se th3m. Measuring entropy doesn’t tell us anything about that,â€\x9d Stockley said. Stockley tested five popular password strength meters jQuery Password Strength Meter for Twitter Bootstrap, Strength.js, Mato Ilic’s PWStrength, FormGet’s jQuery Password Strength Checker and Paulund’s jQuery password strength demo. He used five of the worst passwords possible that appear on a list of the 10,000 most common passwords: abc123, trustno1, ncc1701 (registration number of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise), iloveyou! and primetime21. All five were broken by the open-source password cracking software John the Ripper in under a second. He also tested what is considered to be one of the best password strength meters, the open-source zxcvbn, which is used by Dropbox and Wordpress, among others. The five popular password meters failed to successfully spot that all five tested passwords were terrible, while zxcvbn identified them as very weak. Arguably they should all simply tell the users not to use the passwords at all. One even ranked trustno1, iloveyou! and primetime21 as “goodâ€\x9d. Stockley said: “The result, sadly, is exactly the same as [the last time I conducted this test in 2015]. They all failed.â€\x9d Other researchers have also come to the same conclusion. Microsoft published a paper in 2014 to that effect, while others have urged a shift away from the traditional sense of what a strong password is, using complex character strings that no one can remember. However, there is data to suggest that password meters do help users pick better passwords, therefore improving the security of their accounts and the site they’re trying to register with as a whole, if they are set up correctly. The trouble is that most do not exclude popular passwords automatically, which they and the site accepting them should do by default. Advice on passwords is still conflicted, with many still recommending multiple special character substitutions in real words, but pass phrases – those that use a string of real words to make a very long password easier to remember – have recently become popular. For those that do not want to use a password manager, Wordpress, the content management system used by millions of websites, recommends using pass phrases such as “copy indicate trap brightâ€\x9d avoiding a predictable series of words: “Because the length of a password is one of the primary factors in how strong it is, passphrases are much more secure than traditional passwords. At the same time, they are also much easier to remember and type.â€\x9d Two-step verification, which uses another piece of information or a code generated by an app, keyfob or sent in a text message, is also highly recommended because it means attackers need to do more than simply crack or know a users password. Most high-profile sites and services have two-step systems, and while being another barrier to entry, they should be used. What to do if your email gets hacked - and how to prevent it',
 'Your 20s start out like a Tom Hanks movie, then the cracks start to appear I survived my 20s by staying alive until they were over. If that sounds facetious, great. It’s also true. The years between 27 and 30 were the hardest of my life, and I wasn’t always sure I would bother getting through them. I was unemployed, and heavily depressed. My life was directionless. I felt old. Determined to be lonely, I had broken up with my girlfriend, and was sleeping around. My father died. I moved back home. Sometimes I would hear a Black Eyed Peas song, and think “This sounds all rightâ€\x9d. It was, in short, a dark time. Even if you’re not battling mental health issues, your 20s can be rough. They start strong, like a Tom Hanks movie, where you are handed a lot of adult freedoms despite being, at heart, 14 years old. Then the cracks start to appear. If you go to university, you’ll be presented with a bill for approximately £100,000,000 when you leave. (The student loans company once tracked me down to a sublet in Bristol where I was sleeping on the sofa. I’m sure their entire staff consists of Liam Neeson, breathing into a telephone.) But your mid- to late-20s are worse. You still don’t know what you want to do for a career; or you do, and are on the lowest rung, or a rung below that. Relationship-wise, you hold a middling hand of blackjack and don’t know whether to stick or twist. Or perhaps you’re alone, which means you will be alone for ever, until you die and are devoured by cats. It’s good to remember you will look back on this time, and miss it. Even the wretched, financially challenged, interesting facial hair years. Recently at a friend’s house, having been asked not to laugh because upstairs a baby was asleep, I thought back to a time we all stripped naked and hung out of the windows. The time we travelled to a party in Dublin with only a toothbrush and a passport. I even miss the misery, the “where do I belong in the worldâ€\x9d intensity, the heartbreak, the wailing in the street. Nostalgia is mental sandpaper, the sharpest edges being the first to go. I do have some advice, like Moses. If you are still in your 20s, I urge you to screw it. In fact, get a neck tattoo that says SCREW IT in capitals. There will never again be a point when your power to personal responsibility ratio is so golden. Spiderman sees you and weeps. Screw your insecurity with how you look. You are so hot right now. Even if you don’t believe it, trust that others will. Your skin is firm, your hair is great, and you are IN YOUR 20s. One day you will look back at pictures of yourself and acknowledge, “I would absolutely hit thatâ€\x9d. Then you’ll feel a little strange, because it’s a weird thing to say. Screw expectations. This is your life, and there are no wrong answers. As the decade wore on, I wasted it, paralysed by thinking I’d been left behind. Trying new things felt impossible, because I couldn’t afford to put another foot wrong. So I went nowhere. I survived my 20s, but I didn’t live them. In depression, one of my most negative habits was wondering how so many people I knew seemed to land on their feet. As I waded through anxiety, they rode a hovercraft made of cash. I was bad at making money, so felt I had no worth. If this sounds familiar, listen very carefully: SCREW THAT ROUNDLY, SIDEWAYS and UPSIDE DOWN. We have more ways than ever of comparing ourselves to our peers – the lifestyles, the clothes, the stuff they own – which leads us to think life is a race. It isn’t. We’re all going to totally different places. Twentysomethings who make 80k a year are often going to a place where they wake up in a cold sweat, thinking: “My God! I was never young! The people I spend time with are very boring!â€\x9d I don’t mean to make your 20s sound like the river of shit in The Shawshank Redemption. They’re not really. The difference between 29 and 30 is the difference between Wednesday and Thursday. But if you’re having a quarter-life crisis, don’t worry. I know there is anxiety and confusion. There’s no way around them, only through; you are a child lost in the architecture of adulthood. It’s scary, because no parent is coming to pick you up, there will be no announcement over the public address system. But this is no emergency. You’re expected to be lost.',
 'Iggy Pop – 10 of the best 1. Kill City (with James Williamson) The Stooges had come off the rails before, but in February 1974 they finally split for good. Despite the ignominious nature of their demise, Jim Osterberg – the man behind Iggy Pop – had still not quite reached his rock bottom. He spent the best part of a year couch surfing and relying on the charity of others, including fans, for heroin and quaaludes. An intervention took place when he was arrested for intimidating diners at an LA burger emporium. Detention at a psychiatric facility on the UCLA campus gave the singer time to cool off, and at the weekends he was allowed out to record with former Stooges guitarist James Williamson at Jimmy Webb’s home studio in Encino. Kill City is an edgy and erratic blur of driving riffage in the style of the old band, with Pop grumbling about surviving in the city, “until you wind up in some bathroom overdosed and on your kneesâ€\x9d. Record companies passed on the 1975 Kill City demos, at least until 1977, when Iggy Pop’s stock was on the rise again, and Bomp! Records gave Williamson funds to complete and release the album. 2. Nightclubbing Despite their narcotic proclivities, David Bowie and Iggy Pop were good for each other. Their counterintuitive logic led them to try to clean up their lifestyles by moving from LA to Berlin, the heroin capital of the world, but they showed a surprising degree of restraint while living there (for a while anyway). The 18 months they spent together would turn out to be the most productive period of both their lives. Iggy managed to release two albums in 1977, the first of which – The Idiot, named after the Dostoevsky novel – was a far cry from the Stooges. Minimalist, electronic and experimental, it was recorded at the famous Château d’Hérouville in Val d’Oise, before being finished off in Munich and Berlin. The recording techniques of the pair were said to be unorthodox and eccentric. In his Iggy biography Open Up and Bleed, Paul Trynka writes that drummer Michel Santangeli was packed off back to Brittany before he’d even realised they’d started recording, while guitarist Phil Palmer was asked to imagine and replicate the sounds one might encounter walking past the clubs of Wardour Street. Nightclubbing throbs with the sleazy ambience of an underground Kreuzberg club, though with the persistent disco thud slowed down to create the kind of disorientating effect one might experience while heavily sedated. “We recorded the song with a lousy drum machine,â€\x9d Pop recalled later. “Bowie kept saying, ‘But we gotta call back the drummer, you’re not gonna have that freaky sound on the tape!’ And I replied, ‘Hey, no way, it kicks ass, it’s better than a drummer.’â€\x9d 3. Funtime Funtime followed the Stooges’ Fun House and No Fun; in fact it was the Sex Pistols’ cover of the latter (which eventually soundtracked their messy unravelling at the Winterland Ballroom) that first inspired Iggy to revisit the familiar motif. It’s written, unusually, in the first person plural (“Hey baby we like your lips / Hey baby we like your pantsâ€\x9d), and Bowie’s backing vocal attacks high in the mix, with both voices offering confrontation. In fact, it’s a deadpan and almost threatening delivery that juxtaposes the devil-may-care lyrics, making it all the more sinister and disconcerting. Based on the pair’s partying experiences in LA, the mechanical tenacity of the backing track and the dehumanised singing represent repeatedly going through the motions when all the fun has dried up. 4. Lust for Life The unlikely musical germ of an idea for Lust For Life came when Bowie attempted to imitate the Armed Forces Network call signal with his ukulele (he was apparently waiting for Starsky and Hutch to come on the television in Germany). The Armed Forces Network “was one of the few things that was in English on the tellyâ€\x9d, said Bowie, “and it had this great pulsating riff at the beginning of the newsâ€\x9d. The insistent beat was reinforced by drummer Hunt Sales and his brother Tony on bass, while guitarist Carlos Alomar said its driving rhythm was so dominating that to play something on the offbeat was out of the question. Iggy Pop then improvised the lyrics, alluding to the clean regime he and Bowie were trying to observe (“No more beating my brains with the liquor and drugsâ€\x9d), while the “that’s like hypnotising chickensâ€\x9d line comes straight from the character Johnny Yen in William Buroughs’ novel The Ticket That Exploded. The song got a boost in the 90s when it was prominently used in the film Trainspotting, and thanks to that exposure, it now rivals The Passenger as Pop’s best-known song. Lust For Life is also the title track of the first album written and conceived entirely in Berlin for both Iggy and Bowie. “The wall was beautiful,â€\x9d said the former. “It created a wonderful island, the same way that volcanos created islands in the sea. The opposing pressures created this place that they all studiously [ignored] and nobody bugged you. It was wonderful.â€\x9d The album should have sold more in 1977, but Elvis Presley’s unexpected death coincided with Iggy’s own release schedule, meaning all of RCA’s resources were used up reprinting the King’s back catalogue. 5. I’m Bored Iggy’s third solo album proper, New Values, was the first not to feature Bowie, with James Williamson back as producer. New Values is a wildly creative and commercially undervalued tour de force of songwriting that suffers only slightly from Williamson’s dry and unostentatious production. That doesn’t impede I’m Bored, a song that actually thrives on its threadbare garage simplicity. Pop bellyaches with a deep boom about the ennui he feels, while gently lampooning the captains of industry driving the economy – “I’m bored / I’m the chairman of the boredâ€\x9d. As a champion of the hoi polloi, Pop often had a pop at the establishment, though I’m Bored was far more subtly subversive than I’m a Conservative on the following album. Such nihilism was in keeping with the musical climate, though Iggy had been expressing his dissatisfaction long before it was fashionable to do so. 6. I Need More Iggy had recruited Rich Kids bass guitarist and ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock for the New Values tour. Matlock stuck around for the following album, Soldier, writing one track and co-writing another three (although he soon left again after an altercation over the final mix). The pick of the bunch is I Need More. “More venom, more dynamite, more disaster,â€\x9d spits Pop, “I need more than I ever did before.â€\x9d According to Trynka, the song is an exploration of Pop’s narcissism, which was partly inspired by his time in that psychiatric institution. Intriguingly, Murray Zucker, the doctor who treated him in 1975, has said the hypomania he diagnosed might have been a misdiagnosis, adding that I Need More is a “brilliant explorationâ€\x9d of narcissism as a condition. It’s a rough and ready, picaresque adventure into Ig’s id, while musically the song swings with a menace that’s oddly reminiscent of the Fall. 7. Repo Man In the early 80s, Iggy was struck by hard luck, tax demands and artistic underperformance, but much of his misfortune could be attributed to a tendency to self-sabotage. Record contracts came and went, and musically he lost his way as he persisted in beating his brains, winding up paying another visit to Dr Zucker in 1983. The British movie director Alex Cox found him in an unfurnished studio off Sunset Strip and gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with the theme to Repo Man. “At the time, I’d had a hiccup in my career due to my wild lifestyle,â€\x9d said Iggy. “I was sort of on the ropes, not making much money … It was like a gift from God to express myself.â€\x9d Joining forces with ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones, who was now clean, as well as members of Blondie, Iggy delivered another biting indictment of LA living, which begins with the lines: “I was riding on a concrete slab, down a river of useless flab / it was such a beautiful day / I heard a witchdoctor say, ‘I’ll turn you into a toadstool.’â€\x9d Repo Man – the song – is a stream-of-consciousness masterclass conceived and recorded in 20 minutes flat. It’s one of Iggy’s indisputable highlights of the decade, though to be fair, there weren’t too many of those. 8. Shades “There’s a fine line between entertaining flamboyance and being a prat,â€\x9d said the newly self-aware singer. “I was becoming Don Quixote.â€\x9d His getting clean and sober also coincided with reconvening his artistic relationship with David Bowie. Again Bowie was there at his lowest ebb with the promise of redemption, and 1986 saw Pop’s profile rise again. There were even hits, notably a cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s The Wild One, renamed Real Wild Child, which went Top 10 in the UK. The resulting album, Blah Blah Blah, certainly sounds like a product of its time, but some of the songs cut through the fluorescent sheen, especially Shades, which is a much better David Bowie song than the ones he was writing for himself at the time. It’s a dizzyingly romantic love song that Iggy carries off with surprising aplomb. “I’m not the kind of guy who dresses like a king / And a really fine pair of shades means everything,â€\x9d he sings, enamoured with his new present from his sweetheart. “And the light that blinds my eyes shines from you.â€\x9d 9. Wild America It may surprise some that Iggy Pop’s best selling album to date is 1990’s Brick by Brick, mainly thanks to his first US top 40 hit, Candy, a duet with the B52s’ Kate Pierson. The album was poor, and at times, puerile; the follow-up, American Caesar, was vastly superior, but sold nothing like its predecessor. In fact the 90s is generally regarded as another fallow period for Pop, the nadir coming in the shape of 1996’s dreadful Naughty Little Doggie, but American Caesar is blessed with some truly fine moments, like a song that documents a night out in the US Iggy Pop style. “Now I’m in a black car with my Mexicana / She’s got methedrine but I want marijuana,â€\x9d he drawls, and the morning after is recounted too: “She laughed and said Iggy / You have got a biggy.â€\x9d Wild America features a scything, repetitive guitar line, while the video cuts to autobiographical footage of a shirtless Jim Osterberg recounting growing up in a Michigan trailer park. 10. Paraguay Iggy Pop’s career is strewn with some fairly indifferent collaborations, but when he gets it right, true alchemy happens. Bowie is the most obvious example of a perfect partner (80s French new wave duo Les Rita Mitsouko are probably less obvious), and then there’s Josh Homme, who has helped resurrect Iggy’s solo career. It all happened thanks to Pop reaching out to the musician by text message, suggesting they might try writing together. Subsequently Pop said Homme took him to “a place I’d never been,â€\x9d while Homme added it was a place “neither of us had gone before. That was the agreement. And to go all the way.â€\x9d This year’s album Post Pop Depression is a masterwork by the 69-year-old that may yet prove to be his last. If so then it’s a profound and stylish way to conclude an illustrious career. Every song is a contender, but Paraguay gets the nod because of its sheer ambition. During the clattering, blues-driven outro, Iggy dreams of “getting away to a new life / Where there’s not so much fucking knowledge / I don’t want any of this ‘information’.â€\x9d Right to the last, there’s an internal struggle and the desire to get away, though at least this time its for new climes rather than disappearing into a deleterious hole (Paraguay may well symbolise a spiritually higher plane). Those that know the singer well often talk of a duality, of the charming James Newell Osterberg versus the monster Iggy Pop. Iggy might appear to be a loser at times, but with a legendary career spanning more than half a century behind him, one can only beg to differ.',
 'Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift: match made in heaven or a PR stunt? Hiddleswift. It sounds like some arcane practice out of JK Rowling but it is, of course, the latest celebrity hybrid that takes its place alongside those other magnificent centaurs, Brangelina, Bennifer and Kimye. Names that are – in ways that would require a PhD in marketing to explain – so much more than the sum of their parts. Ever since that fateful day, only last Thursday, when the Sun revealed its “world exclusiveâ€\x9d with the deathless headline “Tinker Taylor Snogs a Spyâ€\x9d, the world has been coming to terms with the apparent merger of two leading glamour brands: the actor Tom Hiddleston and the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift Photographs showed the alleged couple kissing and canoodling on some rocks on a beach in Rhode Island. Exactly how and why the photographs were taken remains the subject of fevered speculation. Some suggest that they are not authentic paparazzi work, insofar as they lack that hallmark sense of furtive intrusion. The word that has been used is “stagedâ€\x9d. That a fledgling romance between two such talented luminaries in distinct fields of the arts could be reduced to so crude an epithet is perhaps a reflection of the cynical times in which we live. That said, the images do indeed look as if a team of PR consultants and fashion stylists had just stepped out of the shot, rather than as though they were captured by lucky lurking snapper. Which raises the question: why would a singer whose private life forms the basis of her songwriting and is the source of intense interest for her army of fans and a man widely judged to be waging an unprecedentedly aggressive campaign to become the next James Bond want to place themselves in a situation that gained global exposure? Who knows? Forget the photos and enjoy the story, which comes with such a strong aroma of invention that it can only be true. It seems that they met last month at the Met Gala in New York, where Swift challenged Hiddleston to a dance. Among his many gifts – a passable Robert De Niro impression and a winningly bashful smile – Hiddleston, as YouTube will confirm, is a seriously good dancer. And if it should turn out that buried in the works of Ian Fleming is a scene in which Bond struts his funky stuff, then the job’s in the bag. Anyway, they danced, chatted and he called her the moment he heard that Swift had broken up from her boyfriend, the Scottish DJ Calvin Harris. Anonymous sources – and this tale features more anonymous sources than a Seymour Hersh exposé – say that he sent her flowers and deployed that bashful smile – so lethal in The Night Manager that it completely disarmed an arms dealer – to devastating effect. Or perhaps not. No one official is saying. Even the PRs are withholding a clarifying statement. All that leaves for the watching world are the enigmatic clues left on social media. Harris has unfollowed Swift and composed a (since deleted) gnomic tweet: “Oh boy it’s about to go downâ€\x9d. That may have referred to his next gig, but the consensus of opinion is that it means they are never ever getting back together. If love has always been cruel, in the age of 24-hour status updates it can be particularly unforgiving. But then Swift, still only 26, has never been one for keeping her emotions to herself. As Rolling Stone said, she overshares “louder than anyone else in the gameâ€\x9d. Her deceptively catchy brand of country-pop is shot through with the bittersweet memories of her various relationships with, among others, Jake Gyllenhaal, One Direction’s Harry Styles and Robert F Kennedy’s grandson, Conor. She is an uncannily gifted songwriter, able to infuse irresistible riffs with surprisingly poignant lyrics. Her album 1989 – the year of her birth – has been hailed as a pop classic. She is hugely successful, rivalled only by Adele on the international stage, and said to be worth in the neighbourhood of $200m. It says something about the elusive nature of sexual equality that a young, powerful, rich, attractive and extremely famous woman still represents a problematic equation. History, even more enlightened recent history, is not overendowed with men who are comfortable with taking a lesser position in the spotlight. But say what you will about old Etonians, they tend not to suffer from a shortfall in confidence. And one of Hiddleston’s strongest suits is his easy physical charm. “He has an exceptional sense of rhythm and moves like a dream,â€\x9d the director Joanna Hogg has said. And he looks not only smart enough to recognise the great good fortune that life has brought him, but also to enjoy it. As he told an interviewer a couple of years ago when his career was starting to take off, with major parts in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse adaptation and the Marvel Comics’ Thor series: “It’s mad and bananas and amazing. But I can handle it for the simple reason that it genuinely feels like it’s not real. You know when you go to a fancy dress party and everyone looks incredible and there are crazy things hanging from the ceiling? For about five hours or so, you enter into another world and then, when you come out of it, you are sitting at home with a cup of tea and a biscuit and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Well, that was weird. Fun, but weird.’ That’s exactly what it feels like.â€\x9d The suffering artist he is not. Having grown up in Oxford, attended the Dragon School, Eton and then Cambridge, where he gained a double first in classics, there is little argument that he has had a privileged start in life. His father was a self-made man from a working-class background in Glasgow who wanted to give his children a leg-up. His parents split up when he was 13 and had just started Eton, an experience of which he said: “I like to think it made me more compassionate in my understanding of human frailty.â€\x9d As a consequence, he has often been cast in film and television roles as a handsome young man condemned to accept a blessed existence. In this, he has never been better than in his very first film role in Joanna Hogg’s excellent Unrelated, playing the object of a middle-aged woman’s thwarted desires. There is a boyish but unruffled quality about him that some critics have construed as complacency. Although The Night Manager – the most expensive audition for the Bond part ever filmed – was a success, it was said that Hiddleston didn’t do much. But it’s fair to say that his main responsibility was looking captivating to both the male and female characters alike and he managed this with aplomb. However, if the photos, and the subsequent ones of the couple getting on Swift’s private jet, are true (even if staged), then Hiddleston is going to come under the kind of scrutiny that will test his refined unflappability to the very limit. Swift, who likes to surround herself with a posse of famous friends (Lena Dunham, Cara Delevingne, Ellie Goulding), is used to the attention. She was declared a prodigy in the New Yorker when she was just 16. Taught to play guitar by a computer repairman when she was 12, she showed such promise that her parents relocated the family to Nashville when she was 14. By the time she was 18, her second album, Fearless, was a multimillion bestseller. She is nine years younger than Hiddleston, but she has been in show-business as long as he has and she has within her a resilience that belies her tender years. The press has written in detail about all her relationships, but then so has she, the difference being that she doesn’t name names. As she has said: “The fact that I’ve never confirmed whom those songs are about makes me feel there is still one card I’m holding.â€\x9d She hates the idea that she has been “calculatingâ€\x9d about her private life, using it to increase her public reach. “You can be accidentally successful for three or four years,â€\x9d she told one interviewer who raised the issue. “Accidents happen. But careers take hard work.â€\x9d As do relationships, especially in the glare of carefully arranged paparazzi cameras. Perhaps Hiddleswift will handle it with the ironic understanding that it’s not real but mad and bananas and amazing and it’s all just weird fun. But if they don’t, well at least they make a pretty – if not entirely convincing – picture. THE HIDDLESTON AND SWIFT FILE Born Taylor Alison Swift, Reading, Pennsylvania, 13 December 1989; Thomas William Hiddleston, London, 9 February 1981. Best of times Swift’s fifth album, 1989, released in 2014 sold more copies in its opening week than any album in the previous 12 years. It also won three Grammy awards. Hiddleston’s title role in BBC1’s hit spy thriller The Night Manager was a huge hit with critics and TV audiences. He’s favourite to be the new James Bond. Worst of times When Kanye West ruined Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMA awards, telling the audience that Beyoncé should have won. Hiddleston starred in a 2014 Jaguar commercial criticised for encouraging irresponsible driving. She says “I went out on a normal amount of dates in my early 20s and I got absolutely slaughtered for it. I didn’t date for two-and-a-half years. Should I have had to do that? No.â€\x9d He says “You can’t treat the woman you love as a piece of meat. You should treat your love like a princess. Give her love songs, something with real meaning.â€\x9d',
 'Roger Daltrey planning solo record and book – but he may not release them In October the Who’s Roger Daltrey will appear at the star-studded Desert Trip festival in California. Now he’s adding two projects to his calendar: a solo album and an autobiography – both of which, he says, may never see the light of day. “I’m working on a solo project, but I don’t know whether I’ll ever release it,â€\x9d Daltrey said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I’m working on a biography … [but] I’ll only release it if it’s a good book. I don’t care how long it takes. “I won’t sign a publishing deal. People sign a publishing deal and they have to put it out because they’ve taken the money. Well, bollocks to the money, I don’t care about the money. I want [to write] a good book.â€\x9d He also expressed concern about the way in which people consume music for free online: “The way the internet has come about has been the biggest robbery in history,â€\x9d he said, “like musicians should work for nothing.â€\x9d When asked about whether the Who would put out any of its unreleased songs, he said he wouldn’t pay-to-play. “There’s no royalties, so I can’t see that ever happening. There’s no record business. How do you get the money to make the records? … I’m certainly not going to pay money to give my music away for free. I can’t afford to do that. I’ve got other things I could waste the money on,â€\x9d Daltrey said. “Musicians are getting robbed every day,â€\x9d he added. “You notice, the internet is a slowly but surely destructive thing. I don’t think it’s improved people’s lives. It’s just made them do more work and feel like they’re wanted a bit more, but it’s all bollocks.â€\x9d A new solo record would be Daltrey’s first lone venture since 1992’s Rocks in the Head. The Who frontman has released eight solo studio albums so far, kicking off in 1973 with Daltrey. He says he has collected “five great tracksâ€\x9d for a proposed solo record, and is “looking for another fiveâ€\x9d. What musical direction might he take? “I started off as a soul singer. I’ve never done a soul album. I’m playing some stuff like that. I’ve got ranges in my voice that people have never, ever heard.â€\x9d',
 'The Family review – riddle of a Melbourne cult goes largely unanswered The formation of Melbourne-based cult The Family and the behaviour of its charismatic leader – a yoga teacher who claimed, as you do, to be Jesus Christ reincarnated – is a terrific story, full of incredulous events and hair-raising details. Teaching a hodge-podge of eastern mysticism and Christianity, Anne Hamilton-Byrne was the group’s self-appointed head honcho, who sat on a literal throne and fed her home-schooled young followers LSD. Throughout the 60s and 70s Hamilton-Byre adopted children she raised (and claimed to be her own), dressing them in identical clothes and cutting their peroxide-dyed hair in the same bob cut. Looking at photographs of them evokes memories of Village of the Damned, or the twins from The Shining (“come play with us forever and ever and ever …â€\x9d). A falling out between the leader and one of her “daughtersâ€\x9d, Sarah, spelt the beginning of the end: police raided The Family’s property in Eildon in the late 80s and legal proceedings followed. In the field of stranger-than-fiction Australian tales, this one is certainly on the podium. A terrific story indeed. But sadly, not the one presented in film-maker Rosie Jones’s ambitious attempt to make sense of it; a structurally higgledy-piggledy documentary that is less an expose than a tantalising suggestion of the history lesson that might have been. The tendency for film-makers to shoot first and “pick it up in the editâ€\x9d is a particularly tempting one in documentary. Here it seems to have overwhelmed the film-maker; there’s a feeling The Family was ordered retrospectively and the task was monumental. Jones’s research is commendable (perhaps an upcoming book tie-in will provide a more accommodating format) and the film includes access to several of the now grown-up children. But the riddle of what compelled Hamilton-Byrne’s followers to behave in ways they would otherwise find morally reprehensible remains largely out of reach. So too for more elementary questions. What did a standard day at the club cult-house look like? What did the adults get up to when they weren’t drugging the kids? The Family drops most of its information about Hamilton-Byrne towards the end (her life is unquestionably interesting, journeying from an impoverished background to an insanely – in more than a single sense – privileged one) but that content might have worked better front-loaded. The film would have immeasurably benefited from a clearer, more palatable structure, a path to guide audiences through this tangled, creepy, improbable yarn. At one point a new interview appears, credited as a current member of the sect. The viewer’s response is likely to be What’s that? Say again? This thing still exists? But the film-maker greets the revelation with no sense of surprise, a frustrating approach, presumably predicated on an assumption audiences more or less know this story. Most of us don’t. A great one remains – evidently, like the cult itself – lurking somewhere, waiting to be told.',
 'No 10 rules out forcing obese people to undergo treatment to get benefits Downing Street has ruled out adopting David Cameron’s proposal for obese people or those with drug or alcohol problems to be forced to undergo treatment as a condition of receiving benefits. Theresa May’s deputy official spokesman confirmed that the idea of sanctions for people who are obese or have addiction problems and refuse help is “not under considerationâ€\x9d, after a government-commissioned review found that there was no evidence it would work. The review by Dame Carol Black, a doctor and academic who is the principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, was set up by Cameron 18 months ago to examine the wider effects of obesity and addiction on employment levels. Black was specifically tasked by the then prime minister with looking into whether very overweight people, or those with addiction problems, could be deprived of benefits if they declined treatment. At the time, Cameron said: “Whether it is drug or alcohol problems, or preventable conditions in terms of obesity, support and treatment will be there for you. And we must look at what we do when people simply say ‘no thanks’ and refuse that help, but expect taxpayers to carry on funding their benefits.â€\x9d But in her report published on Monday, Black said such a proposal was impractical, in part because of ethical concerns and the fear that such sanctions could lead people to try to hide their problems. She also found that it would be hard to accurately identify benefits claimants with addictions, and noted that treatments and other help were too sporadically available for such a plan to be effective. Instead, her report recommended a series of measures to improve the way the benefits system deals with people with addictions, and make access to work or volunteering a part of treatment regimes. “After a searching inquiry, we are clear that a fresh approach is needed, one that brings together health, social and employment agencies in new collaborative ways, personalised to the circumstances of each individual,â€\x9d Black said. Following the report’s publication, May’s spokesman said: “Withdrawing benefits from obese people is not under consideration.â€\x9d In the 140-page report, Black noted that with the benefits system, “there is no reliable way of identifying claimants with addictions and there is a distinct lack of specialised supportâ€\x9d. “We doubt whether mandation of treatment – one of the possibilities mentioned in our terms of reference – should be the first response to the evident problems for the cohorts under discussion,â€\x9d she said. “Further, there is a strong consensus that mandating treatment would lead to more people hiding their addiction than revealing it. “We also heard from health professionals [with] serious concerns about the legal and ethical implications of mandating treatment, and whether this would be a cost-effective approach.â€\x9d On obesity, she said the relationship between being overweight and out of work was complex. “We cannot infer a direct causal relationship between obesity and unemployment,â€\x9d the report noted, recommending more research on the subject. In her introduction to the report, Black said she thought the benefits system required “significant changeâ€\x9d to better help people with addictions into work, and any connection with obesity seemed indirect. While treatments for drug and alcohol dependence were easily available, with waiting times for both about three or four days, only about 20% of people entering such schemes have a job and relatively few people find work during or after the treatment, she said. “It is clear that providing treatment alone, without additional support such as employment, housing and skills, has limited and inconsistent effects on employment,â€\x9d the report found. Black recommended that claimants with drug or alcohol problems should see a health professional about what could be preventing them from obtaining work. She said employers should be encouraged to give jobs to those who have faced addiction, for example by providing grants to small companies that employ people with a history of alcohol or drug dependence. While the report found relatively little difference in employment rates between obese adults and those of normal weight – 68% and 70% respectively – the gap increased by more than 10 percentage points for severely obese people. But establishing a causal relationship was difficult, with unemployed obese adults more likely to live in the most deprived areas, and have poor qualifications and health issues such as diabetes. The report found there was a significant overlap between obesity and poor mental health. In a statement, the minister for disabled people, Penny Mordaunt, said Black’s findings “support our plans to join up employment and health systemsâ€\x9d. “Your success in life shouldn’t be determined by the circumstances of your birth. We are committed to helping people break down the barriers they face and secure a good job where they can fulfil their potential,â€\x9d she said.',
 "Help us check the facts of politicians' claims about the EU As the referendum on Britain’s place in the European Union draws nearer, both the Leave and Remain campaigns are flinging facts and statistics around with abandon. But which can we actually trust? George Osborne claims that public services such as health and education could face £36bn of cuts as a result of a vote to leave. But he has come under fire from Brexit campaigners who have questioned the Treasury’s calculations. Tory MP John Redwood described the forecast as “completely worthlessâ€\x9d and Stewart Jackson, Conservative MP for Peterborough, mocked the chancellor by producing a fake report written on the back of an envelope. Claims made by those backing a Brexit have prompted similar disputes. Labour MP Gisela Stuart – chair of Vote Leave campaign – says that health tourism costs UK £700m a year; a claim that has been dubbed “hugely misleadingâ€\x9d by those on the Remain side. So when it comes to the referendum, what is the truth? We want you to help us to check. Does a piece of data sound suspicious? Do you have evidence to prove statistics are being misused? Help us sort the facts from the fiction by filling in the form below.",
 'Scrutiny grows on Manchester United’s José Mourinho as losses mount up It fell to Marouane Fellaini to break the news. Put up in front of the media following his team’s defeat by Watford, the midfielder told French TV: “We can say it’s a little crisis because a club like Manchester United cannot lose three games.â€\x9d And there it was, the c-word. The Belgian might be overstating matters. As far as the league is concerned, the crisis-hit United are only a point behind Liverpool, who everybody agrees have started the season like a train. What’s more, a club very much like United lost four games in a row in December last year and three in a row in January 2013. So maybe Fellaini’s remarks ought to be paraphrased: a club like Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United should not lose three games when the team are managed by José Mourinho. This is the first time Mourinho has lost three consecutive games in a season since he was fresh in the door at Porto in 2002. And two of those defeats came in the Champions League at the hands of Real Madrid. It is also the worst league start in the Portuguese’s all-conquering career since he first made his bow as manager, at União de Leiria in 2001, and even then his first five matches served up only a solitary defeat. The Special One has earned a reputation in this country, among many other things, as being a manager who hits the ground running, inspiring immediate faith and fire in his teams. This legend was forged in his first stint at Chelsea, where he won four of his first five games in the 2004-05 season, starting with a 1-0 win against Ferguson’s United. It set a tone that took Chelsea to their first title in 50 years. Looking back on Mourinho’s past achievements and the almost endless commentary he provided on them is interesting because the tropes that define his success have always been clearly articulated. After defeating United in August 2004 he happily admitted that his side had played with a defensive mentality, even though they were at home. “If you have to play a little bit different to win a game then you have to do it,â€\x9d he said. In further remarks he stressed the team’s unity and concentration, comparing it favourably with his rivals with “great teams [who] have worked with their managers for a long timeâ€\x9d. Just as visible in the rearview mirror are Mourinho’s flaws, however, particularly his penchant for personal attacks. It was Luke Shaw’s turn to feel the wrath of his manager at the weekend; the full-back, only recently returned from long-term injury, was accused of lacking the necessary “tactical and mentalâ€\x9d strength to compete. In August 2004 it was United’s Mikaël Silvestre who got it in the neck. The United defender had suggested Chelsea might struggle to gel immediately under their new manager. Mourinho made sure to issue a response. “When Silvestre said we haven’t got the time to create a big team spirit he was wrong,â€\x9d he said. On arrival in Italy as manager of Internazionale in 2008, Mourinho won three of his first five matches. He lost the fifth, which happened to be the derby against Milan. This time it was the opponents who had played defensively, but Mourinho was less understanding. “It’s better to lose a game than to be afraid of playing football,â€\x9d he said. “Milan have a lot of experience and they know how to control the tempo, commit a tactical foul or pretend to have an injury to slow down the pace.â€\x9d Kaká was singled out, having in Mourinho’s eyes feigned being fouled. The Brazilian rejected the accusation: “Mourinho makes me laugh. He’s funny.â€\x9d Mourinho had the last laugh, though, as Inter won the league. After winning the Champions League with Inter, Mourinho made his move to Real where he had the best start of his career. Madrid went unbeaten in all competitions until the end of November, but that defeat was a calamity, the 5-0 manita whitewash by Barcelona that remains the worst defeat in his career. The performance was so bad, he could not even single anyone out. “I leave disappointed both in my team and my players, individually,â€\x9d he said. When Mourinho returned to Chelsea as “the Happy Oneâ€\x9d in 2013, he seemed content to pursue Roman Abramovich’s ambitions of expansive, attacking football. That changed with his first defeat, in his fourth match, 1-0 at Everton. Mourinho’s verdict: “Artistic football is no use without goals.â€\x9d He went on to blame André Schürrle for missing “three big chancesâ€\x9d, before adding, in the same breath: “I don’t like to be critical of players who missed some chances.â€\x9d Chelsea went on to win the league the following year, but yet the abiding memory of Mourinho’s second stint at the club will be the awful defence of their title and his graceless part in it. Now, before the leaves have even begun to turn, he is under pressure again at Old Trafford. Mourinho has taken jobs at big clubs that have fallen from grace, those that have needed an overhaul and those with the very highest of expectations. It might be the first time, however, that he has taken a job combining all three. The scrutiny is hardly about to diminish.',
 'Jeb Bush meets Republican field amid Trump momentum – as it happened We’re closing up shop on today’s liveblog - stay tuned for our new liveblog, which will be tuned in to the Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami! US contributor Christopher Barron has been watching the Fox News town hall with John Kasich. He finds that he is a serious candidate ... its just too bad for him that we live in very unserious times. Ohio Governor John Kasich kicked off the Fox News primetime Republican love fest with a town hall moderated by Greta Van Susteren and attended by largely undecided voters in Illinois. Governor Kasich is a serious man and a serious candidate, unfortunately for him the Republican primary electorate seems to prefer Trump’s vaudeville act or Cruz’s televangelism to his sober policy prescriptions. Kasich got specific on policy (though often in his rambling, stream of consciousness style). He spoke fluently on education, taxes, trade, health care, the economy and foreign policy - where, interestingly enough, he struck an almost libertarian tone. While others in the race have tried to take on front-runner Donald Trump head on, showing a willingness to get down in the dirt, Kasich has chosen a very different path - his entire campaign is focused on being the adult in the race. This town hall was devoid of the red meat and ramped up rhetoric you find at a Trump or Cruz or Rubio rally these days. It is clear Kasich is banking on the Republican primary electorate coming to their collective senses at some point. It doesn’t, however, seem to be a smart bet at this point. Whatever happens to Kasich in Ohio on Tuesday, watching the arc of his campaign does make me wonder how far Jeb could have gotten if he would have taken this path rather than getting drawn into the brawls with Trump. A Republican congressman has joined the growing chorus of people who have - implicitly or otherwise - compared Donald Trump to a European fascist leader in the 1930s. Chris Stewart, of Utah, compared Trump to dictator Benito Mussolini during a forum at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, according to Buzzfeed. “If some of you are, I’ll just tell you now, Donald Trump supporters, then we see the world differently,â€\x9d Stewart said, “because I can’t imagine what someone is thinking.â€\x9d “I’m telling you, Donald Trump does not represent Republican ideals,â€\x9d Stewart continued. “He’s our Mussolini.â€\x9d Stewart has endorsed Marco Rubio’s presidential bid. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox says a Donald Trump presidency could lead Mexico and the US to a trade war that would hurt both countries, according to the Associated Press. A day after Trump stretched his lead over GOP rivals with wins in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, Fox says that if he were to impose tariffs Mexico would have to react in kind. Fox says: “We are going to lose everything in a trade war.â€\x9d He added Wednesday that it’s up to Hillary Clinton to “saveâ€\x9d the United States from a Trump presidency. Fox also criticized Bernie Sanders as a proponent of the kind of “stupidâ€\x9d populism that has led to “demagogyâ€\x9d in some Latin American nations. Nor does he like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who Fox said “denied their (Latino) originsâ€\x9d. Ted Cruz just scored another major-ish endorsement This morning, the Texas senator was greeted with the welcome addition of former Hewlett-Packard CEO and onetime Republican candidate for president Carly Fiorina to his roster of endorsers. This evening, Cruz has received the endorsement of another prominent female figure in the conservative movement: Meghan McCain, daughter of longtime US senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain. “I was a huge Carly Fiorina fan and supporter,â€\x9d McCain said on Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox News, stating that it was Fiorina’s endorsement of Cruz that moved her to support the Texas senator. “I think her most notable moment was when Donald trump talked about her face, and she responded so eloquently during the debate,â€\x9d she continued. “I think she has the capacity getting a lot of young conservative women taking a second look at Ted Cruz.â€\x9d “For me, honestly, I’ve been hesitant about Ted Cruz, and the Carly Fiorina endorsement has swayed my personal opinion,â€\x9d McCain said. Her father the senator has been less positive about Cruz, famously dismissing him as a “whacko bird.â€\x9d The ’s Stuart Dredge spotted this... thing in Manhattan’s Union Square today: Donald Trump is winning not just with voters, but with former New York Yankee outfielders as well. This afternoon, former Yankee Johnny Damon announced his support for the Republican frontrunner. Damon, a former contestant on The Apprentice, defended Trump’s controversial views on immigration in an interview with the New York Daily News. “Everyone is calling him a racist. He just wants people to come into this country legally and fill out the proper paperwork. That’s how I’m viewing it,â€\x9d said the two-time all star. On Tuesday, former Yankee outfielder Paul O’Neill announced his support for Trump while attending the candidate’s election night press conference in Jupiter, Florida. Trump even mentioned the five time World Series champion by name in the course of his meandering monologue. While elected officials have been loathe to associate themselves with Trump, the Republican frontrunner has long kept up ties to the world of sports. He has rolled the endorsements of a number of NASCAR drivers and famously is friends with New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady. With the endorsements of Damon and O’Neill, the Republican frontrunner is now supported by as many former outfielders for the New York Yankees as sitting GOP governors. It’s been a good season for candidates who can channel the anger of the electorate and we saw that again on Tuesday night, when exit polls continued to turn up in favor of Donald Trump, while Bernie Sanders pulled off a surprise victory in Michigan. The victories for Trump and Sanders come after a week when both men’s chances were being played down. Sanders’ campaign had been all but left for dead after he failed to make significant inroads with minority voters on Super Tuesday. Trump faced attacks from the party establishment (most notably Mitt Romney) and scorn from the media establishment for his habit of asking people to raise their hands and pledge allegiance to him at rallies, something Cruz quickly seized upon. “We’ve had seven years of a president who thinks he’s an emperor,â€\x9d he quipped. For a fleeting moment on Tuesday, it looked like Trump’s star might finally be fading. After all, on Saturday he only won by a few percentage points in Louisiana and Kentucky, while Cruz won handily in Maine and Kansas. But winning by less is still, to put it in Trump terms, #winning. And Tuesday’s results suggest the weekend was merely an ebb in the candidate’s current. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders are meeting tonight for their fourth one-on-one debate, and their second in less than a week. Coming on the heels of an embarrassing defeat in Michigan for Clinton (and a correlative win for Sanders) and less than a week before major primaries in Ohio and Florida, tonight’s debate will feature a resurgent Sanders and a defensive Clinton - a dynamic we haven’t seen on the debate stage since after Clinton’s massive win in South Carolina. Before we get to the knock-down-drag-out, here’s a quick run-through of the whos, whats, wheres, whens and whys of tonight’s debate: Who’s going to be there? Aside from Clinton and Sanders, the event will be hosted by anchors Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos, of Univision, and Karen Tumulty, of the Washington Post. The audience will largely be composed of Florida voters, with a sizable contingent of students from Miami Dade Community College. What’s the topic? Most of the Democratic primary debate moderators have taken an ecumenical approach to questioning the candidates, picking and choosing from current events, foreign policy, economic issues, social services and dumb questions from YouTube celebrities. With Univision as the debate’s co-sponsor, expect a fair number of questions around issues relating to Latinos, including immigration and social programs. With the college student contingent present in the audience, the cost of higher education and student-loan debt will likely make an appearance as well. Where is the debate being held? The Miami debate will be held at Miami Dade Community College, “the nation’s largest campus-based institution of higher learning and the most diverse.â€\x9d When is the debate? The debate will begin at 9 p.m. EST, although since it’s being broadcast on CNN, it could drag the intro out for 47 minutes until a candidate actually takes the stage. (Sorry for calling you out, Anderson Cooper, but some of us have kids to babysit.) How can I watch it? The debate will be simulcast from Univision, CNN and the Washington Post’s website. Fusion will also hold a livestream of the debate. This is what we call “poor advance work.â€\x9d Marco Rubio is big into the clickbait-y email subject lines: Granted, he continues that “If we hand the conservative movement over to Donald Trump by making him the Republican nominee, we will lose,â€\x9d but the beleaguered Florida senator got your attention, right? One of the nation’s most influential gun-control advocacy organizations has come out strongly against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, calling his vote in 2006 to keep law enforcement from shutting down gun dealers who operate illegally “unforgivable.â€\x9d “This is one of the most dangerous and potentially deadly pieces of special interest legislation to ever come before Congress,â€\x9d said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement. “And where was Bernie Sanders when it came to a vote? Right where the corporate gun lobby wanted him. Sanders voted to effectively tie the hands of law enforcement and shield gun dealers who knowingly sold weapons illegally and irresponsibly. Most gun dealers operate on the up and up, but the few ‘bad apples’ who flood our nation’s streets with crime guns need to be stopped, not granted a license to kill.â€\x9d The statement refers to H.R. 5092, a bill to soften punishments for firearm retailers and dealers that was introduced during Sanders’ final term in the House of Representatives before he became a US senator. The bill passed the House, but died in the senate. “The Brady Campaign is calling on senator Sanders to renounce his shameful vote for this dangerous bill during tonight’s Democratic debate,â€\x9d Gross continued in the statements. “His vote to protect irresponsible gun dealers, his repeated votes for gun industry special legal protections, and his five votes against the Brady Bill further affirm that, for Americans who have had enough of gun violence, Bernie Sanders is on the wrong side of the issue.â€\x9d The reigning Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhists and winner of the Nobel peace prize, may have learned a few things from Pope Francis after the pontiff’s public feud with billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Namely: Don’t do it. “Oh, that’s your business!â€\x9d the Dalai Lama told ABC News in an interview today, after he was asked “if you have any views on the presidential candidate in this country who is making the most noise, Donald Trump.â€\x9d “Firstly, I have no right or option to vote,â€\x9d the Dalai Lama said, pointing out that he is only in the United States for a short visit. He did say that “sometimes I feel, oh, too much personal criticismâ€\x9d on the campaign trail. “Serious discussion about policy matters, that’s useful,â€\x9d the Dalai Lama said. “But sometimes, little bits of personal criticism in these things - that looks a little bit cheap. That’s my view.â€\x9d “Silly!â€\x9d he said of the state of the Republican primary shaking his head. Donald Trump is about to take his political roadshow to its biggest stage yet, report the ’s Ben Jacobs and Zach Stafford: On Friday, the Republican frontrunner will campaign in Chicago, the third largest city in the US. Since launching his campaign in June, Trump has filled arenas, stadiums, and airplane hangars across much of the country but has tended to stick to predominantly white and politically conservative areas. But with his rally on the campus of the University of Illinois, Chicago, Trump will be campaigning in a city that is a Democratic stronghold and has a large minority population. A Rubio spokesman seeks to spike rumors that the Florida senator would ever consider leaving the race before Florida votes on Tuesday: Former Republican hopeful Jeb Bush will meet with Marco Rubio today and with Ted Cruz and John Kasich tomorrow ahead of Thursday night’s Republican debate in Miami, multiple organizations reported. Why? A Bush spokeswoman “wouldn’t say where or when the meetings will take place other than to confirm they will occur,â€\x9d the Washington Post reported. Clinton is inspired by the women of Avalon Bakery in Detroit. But they’re not inspired back: Bloomberg’s Michael Bender explores Trump’s support base, starting with the scene last night at the Trump news conference at his Palm Beach golf course: As has become Trump’s habit in South Florida, he invited club members to the news conference, and seated them in the first few rows. For all the huge rallies and talk of angry outsiders, this small, expensively dressed group is Trump’s real base. There are CEOs, insurance brokers, health-care executives, former debutantes, trophy wives, and a woman in a short, sparkling silver dress (and thick bracelet to match) with an animal fur wrapped around her like a sash. Read the full piece here. The former nominee acquits himself fairly well, do you think? On Jimmy Kimmel Live which has the running series Celebrities Read Mean Tweets. What’s happening in the comments? We missed a lot of the action last night under the pressure of rapid results. So let’s dig in – The Fiorina endorsement A superdelegates sham? The party writes the rules for awarding delegates, the order in which states vote, the number of bonus delegates a state may get, and the selection of superdelegates, who indeed are not beholden to the rank-and-file voters. And if that sounds to you like a rigged game – well, why would you think that? Bernie versus Donald R.I.P. ‘politics as usual’ The energetic Republican gaming-out of ways to block Donald Trump has included a scenario in which the party gets Marco Rubio and John Kasich to stay in after losing their home states in order to continue splitting the vote with Trump to deny him the 1,237 delegates. (It that sounds a bit Rube Goldberg, consider that a variant plan has Kasich calling on his supporters to vote for Rubio in Ohio and Rubio returning the favor in Florida in an effort to build a cooperative coalition to beat Trump. Or consider the current reports of advisers urging Rubio to drop out before he even has a chance to get beaten – or win – in his home state.) That’s a long-winded way of introducing the general impression that if Rubio doesn’t win Florida next Tuesday, he’s toast: Video – Carly Fiorina endorses Ted Cruz: ‘He doesn’t care about DC cocktail parties’ Here’s another moment of political vertigo brought to you by the 2016 race for the White House: Cruz is not leveraging his presidential run as a merchandising opportunity. Loser! Actually there’s all kinds of junk you can buy in the Ted Cruz store at tedcruz.org – a cooler, a foam finger, a fan jersey, a yoga mat and a pretty snazzy looking spatula. Just cookin’ with my Ted Cruz spatula. Who wants eggs. Ted Cruz does not appear to have been what prevented Marco Rubio from winning Hawaii last night. Trump defeated Cruz in the caucuses 42-33 and Rubio ran a distant third. But yesterday team Rubio accused Cruz of more “dirty tricksâ€\x9d in spreading rumors on the islands that Rubio was a dropout. Cruz emails to Hawaii supporters highlighted a CNN report about advisors seeing no path to the nomination for Rubio. “Senator Cruz is up to his dirty tricks again spreading false rumors and lies,â€\x9d a Rubio spokesman was quoted as saying by the New York Times. The Cruz camp similarly spread reports that Ben Carson was a dropout in advance of the Iowa caucuses. Here’s the Cruz camp statement on Fiorina’s endorsement: Carly Fiorina is a strong, principled leader and woman of faith,â€\x9d said Cruz. “Our campaign is stronger with her leadership and her voice. Her story embodies the promise that in America anyone can start as a secretary and become a Fortune 50 CEO. Carly speaks the truth with courage, doesn’t back down to the Washington powerbrokers, and terrifies Hillary and the Democrats. We are blessed to have her support, and together I am confident we will continue to unite conservatives so that every American has the opportunity to achieve the unimaginable.â€\x9d During the eight months of her candidacy, Fiorina showed a penchant for hitting Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton. “Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband,â€\x9d she said at a January debate. There’s a Trump-sized wall between Cruz and the general election, of course. Can Fiorina help ? Fiorina, who didn’t win many votes but did win respect for sharp debate perfomances that propelled her out of the bottom tier of candidates and into the public eye, suspended her campaign almost a month ago to the day, on 10 February. Here’s part of what she said upon leaving the race: I’ve said throughout this campaign that I will not sit down and be quiet. I’m not going to start now. While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them. Does the Cruz endorsement fit that bill? Here’s a Fiorina’s spokesperson: Look who appeared in Florida for senator Ted Cruz: It’s former Hewlett Packard CEO and former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. Does anyone even have the stomach to digest more polling after what happened last night? It feels, when we’re talking about polls, like we’re talking about data that under certain conditions suggests basic features of the reality in which we live and breathe. But then Michigan happens and it is once again driven home that we might as well have been discussing a hookah-smoking blue caterpillar and a baby turning into a pig. Except at least that would’ve had some entertainment value. Anyway, three pollsters are still at it this morning in Florida and Ohio, the big 15 March prizes, and they seem to bring glad tidings for Donald Trump, glum news for Marco Rubio and a glimmer of hope for John Kasich. Florida _____________________________________________Trump______Rubio______Kasich Quinnipiac (likely GOP voters) _______45___________22 CNN/ORC (some likely voters)________40___________24 U. of North Florida (likely voters)____36___________24 Ohio Quinnipiac__________________________________38__________________________32 CNN/ORC____________________________________41__________________________35 If you missed Donald Trump’s hourlong victory news conference / sales meeting in Florida last night, you can watch the highlights – all minute of them – below. There’s quite a little story actually that has emerged from the Trump appearance, which was held at one of his golf clubs outside Palm Beach. The centerpiece of Trump’s staging was a pile of steaks and rows of wine bottles and magazines and pallets of bottled water and boxes of who knows what. Update: the steaks appear to have been halal! Donald Trump: accommodating of Muslims. Trump brought all that stuff out, he said, to show how his enemies were lying about various products he’s branded over the years. Because his enemies have said he fails all the time. The list of his failures usually includes Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump magazine, Trump vodka... and Trump airlines. But the room was too small for a plane. And Trump argued that those other concerns were still alive. But here’s a remarkable demonstration of Trump’s... chutzpah. All those props he presented to illustrate the durability of his brand – he walked off his dais at one point to handle the steaks, which were shrink-wrapped, and he told reporters all to take a bottle of wine – it was all fake, reports Mashable’s Jonathan Ellis. Here’s a snippet of Trump’s appearance: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders had a grand-slam night last night with an unexpected (for those with any faith in polls) win in the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton. Sanders was supposed to be behind in Michigan by 20 points. But then it turns out he was slightly ahead. So what else that we thought we knew about this election isn’t true? The Democratic candidates themselves may get a chance to discuss the result in Miami tonight, where they are scheduled to meet for a debate, their eighth. It was a big night too for Donald Trump, who topped 47% – his best finish yet – to win Mississippi and who won Michigan by more than 11 points. Then he took the stage in a country club ballroom in Florida next to a pile of steaks (not Trump steaks?!) and cases of vodka and invited Republican holdouts to join his movement. Check out all the results here: Clinton partisans, however, have spent the past 11 hours or so pointing to the following figures ... ... and in fact Clinton did gain delegates on Sanders last night, thanks in part to her huge 83-17 win in Mississippi. But that number 2,383 somehow did not appear to come much closer. Here’s where the Republican race stands, delegates-wise: We have a wealth of politics news to catch up on today. What’s your take on what happened last night? What’s going to happen in Ohio in six days (remember the Democratic race is not, like the Republican contest, winner-take-all)? Thanks for reading – and for pitching in!',
 "Africa's farmers fret over Brexit amid calls to boost regional trade African countries must trade more between themselves to be better equipped to deal with shocks in the global economy such as that caused by Britain’s vote to leave the EU. Speakers at a forum on the sidelines of the 14th UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said enhanced intra-African trade would reduce poverty and help development at a faster rate than most other reforms and would make regional blocs within the continent more attractive to investors. It would also help to cushion against dramatic developments in other markets. The UK-based Overseas Development Institute expects the post-Brexit slump in the pound to cost developing countries nearly $4bn (£3.1bn) in the coming year, with exports projected to decline by approximately $500m. Countries such as Bangladesh, Mauritius, Fiji, Belize and Kenya, whose flowers, garments, sugar, bananas, tea and coffee exports find a large market in the UK, are forecast to be hit particularly hard. Experts say boosting trade within Africa would go a long way towards mitigating the effects of a possible slowdown in exports. “No continent trades within itself less than Africa,â€\x9d said David Stanton, director general of TradeMark East Africa, a non-profit that promotes regional and international trade. “Trading more between and within nations in the region would mean they would be far less exposed to shocks elsewhere. It would also make them more attractive to foreign direct investment and, ultimately, less dependent.â€\x9d Trade between African nations stands at a modest 10%-12%; Europe’s intra-regional trade stands at 60%, and Asia at 40%. This has been blamed on a wide range of regulatory barriers that make it extraordinarily difficult for a trader on one side of the border between Kenya and Uganda, or Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, to cross borders and sell farm produce. The UN’s latest Economic Report on Africa (pdf) found more than 80% of the continent’s exports are shipped overseas, mainly to the EU, China and the US. Anabel González, senior director of the World Bank’s global practice on trade and competitiveness, told a forum in Nairobi in December that in southern Africa, a truck serving supermarkets across a border may need up to 1,600 documents in permits and licences. She described one supermarket chain reporting that it lost $500 each day a truck was stuck at border points due to slow customs procedures, and spent $20,000 a week on securing import permits to distribute meat, milk and plant-based goods to its stores in the region. “If the residents of San Francisco faced the same charges in crossing the Bay Bridge to Oakland as do residents crossing the Congo river between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, a similar distance, they would pay more than $1,200 for a return trip,â€\x9d she said. “As a result, passenger traffic at this obvious focal point for cross-border exchanges between the two Congos is around five times smaller than that between East and West Berlin in 1988.â€\x9d Speaking in Nairobi at the Unctad conference, Pascal Lamy, former head of the World Trade Organisation, challenged authorities in the region to make it easier for businesses to trade across borders and do business more generally. “Apart from making trade possible, you have to make trade happen,â€\x9d he said. “You have to address obstacles to access to the market through things like infrastructure projects, but at the same time you must ensure that people have the tools they need to trade including access to credit and the information they need.â€\x9d Josephine Kizza, a Ugandan farmer representing a collective of 6,000, mainly female, farmers who grow bananas, avocados, pumpkins, jackfruit, watermelon and plums, and whose herbs and spices are finding a growing market in the UK and the EU, said it was essential to move quickly to address the uncertainty following Brexit. Kenyan tea farmers are also anxious to see what kind of deal Britain can negotiate for access to European markets. The country is the world’s biggest exporter of black tea and enjoys a large market in the UK, but 17% of imports are blended and re-exported to the EU. Stanton said the lesson regional blocs should draw is to avoid complacency and ensure citizens are more engaged and kept aware of the benefits of integration. “Maybe this is a wake-up call,â€\x9d he said. “You need to ensure the public understands how the East African Community secretariat works, build strong links between capitals and keep the people closely informed so that they appreciate both the gains from working together as a bloc and the risks if it falls apart.â€\x9d",
 'Cult heroes: Amanda Palmer – a fearless one-woman creative typhoon Times and places are fuzzy. Some anonymous arena, around 2004. I can’t even remember which band I was there to review – something a bit goth, I suspect. But the pre-gig video is fried forever on to my internal Imax like a nuclear shadow, in all its surreal, expressionist cabaret glory. A woman dressed like a Weimar-era debutante mime – face pan-stick white, curlicues for eyebrows, the striped stockings of a Brechtian sex doll – slammed the window on a stream of human suitors and cuddled up instead to a clockwork boyfriend. “I turn him on and he comes to life,â€\x9d she cooed, animating her robotic beau by dropping a silver penny into a slot on his chest, “automatic joy … many shapes and weights to choose from / I will never leave my bedroom / I will never cry at night again / wrap my arms around him and pretend.â€\x9d By the end of the clip she’d graduated from forcing her plastic man-toy to waltz along to her entrancing music-box melody to hammering at a piano and bawling like a horror movie banshee crying out for her long-dead baby. It even came with a postmodern cry for help in the bridge, “written to make you feel smittener / with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer / Can you extract me from my plastic fantasy?â€\x9d The song was Coin-Operated Boy, the band was the Dresden Dolls and the woman was Amanda Palmer. And I wasn’t the first, or the last, person dumbstruck by her. Occasionally known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, she first emerged as a leading agent provocateur of the Boston street-theatre scene. Between directing surreal Nazi-themed performance art pieces based on the music of the Legendary Pink Dots and touring the world’s tourist plazas with her Eight Foot Bride living statue act, she developed a cult following with the Dresden Dolls, the “Brechtian punk cabaretâ€\x9d band she formed with drummer Brian Viglione in 2000. Inviting fans to fire-breathe, stilt-walk and generally burlesque it up at their early shows, they grew a wing called the Dirty Business Brigade to co-ordinate the performers and became a keystone of the burgeoning dark cabaret movement, a parade of theatrical freaks, mimes and Moriartys. The Dresden Dolls lived out the dream of every university drama troupe that’s ever bagged free Glastonbury tickets in return for parading across the theatre fields dressed as escapees from a vaudevillian drumming workshop, but it worked because of Palmer’s innate talent, tortured demeanour and contemporary nous. Lesser artists might have defined themselves by the am dram theatrics or played it as Dita Von Teese with attitude, but Palmer dug deep into her squirming sack of issues and let her songwriting skills speak for themselves. Their debut album certainly contained enough cabaret overtones to warrant its own woodland stage in Bestival’s ambient forest, but Palmer’s savvy piano punk construction of Girl Anachronism, Coin-Operated Boy and Bad Habit was blessed with a post-millennial pop edge and her lyrics struck a chord with the damaged emo era. In interview she spoke of abortion, bisexuality, open relationships, date rape and a past as a stripper called Berlin; on record she seemed constantly on the edge of screaming emotional meltdown, tackling thorny taboos such as self-harm, romantic delirium, paedophilia and psychiatric medication in brutally frank terms. Missed Me’s portrayal of a young girl’s thought processes while being groomed for abuse was particularly disturbing: “If you kiss me mister you must think I’m pretty / If you think so mister you must want to fuck me / If you fuck me mister it must mean you love me.â€\x9d Difficult pills indeed, only made palatable by the fourth wall of Palmer’s melodramatic persona and the gallows humour of the unbroken survivor. Witness her skewering an uncaring ex from behind a fake mask of indifference on first single Good Day, years before we all perfected the “look how much fun I’m having without youâ€\x9d Facebook album. Like other artists using their music as an open diary of tangible anguish, Palmer grew a devoted following, sucked into her expanding web of artistry. Rather than let her success in music constrain her, she remained a theatrical and poetic polymath, writing books that accompanied the Dresden Dolls albums, and encouraged and collaborating with fans on two 2006 musicals of their work: A Clockwork Waltz and The Onion Cellar. Their gigs became carnivals or nights of “celluloid vaudevilleâ€\x9d, featuring short films made by fans and friends, local artist performances and Palmer playing impromptu solo shows of film soundtrack covers. The result was a fan community that felt intrinsically involved in her beautiful dark twisted fantasy, and deeply defensive of their hardy heroine. When Palmer blogged that her label, Roadrunner, had tried to insist that she remove shots of her “uncommercially fatâ€\x9d stomach from the video of a song called Leeds United from her 2008 Ben Folds-produced solo debut, Who Killed Amanda Palmer – a song, obviously, about losing a football shirt given to her by Ricky Wilson – a fan “reBELLYonâ€\x9d struck up online. Fans sent pictures of their stomachs to Roadrunner in their droves, eventually helping Palmer achieve her goal of being released from her contract. The album’s other videos, featuring Palmer stripped bare on Ampersand or caught mid-breakdown on Runs in the Family, received overwhelming support in the 24-hour Troll Power rally that is the YouTube comments section. When she launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her second solo album, Theatre Is Evil, in 2012, her modest target was smashed as thoroughly as all of her bedroom mirrors. The grand total of $1.2m was the most raised by a musician at the time. In return, Palmer leaves nothing about her life and music out of bounds. On the tour for Theatre Is Evil, she invited fans to join her Grand Theft Orchestra backing band on horns and strings for a few songs, only to run into criticism from the likes of Steve Albini for not paying them out of her Kickstarter windfall. She’s regularly played all-ages guerilla gigs on the ukulele, covering the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel, NWA, Radiohead (she released an entire covers album of Radiohead songs) and, oh yes, Rebecca Black’s Friday. Sometimes, she stripped naked to let hordes of fans write and draw on her. The Daily Mail was playing with fire when it tried to turn her into faux-shock tabloid titillation in the wake of a “nip slipâ€\x9d at Glastonbury 2013; she responded by performing a song called Dear Daily Mail, Up Yours in the nude at London’s Roundhouse. Bold, brazen, inclusive and flamboyantly political – this is the woman who kissed, gagged, kidnapped and mock-married a Katy Perry impersonator onstage in 2008 to protest Proposition 8 – Palmer is a one-woman creative typhoon, gathering disciples and import wherever she spins. In a pop landscape full of contrived shock and ghostwritten soul-baring, Palmer’s the real deal.',
 'Neil Young and Promise of the Real review – rocking down the nature trail After recent dalliances with combusting custom converted electric cars and less than highly praised high-fidelity music players, Neil Young is back on firmer and more familiar ground with his anti-agribusiness concept album The Monsanto Years. “Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the 21st century,â€\x9d sings the grizzled dude hunched over a beat-up old upright piano in a black fedora hat and T-shirt emblazoned “EARTHâ€\x9d, as he contemporises a lyric from 1970’s still miraculous sounding After the Gold Rush to roars of approval from the crowd. (The line “I felt like getting highâ€\x9d also gets its own telling ovation.) The 70-year-old Canadian folk, country and rock icon was writing about the embattled natural world long before most people had even heard of their carbon footprint. In an atypically theatrical start to proceedings, two men dressed like poor farm hands scatter seeds across the stage, ahead of a lassoing opening solo acoustic segment that includes Heart of Gold, still powerful anti-heroin anthem The Needle and the Damage Done and, performed on a wheezing church organ, Mother Earth (Natural Anthem). After a time, as the young bucks from Promise of the Real emerge – Young’s latest backing group and collaborators, a five-piece Californian jam band featuring Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas and Micah (the former rocks a kilt) – men in hazmat suits pretend-spray pesticides about their feet. GM foods, corporate greed and America’s busted rural economy are clearly on Young’s mind at the moment, although strangely he largely eschews songs from The Monsanto Years, save for the inclusion towards the end of weary country love song to a wounded planet Wolf Moon, and the record’s supermarkets-spearing title track. (Its low choral drawls of “at Saaaafewayâ€\x9d sound like the most dissuasive advertising jingle ever penned.) But no matter, considering the diverse and career-spanning array of songwriting riches otherwise disbursed over two-and-half hours. They’re arranged roughly on an increasing scale of heaviosity, from the harmonica-licked rootsy likes of Out on the Weekend and Unknown Legend through to a handful of Crazy Horse numbers starting with a sludgy-rousing Down By the River that lasts nearly 20 minutes by the time its droning strains finally fade. Promise of the Real prove very able accomplices, whether hitting levitational multi-part chorus harmonies, or clustering around their esteemed patron for a feedback-whacked guitar solos tossing wig-out. Enjoyment of the show’s final act is substantially contingent on an appreciation of protracted instrumentals, but whether you’re a fan of long-form cosmic gnarl or not, you’ve got to agree that nobody does it quite like Young. Come a 15-minute Love and Only Love he’s lost in his own fretboard in front of 13,000 people, deafeningly coaxing out the final chord longer than entire songs had lasted in the show’s opening phase. After that it’s approving dad hugs all round for the band, and a short time later, a curfew-busting encore of Fuckin’ Up – a tractor-strength reminder why every generation that values howling riffs and angry dissent will find inspiration in Young’s evergreen natural anthems. • Neil Young and Promise of the Real play SSE Arena, Belfast (028 9073 9074) 7 June; First Direct Arena, Leeds (0844 248 1585), 10 June; O2 Arena, London (0844 856 0202), 11 June.',
 'Elijah Wood qualifies comments comparing Hollywood abuse to Jimmy Savile Actor Elijah Wood has taken to Twitter to make clear he has “no first-hand experienceâ€\x9d of a Hollywood paedophile ring, after comments he made in a Sunday Times interview made headlines around the world. The Lord of the Rings star drew parallels between what was described in the article as a US film industry culture of abuse and the prolific sex attacks carried out by TV host Jimmy Savile in the UK. He said he had been protected as a child – mainly through the efforts of his mother, who stopped him going to parties – and revealed many of his peers were regularly “preyed uponâ€\x9d. “You all grew up with Savile,â€\x9d Wood told the Times interviewer. “Jesus, it must have been devastating. Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organised. There are a lot of vipers in this industry – people who only have their own interests in mind.â€\x9d “There is darkness in the underbelly,â€\x9d he added. “If you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.â€\x9d But in a lengthy series of tweets, the actor and producer said his only knowledge of Hollywood paedophilia was drawn from reading articles and viewing the 2015 documentary film An Open Secret, directed by Amy Berg, which deals with the subject. “The Sunday Times interviewed me about my latest film but the story became about something else entirely,â€\x9d said Wood. “It prompted a number of false and misleading headlines. I had just seen a powerful documentary and I briefly spoke with the reporter about the subject which had consequences I did not intend or expect. Lesson learned. “Let me be clear: This subject of child abuse is an important one that should be discussed and properly investigated. But as I made absolutely clear to the writer, I have no first hand experience or observation of the topic, so I cannot speak with any authority beyond articles I have read and films I have seen.â€\x9d An Open Secret focuses on paedophilia in Hollywood and the alleged effect it has had on a number of child performers. Despite making headlines prior to its release, the documentary failed to find an audience and was limited to only a few screenings in a small number of cinemas last year.',
 "'She seemed shy. Then suddenly this wild beast came out' – my 10 years shooting Kate Bush “Any other star,â€\x9d says Guido Harari, “would have gone crazy. They’d have probably thrown me out.â€\x9d It was 1am one night in 1989 and the Italian had been photographing Kate Bush non-stop for 15 hours. “We hadn’t eaten. We weren’t really talking. Just shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot.â€\x9d You worked in silence? “Yes. It was like we had telepathic communication.â€\x9d Bush had asked Harari to do the official photo shoot for her new album The Sensual World. And then, in the early hours, Harari had a bright idea. “I thought she looked like the figurehead of a ship. So I would make her look as though she was swimming towards the camera underwater.â€\x9d Harari decided to create this image by shooting Bush in a Romeo Gigli dress in front of a rented painted backdrop that looked like a Pollock painting. Then he would ask her to step out of the shot, rewind the film on his Hasselblad camera and shoot the backdrop again, making it look like she was a swimming through a submarine world of drips and blobs. And then he had another idea. Why not have two images of Kate Bush on the same frame? “And then I thought: why only two Kates? Why not three Kates – all swimming in the water? She had to stand really still so she wouldn’t go out of focus because I was using a wide aperture, so there was no depth of field. She had to walk out of the shot, then back in, stand very still, and do the same again. I knew it was going to be great but it was going to take time and patience – and you don’t get either often from famous people when you’re photographing them.â€\x9d Isn’t that when her PR minder should have intervened and said: Guido, enough already? “Well yes! But there was no minder. She was never part of what she called the machine.â€\x9d As we chat, Harari shows me shots from his new book The Kate Inside, which documents his 10 years photographing the British pop star. It shows her wearing a T-shirt that says: I am a prima donna. “My God,â€\x9d he says. “I’ve worked with some real prima donnas, not to mention any names. She wasn’t one of them.â€\x9d Indeed, there is a copy of her handwritten thank you note which says: “You’ve made me look great.â€\x9d Harari has made his name over the years with disarmingly odd images of musicians. Leonard Cohen asleep on a little table before a huge painting; Tom Waits strutting in an improbably voluminous cape; Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in a moment of tenderness, her nuzzling nose disappearing into his open shirt. Harari was a Kate Bush fan from the first time he heard her first single, Wuthering Heights, on the radio in 1978. “She was a pioneer, especially in Britain where no solo female artist had had a number one-selling album until she came along. And you had the sense that, despite her wistful manner, she had balls of steel.â€\x9d The photographer first met her in 1982 in Milan, when she was promoting her album The Dreaming. In the book he describes his first impressions:“Beautiful golden eyes, pouty lips, a big mane of hennaed hair.â€\x9d Bush and her dancers had just come from a TV studio. “She was wearing what looked like decaying astronaut gear,â€\x9d he recalls. “I had my equipment with me, so I asked them to improvise. What amazed me was how she switched. She seemed to be this shy girl then suddenly this wild beast came out. â€\x9d In Milan, Harari showed her proofs for a new book he was making aboutLindsay Kemp. The choreographer had trained the teenage Kate Bush in the mid-1970s, becoming a mentor to her, as he had been for David Bowie. “So my book was like a calling card – showing her that I understood where she was coming from artistically.â€\x9d Three years later, Bush called, asking if he would do the official shoot for her album Hounds of Love. “I went to meet her at her parents’ farmhouse in Kent. She had built a 48-track studio. One thing that really struck me was that there was no glass between the control room and where the musicians recorded. It was a place of silence and retreat from the rock’n’roll world. She had no desire to go to parties or be famous. Instead, she had her family around her. Her father was her manager and her brother had taken photos for her previous albums.â€\x9d For the Hounds of Love shoot, Bush told Harari that she would bring clothes that would be brown, blue and gold. “Nothing else! No other clues! So I got some backdrops I thought would go with those colours, and at 8am she turned up at the studio with her makeup woman and a few outfits and we went to work.â€\x9d Most of the photographs in Harari’s book have never been seen before. “There are lots of outtakes. What would happen is, at the end of the day, I’d have hundreds of rolls of film which I’d edit and then send to Kate. She’d send, say, four images to the record company. What nobody has seen until now is the progress through the day’s shoot. They really give a sense of her. The way she’s goofy one minute and then posing the next.â€\x9d After doing the photography for Hounds of Love and The Sensual World, in 1993 Harari was asked to be the stills photographer for her 50-minute film The Line, The Cross and the Curve starring Miranda Richardson, Lindsay Kemp and Bush, and showcasing songs from Bush’s album The Red Shoes. “It was a great invitation because I could be a fly on the wall. No fancy set ups, just me recording what was happening.â€\x9d He’s particularly proud of his shot of Bush asleep on set in her curlers with Kemp posing behind her head. “I know she was disappointed in the film, she maybe thought it was a flop - not commercially but for her. So the photos were never published.â€\x9d That shoot marked the end of their collaboration, but there could have been another chapter. In 1998, Bush phoned Harari and asked if he would photograph her with guitarist Danny McIntosh and their newborn son, Bertie. “I said, ‘No. This is a private moment, keep it as it is.’â€\x9d Harari goes back to that Hounds of Love shoot, recalling Bush’s rapid transformations. First she appeared in an orange jacket with padded shoulders. “She looked like Joan Collins. And then she went off to the dressing room and came out wearing this fabulous purple scarf, like a woman from 1900. And then she disappeared again and I wondered where she was, so I went to the dressing room. And there she was sitting in a chair in this thick white Kabuki make up. She looked great, even with the powder still on her shoulders, but there was one detail missing – so I took her lipstick and smeared it across her lips.â€\x9d The Kate Inside is available from Wall of Sound Gallery. An exhibition of 50 photos from the book runs at Art Bermondsey Project Space, London, from 13-30 September",
 "George Osborne: 'Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not' George Osborne has warned Theresa May against pursuing a “hard Brexitâ€\x9d that would see the UK drifting away from cooperation with the rest of Europe. The former chancellor made the remarks at a speech in Chicago, in a sign that he intends to continue to play a role in the political debate about leaving the EU, despite departing the government at the same time as David Cameron. Osborne, who campaigned strongly to remain, argued that it was unwise for politicians to claim the UK had a stronger hand in negotiations than the EU. “I find some of the take-it-or-leave-it bravado we hear from those who assume Europe has no option but to give us everything we want more than a little naive,â€\x9d he told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “We need to be realistic that this is a two-way relationship – that Britain cannot expect to maintain all the benefits that came from EU membership without incurring any of the costs or the obligations.â€\x9d He urged May’s government to “resist the false logic that leads from exiting the EU to exiting all forms of European cooperation – and that values the dangerous purity of splendid isolation over the practical necessity of cooperation in the real worldâ€\x9d. “Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not,â€\x9d Osborne said. The former chancellor also predicted that there would be no serious progress in negotiations with the EU until after the French and German elections next year. “It is highly unlikely that the rest of Europe will be in any position to conduct serious negotiations until the autumn of next year. “My experience of six years of European negotiations is that nothing serious happens until the French and, especially, the German governments take a view – and both countries will be preoccupied with their own domestic elections for much of next year.â€\x9d The Tory MP Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general and leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign group, said: “George Osborne is absolutely right that a hard Brexit has no mandate and would be no answer to the problems Britain faces. “In fact, it would put jobs and livelihoods at risk by erecting new barriers to trade with Europe. As he said, being close to Europe despite the Brexit vote is vital for Britain’s future. “Our economic future depends on membership of the single market, while cooperation with Europe on security is crucial in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.â€\x9d It was Osborne’s first major speech since he lost his job when May took over from Cameron as prime minister in July. Since then, she has set about unravelling key aspects of Osborne’s economic policy and overturning central tenets of Cameron’s premiership, such as his opposition to bringing back grammar schools. Osborne indicated in a BBC Radio 4 interview last week that he would stay on the political scene but he gave only a lukewarm endorsement of May’s premiership. May is facing competing pressures when it comes to carrying out negotiations with the EU. She has said she wants a bespoke deal for Britain that preserves free trade at the same time as curbing free movement for EU citizens to come to Britain. Some of the most hardline Eurosceptics would like her to be prepared to walk away from the single market and close trade cooperation if the EU does not concede to strict controls on immigration.",
 'David Bowie tribute concert to be streamed live The forthcoming tribute shows to David Bowie featuring performances from the Pixies, Blondie, Michael Stipe, J Mascis, the Flaming Lips and more will be streamed live for fans unable to attend the New York shows. The first concert will take place at Carnegie Hall on 31 March, with a second date at Radio City Music Hall on 1 April. The latter concert will be available to watch online, organisers of The Music of David Bowie have confirmed. Those watching will be asked for a donation to one of a selection of arts based charities in return. “Due to unprecedented interest in the David Bowie memorial concert in Radio City, we have teamed up with Skype and Ammado to stream the concert around the world, in return for a small donation to our charity partners,â€\x9d reads a statement on the memorial’s official site. “We suggest a minimum donation equivalent to $20, or £15.â€\x9d Names confirmed for the concert so far are Mumford & Sons, Blondie, Pixies, Michael Stipe, J Mascis, Rickie Lee Jones, Esperanza Spalding, Ron Pope, Jherek Bischoff, Amanda Palmer and Anna Calvi with Kronos Quartet, Ann Wilson Of Heart, The Roots, The Polyphonic Spree, Perry Farrell, Jakob Dylan, Holy Holy, as well as the Donny McCaslin Group, who will joined by guests Mark Guiliana, Jason Lindner and Bowie producer Tony Visconti. David Bowie died on 11 January, aged 69. His extraordinary life and career has so far been marked by a divisive performance by Lady Gaga at the Grammys and a well-received tribute by Lorde and Bowie’s former band at the Brits A memorial is scheduled for 2016’s Glastonbury festival in Somerset. • This article was amended on 30 March 2016 because an earlier version said that Skype was going to live-stream the concert. In fact Skype is a promotion partner for the event.',
 "Trump's polls: a case of tortoise versus hair While Donald Trump has not acknowledged polls showing him losing to Hillary Clinton by as much as double digits, he did admit for the first time that he appeared to be down a few points. The Trump polling disaster “I’m four down in one poll, three and a half in another that just came out, and I haven’t started yet,â€\x9d Trump told the New York Times. “And I have tremendous Republican support.â€\x9d Trump: ‘I’ll save second amendment’ At least two GOP factions – “Anybody but Trumpâ€\x9d and “Delegates Unboundâ€\x9d – were trying to figure out how not to nominate Trump for president, and many Republicans have stopped taking questions about Trump. Trump surrogate denies being Trump surrogate House speaker Paul Ryan said Republicans should follow their hearts on Trump. “The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn’t do that,â€\x9d Ryan told NBC. Republicans’ soul journey I get that this is a very strange situation. He’s a very unique nominee. But I feel as a responsibility institutionally as the speaker of the House that I should not be leading some chasm in the middle of our party. – House speaker Paul Ryan Senator Elizabeth Warren paid a visit to Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn on Friday to give staffers a pep talk. One NBC News source summarized her message as “Don’t screw this upâ€\x9d. Bernie Sanders (still running) told supporters Thursday that “the major political task that together we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badlyâ€\x9d. Bernie Sanders: from upstart to revolution Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, told USA Today he hasn’t used marijuana in “about seven weeksâ€\x9d.",
 "Sugar lobby paid scientists to blur sugar's role in heart disease – report Influential research that downplayed the role of sugar in heart disease in the 1960s was paid for by the sugar industry, according to a report released on Monday. With backing from a sugar lobby, scientists promoted dietary fat as the cause of coronary heart disease instead of sugar, according to a historical document review published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Though the review is nearly 50 years old, it also showcases a decades-long battle by the sugar industry to counter the product’s negative health effects. The findings come from documents recently found by a researcher at the University of San Francisco, which show that scientists at the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF), known today as the Sugar Association, paid scientists to do a 1967 literature review that overlooked the role of sugar in heart disease. SRF set an objective for the review, funded it and reviewed drafts before it was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which did not require conflict of interest disclosure until 1984. The three Harvard scientists who wrote the review made what would be $50,000 in today’s dollars from the review. Marion Nestle, a nutrition, food studies and public health professor at New York University, said the food industry continues to influence nutrition science, in an editorial published alongside the JAMA report. “Today, it is almost impossible to keep up with the range of food companies sponsoring research – from makers of the most highly processed foods, drinks, and supplements to producers of dairy foods, meats, fruits, and nuts – typically yielding results favorable to the sponsor’s interests,â€\x9d Nestle said. “Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science, contributes to public confusion about what to eat, and compromises Dietary Guidelines in ways that are not in the best interest of public health.â€\x9d The cushy relationship between food companies and researcher has been captured in recent investigations by the Associated Press and New York Times. The AP revealed in June that candy trade groups were funding research into sweets. And in 2015, the New York Times showed how Coca-Cola has funded millions in research to downplay the link between sugary beverages and obesity. The Sugar Association said in a statement that SRF “should have exercised greater transparencyâ€\x9d in its research, but also accused the study authors of having an “anti-sugar narrativeâ€\x9d. “We question this author’s continued attempts to reframe historical occurrences to conveniently align with the currently trending anti-sugar narrative, particularly when the last several decades of research have concluded that sugar does not have a unique role in heart disease,â€\x9d the Sugar Association said. “Most concerning is the growing use of headline-baiting articles to trump quality scientific research – we’re disappointed to see a journal of JAMA’s stature being drawn into this trend.â€\x9d The findings were based on documents found by Cristin Kearns, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, in library archives. The scientists and executives involved are no longer alive. In recent years, the link between fat and heart disease has become a more contentious topic – a 2010 review of scientific studies of fat in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that “there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart diseaseâ€\x9d. The role of sugar in heart disease is still being debated.",
 'Unearthly wails, Chvrches cheese and a fleeting Ghostface Killah haunt SXSW Anyone playing on the Radio Day Stage of the Austin Conference Centre deserves a medal for bravery – it’s hard to imagine a more soulless venue for a concert. It’s even more impressive when someone has the intensity to make you forget about the 70s lecture theatre-style ambience. Buckinghamshire native Jack Garratt pulled off exactly this feat on Friday lunchtime. Face screwed up, attacking a drum machine with one hand and playing a keyboard with another, he unleashed some unearthly soulful whimpers and wails during The Love You’re Given. He’s not a million miles from the Jacko-esque vocal stylings of the Weeknd, but is coming at R&B from an entirely different angle – as he proved when he straps on a guitar and plays a riff that could strip the formica off the venue’s buffet tables. This is Worry, originally released in 2014, which manages to be darkly compelling but still have a radio-friendly hook. It’s no surprise that he’s won the BBC Sound of 2016 poll and Critic’s Choice at the Brits, but to his credit there is no element of coffee-table smugness in his performance. Chvrches take the opposite presentation tack. Lined up behind a table with their computers and keyboards at chest height, they look as though they’re about to conduct a science experiment. Or, as singer Lauren Mayberry said while adjusting her synthesizer: “I feel like a bad children’s presenter from the 80s – but not that kind of a bad one.â€\x9d The audience whoops, encouraging a slightly grating between-song chat – the anecdote, including one about “feeling like Jon Bon Joviâ€\x9d when she asked for cheese at a gig, and fans showed her pictures of cheese on their phones – almost went on longer than the music. When the tunes arrive they’re stripped of the enjoyable bombast that fills the recorded versions, but they still strike home thanks to Mayberry’s piercing voice and the skyscraper-sized melodies. Never Ending Circles has a chorus that is 100% proof, while Leave a Trace is sleekly soulful. Despite stagecraft that amounts to little more than a few frowns and shuffles from the other two members, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, it’s a confident triumph. Stormzy has been one of the busiest musicians at SXSW. He’s done the rounds at showcases and even attended a boat cruise, but Fader Fort was a chance to preach to the convertible. Along with acts such as Elf Kid, Little Simz, Lorne Carter and Rejjie Snow (Section Boyz were suppose to play but cancelled), he’s been responsible for showing America what grime and UK/Irish hip-hop is all about. A small crowd gathered, with a sizable South London contingent in the front, to hear Stormzy riff on the importance of post codes, MCs’ Twitter faux pas and putting doubters in their place. For someone who is a bonafide known name in the UK, Stormzy had to go through the motions of introducing himself after every track. He did so with humility and an understanding that more than 10 years after Boy In Da Corner, grime is still mostly an unknown quantity for US hip-hop fans. Some things do translate though, and when he played his biggest hit to date, Shut Up, there were head nods of recognition and a mass singalong. That energy grew when he finished with Where Do You Know Me From? – which saw actual pogoing. There was a full on circle pit at Deftones, who played the Spin showcase at Stubb’s BBQ. The nu-metal survivors drew a crowd that could hardly fit in the venue and ran through a decent amount of their 2000 album, White Pony, with Feiticeira, Knife Prty and Change (In The House Of Flies) all sending fans whirling. Chino Moreno’s voice has lost none of it’s otherworldly squeal, and when Stephen Carpenter started the main riff of My Own Summer (Shove It), Moreno let off a high pitched sound that set the circle pit off all over again. The Ninja Tune showcase was a mixed bag with early performers such as Taylor McFerrin, Leon Vynehall and Machinedrum showing the full breadth of the label’s (and its imprints such as Brainfeeder) sound. McFerrin blended jazz with down-tempo electronica that was at times plodding; Vynehall mixed up his productions with a DJ set that led into Machinedrum’s showcase, a mix of new productions which reached gabber levels of ear-drum punishment. That cleansed the palette before Ghostface Killah entered stage left – or did he? At first he sent on a young group whose name couldn’t be made out through the over saturated PA system. Once they finished a couple of a songs, to a crowd that was generous considering they weren’t on the bill – and considering they sounded like a Whitehouse track played backwards – Ghostface’s DJ came on. He proceeded to complain about the monitors for five minutes, before winning the crowd back with a whistle-stop tour through some of hip-hop’s milestones: the likes of Dead Prez, Luniz, Biz Markie and Beastie Boys. The air was sucked out of the room, though, when Ghostface Killah finally appeared and was barely audible. His middle section picked up once the sound issues were resolved, and Cappadonna joined him on stage for renditions of Tearz, Da Mystery of Chessboxin’, Ice Cream and CREAM, but they were fleeting moments in a performance that lacked the class everyone knows he can produce. It was left to Moodymann to finish the night off. After some technical difficulties of his own, during which he joined fans at the front to give away CDs and signed T-shirts, he delivered. In an apparent nod to those who came before him, he played ODB’s Got Your Money and Junie Morrison’s Suzie Thundertussy, which is itself sampled on Kanye West’s No More Parties In LA, which also samples Ghostface Killah. Wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s hat and veil, he then stepped things up, rattling off 2012’s Ibiza standout Around, by Noir & Haze, and DJ Nature’s Let It Ring. Never boring, always eclectic it showed why a show must go on attitude is vital to SXSW.',
 "I, Daniel Blake review – Ken Loach's quiet rage against injustice At the age of 80, Ken Loach returns to an arena of British social outrage he first occupied with pictures such as Poor Cow and Cathy Come Home; he and screenwriter Paul Laverty take up the idea that the benefits system has been repurposed as the 21st-century workhouse in our age of austerity: made deliberately grim, to deter or design out all but the most deserving poor. This movie won Loach his second Palme d’Or at Cannes, and has already become renowned for a brutal scene showing the secret visceral shame of a food bank. Maybe, in years to come, this sequence will become as famous as Charlie Chaplin and the edible shoe. But there are no laughs, only horror and anger. In a pre-election interview, David Cameron revealed that he hadn’t the smallest idea how many food banks there were in Britain, and it isn’t clear if Theresa May has been briefed any better. Either way, Loach’s film positions itself in the middle of the eating-or-heating dilemma: the story of a fictional benefits claimant (whose situation Laverty has based on real-life research) called Daniel Blake, played with honesty and humanity by standup comic Dave Johns. He is a skilled labourer and carpenter in Newcastle who can’t work following a heart attack. Kafkaesque bureaucracy deems him ineligible for sickness benefit; as a middle-aged web neophyte he finds online applications for jobseekers’ allowance an ordeal, but, having embarked on this frustrating, humiliating mission to prove his respectability, he can’t accept jobs that come up. All his hard won expertise and knowledge of the world are now valueless. Daniel befriends an angry, lonely single mum from London in a similar situation: Katie, tremendously played by Hayley Squires, who has been relocated to the north-east. Widower Daniel becomes a kindly quasi-grandpa to her two children and a good friend to her. He is witty and wise, with real practical knowledge, but, like Katie, as innocent as a child about the new world of welfare non-provision. On revisiting this movie, I was struck again by its radical plainness and simplicity. Loach is the John Bunyan of cinema; a bringer of parables. It has been said of Loach that he would do without the camera if he could, and that doing-without aesthetic is absolutely right for the unfashionable, uncompromising seriousness of what he has to say. There is humour in his work, but clear and straightforward humour. He and Laverty are utter strangers to the irony and cynicism that are pretty much integral to the language of almost any other kind of cinema. Loach avoids smart-alec stuff the way an Amish farmer dislikes buttons and bows. Another kind of film would get Daniel increasingly involved in crime or scamming to survive, and, in fact, Daniel is exasperated to be vaguely drawn into his next-door neighbour’s lairy scheme to import cheap trainers from China and sell them on street corners. But even here there is no outright wrongdoing. His neighbours are likable lads with no side to them. As for Daniel and Katie, their friendship is to be ultimately tested by the obvious question of how she could make some serious money if she wanted; the resulting drama is put together with a kind of robust naivety – and perhaps the narrative reveal could have managed with less of a clunk. It is a bit like the bookcase Daniel is putting together: nothing fancy, but conceived with candour, delicacy, and lack of prurience. The labyrinthine nightmare of the system seemed even more painful when I revisited the film this week: a system in which the claimants are told their fate will be settled by the horribly titled “Decision Makerâ€\x9d: the modern-day beadle. It is a system that is almost deliberately planned to create just those desperate, futile shouting matches in the benefits office that lead to “sanctionsâ€\x9d and punishments. When Daniel fails the initial test by just a few arbitrarily conceived points, you find yourself thinking, ‘If only he wasn’t so honest, if only he had the wit to trick the system, just a little bit.’ But in so doing, he would become precisely that kind of TV stock figure, that Shameless or Benefits Street cheat whose presence in black comedy and reactionary political gossip justified the whole setup to begin with. This film and its pairing of Hayley and Daniel makes me think of a line from Dickens’s Bleak House: “What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.â€\x9d Loach wants to expand and ventilate that knowledge, and show us that poverty is not God’s business but ours. We can understand it and do something about it.",
 "Hidden Figures trailer: Nasa's overlooked black female mathematicians Three, two, one ... liftoff on the trailer for Hidden Figures, Theodore Melfi’s biopic of the black female mathematicians whose work at Nasa helped the US win the space race. Starring Octavia Spencer, Taraji P Henson and Janelle Monáe and based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures follows the life story of Katherine Johnson (Henson), a physicist who began her career as one of the administration’s first “computersâ€\x9d – female Nasa staff who were responsible for calculating the results of wind tunnel tests. Johnson went on to calculate the flight trajectory for Alan Shepard – the first American in space – and supplied some of the theory that ensured the success of the Apollo moon landing. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2015. Spencer and Monáe play Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, brilliant mathematicians who likewise stood out from Nasa’s largely white staff. From the trailer, it looks as though Melfi’s film will chart a course between civil-rights drama and workplace comedy, with emphasis put on the womens’ struggle against the white male perception of them. Their mistreatment is presented most obviously in the scene where a white-collar Joe dumps his trash can into the arms of Johnson, assuming she’s the cleaning lady. Elsewhere, a cop who pulls the friends over remarks that he “had no idea Nasa hired ... â€\x9d “There’s quite a few women in the space programme, sir,â€\x9d Spencer’s character curtly replies. Hidden Figures, which also stars Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst, will be released on 13 January.",
 'What’s best for savers who’ve lost £160bn of interest in seven years? Not many experts thought that the “emergencyâ€\x9d base rate cut to 0.5% on March 5, 2009 would last for long. But seven years later savers have lost around £160bn in interest, while the prospect of rate rises are slipping further into the distance. In the immediate aftermath of the cut to 0.5%, rates for savers remained relatively high. Our analysis shows how cash Isas were offering 3%, and notice accounts 3.5%, in March 2009, and for the next couple of years they hovered around this level. After all, most banks and building societies were desperate for deposits after the great financial crash, so they were willing to pay far above the Bank of England base rate. The real villain turns out to be the Funding for Lending government programme introduced in July 2012, which effectively provided cheap money for cash-strapped lenders. The effect was almost instantaneous: banks no longer needed to attract cash from savers, so they cut the rates on offer. Susan Hannums of Savingschampion.co.uk says: “While the base rate hitting the record 0.5% was bad enough, it was Funding for Lending that had one of the biggest impacts. Almost overnight, best-buy rates for savers dropped like a stone, followed by an unprecedented number of reductions on existing rates. “Today we’ve hit over 4,000 rate reductions for existing savers, with little sign of this slowing down. This means all savers would be wise to keep checking the rate they are getting, and to switch to improve returns when they are no longer competitive. “With almost 50% of easy-access accounts paying 0.5% or less, and the best-paying 1.55%, it’s easy to see why so many need to switch.â€\x9d Notice accounts Despite the Bank of England cutting rates to 0.5% in 2009, there were three providers offering savers 3.5% – more than twice that on the best accounts today. And, what’s more, they did not expect customers to lock their money away for years in a fixed-rate bond. Anyone who took out Secure Trust Bank’s 60-day notice account (issue 2) has actually had a very good deal. Back in 2009 it paid a table-topping 3.52% on balances over £1,000. Today it is closed to new customers, and when that happens banks usually let the rate fall to a miserable level. But to Secure Trust’s credit it continues to pay 1.99% to existing customers. That may not sound much, but it’s more than any bank is paying on notice accounts and would be at the top of our tables if it were available to new customers. It’s not so good news for the people attracted to the 3.5% that West Bromwich building society was paying on its High Income Over 65 account at the time. In 2015, the society renamed it Monthly Income Saver, and it now pays 1.25%. It’s the same story at FirstSave, where the 90-day notice account was paying 3.5% in 2009. It has also been withdrawn, but pays 1.25% to savers who continue to keep their money there. Neither is terrible, given today’s prevailing rates, but not great either. Customers might want to shift their money to today’s best notice accounts, which are the 1.75% deal from Secure Trust and the 1.81% from Al Rayan. Savers who trusted ICICI Bank may be feeling more miffed. In 2009 it featured heavily in our best-buy tables with its internet-only HiSave account paying 2.95% interest. But today that pays only 0.5%. Its web page still says “earn a high rate of interestâ€\x9d, which must be galling to account holders. The same bank is paying 1.4% interest to new customers who open a HiSave Super Savings account. Customers with the old HiSave account should ask to be transferred. Cash Isas Nearly all the big names were battling for your Isa cash in 2009. Top of the table for instant-access cash Isas was Marks & Spencer Money, paying 3.1%. Even higher was the 3.35% from Halifax if you were happy to lock the money away for four years. It may not have seemed much of a deal at the time, but compared with today’s rates it was a miracle. The very best instant-access cash Isa, from Post Office Money, now pays just 1.45%, while if you lock your money away with Halifax now you will get just 2%. Customers who took out the M&S Isa at the time now get 1.3%. But the good news is that savers have been able to shelter far more in a cash Isa over the past seven years. In 2009, the maximum that could be placed in one was £3,600, but that has jumped to £15,240. However their attractions will diminish from April this year, because the new personal savings allowance will enable account holders to earn up to £1,000 interest tax-free if they are a 20% taxpayer, or £500 for a 40% taxpayer, without having to put the money in an Isa. Instant access accounts In 2009, the best branch-based instant-access savings account was Chelsea building society’s Rainy Day Savings 3, which paid 2.35% and could be opened with just a £10 deposit. Now it has been withdrawn and pays 1% to account holders who have left their money there. But while that sounds a low amount, if you are a new customer at Chelsea looking for an instant-access account it’s even worse – you will earn just 0.5% gross. Chelsea building society soon disappeared from our best-buy tables later in 2009 when it was almost wrecked by £41m in “potentially fraudulent loansâ€\x9d, mainly from its buy-to-let mortgage book. It merged with Yorkshire building society in 2010 and this year will close the last remaining branches carrying the Chelsea name. Meanwhile, Tesco Bank was the new kid on the block in 2009 in our best-buy table for its instant-access account paying 1.75% gross. Today the supermarket group’s instant-access account in the stores pays just 0.6% gross, although it does offer an internet-only account that pays 1.01%. Children’s accounts A scan down our best-buy table from March 2009 reveals a shockingly high figure. The Halifax was paying a fixed rate of 8% interest on its children’s regular saver account. Some will be surprised to find that it still pays the best rate on children’s savings, with the same regular savings account offering 6%. But the maximum you can save is just £100 a month. Current accounts Today the best interest to be earned is often on a bank current account rather than a savings account. In 2009 Abbey (remember them) was paying 5.37%, but for an introductory period only. Lloyds was in the best-buy table, even though it paid just 1% on its Classic Plus account. Abbey, of course, was taken over by Santander, and its 123 account, paying 3% on balances up to £20,000, has been a huge success. TSB, meanwhile, was carved out of Lloyds, and its Classic Plus account pays 5% interest – but sadly only on balances up to £2,000.',
 'Clinton v Trump on the economy: speeches underscore competing visions Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump laid out their competing visions for the US economy in the past week, with varying degrees of detail and some surprising overlap. But the bulk of each speech was spent on the differences: Trump embraced more tenets of Republican orthodoxy and Clinton made pledges that progressives would be comforted to hear. Tax cuts v the ‘ Buffett rule’ Trump proposed tax cuts for all Americans, though the terms would disproportionately benefit wealthy people. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation found that tax revenue would fall by $2.4 tn over the first decade, and the top 1% of Americans would make 5.3% more money under the Republican plan, which would consolidate seven tax brackets into three, of 12%, 25% and 33%. Trump’s new plan accepts more common Republican proposals; his old plan would have cut the top rate to 25%. The Tax Policy Center estimated his plan would reduce revenue by $9.5tn over a decade and increase the deficit by 80% by 2036. Clinton, in contrast, has backed an expanded version of a proposal by billionaire investor Warren Buffett to tax the ultrarich. She proposed a “fair share surchargeâ€\x9d that would place an extra tax on people who make more than $5m a year, in an effort to close loopholes that often mean millionaires pay lower effective rates than middle-class families. Corporate tax cuts v a carrot and stick Corporate profits have by and large increased over the past 15 years while wages have stagnated. Trump’s plan entails a cut to the corporate tax rate, to 15% from 35%, which he argues will entice companies to return to or stay in the United States to invest and create jobs. He has also often told crowds that he will threaten companies who want to move overseas with extremely high tariffs. Clinton offered both benefits and threats. She said she would simplify taxes for small businesses and offer tax credits to companies that share profits with employees. Her campaign has laid out similar benefits for companies that invest in the US. But Clinton also threatened an “exit taxâ€\x9d for companies that want to move overseas, close the carried-interest loophole and strengthen financial regulators, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Repealing regulations v clean energy funds In another nod toward conventional Republican ideas, Trump said he would place a moratorium on any new regulations, and he has frequently blamed environmental safety rules on the decline of the coal industry, whose market has been hugely taken over by natural gas companies. Clinton took the common Democratic path and proposed new investment in clean energy and research. She gave no real specifics in her speech but her campaign has proposed a “clean energy challengeâ€\x9d that would “partnerâ€\x9d the federal government with local counterparts to reduce pollution and invest in clean energy infrastructure. Infrastructure funding Clinton promised $250bn in federal infrastructure funding and a $25bn “national infrastructure bankâ€\x9d to create jobs and rehabilitate things such as the country’s roads, airports, water and electrical grids . Barack Obama struggled for years to pass major infrastructure funding through Congress, until he finally managed to convince lawmakers to back a five-year, $305bn plan last December. Clinton has said that higher taxes on the richest and corporations would offset the spending, and gave a few specifics about her plans, including expanded broadband internet around the US. Trump spoke at length about deteriorating conditions of American infrastructure in his speech, and has said at many rallies that he wants to reinvest in utilities and transportation at home. But in his speech in Detroit he only spoke of infrastructure vaguely, saying: “We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves.â€\x9d Trade deals and tariffs Both Clinton and Trump said they would renegotiate trade deals they deem unfavorable to the US. But while the Republican has said he would start from scratch on deals, and possibly impose tariffs as high as 45% on imports from foreign companies, the Democrat said she would specifically stop “any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages, including the Trans Pacific Partnershipâ€\x9d. She also said she would appoint “a chief trade prosecutor, triple the number of enforcement officers, and when countries break the rules we won’t hesitate to impose targeted tariffsâ€\x9d – a less protectionist stance than Trump, yet sharing some of his philosophy about penalties directed at foreign corporations. The ‘death tax’ Trump called for the repeal of the estate tax, a fine levied on wealthy inheritors that affects about 0.2% of all Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, as the tax exempts the first $5.45m a person inherits. Clinton would leave the estate tax as law. Families and childcare Trump called for “allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of childcare spending from their taxesâ€\x9d, which would benefit most families with moderate to significant childcare costs but not low-income families, who would have the least to deduct, and who by definition, pay less in federal income taxes. His campaign has said he also supports a “credit to stay-at-home caregiversâ€\x9d and an exemption on childcare expenses from half of payroll taxes. Clinton has proposed tax credits, subsidized childcare and increased pay for childcare workers – expensive proposals that she says will be offset by increased taxes and closed loopholes. She said she wants to limit the cost of childcare to 10% of family income, and to expand social security. Higher education Trump has largely ignored the issue of higher education, though he has bemoaned the high debts that many young Americans shoulder. In his speech, he merely said: “likewise, our education reforms will help parents send their kids to a school of their choice,â€\x9d an allusion to supporting the repeal of federal education standards at the grade and high school levels. His party’s official platform supports privatizing student loans, saying: “the federal government should not be in the business of originating student loansâ€\x9d. Clinton said she would “liberate millions of people who already have student debt by making it easier to refinance and pay what you owe as a portion of your incomeâ€\x9d. She also advocated for federal support for trade schools and “high-quality union training programsâ€\x9d, and tax credits to companies that offer paid apprenticeships. Earlier this summer her campaign compromised with Bernie Sanders, and agreed to support a plan that would eliminate tuition costs for four-year state colleges, for families who make less than $125,000 a year.',
 'Twitter pays £1.24m in UK tax as revenues increase by 30.5% Twitter’s British operation paid £1.24m in tax last year as staff enjoyed a £12.5m shares windfall. The US technology company, which is the subject of rumours of a potential acquisition by Google, Disney or computing company SalesForce reported a rise in UK revenues of 30.5% to £76m in 2015, well short of the £135.7m that it made in Britain, according to estimates from analysts at eMarketer. This could mean that up to £60m of Twitter’s revenues may have been booked in Ireland, where the parent company of the UK operation is incorporated. Twitter UK made a £3.36m pre-tax profit last year, up from £3.29m in 2014. The £1.24m tax payment was shown in accounts filed at Companies House. Legally diverting revenues can help companies avoid paying higher corporation tax bills in the UK, and Twitter is one of a number of large companies that has been criticised for locating activities in Ireland to take advantage of the country’s more generous tax regime. A spokesman for Twitter UK said: “We account for sales in the UK and we pay tax in the UK.â€\x9d The company, which has headquarters in London, employed 163 people last year, up from 126 in 2014, running up a bill for wages, pensions and social insurance of £17.6m. On average, each staff member cost almost £108,000. The pay of the company’s top UK directors is not revealed in the UK accounts. Dara Nasr is the managing director of Twitter UK. The company set aside £12.5m to cover the cost of shares for employees, down from £14m in 2014.',
 'Premier League and Championship clubs raise stakes with unprecedented spend Maybe it is an unintended consequence of Brexit. Maybe it was just the weather. But the fact is that in this summer’s transfer window not only was more money spent by Premier League clubs but more money was spent in England than ever before. The question many fans will now be asking is where that money goes next. According to research by the consultants Deloitte, Premier League clubs spent £1,165,000,000 in the transfer window that closed on Wednesday night, with fees ranging from the £89m Manchester United paid for Paul Pogba to the £1m Sunderland paid paid it for Donald Love. £445m of that total was spent on players from English clubs, roughly a 50% rise on last season. Further to that, spending on players in the Football League practically doubled, to a record £140m. The reasons for the rise in spending are not difficult to ascertain, with the advent of the new £5bn TV deal the primary culprit. “As has been the case for a number of years now, the increase in broadcast revenue is the principal driver of this spending power,â€\x9d said Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte. “The increase in the value of these deals and the comparatively equal revenue distribution of these by the Premier League have again allowed clubs throughout the division to invest significantly in this summer’s market.â€\x9d For those concerned about the health of the domestic game the key question is what will happen to any newfound riches. According to Deloitte, the answer is simple: more players. “Membership of the Premier League has never been as lucrative as it is today and as such we have seen this have knock-on effects in terms of the spending in the Championship,â€\x9d says Jones. “This summer saw a record £215m gross spend by Championship clubs, more than twice the previous record, driven by the investment of recently relegated clubs seeking an immediate return to the Premier League as well as by that of ambitious Championship clubs seeking entry to the world’s richest football league.â€\x9d These are unprecedented sums for the English football pyramid, although much of the spending is condensed at the top of the Championship. Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Norwich between them, the three clubs relegated from the Premier League in May, spent roughly £117m on new players, more than half the gross total in the Championship. Further to that the sale of four Newcastle players – Giorginio Wijnaldum, Moussa Sissoko, Andros Townsend and Daryl Janmaat – accounted almost entirely for the growth in transfer fees received by Football League clubs from their Premier League counterparts. “There are vast sums coming into the game and we want to see that shared more equitably throughout the footballing pyramid, right down to grassroots level,â€\x9d Liam Thompson, a spokesperson for the Football Supporters’ Federation, said. “Concerted efforts from fans over the last few years have shown that clubs can do more with the money coming into the game. For example, Stoke City have continued to keep season ticket prices low as well as providing free coach travel to away games. A number of other clubs in the Premier League and Football League have frozen or reduced prices. This helps ensure live football is not out of reach of fans. The £30 [Premier] league-wide cap on away ticket prices is a significant victory for football supporters but we urge football fans to remain vigilant and continue to ask their clubs what they’re doing for their supporters.â€\x9d The £30 rule does not apply in the Championship and fans of relegated sides are finding they can pay more for away travel in the second tier than in the Premier League. John Williams is an academic at Leicester University who specialises in the social impact of the national game. He suggests clubs could focus on this issue to bring in more support. “The fear, with Championship clubs in particular, is that they will spend whatever money they get to try and get into the Premier League, that’s the danger,â€\x9d he said. “The riches are so great, they’ll spend the money on players, wages and whatever else they believe necessary to produce that dividend. “But there are a few other places the money could go though. Firstly, clubs could spend it on the women’s game. This would firstly stimulate local support locally, but it would also show that clubs are working for the public good and for inclusion. It would also be a good investment as the women’s game is growing and is no longer sniffed at by big clubs. “It would also make sense to work hard on young supporters,â€\x9d he says. “We know that the temptation is for young supporters to identify with much larger clubs, to wear their stuff locally. Anything a smaller club can do to reduce the price of their own goods is a good thing. Reduce the price of kits, reduce the price of tickets, see how far you can push it down, make it real.â€\x9d One final tweak that could be made, Williams says, is one adopted by the Premier League champions. “Maybe do the thing that seems to have proven surprisingly popular here in Leicester. The owners chose a couple of games and gave any supporter who came to the match a free donut or soft drink. When my students have interviewed fans since, they don’t see it as a crass stunt but as a sign that the owners care. Why not choose a couple of matches and show that we care and you’ll get something that you like too? Why not spread the love?â€\x9d • This article was amended on 2 September 2016. An earlier version said Sunderland paid Everton £1m for Steven Pienaar. In fact he had been released by Everton and Sunderland paid no fee.',
 'Paul Manafort resigns as chairman of Donald Trump campaign Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort has resigned, in the latest convulsion to sweep a candidacy reeling from poor polling numbers and self-inflicted controversy. With voters able to cast absentee ballots in the crucial swing state of North Carolina in just three weeks and his poll numbers sliding rapidly, the Republican nominee ousted his campaign chairman on Friday, only two months after the forced departure of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Manafort’s exit followed another unconventional move by Trump, who hours earlier had admitted that he “regrettedâ€\x9d the pain caused by some of his intemperate remarks this year. “Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing,â€\x9d he said, in tightly scripted remarks said to bear the hallmark of new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. Though the apology at a rally in North Carolina did not specify precisely whom he was saying sorry to, it was the first acknowledgment by the candidate that his swashbuckling style was proving self-destructive. News of Manafort’s resignation also came as a surprise to some within the campaign, and followed a slew of denials that a shakeup was under way. “I would have thought we were done with revolving chairs,â€\x9d one source familiar with the campaign told the after the publication of Friday’s statement. Another person familiar with the shakeup said the change underlined how Manafort had never quite been able to communicate with Trump the way Lewandowski had. His departure meant Conway would be in charge of the messaging, whereas Bannon, a former banker, was there to run the business side of the campaign. It was also pointed out that Trump had long been uncomfortable with the campaign spending heavily to buy television commercials, a step that was taken earlier this week with Trump shelling out $4m to go on the air in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “He thinks he is being robbed,â€\x9d said the source familiar with the shakeup. “Boots on the ground are worth itâ€\x9d but “media buys, mail and other stuffâ€\x9d were looked on by Trump skeptically. In an interview with Fox News, Trump’s son Eric suggested that the controversy over Manafort’s ties to Russia and a report this week that he had potentially committed a felony by evading the reporting requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) led to the top operative being pushed out. “My father just didn’t want to have the distraction looming over the campaign, and, quite frankly, looming over all the issues Hillary is facing right now,â€\x9d said the younger Trump. Manafort, a veteran political strategist, has been under mounting scrutiny as more details emerged of his role in advising foreign politicians, including Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych. His close connections to Russia through Yanukovych, at a time when Trump is trying to criticise Clinton for taking money from foreign donors for her family foundation, were proving a growing problem. Manafort first joined the campaign as an unpaid adviser in March after Trump had been repeatedly outmaneuvered in the delegation selection process by rival Ted Cruz. The veteran operative, who helped Gerald Ford win the last contested convention in American history in 1976, soon used that foothold to expand his mandate. Within weeks, he had in effect replaced former campaign manager Lewandowski, who was disdained by many within the party establishment as well as the Trump family. In a statement issued on Friday, Trump suggested Manafort’s role had peaked as an adviser during the Republican national convention in Cleveland, where rival Ted Cruz had threatened to lead a revolt, but this time expressed no regret over the departure. “This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign,â€\x9d said a statement from the Trump campaign issued on Friday morning. “I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.â€\x9d The resignation, which contradicts claims Manafort would stay on earlier in the week, is the second moment Trump has exercised his famed slogan “you’re firedâ€\x9d – following the ousting of Lewandowski, in June. Lewandowski is now thought likely to make a comeback within the constantly shifting Trump inner circle, as he favours the same approach of “letting Trump be Trumpâ€\x9d as Bannon is believed to. Trump also appeared rattled by recent opinion polling which suggests he is far adrift of where he needs to be to challenge Clinton in crucial swing states. The urgent need to confront his collapse in the polls suggests expediency, rather than a personality, may have been the largest factor leading to Manafort’s departure. At a rally on Friday night in Dimondale, Michigan, he again read off a prepared speech, with no mention of polls or crowds – two of his favorite topics for months of rallies. Instead he urged African Americans to join his “change movementâ€\x9d, saying, “to those hurting, I say: what do you have to lose by trying something new?â€\x9d Signs of the old Trump did break through his restrained performance. At one point he went off-script, riffing to the mostly white crowd, “I am nothing more than your messenger.â€\x9d “Strong defense, common sense, take care of our vets,â€\x9d he rhymed. “I am the change agent.â€\x9d Amid the Trump campaign shakeup and the apologetic address on Thursday night, Democrats rejected the notion of a new-look Trump on Friday, ridiculing a new emphasis on unifying the country that emerged on the same day as a campaign ad attacking immigrants. “In case you thought for a split second Trump was genuine about feeling regret, he is back to demonizing immigrants again in his new ad today,â€\x9d said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon.',
 "'I felt pushed away': Beth Grant on having to move 380 miles for anorexia treatment Beth Grant, 25, has been receiving treatment for anorexia on and off since she was 13, including five months in a hospital in Glasgow earlier this year, 380 miles from her home in Hertfordshire. I was 13 when I was first diagnosed with anorexia. I didn’t have my first stay in hospital until I was in my 20s. Before that I received outpatient treatment, first through children’s and late adults mental health services. I was discharged when I went to university aged 21. I got support while at university from the university’s counselling services, though I gradually declined while on my course. During the last month of my third year in 2015, I was admitted to the Priory hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, about 45 minutes from my family home near St Albans in Hertfordshire. It was a great place. As you progressed you got more freedoms, for example unsupervised snacks and home visits if you managed to get your Body Mass Index up to 15. That gave many of us something to aim for. I left having regained a suitable amount of weight but was still not completely healthy. Then in February this year I relapsed after a family bereavement. I was told I couldn’t go back to Chelmsford. It’s my understanding that there are just over 300 beds in the country and there are thousands of people who need help. Chelmsford only has 12-14 beds, was small, intimate and a nice group of people. I was told that the only place available was in Glasgow, 380 miles and a six-hour drive from my home. I resisted the move at first because I really didn’t want to be that far from home. My family were similarly concerned. The problem was that I needed more help than my parents could offer. I was worried that if I lost any more weight I would end up on a medical ward. I didn’t want to leave, but I felt I had no choice. My parents were so incensed that I had to go so far away that they refused to drive me up. So the NHS decided to transport me by taxi, which must have cost them over £1,000. After that I didn’t see my family for five weeks. My mum was going through treatment for breast cancer at the time so found it hard to come up. I stayed in Glasgow for the next five months but saw my mum a total of four times. I felt let down. I felt I had been sent away originally just so people could get rid of me, like I was being pushed aside. During my time in Glasgow, no friends came up to visit. I know it sounds silly, but I felt ashamed about being in an inpatient unit and I didn’t want to tell too many people. The nurses were for the most part OK. Some clearly cared more than others, though they could be dismissive at times and sometimes they would simply ignore you. Staff weren’t as hands-on as they should have been and some of my friends were left for five hours during the day without being checked on. But the daily group programmes were very helpful, such as ‘nutritional education’ and ‘understanding your eating disorder’. In June this year, I was eventually transferred because I was so homesick and depressed. Knowing I was so ill didn’t help as I blamed myself and believed that I deserved to continue to feel that bad. It felt even worse not to be near my mum and unable to physically support her while she was going through radiotherapy as well. I wasn’t putting on weight and it was decided that it would be better for me to be treated closer to home. Having an eating disorder is extremely isolating; as a normally sociable person it feels like torture. Being so far from home just made it worse. I absolutely love food so for me anorexia is more of a self-punishment. I was bullied from a young age and withholding food became a way of controlling something in my life. I didn’t deserve food. I am also extremely driven, which is maybe linked to it somehow, although it holds me back. I’ve been an inpatient at one other place since then, in Ealing in west London, which is not too far from my home. The very strict regime there meant I put on weight, but my mental health was no better. I left two weeks ago. I didn’t want to have to stay there over Christmas and I didn’t like the unbelievably strict, inflexible guidelines. I’m now in treatment through my old outpatient team and see a counsellor twice a week, a dietician and a social worker. Constant support is really important and having someone to talk to, or simply to sit with and be near when you don’t want to be alone, is what you need most when you are this unwell.â€\x9d",
 'Ethical credentials in doubt at the Co-op Bank In your article on Niall Booker’s pay package (Co-op Bank defends chief’s £3.85m pay, Financial, 2 April) you state that the Co-op Bank presents itself as an ethical alternative to the big high street lenders. However, many of us who banked with Co-op for precisely that reason have sadly closed our personal accounts in the past few months. The Co-op Bank has lost its ethical credentials by closing several charity and “solidarityâ€\x9d accounts, including Palestine Solidarity, for the stated reason of not meeting its “risk appetiteâ€\x9d. Unfortunately, the bank no longer meets my human rights support or ethical appetite. To see the pay award given to its chief executive shows what happens to ethics under hedge fund management. Angie Mindel Nottingham • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 'A less than special one at Old Trafford as Mourinho and United’s woes continue It is a moot point whether Arsenal fans have any right to make the claim that he is “not special any moreâ€\x9d after what José Mourinho would describe as their specialising in failure years, but they know what needles Manchester United and their manager. The home side have not been special enough this season, Mourinho has even begun blaming his success in the past for the raised expectations that are currently going unfulfilled at Old Trafford, and if United are back in the realms of the ordinary there is no longer anything special about this fixture other than its history. Arsenal looked at all times as though they would be happy with a point, and though they left it late that is what they took. The story in short was that Mourinho dropped Wayne Rooney after claiming he has looked after pencils more carefully than England protect their internationals, and in the absence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic through suspension Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial missed their chance to sharpen the United attack The home side began well enough, with Antonio Valencia, Paul Pogba and Rashford all making inroads down the right wing, but with no Ibrahimovic to aim for in the middle their attempted crosses were easily dealt with. United tried to do most of the attacking, Arsenal were content to merely keep possession much of the time, yet it was clear throughout that in Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Özil the visitors had players who could create something from nothing with a single feint or pass. That is an ability United presently lack, and though Martial and Juan Mata did begin to show up a little more forcefully towards the end of the first half, as both forced saves from Petr Cech, when the score was unchanged after an hour Mourinho acquiesced to the Stretford End’s request and sent Rooney on. The script now demanded that everyone’s favourite wedding gatecrasher would put a week of lurid headlines behind him by supplying the winning goal and perhaps Arsenal thought so too, for when Ander Herrera pulled a cross back from the right the defence tracked Rooney and left Mata expensively unmarked by the penalty spot. Still, Rooney had only been on the pitch for five minutes and not only had United made a breakthrough but Mourinho heard his name being enthusiastically chanted around the stadium. Rooney did not quite manage to transform the game, it remained resolutely low key, though while United were winning he put himself about quite effectively, was hungry for the ball and might have claimed an assist for a second goal had Pogba managed better contact with a probing cross along the six-yard line. Marcos Rojo should really have made the points safe from Daley Blind’s cross but missed the target with a free header at the far post, leaving United to cling on to their narrow lead. Despite Mourinho sending on Morgan Schneiderlin for Mata to try to lock up the midfield already containing Michael Carrick, they failed to manage it. What does all this prove, apart from the suspicion that Arsène Wenger should probably seek to involve Olivier Giroud and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain earlier if he hopes to improve his shocking record against Mourinho teams in competitive matches? Arsenal will be encouraged by gaining a draw from an unpromising situation, and the old adage about champion teams picking up points when not playing well will most likely be wheeled out, though neither of these teams looked like champions. Arsenal are going to have to do better than one attempt on target in 90 minutes to achieve their ambitions, and the possibility exists that a greater commitment to attack could have brought a greater reward. “In years gone by we might have lost this game,â€\x9d Theo Walcott claimed afterwards, revealing a surprising timidity within the Arsenal outlook. The whole point about coming to Old Trafford these days is that this is not the United of years gone by. Teams with title aspirations have to look at a defence containing Rojo and Phil Jones and try to exploit weaknesses. Even the notion that Carrick automatically improves United took a knock with the Arsenal equaliser. Initially it appeared that Carrick’s inclusion had successfully freed up Pogba and allowed Herrera to operate in a more advanced role, yet that impression faded quite early. United were left with the disappointment of a third successive home draw, achieved in almost exactly the same manner as the first of the sequence, when Stoke City claimed a late share of the points at the start of October. “We have been dominating games, making an amazing number of chances, but from our last two home games we got just two points,â€\x9d Mourinho said beforehand. Make that three points now from three home games. This time without the domination or the amazing number of chances. Nothing special, in other words, for all Mourinho’s protestations about luck.',
 'So what attracted tech bosses to the billionaire president-elect Donald Trump? On Wednesday, a curious spectacle could be observed in New York. A swarm of tech billionaires arrived in their private jets and were whisked to Trump Tower, the Louis XV pastiche that is the residence of Trumplethinskin, as the tech journalist Kara Swisher calls the president-elect. The roll call of assembled tech moguls ran as follows: Satya Natella and Brad Smith (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Page and Eric Schmidt (Alphabet, Google’s holding company), Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Tim Cook (Apple), Elon Musk (Tesla), Ginni Rometty (IBM), Safra Catz (Oracle), Chuck Robbins (Cisco), Alex Karp (Palantir) and Brian Krzanich (Intel). Apart from their vast wealth and an aversion to paying tax, what linked these notables? Answer: a deep loathing of Trumplethinskin. Yet when he issued the summons to his preposterous “summitâ€\x9d they all came running. Why? For the answer, we need to delve into the darker recesses of human nature. First of all, there was naked fear. During the election campaign, Trumplethinskin had made no secret of his contempt for the tech companies. He castigated Apple, for example, for not caving in to the FBI’s demand that it unlock the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone and for manufacturing the phone in China rather than in the US. He accused Amazon of abusing its monopoly power. And so on. But it wasn’t the abuse that spooked the tech crowd as much as his demonstration of what he could achieve with a single tweet. At 1:26pm on 12 December his tweet “The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20thâ€\x9d instantly wiped $4bn off the value of Lockheed Martin, the lead manufacturer of the $100m-a-pop warplane. If he can do that to an aerospace manufacturer, what could he do to the tech companies? In seeking an explanation for the abject obeisance of the tech moguls on Wednesday, we should also not underestimate the aphrodisiac effect of power. Trumplethinskin may be a repellent demagogue (and we know from off-the-record conversations reported by Swisher – the ultimate tech insider – that that’s how the Silicon Valley crowd see him), but on 20 January he will be president and proximity to power has a funny effect on many people. It causes them to lose their marbles, their judgment and sometimes their principles. So it was in New York on Wednesday when the assembled titans fawned on their host in his blinged-up lair. Thirdly, there is that old staple – greed. There is money to be made out of President Trumplethinskin. One of the first letters he received upon winning the election came IBM chief executive Rometty. “Dear Mr President-elect,â€\x9d it gushed, “last Tuesday night you spoke about bringing the country together to build a better future and the opportunity to harness the creative talent of people for the benefit of all. I know that you are committed to help America’s economy grow in ways that are good for all its people. I am writing to offer ideas that I believe will help realise the aspiration you articulated… I do so as the leader of the nation’s largest technology employer. Permit me to offer a few suggestions.â€\x9d These included “data analytics, data centre consolidation and the use of cloud technologiesâ€\x9d to cut government costs. This is interesting for two reasons. First, Trumplethinskin isn’t any old chief executive but a president-elect who comes to power after a campaign that was laced with racism and promises of action against a particular ethnic/religious group: Muslims. In order to implement any of his proposed policies towards illegal immigrants, border control, etc, he will need a database. A very large database. So who will build it for him? The federal government? Given his contempt for the civil service, that seems unlikely. So it will be outsourced to tech companies and the question becomes: will they do it? In this respect, the IBM chief’s letter might turn out to be an inspired pitch for business. After all, the company could be said to have a track record in this line of business. Way back in the 1930s, its German subsidiary was the outfit that provided the Hollerith tabulating machines that were a cornerstone of the murder machine that ran the Holocaust. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not to say that IBM was responsible for the Holocaust or that Trumplethinskin is a genocidal maniac – just that, to update a 1970s feminist phrase, the technological has suddenly become political. Very political. So how will Silicon Valley respond when the next presidential summons comes? Stay tuned.',
 'Head of Wikimedia resigns over search engine plans The executive director of the Wikimedia foundation, the body that manages the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, has resigned following a row within the community over leaked plans to apparently build a search engine and compete with Google. Lila Tretikov, who joined the organisation in May 2014, offered her resignation to the board this week, and will work out her term until the end of March, according to Patricio Lorente, a member of the Wikimedia’s board of trustees. In a letter to Wikimedia employees and members of the community, Tretikov wrote: “I am both inspired by, and proud of, the many great things we have all accomplished at the Foundation over the last two years, most significantly reversing the loss of our editorial community … I remain passionate about the value and potential of open knowledge and Wikimedia to change the world.â€\x9d When Tretikov started at Wikimedia, the number of active editors on the English version of Wikipedia had been falling for seven years straight. The site, which is edited by volunteers, had peaked in 2007 with almost 5,000 very active editors, defined as more than 100 edits a month; but by 2014, this had fallen to just 3,000. In the first year of Tretikov’s time as executive director, that rose to 3,200, and currently stands at 3,500. But that success, along with others Tretikov cited including the introduction of new editing tools, a focus on anti-harassment initiatives and the creation of a new endowment for the encyclopaedia, wasn’t enough to counter opprobrium from the community about the Wikimedia foundation’s aborted search plans. Motherboard’s Jason Koebler reports that the key reason for Tretikov’s departure was a plan, leaked earlier this month to build the “Wikipedia knowledge engineâ€\x9d. Described in grant documents as “a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the internetâ€\x9d, there was considerable doubt over what the tool was actually intended to be: a search engine aimed at halting a decline in Wikipedia traffic sent by Google, or simply a service for searching within Wikipedia? The latter was the initial suggestion put out by the Wikimedia Foundation in a blogpost after the news broke, but was contradicted by the terms of a grant from the Knight Foundation, which described instead “a model for surfacing high quality, public information on the internetâ€\x9d. It also explicitly described competition from Google or Yahoo as a risk to the project, and the “biggest challengeâ€\x9d that the group had to face. The plan to build the Knowledge Engine was controversial within the Wikimedia community. Many objected to the perceived mission creep that such a project would represent for an organisation that had previously been very focused on the creation of a singular item of human endeavour. But equally controversial was the fact that the plans had been put in place without consulting the wider community. Wikimedia prides itself on transparency, but had apparently planned the project, and applied for a grant, without any disclosure. This, added to the fact that the initial blogpost about the knowledge engine still failed to fully explain why the first grant application seemed so much bigger than simply building an internal search engine, lead to Wikimedians calling for Tretikov’s resignation. Those calls were granted this week. Wikimedia’s Patricio Lorente says the organisation’s board is meeting “to develop a clear transition plan that seeks to build confidence with community and staff, appoint interim leadership, and begin the search for a new Executive Directorâ€\x9d.',
 'Music shone through my wife’s Alzheimer’s Laura Barton’s description of Hannah Peel’s relationship with her gran through music (Waking moments, G2, 23 November) brought back so many memories of my wife’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. Denise died last year having struggled with Alzheimer’s for five years. She had been a music teacher and church organist in her early life but, even though I was able to care for her at home until the end, her memory and recognition failed early on in the disease. However, even when she slept most of the time, hymns would sometimes bring a smile to her lips, not least the weekly Songs of Praise on a Sunday afternoon. Such was the awakening that she would join in with most hymns and was word perfect. As the final credits rolled Denise would close her eyes and return to her abyss of darkness. Dennis Ruston Derby • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters',
 'Journalists wear Kevlar in the field – they also need to protect their minds News feeds on tragedy. When others run from danger, we run towards it, keen to witness disaster first-hand, trying to interpret the inexplicable, asking those in grief or shock to articulate how it feels. We are always looking for a personal take on a big news story, the more emotive the better. That means thrusting a microphone or pointing a camera at someone who’s experiencing one of the worst days of their lives. It’s a vital way of informing the world what’s happening, but often there’s a psychological impact of our coverage – both on those who are at their most vulnerable and also on us. Most journalists are able to deal with the day-to-day job of covering traumatic and challenging events, whether in war zones, disaster areas or courtrooms, without any long-term damage to their psychological health. However, a minority, estimated to be between 9% and 28%, will develop post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, the higher end of the scale being similar to that of conflict veterans. I’ve spent years studying the effects of trauma on individuals and, as part of an MSc in psychology, I conducted research with nearly 150 journalists across all broadcast media. The majority said they relished the job and had pride in their work – sometimes they risked their personal physical and mental health to do that job well. They would rather cover the story than not, even with huge demands. Many of them had also experienced acute stress while doing it. The research found that exposure to personal risk in hostile environments dramatically increased that risk. But even those who did not work under threat in the field experienced difficulties, especially if they had spent time on a long court case, or spoken to grieving relatives. In fact, the person in my study with the highest post-traumatic stress score had never left the office but, after viewing images from Syria day after day, could no longer cope. For some, there was a perceived lack of engagement by those back at base that exacerbated any mental health issues. Here’s a selection of comments from news crew across various TV companies. I think my organisation takes its staff – and their mental robustness – for granted. Female, 38 There is an assumption that journalists have to be prepared to deal with any situation but even if you complete your duties in a professional way, it doesn’t mean you won’t be personally affected by the human impact of the story you’ve been covering. Male, 36 Journalists are viewed as part of (the) cost and resource matrix. There needs to be fewer spreadsheets and more humanity shown, particularly to staff who are working long hours in trying circumstances. Male, 51 I get the feeling some news desks act like first world war generals and send in the troops regardless of the situation, just to be first with the story. Excuses are frowned upon. Male, 63 Few of the journalists who spoke to me about their experiences had talked about it with anyone else. Not their families. Not their colleagues or their managers. They felt they would be considered weak, be passed over, would not be taken seriously, be labelled. At home they felt they couldn’t talk about it because they didn’t want to frighten those they loved. One in four of us have mental health issues – yet in many environments, perhaps particularly in news, where the emphasis has traditionally been on mental toughness, it’s invisible. Safer perhaps, to keep quiet about those nightmares that don’t go away after returning from a distressing story – easier to put on a brave face while going through a period of depression. Panic attacks, PTSD, phobias – all conditions that seem too tough to talk about in a hard news environment. This is where ITN’s Mental Health Week comes in. It is designed to discuss mental health in the workplace, address what gaps exist in provision and talk about how we can protect staff, while also looking at how we do the same for our most vulnerable contributors. Whether they are affected by mental health issues themselves, or they are a manager responsible for a team; whether they want to understand what mental health pressures their contributors may have and how to handle them or are simply curious to learn more about an issue that is highly likely to affect someone they know. We want to make news a place where we are not afraid to talk about out mental health. We would all put on a Kevlar vest if we were heading into a battlefield, so we should equip ourselves with a psychological first-aid kit to protect our minds, too. Sian Williams is anchor and presenter of 5 News. She is a trained trauma assessor and has written a book on resilience after trauma.',
 'Kidney dialysis – from the comfort of your sitting room If Ian Hichens wants to go away for a few days, he must book three or four months in advance – not a hotel, but a hospital. Hichens uses a kidney dialysis machine five times a week at his home in Bleasby in Nottinghamshire; it is four feet high and too large to move. “I can go away, but I have to book a hospital,â€\x9d he says. It must have a dialysis ward he can use. “It takes quite a lot of calls between hospitals to do it, and it’s [it’s a question of] if they’ve got space.â€\x9d When staying on the south coast he sometimes has to drive 90 minutes to get to a ward with capacity. Hichens speaks while dialysing at Nottingham city hospital. He is using the ward so he can appear as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Sleeping Beauty in nearby Burton Joyce, but it also lets him take part in the first human trials of a new compact dialysis machine, the Quanta SC+. Since May last year, Nottingham university hospitals trust has carried out more than 100 treatments with the machine, each typically a four-hour dialysis session. The SC+ is designed to fit into users’ homes, being a third of the height of older dialysis machines and a fraction of their weight, at 30kg, without being less powerful so users can stick with their existing schedule. It uses disposable cartridges to filter blood, meaning there is less setting up for each treatment, and has simple controls. Dr Charlotte Bebb, consultant nephrologist, says it saves at least 30 minutes per cycle compared with older machines. The SC+ has been used only within the ward, but she adds: “I think these kinds of machines will make home dialysis more accessible to more patients.â€\x9d Patients save on travel time and can dialyse when they want to, rather than when the ward is open. Frances Valencia, a home haemodialysis training nurse, says it is quicker to teach patients to use the SC+ than older kit. “All the patients that have been on the machine have liked it,â€\x9d she says, adding that, unlike current machines, it could fit into a flat or small house. More home dialysis would have advantages for the NHS. “Lots of units have difficulties with capacity,â€\x9d says Bebb, and more home dialysis would free space on wards. “It’s good for the patients, and good from a cost-effective point of view. It’s a win-all-ways,â€\x9d Bebb sums up. Nottingham’s home dialysis rate of 8% is higher than the 4.2% average for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the trust is aiming to increase this to 10%. (The figures, compiled by the US Renal Data System for 2013, put Scotland on 2.6%.) The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set a target for England of 15%. In 2013, the all-party parliamentary kidney group published a Home Dialysis Manifesto (pdf) that described home dialysis as “a most striking missed opportunityâ€\x9d for the NHS. “Not only is home dialysis clinically effective, it is also substantially more cost-effective than in-centre haemodialysis and can bring about a marked improvement in patients’ quality of life,â€\x9d the report said. A study in May 2014 in New Zealand, where the home dialysis rate is 18.4%, found that home dialysis in that country is associated with the best overall survival rate. John Milad, chief executive of Warwickshire-based firm Quanta, believes the SC+ can help reach Nice’s home dialysis target. The simpler-to-use machines should also allow a further 10%-15% of patients to “self-serveâ€\x9d on hospital wards, taking pressure off nurses and acting as a stepping stone to home dialysis. “There are a lot of patients who are underserved right now, by being forced into this passive care-recipient model, where we could be giving them the tools to empower them to look after themselves,â€\x9d he says. Quanta was spun out of Birmingham-based industrial engineering firm IMI in 2008, and its staff have experience from other industries; Milad says the SC+ cartridge system was inspired by drinks dispensers. He adds that the firm has been “really delightedâ€\x9d with the early results from the Nottingham trial, and has made improvements to the machine’s operation based on clinical practice, including making it more flexible to use. Geoff Chambers, a dialysis patient who also works for the trust as a patient liaison officer, says home dialysis is not for everyone. He prefers to dialyse on the ward, as he lives alone and likes to have someone present during treatment. He tried using the SC+ but normally uses haemodiafiltration dialysis, a method it does not provide. But for those it suits, it has big benefits: “The beauty of home dialysis is you can do it when you want, as many times a week as you want,â€\x9d he says. “If you’re at home, you are in control, and I like the idea of being in control as much I can of my health.â€\x9d Chambers, who was on the silver medal-winning GB volleyball team at the 2000 World Transplant Games in Sydney, controls his condition in other ways. He arrives for his three-weekly visits at around 7.15am so he can park easily and has the afternoon free, carries out much of the dialysis work himself – including inserting his own needles – and manages his diet carefully. Dialysis wards can be unnerving for first-timers, Chambers says. He recalls the first time he was brought in 30 years ago: “I can laugh about it now, but everyone was asleep and it was a lot of old people. I simply thought they were all unconscious. It completely freaked me out.â€\x9d The machines have got much quieter. Chambers says they used to sound like washing machines, but the ward now sounds more like a supermarket than a laundrette, with beeping, clattering and conversation. Dialysis can still make new patients nervous, however, something Chambers is tackling in his liaison job, funded by Nottingham Hospitals Charity and thought to be the first of its kind in the UK. Nottingham’s trial of the SC+ machines will end in a few months’ time. Quanta has not announced pricing, although Milad says the firm wants to sell to UK customers and is considering options, including charging per treatment. Cost will decide whether the machines will be available to those using Nottingham’s dialysis ward, Bebb says, adding: “It would be nice to offer it to patients.â€\x9d Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'Sterling hits three-year low against the euro over Brexit worries The pound has sunk to a three-year low against the euro on worries over the UK’s prospects outside the EU, after the government set a timetable for Brexit negotiations and fanned fears it would go for a deal that leaves Britain excluded from the single market. Sterling came under pressure on Monday after Theresa May used her weekend speech at the Conservative party conference to pledge to trigger article 50 before the end of March. The prime minister raised the possibility of a hard Brexit as she spelled out that greater border controls would trump any attempt to remain a member of the single market. That pushed the pound down sharply against the euro single currency to €1.1438 in afternoon trading, a drop of 0.9% on the day. The pound was also down more than 1% against the US dollar to $1.2835, not far off a 31-year low hit in the wake of June’s shock referendum result. Sterling’s weakness contrasted with a rally on stock markets where share prices were lifted by a combination of near-term economic optimism, relief over May providing some certainty on Brexit timing and the effects of a weak pound, which flatters the earnings of UK-listed firms reporting in dollars. “Brexit continues to be the word of the day, with the markets somewhat caught between the future consequences of Britain’s separation from the EU and the lack of discernible impact in the past few months,â€\x9d said Connor Campbell, analyst at the financial spread betting firm Spreadex. “While the FTSE is celebrating the UK’s recent, and unexpected, economic sturdiness, the pound has its eye on a time when Britain officially no longer belongs to the European Union.â€\x9d The FTSE 100 index of bluechip shares rose more than 1% to a 16-month high of 6,996. The more domestically focused FTSE 250 was also up, by 1.6% at 18,152, boosted by a surge in the shares of Henderson, the fund manager, which announced a merger with the asset manager Janus. Henderson shares were up 17% at 271p. The mood was further bolstered by a poll of manufacturers that suggested factory activity expanded at the fastest pace for more than two years in September, helped by stronger export orders on the back of the pound’s fall after the EU referendum. The survey chimed with other recent reports suggesting businesses and consumers have largely recovered from the initial shock of the Brexit vote in June. The key index on the Markit/Cips UK manufacturing PMI (pdf) rose to 55.4 from 53.4 in August, beating forecasts for 52.1 in a Reuters poll of economists and the highest since June 2014. The survey also showed manufacturing production expanded at the quickest pace since May 2014, employment rose for the second month running and new orders picked up thanks to higher sales to domestic and overseas clients. New export orders grew at the fastest pace since January 2014 as the weak pound continued to make UK goods more competitive overseas. The flipside of the weaker pound was further upward pressure on import costs for manufacturers and they passed part of that on in higher prices last month. Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, which compiled the survey, said the latest improvement in the PMI report from its post-referendum low in July was encouraging for overall growth prospects. “The rebound over the past two months has been encouragingly strong, and puts the sector on course to provide a further positive contribution to GDP in the third quarter,â€\x9d he said. The survey follows official figures last week showing stronger-than-expected growth after the referendum in the services sector, which accounts for about three-quarters of the economy. Other official data also showed the economy went into the vote with slightly faster growth than previously thought. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, seized on signs of economic strength in his address to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. “The markets have calmed since the referendum vote. And many of the recent data have been better than expected. That is the clearest demonstration of the underlying strength of our economy,â€\x9d he said, without referring to the pound’s fall. Currency traders had more long-term concerns on their minds as they digested the prime minister’s weekend comments, said Chris Saint, senior analyst, at City firm Hargreaves Lansdown Currency Service. “Sterling’s woes are being compounded by speculation the UK could take the hard Brexit route, sacrificing access to the EU single market in return for greater control over immigration,â€\x9d he said. There were also fresh warnings about reading too much into early signs of resilience to the referendum outcome. Statisticians have cautioned against reading too much into any single month’s data and point out that figures can get revised over time as more information comes in. Economists warn that various factors could soon weigh on spending power and sentiment. “Notwithstanding the stronger-than-expected run of economic data thus far, we expect that consumers, who until now have remained resilient in the face of Brexit, may struggle to maintain their optimism in the face of rising inflation and a softer labour market,â€\x9d said Dean Turner, economist at UBS Wealth Management.',
 'Ex-BCC chief: business bosses may fear backing British EU exit in public Business leaders may now feel too intimidated to speak out in favour of Brexit, according to the outgoing director general of the British Chambers of Commerce who resigned on Sunday night after saying the UK could be better off out of the EU. John Longworth, who was initially suspended by the BCC board after his pro-Brexit comments, said he did not know whether Downing Street had any influence on the decision but it would not be surprising if there had been some contact between officials and the business group. The row over Longworth’s Eurosceptic comments has inflamed leave campaigners, who are suspicious that No 10 may have encouraged the BCC to silence its director general. The BCC is remaining neutral on the referendum, with about two-thirds of its members favouring staying in. But Longworth had told the group’s annual conference that it was his personal view that the UK could have a “brighterâ€\x9d future outside the EU. David Davis, the Eurosceptic former shadow home secretary and Tory leadership candidate, has now submitted a freedom of information request to Downing Street to get to the bottom of whether government officials put any pressure on the BCC. Speaking to the , Longworth said he was “very convinced the business community is much more split than people thinkâ€\x9d and it was up to them to speak out if they had something to add to the debate. But he raised concerns that other senior figures in the corporate world may be reluctant to come out in favour of Brexit because of the furore around his remarks, which were made at the BCC annual conference on Thursday. Asked whether he thought his decision to speak out could encourage other business leaders to back Brexit, he said: “Anybody sat there watching what’s been going on, I think it would put them off quite frankly rather than it encouraging them … I’m sure people would be intimidated.â€\x9d Longworth said he did not personally hear from Downing Street after his speech and he has “no idea what happened after the conference dayâ€\x9d, so allegations about government pressure were “for the BCC to answerâ€\x9d. “The only thing I can say is that I have been dealing with governments for many years and it is normal practice for government representatives to make their views known, sometimes in the strongest and most striking terms about issues, but they have never influenced me. I have always said it like it is without fear or favour,â€\x9d he added. Longworth is now considering whether to participate formally in the leave campaign, and separately told the Telegraph that he thought David Cameron was peddling “highly irresponsibleâ€\x9d scare stories to try to keep the UK in the EU. The BCC has strongly denied any political interference influenced its decision to suspend Longworth. “His subsequent resignation was agreed mutually between Mr Longworth and the BCC board, and there were no external factors involved. The only views taken into account were those of the BCC board and the BCC’s owners – the UK accredited chamber network,â€\x9d a spokesman said. Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, also firmly rejected the idea that No 10 or other government officials exerted any pressure on the BCC over the suspension, suggesting the leave campaign was engaging in a conspiracy theory. He told Sky News: “I can give you that absolute assurance, because the board of the British Chambers of Commerce have made it very clear that this was their decision, and there was no external pressure from anybody else. “People who want to leave Europe are seeing conspiracy theories everywhere now because they don’t want to answer the basic questions, which is if you leave Europe, where are you going? What are the new arrangements for trade? What is going to happen to the jobs that depend on Europe? They have to start answering these questions instead of coming up with rather bizarre conspiracy theories that the British Chambers of Commerce have flatly denied.â€\x9d However, Downing Street has refused to reveal its contact with the BCC after the speech on Thursday and before Longworth’s suspension on Friday night. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said: “We are in regular discussions with business organisations. I am not going to get into the details about private conversations.â€\x9d She would not deny that there had been contact before or since the speech and suggested that it was reasonable for the government to court the opinions of pro-EU supporters in the business world. Boris Johnson, the London mayor, said Longworth had “effectively been gaggedâ€\x9d from expressing a bright and optimistic vision of Britain outside the EU. He also told LBC: “I think it is very sad that somebody like John Longworth, who’s given a lot of time, a lot of thought to the needs of British business and industry should be basically pushed out for saying what he thinks.â€\x9d',
 'World trade hangs in the balance as Trump prepares plan of action Donald Trump’s determination to stamp his mark on US trade policy “would be horribly destructiveâ€\x9d, according to the most exhaustive assessment of his pre-election tweets, speeches and declarations in Fox News interviews. Among the more consistent themes in his various pronouncements, the president-elect said he would tear up the Nafta agreement that gives Mexico tariff-free access to US markets on about half of its goods. Trump also threatened to impose tariffs on China, which he said could be as much as 35%, to punish the Beijing for a policy of “currency manipulationâ€\x9d. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, president Obama’s hard-won free trade agreement with Japan, Australia and much of the Pacific rim, which lowers tariffs on a wide range of goods, will be thrown in the Oval Office bin, if a Trump video outlining his policies in the first 100 days is anything to go by. The Peterson Institute, a non-partisan thinktank in Washington, said in its September report assessing trade agendas in the US presidential campaign that the sum of all these moves would bring the US recovery to a juddering halt, and possibly plunge it into recession. The institute’s chairman, Adam Posen, a former Bank of England policymaker, said in his foreword to the report: “The belligerent trade policies proposed by Trump would devastate viable American businesses and their vicinities.â€\x9d But as the inauguration nears, it looks like the doomsday scenario put forward not just by Posen, but also in the pages of Forbes, Fortune and much of the US media, can be put on ice. Just as Trump is turning his attention away from prosecuting Hillary Clinton, so a trade war with the Chinese and Mexicans is no longer a priority. Of the three main threats to trade, only axing the TPP agreement looks likely to happen, since it has yet to be ratified by Congress and remains, like the Paris climate deal, a White House policy, not a US policy. Marcus Noland, an author of the Peterson Institute report, says signals from the Trump camp indicate he has also shelved his threatened war on China and Japan while he focuses on domestic concerns. That will be a relief to the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which have spent the last couple of years wringing their hands over a sharp decline in trade. In October, the IMF said the sum of trade across the world had grown by just over 3% per year since 2012, less than half the average rate of expansion during the previous three decades. “The slowdown in trade growth is remarkable, especially when set against the historical relationship between growth in trade and global economic activity. Between 1985 and 2007, real world trade grew on average twice as fast as global GDP, whereas over the past four years it has barely kept pace. Such prolonged sluggish growth in trade volumes relative to economic activity has few historical precedents during the past five decades.â€\x9d In a barely disguised attack on Trump and fellow protectionists, it warned leaders to put more effort into mitigating the effects of globalisation. “An increasingly popular narrative that sees the benefits of globalisation and trade accrue only to a fortunate few is also gaining traction. Policymakers need to address the concerns of trade-affected workers, including effective support for retraining, skill building and occupational and geographic mobility, to mitigate the downsides of further trade integration for the trade agenda to revive.â€\x9d Noland says Trump’s first term could still be scarred by battles with China. “Let’s say the president wins approval from the Republican-dominated Congress for a large fiscal stimulus with a mixture of tax cuts and infrastructure spending. If this boom sucks in more imports and increases the balance of payments deficit, as everyone expects, Trump will come under renewed pressure to act,â€\x9d he said. “This could be a couple of years down the line, but would mean him pursuing all the protectionist threats he made in the campaign.â€\x9d Swati Dhingra, a trade specialist at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, says there could be some easy wins for Trump if he needs them. “The Nafta agreement has an inbuilt annual renegotiation clause, so there is the potential for the president to secure changes to tariffs with Canada and Mexico without throwing out the whole thing,â€\x9d she says. “But it’s scary when Trump starts to attack China. Who knows how bad things will get if he imposes tariffs against World Trade Organisation rules.â€\x9d China could appeal against them to the WTO board, though Trump has said he would quit the WTO rather than step back from a fight. A more likely reaction from Beijing would be tit-for-tat tariffs. The Global Times, a newspaper seen by many as a vehicle for the Chinese leadership to float ideas and respond to sensitive political issues, said earlier this month that China could easily favour Airbus over Boeing when it buys aircraft. “US auto and iPhone sales in China will suffer a setback, and US soybean and maize imports will be halted. China can also limit the number of Chinese students studying in the US,â€\x9d it said. President Obama has already been down this road. Not long after he took office, he imposed a 35% import tariff on Chinese tyres to protect Firestone and other domestic suppliers. But one study estimated it saved a maximum 1,200 jobs and cost US consumers $1.1bn in higher prices. In addition, China reacted by slapping tariffs on US chicken and car parts, costing US businesses millions of dollars in lost revenue. Worse, the US economy was growing strongly and adding jobs in the tyre industry, so the 1,200 jobs were probably in the pipeline anyway. Mitt Romney, the Republican’s losing presidential candidate in 2012, was damning in his criticism of Obama and the way he allowed auto workers to bully him into raising protectionist tariffs. The former Massachusetts governor will need to eat his words should he become Trump’s secretary of state and join an administration only too keen to upset free trade advocates. But then he will need to apologise for calling Trump a fraud and a phoney during the campaign, so maybe ditching his free-trade principles will be the least of his worries. The deals under threat TPP The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would cut tariffs and deepen economic ties between the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Mexico, Peru and Chile. It also aims to simplify regulations and copyright laws so that member countries would have a more or less unified system. Overall, more than 18,000 tariffs would be affected, and though some will take more than 10 years to disappear, the result could be a new single market, similar to the European Union, with the current signatories comprising about 40% of the global economy. Nafta Opinion is divided over success of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal between Mexico, Canada and the US signed by Bill Clinton in 1994. Its critics say it meant millions of poor Mexicans became servants of a northern power that exported its 2008 financial crisis and not much else. Supporters say it bolstered the rule of law, and kept democracy afloat and the generals and dictators at bay. Maintaining strong links with the US is a top priority for the Mexican government. TTIP The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of negotiations between the EU and US that aims to cut tariffs on everything from cars to beef. It is a bigger version of the TPP: the US wanted agriculture and financial services included. But it was put on hold following a rebellion by German MPs and disquiet in France over the use of secret courts to resolve trade disputes. Critics say the courts allow large, mainly US multinationals to sue governments when policy changes hit their profits. Trump, however, believes it will favour EU companies and undermine US jobs, so it is probably dead, rather than on hold. Ceta The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is a mini-me deal between Canada and the EU that was supposed to pave the way for the much bigger TTIP, but now it looks like being the only scheme for lower tariffs with another country to secure approval in Brussels. It must now be ratified by all 28 members of the EU, including Britain, though Theresa May could well abstain.',
 'Earth, Wind & Fire review – a groove parday with the funk soul uncles When Earth, Wind & Fire were in their funky late-70s pomp, they put on some of the most theatrical pop shows ever seen. Their silver outfits could have come straight from Star Trek and bassist Verdine White’s favourite party piece was levitating several feet above the stage. Now, after making music for 45 years, they’re down to three remaining original members. Founding singer (and Verdine’s brother) Maurice White exited the touring lineup in the 90s owing to Parkinson’s disease; he died this year. Ralph Johnson has departed the drum kit for a less physically demanding percussion role. However, at 65, singer Philip Bailey’s extraordinary falsetto still visits places usually made possible only by painfully tight trousers. Nowadays, Verdine White remains rooted to the spot, although his red sparkly flares could provide several families with Christmas decorations and his rubbery funk basslines deliver the throbbing power for a near two-hour “pardayâ€\x9d. Opening with signature tune Boogie Wonderland would be foolhardy if the band didn’t have plenty more where that came from, and the 1979 song has been given something of a makeover. With the 13-piece band augmented by younger musicians, including Bailey’s son, a new middle section flits from Latin to Kraftwerk-style electronics to house music, ending with the musicians spinning on their heels into a collective Black Panthers-type salute. In a breathless opening salvo, Jupiter and Shining Star demonstrate the band’s trademark ability to lay down stupidly funky grooves, showered with disco, pop and soul. It’s a shame, then, that with the entire if undersold arena audience on their feet, a lengthy middle section of purist’s favourites, slower-paced songs and instrumental sections promptly has them sitting down again, although the rest is perhaps welcomed by the more venerable members of the audience. Still, there’s a lovely moment when Maurice White appears on screen to “singâ€\x9d with his surviving peers, and in grainy black and white images of the band in their prime. Bailey wonders aloud how many people present were conceived to the sound of EWF’s funky-pumpy. The smoother soul After the Love Has Gone probably soundtracked more divorces than lovey-dovey, although Bailey seems close to tears when the song is taken up by an impromptu, mostly female audience choir. The brassy cover of the Beatles’ Got to Get You Into My Life gets the party restarted in no uncertain terms, before Fantasy and September sound exactly as they should. With barely anything with a date stamp past 1980 and well-worn, if effective, call-and-response routines, it’s a show that leans mostly on nostalgia and old-fashioned showmanship, but keeps Maurice White’s life’s work alive. If the late frontman is visiting in spirit, he would surely be thrilled to witness the jubilant reception given the 35-year-old Let’s Groove, as every audience member follows Bailey’s tried and trusted command to “wave your hands in the air, wave them like you just don’t careâ€\x9d.',
 "Italy's political class should be very alarmed if MPS needs state bailout Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s attempt to float itself off the rocks with private capital appears doomed and a state-sponsored bailout looks inevitable. The Italian government on Wednesday granted itself the funds for a rescue package. The deed will probably be done by Christmas, with losses imposed on junior bondholders. It is tempting to think this outcome was inevitable. The crisis at Italy’s third-largest lender has bubbled away for most of 2016 and the bank has a long and grim record of disappointing its backers. Over the past five years, it has raised €8bn in capital but churned out losses of €15bn. But, turn the clock back just a few months, and there were realistic hopes that recapitalisation by the private sector would succeed. The Siena-based lender was bottom of the class in the eurozone’s regulatory stress tests in the summer but a few Greek banks have proved it is possible to find brave investors willing to take a punt on recovery. MPS also seemed to have acquired two ingredients it had previously lacked – a credible chief executive and a serious cost-cutting plan. Marco Morelli, a former Bank of America executive, arrived in September and outlined his ambition to cut 2,500 jobs and a quarter of the branches. If recapitalisation could be achieved, said Morelli, MPS would emerge at the end of 2019 with one of the healthiest capital ratios among European banks. And why not? Italy is not Greece. Half the country is rich. It ought to be possible for a bank founded in 1472 to shuffle off its bad loans, even at depressed prices, overcome its foolish acquisitions from the boom years and regain a profitable niche. The critical sum at stake in the recapitalisation plan – €5bn – was not off the scale and JP Morgan, the Wall Street powerhouse advising MPS, was on hand to round up a few so-called anchor investors. It has not worked. The immediate reason is that the anchor investors, supposedly from Qatar and China, have got cold feet. Meanwhile, junior bondholders have squealed at being asked to turn their IOUs into equity. In other words, confidence drained away, not helped by MPS’s warning that its levels of liquidity were falling fast. But the other trigger was the landslide defeat for prime minister Matteo Renzi in the referendum on constitutional reform. That reopened the debate about Italy’s long-term future in the eurozone. Until the elections are held and the political picture clears, investors seem to have decided that Italy is not a place to take a high-risk bet. January’s planned €13bn recapitalisation of Unicredit should still be safe. Unicredit is bigger, its bad debts are less severe and underwriters are already in place. But Italy’s political class should be alarmed by MPS’s failure to find private-sector friends. Bigger challenges have been overcome during the eurozone’s many crises. This state bailout looks like investors’ vote of little confidence in Italy. Lily-livered Deloitte’s ridiculous apology The sins of Serco and G4S, circa 2013, were grave. The companies had been billing the government for placing electronic tags on offenders who were dead or in prison. They were told to engage in “corporate renewalâ€\x9d – in other words, get their houses in order – and they would be banned from bidding for public sector work in the meantime. The response was reasonable and appeared to have the desired effect. The companies reformed their boards and audit committees to try to ensure that such a scandal could never happen again. Six months later, the bans were lifted, which also seemed roughly right. Outsourcing is designed to save money for the public purse and Serco and G4S, love them or loathe then, are two of the biggest operators in the country. So best to have the duo, in scrubbed-up form one hopes, in the market to keep the bidding competitive. Now Deloitte has similarly been banned from bidding for central government contracts for six months. Or, rather, the consultant has volunteered for punishment. Has it also ripped off taxpayers for millions through deceit or incompetence? Not at all. All that has happened is that one of its consultants wrote a two-page internal memo suggesting the government had no plan for Brexit, which is hardly a controversial opinion, and that civil servants are struggling to cope with the extra workload. But Deloitte thinks it needs to apologise for the “unintended disruption ... caused to governmentâ€\x9d by a leak to the Times. It wants “to put this matter behind usâ€\x9d. This affair is ridiculous. The partners of Deloitte come across as lily-livered. And Theresa May, in apparently endorsing the six-month ban, appears terrified of criticism. Outsiders will draw a simple conclusion from the colossal over-reaction: the memo was on the money.",
 'Corporate governance experts call for the head of HSBC chairman HSBC investors should reject the bank’s “excessiveâ€\x9d executive pay plans at its annual general meeting, according to a shareholder advisory group, which branded the position of chairman Douglas Flint “untenableâ€\x9d. Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (Pirc) advised shareholders to oppose the re-election of Flint at the meeting on 22 April. Pirc said it had concerns over the variable pay of chief executive Stuart Gulliver, which exceeded 200% of his salary. It also described his benefits package – worth 50% of salary – as “excessive and inappropriateâ€\x9d. Pirc welcomed some of HSBC’s plans to limit future benefits for executives but said “changes are still considered insufficient to align with best practiceâ€\x9d. The group said Flint’s position had become untenable because he was finance director at a time when there were regulatory breaches for which HSBC was later fined. It said: “Pirc would expect such issues to require intense scrutiny by the board of the position of the finance director and the auditors. Given this, it is considered that Mr Flint has failed in his responsibilities and his position is untenable.â€\x9d HSBC declined to comment.',
 'In or out – what’s the best for British bats? We have written to the Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave campaigns to ask how a leave or remain vote will affect the UK’s treasured natural environment and its remarkable and already threatened species (Could Brexit be the best thing for Europe’s wildlife?, theguardian.com, 9 May). The decision on whether to stay in the EU or to leave will have many far-reaching and long-term effects. While several of the areas where this effect will be felt have been debated in some depth, such as trade, investment, immigration and jobs, there are other important areas that have not been given attention by campaigners, but directly or indirectly affect us all. A significant gap is the impact on wildlife. The outcome of June’s referendum has the potential to change the face of the UK’s countryside for generations to come. We strongly believe that whether people are committed to the EU, determined to leave, or still undecided, the effect their vote will have on the natural environment must be known. We have asked both campaigns to make clear what effect their preferred referendum result will have on the UK’s wonderful natural environment that so many of us care about. Chris Packham President, Dr David Gibbons Chair, Julia Hanmer Joint CEO, Kit Stoner Joint CEO Bat Conservation Trust • It is time progressive forces in British politics came together to make the positive case for Europe. With ITV planning a debate between David Cameron and Nigel Farage, we need to energise the 75% of registered voters who didn’t back the Conservatives in last year’s general election. Anyone who professes to be a progressive leader must explain that it is the EU protecting worker rights, setting environmental standards and regulating the banks. So far Jeremy Corbyn’s Euro battle bus hasn’t clocked up too many miles. He, and leaders of the other so-called progressive parties, should join me on platforms up and down the country. Progressive leaders must be in the futures business, and it is vital for our children’s future that our place in Europe is protected. Tim Farron MP Leader, Liberal Democrats • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com',
 "NHS 'struggling to cope' with increase in people undergoing cancer tests NHS pathology services cannot keep up with the increasing number of samples being taken from the growing number of people being tested for cancer, raising fears that some will be diagnosed late. That is the conclusion of a report published on Wednesday by Cancer Research UK, which warns that units are “struggling to copeâ€\x9d with the number of biopsies and blood samples being taken as the ageing and growing population produces more cases of suspected cancer. Experts fear the lack of capacity and shortages of pathologists could hamper the NHS-wide drive to improve Britain’s poor record in early identification of cancer. “Diagnostic services, including pathology, urgently need support and investment to ensure that diagnoses aren’t delayed and patients benefit from the latest treatment,â€\x9d said Emma Greenwood, Cancer Research UK’s director of policy. “The UK’s cancer survival is lagging behind other European countries and improving early diagnosis through diagnostic services is one of the ways to address this. The diagnostic bottleneck will only get worse without action now and this involves addressing staff shortages in imaging, endoscopy and pathology.â€\x9d The research found that the number of NHS pathologists is failing to keep pace with rising demand, leaving pathology services under growing pressure. “Pathologists are the medical specialists who diagnose cancer. They also play a vital role in the prevention, treatment and monitoring of cancer and are at the forefront of research to improve the length and quality of life of people with the disease,â€\x9dsaid Dr Suzy Lishman, president of the Royal College of Pathologists. Meanwhile, women with ovarian cancer – the deadliest female cancer – are being “left stranded without vital support at every turnâ€\x9d, from diagnostic tests to access to nurses, according to a report by the charity Target Ovarian Cancer. Its Pathfinder 2016 study found that only one in five UK women (20%) could identify bloating as a major symptom of the disease. Two in five women (41%) visited their GP at least three times or more before they were referred for ovarian cancer tests, risking a delayed diagnosis. And 80% of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer said they had encountered mental health problems since being diagnosed. “Women with ovarian cancer are being failed at diagnosis, in access to trials and effective drugs, and they lack support,â€\x9d said Annwen Jones, the charity’s chief executive.",
 'Think Leicester will fold against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal? Think again If all eyes have admiringly and disbelievingly been on Leicester City for a great deal of this Premier League season, the focus is about to get that little bit sharper. England’s buccaneering pacesetters have in front of them a large hurdle that has all the makings of an important signpost in this remarkable campaign. Within the space of 12 days Leicester confront three difficult assignments. “Three unbelievable matches,â€\x9d emphasised Claudio Ranieri. Liverpool at home on Tuesday, followed by Manchester City away and Arsenal away. That little flurry includes the only two sides to have beaten them in the Premier League so far this season, with the bookies’ favourite to finish top sandwiched between. “It’s important to be ready,â€\x9d added Ranieri, making all the right noises about his team feeling strong at the moment. Come teatime on Valentine’s Day, at the end of this mini-series, it will be very revealing to see if he can still make light and chuckle away at the questions about Leicester’s title hopes. Think they are bound to falter? Think again. Of course, this being unscripted sport none of us have the slightest clue really, but the big positive Leicester have going for them is they were supposed to drop off a cliff once already this season and they managed to maintain their footing. Not so long ago, beginning in late November, a bunch of tricky fixtures loomed over the course of a testing month, including Manchester United, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool and Manchester City. Leicester came unstuck in only one of those fixtures – losing narrowly at Anfield. They began that period top by one point, and ended it second only on goal difference, so any expectations that they would have a serious wobble were adeptly answered. Leicester’s fortune in keeping so many crucial players fit enough to play the majority of the games has given them a great foundation. Naturally, any serious injuries will test Ranieri’s resources, but the purchases of Daniel Amartey and Demarai Gray during January are promising ones. Judging by the way most of the summer signings have shone, with N’Golo Kanté, Christian Fuchs, Robert Huth (who made his successful loan from Stoke a permanent move) and Shinji Okazaki all becoming mainstays in the team, the manager has shown a great touch for bringing in players who are ready to adapt quickly to the fast, determined tempo that has served Leicester so well. Joining a settled and optimistic dressing room, the vibes around the team continue to be upbeat and fiercely driven. Although the Premier League summit remains, quite rightly, their priority, Leicester ought to be keeping a eye on the distance between them and the team fifth in the table, currently Manchester United. Could there be a greater confidence boost in the last few weeks of the season than confirming a place in the Champions League? The gap over United at the moment is 10 points. Keeping a comfortable cushion should be a huge incentive, because, irrespective of how the title challenge ends up, a Champions League position would in itself be a staggering achievement. It has been an age since a team from the Midlands has been represented in Europe’s elite competition. None of Leicester’s current players were even born around the golden age in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa flourished. More recently, following the modernisation of the European Cup from the 1990s onwards, English football’s modern history has no precedent for a club outside the traditional power bases, one without a domestic title on its honours board, qualifying for the Champions League. It has never happened before. When English football first saw its number of qualification spots increased to four, during the 2001-02 season, it was reasonable to imagine a greater spread of teams could gain access to the prosperous, luxurious, promised land of the Champions League. In reality the opposite occurred. Since 2001-02, a Champions League ticket has been claimed 57 times by English clubs (this includes a bonus spot, when Liverpool won the competition in 2005 so even though they finished outside the top four they were allowed special dispensation to join in). The usual suspects – Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City – have taken up 53 of those 57 slots. Outside that list of heavyweights, Newcastle qualified twice (failing once to reach the group stage), and Everton (also failing to reach the groups) and Tottenham once each. Back in 2001-02, Leicester City were anything but one of those clubs hungrily eyeing up a Champions League position. They were relegated, the first team to drop out of the Premier League that season, and finished in bottom place. It was a doleful and worrying way to bid farewell to their ancestral home, Filbert Street. With spiralling debts as they endeavoured to pay for a new stadium, they went into administration. The weeks ahead offer tantalising opportunity. A shot at history. The chance to do something nobody thought possible when Ranieri was appointed to take over from Nigel Pearson continues to be astounding.',
 'The view on the Queen’s speech: playing it safe For anyone out there who is agonised by their wait for a Michael Gove government, today will have come as a blessed relief. The Queen read out words chosen by David Cameron, but almost all the substantive programme that she detailed had a Govian flavour. There was, in no particular order, a drive to extend academy schools, only slightly diluted since the budget, hot-headed measures on terrorism, including a return of the snooper’s charter and a plan to criminalise “extremismâ€\x9d before making clear what it means, a useful reform of adoption (a personal passion of the justice secretary) and then the centrepiece – his very own prison reforms. And all of this, too, was wrapped up in favoured Gove slogans about modern, reforming Conservatism. No doubt this analysis is a little too flip. But the desperate need to keep on board Tory Brexiteers, Mr Gove included, is a serious constraint on the government just now. Anything prone to deepen the divide in the Conservative party has to be parked until after the 23 June EU referendum. This would ordinarily be the stage of a parliament for pushing ahead with the most difficult choices, but legislation to facilitate various service cuts and a mooted scrap with the House of Lords over its delaying powers appear to have been postponed. A year into the first Cameron government, it was full speed ahead on Andrew Lansley’s NHS overhaul and plans to expose every last council service to competition; a year into the second the fear is that anything so controversial would be opportunistically resisted by Mr Cameron’s opponents in the EU debate, and so – it seems – he has resigned himself to a quiet life. Today a more conciliatory tone finally edged things to a deal in the long dispute with junior doctors. The looming tussle to succeed the prime minister before the next general election also had a bearing on what made it on to the parchment in a thin Queen’s speech. There are extra powers once again, this time over buses, for the new metro mayors, an icon of George Osborne’s ambitions. Theresa May, who has made a point of challenging the police, will have a new law to hold them to account. But Mrs May will be miffed about something else. She is on the side of remaining in the EU, but her one big referendum intervention thus far artfully coupled this stance, a challenging sell to the Conservative members who will pick the next party leader, to a demand that the UK withdraw from another pillar of the European order, the convention on human rights. She favours ripping up the Human Rights Act, which enshrines convention protections, and has said so. Today, however, the detail and the timetable of the proposed Tory alternative, a British bill of rights, remained vague. The language stressed revision rather than replacement of the HRA, and nodded at consistency with the convention. This relative restraint brings us back to Mr Gove because, being a relative liberal on questions of law, he put the brakes on the stampede of his predecessor, Chris Grayling, towards a headlong assault on human rights. This is somewhat reassuring for defenders of civil liberties, but only somewhat, because Mr Gove is widely tipped to be reshuffled once the referendum is out of the way. Any restraint he is exerting on human rights, therefore, needs to be regarded as temporary. Likewise there can be no guarantee that the leadership that he and a final-term prime minister purport to be showing on prisons will be sustained. Of course it is welcome to hear top rank politicians facing up to the manifestly miserable results of mass incarceration, which include widespread recidivism. But we have, on and off, heard similar things before over the last quarter of a century, and yet this penal era has been defined by an outright doubling of prisoner numbers, despite declining crime and an ageing population. This weight of numbers has combined with staff reductions to condemn many prisoners to being banged up for all but two or three hours a day, a regime that makes a mockery of serious hopes for education and other paths to redemption. Only this week, the home affairs select committee warned of rising disorder, and demanded urgent change, and yet Messrs Gove and Cameron have responded with a pilot scheme for devolving some decisions to prison governors, which is only likely to work at all if they are given the resources and the backing to experiment confidently. A central innovations unit might be one way to provide such support; another analogue might have been the college of policing. Equally significant is one missing freedom – the freedom to release prisoners early where the governor decides they have mended their ways. Without such measures, the generation-long rising tide of prisoner numbers will not be reversed. And governors, worn down by navigating between central diktats and the interminable pressure of numbers, may be too paralysed to try anything bold. A bit like the government just now.',
 'Absolutely Fabulous film trailer: do Edina and Patsy defenestrate Kate Moss? The first full trailer for Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie has Edina and Patsy on the run in France after possibly killing Kate Moss. Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley reprise their roles as the champagne-drinking fashionistas for the first time in four years, while the film brings back the sitcom’s other co-stars Julia Sawalha and Jane Horrocks. The trailer also shows off a long list of celebrity cameos, including Jon Hamm, Rebel Wilson, Stella McCartney, Gwendoline Christie, Lily Cole and Moss herself. Other stars set to make an appearance include Joan Collins, Perez Hilton and Jeremy Paxman. The original TV series was first broadcast in 1992 and continued for five seasons, also inspiring a French film called Absolument Fabuleux, starring Nathalie Baye and with a cameo from Saunders herself. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie has been in development for about five years, with Saunders saying she would do the film for no other reason than to have the two characters walk the red carpet at the premiere. The production has already been subject to controversy, when it was announced that Krankies comedian Janette Tough would be playing a Japanese man called Huki Muki. “I love AbFab but #YELLOWFACE is something I cannot watch – I just can’t,â€\x9d Korean American comic Margaret Cho tweeted. “It’s sad when heroes are no longer heroic. Too bad. #racism.â€\x9d Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie will be released in UK cinemas on 1 July',
 'Roberto Saviano: London is heart of global financial corruption The financial services industry based in the City of London facilitates a system that makes the UK the most corrupt nation in the world, the anti-mafia journalist Roberto Saviano said at the Hay festival. Saviano, who has been living under armed police guard for more than 10 years after writing an expose of the Neapolitan Camorra, said London’s banking institutions were key components of “criminal capitalismâ€\x9d, which laundered drug money through the offshore networks. He said: “If I asked what is the most corrupt place on Earth, you might say it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the south of Italy. I would say it is the UK. It’s not UK bureaucracy, police, or politics, but what is corrupt is the financial capital. Ninety per cent of the owners of capital in London have their headquarters offshore. “Jersey and the Caymans are the access gates to criminal capital in Europe and the UK is the country that allows it. That is why it is important, why it is so crucial for me to talk to you because I want to say: this is about you, this is about your life, this is about your government.â€\x9d As he spoke two bodyguards stood by silently scanning the crowd. In his interview on Saturday with and journalist Ed Vulliamy, Saviano said that there was a hidden danger of voting to leave the European Union that was little discussed. He said if the UK left the EU, it would undermine joint attempts to fight illegal economies. “Leaving the EU means allowing the Qatari societies, the Mexican cartels, the Russia Mafia to gain even more power,â€\x9d he said, highlighting the fact HSBC had paid $1.9bn in fines to the US government for financial irregularities in dealing with money that had come from cartels. He added: “We have proof, we have evidence. Today, the criminal economy is bigger than the legal economy. Drug trafficking eclipses the revenue of oil firms. Cocaine is a £300bn-a-year business. Criminal capitalism is capitalism without rules. Mafia and organised crime does not abide by the rule of law – and most financial companies who reside offshore are exactly the same.â€\x9d Saviano also recalled how he had been moved to write the book that led to the Camorra telling him it would kill him. “In my lifetime, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Naples and the surrounding area by the Camorra,â€\x9d he said. “But when I was younger I did not have a clear perception of the criminal power that ruled that area.â€\x9d He said that the murder of a priest in his home town radically changed his view. “The priest was 30 years old and was shot in the face,â€\x9d he said. “He had spoken out about the Camorra. He had said ‘for the love of my people I will not keep quiet in the face of a dictatorship run by the Mafia. He called it a totalitarian power within a democracy, and wrote an essay denouncing them. He said by doing so, he felt he could influence the power that was around me.â€\x9d Saviano explained how his life had changed dramatically, aged 26, when he wrote Gomorra, a book exposing the people in the Camorra and the way they acted. Saviano said: “When I got myself into this situation and I could not imagine that it would end like this because many books have been written on the Mafia, but it was my book that made them so angry. “My life is unique. I am followed by two bulletproofed cars and by more than five officers and that brings about a feeling of guilt sometimes because you exposed yourself too much, you were not cautious enough. I live under police protection and have done so for 10 years. What got me into trouble wasn’t so much that I wrote a book, but the way I wrote it. I named names and I stated facts. I took you to the crime scene.â€\x9d Vulliamy praised his bravery and Saviano replied by saying writers should cherish their ability to speak out. “Never take for granted the freedom of expression,â€\x9d Saviano said. He cited the case of Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban aged 15 for campaigning for the right for girls to education. “They are the world’s biggest heroin traffickers, who make fortunes from the trade, and they were frightened of this 15-year-old who was brave enough to speak up for women and girls to go to school as a way to transform her society,â€\x9d he said. He added he had been influenced by fellow Italian writer Primo Levi, whose book If This Is a Man about life in Auschwitz laid bare the daily horrors of life in the Nazi death camp. “He brought the reader to Auschwitz,â€\x9d explained Saviano. “I wanted to say to the reader, this story is about you – that way the reader becomes a problem for organised crime.â€\x9d',
 'Rogues gallery: how photographers are targeting the 1% When the London riots kicked off in 2011, Daniel Mayrit was living in Tottenham, and he witnessed violent events on his doorstep. A few months later, he received a police leaflet in the post featuring faces of the alleged participants, taken from CCTV cameras, which asked neighbours to help identify them. At the same time, banks were being bailed out and financial scandals were rolling out in the press. “On the one hand we had the petty thieves that maybe had stolen a TV in the supermarket, and on the other those responsible for the financial crisis,â€\x9d says Mayrit. “The difference was that in one case we got their images delivered to our homes, in the other we had no idea who they were or what they looked like. There was a representation vacuum, and I wanted to put faces on them the way that power puts faces on criminals.â€\x9d Mayrit worked to fill that space. The Spanish photographer tracked down the 100 most powerful people in the City of London (according to Square Mile’s 2014 report) and, after trying to photograph them directly – going to their places of work, or finding out about events they would attend – he gave up and resorted to the internet instead. He carefully selected images that were already in the public domain (in the press, YouTube, and footage from parliamentary appearances) and gave them a treatment that made them look like screenshots from security cameras. His motivation? Without representation, there can be no action. “It’s very difficult to point your indignation towards something if you don’t even know its face.â€\x9d The resulting photobook, You Haven’t Seen Their Faces, questions how presentation can change narratives. “We could not possibly know if the youngsters portrayed by the police were actually criminals,â€\x9d Mayrit says on his website. “We almost inadvertently assume their guilt because they have been ‘caught on CCTV’.â€\x9d Likewise, he says, “we cannot assume either that the individuals featured here are all involved in the ongoing financial scandals.â€\x9d His book, which won the Paris Photo First Photobook award and is featured in Martin Parr’s Strange and Familiar show, currently on at London’s Barbican Gallery, features photocopies of the faces printed on brown paper and bound together by three golden screws. Mayrit overlays handwritten texts on each face giving information about their earnings, scandals or legal cases they’ve been involved in – all of it information that had already been published by established media. With editor Verónica Fieiras, he was looking to spark “a sort of physical reactionâ€\x9d. So they included a map that identifies these people and their workplaces. “We wanted for the book to allow readers to take action if they wanted, for them to really use it.â€\x9d Meanwhile, in his Suburban Scenes project, Mayrit staged daily anodyne scenes with actors in Tottenham and retouched the shots to give them a Google Street View look. “I wanted to question how those images were interpreted by the viewer, depending on what they knew about Tottenham. They could all be read in one way or its opposite – like this kid jumping a fence: had he just stolen something, or was he taking a shortcut to the shopping centre?â€\x9d Despite the activist slant of his art, Mayrit is sceptical that images can change the world: “After Vietnam, their power is relatively small, and I’m infinitely aware of that.â€\x9d However, he is tackling something that bothers him: “Photographers always seem to focus on the victims, in any type of conflict.â€\x9d. He wanted to do the opposite: “What about those responsible for it?â€\x9d Spending months working on closeups of these faces, “obsessing about getting the right lookâ€\x9d affected Mayrit. “I felt like they were part of my life, like I knew them – they felt like the neighbour you see every morning.â€\x9d But the more he researched, the more he realised that he – and we – are clueless about real life in the City of London. In one particular case, number 71 in the power 100 – he could not even find a photo of the subject, Jonathan Sorrell. “Some of these people have so much power that they’ve managed for their image not to be on the internet. It felt like a metaphor for the whole project.â€\x9d Mayrit is one of a growing number of photographers turning their cameras on the wealthy. Dougie Wallace takes garish portraits of customers outside Harrods; Italian duo Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti photograph tax havens around the world; Zed Nelson visually explores the cost of gentrification in London. In Points of Authority, Thalia Galanopoulou photographed bankers going about their daily business: “Some of them have given me consent, but most of them were just passing by,â€\x9d says Galanopoulou of her gonzo approach. “I always made myself visible, as I used a 50mm lens. I didn’t want to be hiding … I think this confrontation is an important element.â€\x9d No reactions from the City have, as of yet, reached Mayrit, who draws a parallel between the isolation of the financial and art sectors: “Both are a niche. Most people in them don’t really care about what goes on outside of their worlds.â€\x9d He is now working on a project around Spain’s controversial “gagging lawâ€\x9d, which prohibits the dissemination of pictures of police forces. “They are also trying to create a representation vacuum,â€\x9d he says of the legislation. “The financial system had a moral vacuum; this is creating a vacuum by law.â€\x9d You Haven’t Seen Their Faces is published by Riot Books',
 'UK economy shrinks in July as activity falls after Brexit vote, says Niesr One of Britain’s leading economic thinktanks has said the UK economy shrank last month as the impact of the Brexit vote led to a pronounced weakening in activity. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated that gross domestic product contracted by 0.2% in July. Niesr published the findings after official government figures showed that the UK trade deficit widened and factory production eased back in the weeks immediately before and after the EU referendum on 23 June. James Warren, a research fellow at Niesr, said: “We estimate that in the three months to July, the UK economy grew by 0.3%, a marked economic slowdown. The month-on-month profile suggests that the third quarter has got off to a weak start, with output declining in July. Our estimates suggest that there is around an evens chance of a technical recession by the end of 2017.â€\x9d The thinktank came to a gloomy conclusion after data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that a spurt in manufacturing came to an end in June, with output dropping by 0.3%. Meanwhile, UK exports failed to match imports, with the trade deficit rising by £0.9bn to £5.1bn. The poor trade and manufacturing figures led to a fall in the pound on the foreign exchanges. At one stage, sterling dipped below $1.30 and threatened to reach a post-Brexit vote low, before later rallying. However the ONS said there was little evidence of industry adopting a cautious approach because of uncertainty caused by the closely fought referendum campaign. The organisation’s chief economist, Joe Grice, said: “As we previously highlighted in our preliminary estimate of GDP, production and the wider economy grew strongly in April, and then remained at roughly the same level throughout May and June. “Any uncertainties in the run-up to the referendum seem to have had little impact on production, with very few respondents to our surveys reporting it as an issue.â€\x9d The ONS said total production, which includes mining, output from the North Sea, energy supply and manufacturing, increased by 0.1% from May to June. Manufacturing, the biggest component of production, fell by 0.3%. During the three months to June – which is considered a better guide to the trend than one month’s figures – production was up by 2.1% on the previous quarter, while manufacturing rose by 1.8%. Despite the strong quarterly increases, manufacturing and overall production remain well below the peak reached in early 2008, when the UK was on the cusp of a recession. A steady decline in North Sea oil and gas output means that production is 7.5% below the early 2008 level, while manufacturing is 4.5% lower. The struggles of manufacturing during and after the recession of 2008-09 have made it harder for Britain to close its trade gap with the rest of the world. According to the ONS, there was an increase of £0.9bn to £12.4bn in the UK’s deficit in goods in June, offset by the continued strong performance of the service sector, which ran a surplus of £7.3bn. Between the first and second quarters of 2016, the UK’s deficit in goods and services combined widened by £0.4bn to £12.5bn. Lee Hopley, the chief economist at manufacturers’ association EEF, said: “The latest data suggests manufacturing posted some significant gains in the second quarter. Growth was supported by record levels of exports of cars to the EU and aircraft to non-EU markets. “Clearly, indicators of sentiment post referendum suggest that we’ve hit the high point for manufacturing this year. Amid the wavering levels of confidence, however, we should take away some positive news, firstly that manufacturing entered this period of uncertainty from a relatively strong stance, and the weaker exchange rate could yet bring benefits on the export side. “Still, we’ll need a concerted effort from government to maintain investment across the sector and ensure growth like that seen in the second quarter gets back on track.â€\x9d',
 'Bob Bradley born in the USA but fully immersing himself in Swansea City From talking about watching Jack to a King, the documentary about Swansea’s City rise through the leagues, to recognising the need to earn the respect of the supporters, and expressing his determination to finally make his mark in the Premier League, Bob Bradley made all the right noises on the day he was officially unveiled as Francesco Guidolin’s successor. A gregarious character, Bradley set the tone with his opening answer as he made it clear that the first American to manage in the Premier League is much more interested in reviving the fortunes of the Welsh club than blazing a trail for his fellow countrymen. “I’m honoured to be at Swansea City Football Club,â€\x9d Bradley said. “The American side I can cover in 30 seconds and then we can push that out the door. “With football in the United States we’ve always understood that we have to earn respect. When I was with the national team, every time we got the chance to play in Europe, the players and I would understand it was one more day where we could show what the game was like in our country. So if in some way this helps, I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do. “But this bit about pioneer and all the rest? I’m not an American manager, I’m a football manager. So now, when I come here, I realise there is not one person in Swansea who could care less what anybody in the United States thinks at the moment. They care about their football club. And I’m here to give everything I have for the fans and the club and I couldn’t be more excited about that chance.â€\x9d Aged 58, Bradley has a rich CV that includes managing at club level in his homeland, in Norway and in France. He also took charge of his country for five years and, in a role that could not have been more challenging, was appointed as the Egypt manager in the immediate aftermath of the Arab spring. The way in which Bradley lost his job as the USA manager clearly still rankles. There was a long pause when it was put to Bradley that Jürgen Klinsmann, the man who replaced him in 2011, had been very complimentary in the wake of Swansea’s decision to turn to him. “From the day I got fired by the US I’ve not said one thing publicly. I don’t appreciate the way it was done,â€\x9d Bradley said. “I’m glad that Jürgen said some nice things now; when he did commentary on the 2010 World Cup he was already jockeying for the job. “So I’ve shut my mouth, continued to support the team because I, of course, want to see the team do well – Michael [Bradley’s son] is the captain. So if [Klinsmann] has said something in a nice way I appreciate it. And if at some point he chooses to try to work again outside the US, I wish him all the best.â€\x9d The way in which Swansea handled Guidolin’s dismissal has upset some of the club’s supporters. Bradley made no attempt to disguise the fact that he spoke to Huw Jenkins, Swansea’s chairman, and Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, the club’s American owners before last Saturday’s defeat against Liverpool, which proved to be the Italian’s last match in charge. “But at the end of both of those interviews I said – because I’ve been through this before – ‘Let’s be clear about one thing, I hope you win and I hope you keep winning.’â€\x9d While Bradley said that he accepts some Swansea fans will be “angryâ€\x9d he promised to “do everything to earn their respectâ€\x9d. In fairness to Bradley, he came across as a man who has done his homework on the culture around the club and not just the players he has inherited. “I know enough about Swansea City Football Club. I had seen Jack to a King before this week. Most of all what I know is that we have a club with a soul, a club that has real passion and real supporters. For me that’s special.â€\x9d At the same time Bradley is no fool. He knows that he has to win people over and the only way he will do that is with victories. “When the talk is about proving yourself, yes, I understand that. There will be sceptics. But I don’t care. I love football and I believe in my ability. I am going to come here and every day step on the field with the same kind of energy and passion and commitment I had the rest of my career. Whatever happens, happens and after that, people can say or write whatever the flip they want.â€\x9d',
 "'Unshackled' Trump goes to war against Republicans Trump unleashed becomes a party of one Donald Trump’s war with his own party, which he called disloyal and unable to win, is intensifying with any semblance of unity effectively destroyed. Trump tweeted, after clashing with the House speaker, Paul Ryan, who condemned the Republican nominee following the release of a tape of him boasting about groping women without their consent: “It’s so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.â€\x9d In Florida, Trump railed against the “corruptionâ€\x9d of the Clintons, warning that the Democratic candidate would “ruin our countryâ€\x9d if elected. His tirade came days after dozens of elected Republicans abandoned the candidate following the release of the footage. Donald Trump rails against ‘disloyal’ Republican party as support collapses The view from Indiana The ’s Gary Younge is spending a month in Muncie, Indiana, ahead of the election to get a closer reading of the issues affecting ordinary voters. In the primaries Muncie’s electoral county, Delaware, voted for both Donald Trump (53%) and Bernie Sanders (58%), an ideal place perhaps to find out what is alienating about their political establishment. The dispatches will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The view from Middletown: join Gary Younge for a unique look at the US election Obama on Trump: unfit for 7-Eleven Barack Obama said the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is unfit “for a job at 7-Elevenâ€\x9d, let alone the presidency, as he assailed Trump over remarks about sexually assaulting women. “You just have to be a decent human being to say that’s not right,â€\x9d he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina. The president also mocked Republicans who rebuked Trump’s comments but continued to endorse his candidacy. “You can’t repeatedly denounce what is said by someone and then say but I’m still going to endorse him to be the most powerful person on the planet and to put them in charge.â€\x9d Obama savages Trump over groping boast and urges party to abandon him Clinton accuses WikiLeaks Hillary Clinton’s campaign fired back on Tuesday as WikiLeaks released a new tranche of hacked emails from the account of its chairman, John Podesta, calling the website a “propaganda arm of the Russian governmentâ€\x9d. More than 2,000 emails, disclosed on Monday, included messages relaying concerns by Chelsea Clinton over potential conflicts of interest for the family’s foundation. Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told CNN that accusations that Russia was behind the DNC hack were “flattering but ridiculousâ€\x9d. Clinton campaign dubs WikiLeaks ‘Russian propaganda’ after latest hack North Carolina flooding worsens The death toll from Hurricane Matthew in the United States climbed again on Tuesday, as officials warned of a continuing threat from floodwaters still rising in several areas of North Carolina. Overnight, four more people were reported killed in the state, Governor Pat McCrory announced, bring the total to 14. One victim was shot dead late on Monday after a “confrontationâ€\x9d involving a state trooper. Hurricane Matthew, which has killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti and left a million vulnerable to cholera, has now accounted for at least 33 deaths in the US, including 12 in Florida, three each in South Carolina and Georgia and one in Virginia. Hurricane Matthew’s US death toll rises to 33 as flooding chaos continues Russia rejects ‘hysteria’ over Aleppo bombing Moscow has responded forcefully to accusations that it was involved in an attack on an aid convoy in Syria last month, as intense violence in Aleppo continued. “There were no Russian planes in the area of the aid convoy to Aleppo. That is a fact,â€\x9d ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. He said allegations by the British foreign minister, Boris Johnson, that Russia should be investigated for war crimes in Aleppo were “Russophobic hysteriaâ€\x9d. Russia scorns Boris Johnson’s ‘hysteria’ as bombs hammer Aleppo Bernie Sanders backs brother in UK contest Bernie Sanders, the former candidate to be Democratic nominee for US president, has released a video backing his brother Larry to take David Cameron’s parliamentary seat. While US presidential hopefuls do not often intervene in British regional elections, Sanders recommended his brother as a “very, very caring human beingâ€\x9d. He continued: “I do not know a heck of a lot about British politics … but I do know a lot about my brother, Larry Sanders.â€\x9d Bernie Sanders endorses his brother in race to replace David Cameron San Francisco’s tent cities under threat A tent on a sidewalk is the only place thousands of San Franciscans have to call home. But if a few of the city’s tech billionaires and millionaires have their way, even that shelter could be taken away. Sequoia Capital’s chairman, Michael Moritz, tech angel investor Ron Conway and hedge-fund investor William Oberndorf have donated $49,999 apiece to a divisive ballot measure intended to clear San Francisco’s streets of homeless encampments, according to campaign filings. Wealthy San Francisco tech investors bankroll bid to ban homeless camps The world’s toughest exam For two days in early June every year, China comes to a standstill as high school students who are about to graduate take their college entrance exams. Literally the “higher examinationâ€\x9d, the gaokao is a national event on a par with a public holiday, but much less fun. A high or low mark determines life opportunities and earning potential. That score is the most important number of any Chinese child’s life, the culmination of years of schooling, memorisation and constant stress. Is China’s gaokao the world’s toughest school exam? In case you missed it … With greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, Venezuela should be at least moderately prosperous. Instead, it has the world’s fastest-contracting economy, the second highest murder rate, inflation heading towards 1,000% and shortages of food and medicine that have pushed the poorest members of its 30 million population to the edge of a humanitarian abyss. Latin America correspondent Jonathan Watts travelled 870 miles across the country from the Amazonian border with Brazil to the capital, Caracas to get a snapshot of a country in crisis. Venezuela on the brink: a journey through a country in crisis",
 'Trump, Brexit and the age of popular revolt: 2016 in Long Reads The political earthquakes of 2016 have shaken the complacent preconceptions of the liberal establishment. But the signs were there. Here are ten stories that tried to reckon with our new era of populist backlash. The dark history of Donald Trump’s rightwing revolt – Timothy Shenk The Republican intellectual establishment tried to block Trump – but his message of cultural and racial resentment has deep roots in the American right How technology disrupted the truth – Katharine Viner Social media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering in an era when everyone has their own facts. But the consequences go far beyond journalism How the education gap is tearing politics apart – David Runciman In the year of Trump and Brexit, education has become the greatest divide of all – splitting voters into two increasingly hostile camps. But don’t assume this is simply a clash between the ignorant and the enlightened The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right – Sasha Polakow-Suransky Across the continent, rightwing populist parties have seized control of the political conversation. How have they done it? By stealing the language, causes and voters of the traditional left How the ‘Great Paradox’ of American politics holds the secret to Trump’s success – Arlie Hochschild In the heartland of the American right, people harmed by polluting industries have instead come to hate the government whose environmental regulations protect them. Now they’re voting for Donald Trump The cult of the expert – and how it collapsed – Sebastian Mallaby Led by a class of omnipotent central bankers, experts have gained extraordinary political power. Will a populist backlash shatter their technocratic dream? How remain failed: the inside story of a doomed campaign – Rafael Behr They promised it would be an easy victory. But they had no idea what was about to hit them Revenge of the tabloids – Andy Beckett Rocked by the phone-hacking scandal and haemorrhaging readers, the rightwing tabloids seemed to be yesterday’s news. But now, in Theresa May’s Brexit Britain, they look more powerful than ever Welcome to the age of Trump – Jonathan Freedland Donald Trump’s rise reveals a growing attraction to political demagogues – and points to a wider crisis of democracy Us v Them: the birth of populism – John B Judis It’s not about left or right: populism is a style of politics that pits ‘the people’ against ‘the establishment’. Its rise is a warning sign that the status quo is failing',
 'Five of the best... rock & pop gigs 1 Kamasi Washington It might occasionally seem as though music critics’ palates are too unsophisticated to appreciate a deconstructed alto sax improvising across a shifting 13/8 time signature. Yet Kendrick Lamar collaborator Kamasi Washington made our top 10 last year with his forward-thinking experimental jazz debut, The Epic. Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Tue 2 Eleanor Friedberger The competition for most offbeat lyric of 2016 could be staged entirely within Eleanor Friedberger’s New View album – “I’m opening a tree museumâ€\x9d is just one potential winner. Live, the singer-songwriter from Illinois pulls off the neat trick of making those quirky lines feel warm, intimate and entirely relatable. Village Underground, EC2, Wed; De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Thu 3 End Of The Road Festival It’s the end of the road for this summer’s festivals (if you’re not keen on dressing up as an alien for Bestival, that is) and this Dorset knees-up has a lineup fit for a finale. There’s a lot of what you might call cerebral American indie, with Animal Collective, Joanna Newsom and the Shins headlining, and US Girls, Devendra Banhart and Cat’s Eyes among the other treats on offer. Larmer Tree Gardens, Thu to 4 Sep 4 Margo Price The backstory of Margo Price’s debut album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter is so raw you almost fear for anyone who wants to encounter it live. The country singer lost a baby, went broke and had a series of failed relationships before putting it all to music via Jack White’s label. She’ll be taking her tales across the UK this week. Exchange, Bristol, Sun; Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, Mon; Deaf Institute, Manchester, Tue; Scala, N1, Thu 5 Nas and Loyle Carner “Supporting one of my heroes in Bristol at the end of the month,â€\x9d Loyle Carner tweeted recently, adding: “My little brother lost his shit.â€\x9d Lil Carner won’t be the only one going berserk as one of hip-hop’s bona fide legends gives the promising south London rapper a leg-up. O2 Academy Bristol, Wed',
 'Van Williams obituary The actor Van Williams, who has died aged 82, achieved brief fame as the masked comic-book hero the Green Hornet in the 1960s US television series of the same name. As Britt Reid, a playboy media mogul who owns a newspaper and TV station, he was seen transforming into his alter ego to tackle criminals with hand-to-hand combat and two deadly weapons, a gas gun and the Hornet’s Sting sonic blaster. He was aided by Bruce Lee (in his first TV role) as Kato, his valet and martial arts expert, and Black Beauty, a customised Chrysler Crown Imperial sedan fitted with infra-green headlights, hood-mounted machine guns, a grille-mounted flame thrower and Stinger missiles stashed in the bumpers. Unfortunately for Williams, the masked vigilante – created for radio in the 30s by George Trendle and Fran Striker – was unleashed on television viewers in 1966 shortly after the launch of the hugely popular, camped-up Batman TV series, from the same producers. “One of the things I absolutely insisted upon was that I was going to play it straight,â€\x9d said Williams. “None of this ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am’ stuff that was going on with Batman.â€\x9d But one critic described the star in costume as looking like an “overgrown grasshopperâ€\x9d and the drama was cancelled after just one run of 26 episodes. Williams was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Priscilla (nee Jarvis) and Bernard Williams, who ran a ranch. After attending Arlington Heights high school and studying animal husbandry and business at Texas Christian university, Williams headed for the South Pacific in 1956 to work as a salvage diver. The following year, Mike Todd, the theatre and film producer, spotted him and suggested he go into acting. He took vocal and drama lessons, worked on contract to Revue Studios for six months, soon landed bit parts on TV, then signed up for six years to Warner Bros. His big break came in the detective drama Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60) with the role of Kenny Madison, a private eye operating from above a restaurant in the French quarter of New Orleans. He reprised the role in another crime series, Surfside 6 (1960-62), featuring detectives with an office on a Miami houseboat. Switching to sitcom, Williams played Pat Burns, assistant to the cantankerous billionaire Walter Andrews (played by Walter Brennan) and pilot of his private plane, in The Tycoon (1964-65). He later took the role of Steve Andrews, the father in a family on a journey around Pacific islands, in the children’s adventure series Westwind (1975) and appeared on and off (1976-78) as Captain MacAllister in How the West Was Won. Williams became a reserve deputy in the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department in 1971, working part time at its Malibu station, where he also captained the mountain rescue team and was a volunteer firefighter. In 1982, he retired from acting to concentrate on running the telecommunications company he had set up in Santa Monica 13 years earlier. He was a partner in a 4,000-acre ranch in Hawaii and he enjoyed hunting geese, duck, elk and other game. “I didn’t really care that much for the acting business,â€\x9d Williams said. “I didn’t like the people in it, the way they operated and all the phoniness and back-stabbing. It was not a very pleasant education for a guy from Texas whose handshake was his word. Plus, I’d gone into acting looking at it as a business, not wanting necessarily to be a celebrity.â€\x9d Nevertheless, he jumped at the opportunity to take a cameo as the director of The Green Hornet in the film biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). Williams is survived by his second wife, Vicki Flaxman, whom he married in 1959, and their children, Nina, Tia and Britt; and by Lisa and Lynne, the twin daughters of his first marriage, to Drucilla Greenhaw, which ended in divorce. • Van Zandt Jarvis Williams, actor, born 27 February 1934; died 29 November 2016',
 'Chelsea 3-3 Everton, Newcastle 2-1 West Ham and more: clockwatch – as it happened • Chelsea 3-3 Everton • Manchester City 4-0 Crystal Palace • Southampton 3-0 West Brom And with that, I’m off. It’s been special. Bye! John Terry speaks: A lot of teams would have thrown the towel in but the fight, the desire from the team … unbelievable, and unlucky not to win the game [MBMer spits out tea]. Was it offside? I don’t know. I don’t really care. It was my first one this season. Scott Murray is all over the Aston Villa v Leicester City game here. Deja vu dept November 28: Everton score incredible last-minute goal to take 3-2 lead in crazy game at Bournemouth. Final score: 3-3 January 16: Everton score incredible last-minute goal to take 3-2 lead in crazy game at Chelsea. Final score: 3-3 That John Terry offside equaliser was scored in the 53rd second of the eighth of the allotted seven minutes of stoppage time. Final score: Newcastle have beaten West Ham 2-1! Final score: Chelsea and Everton have drawn 3-3. Terry opened the scoring and he’s closed it too, with a late, late equaliser for Everton! And it’s a clever backheel flick as the ball headed between his legs! And, what’s more … he was way offside when Costa flicked on! Middlesbrough have conceded a goal! Bristol City have scored a last-minute winner! Aden Flint with the goal! Ooof! Willian’s low drive across goal whistles just wide, having taken a deflection on its way. Meanwhile at Newcastle there’ll be six minutes of stoppage time, and at Stamford Bridge they’re going to have seven! Final score: Bournemouth have beaten Norwich 3-0. Final score: Southampton have beaten West Brom 3-0. Stinker of the day: Leyton Orient have won two second half penalties against Exeter … and Jay Simpson has missed them both – one hit the post, the other saved. They trail 1-3. Final score: Manchester City have beaten Crystal Palace 4-0. A corner from the right is cleared back to the taker and re-crossed to the far post, where two Everton players are competing with each other, and Funes Mori gets in front of Lukaku to score with a flying sidefoot volley! Defending, anyone? Oooh, a cross from the right is only just too high for Lukaku in the middle as Everton look to snatch a win at Stamford Bridge. If a 5-0 away defeat was enough for the fans to be refunded, logically they should actually be paid for enduring this: “I don’t understand this “reimburse travelling fans after a poor performanceâ€\x9d business,â€\x9d complains Peter Oh. “What’s next? A surcharge for a better-than-expected away result? Modern football … sigh.â€\x9d Aguero, on a hat-trick, runs clear from the half-way line as City break. You’d have thought he’d only have eyes for goal, but instead he notices Silva’s supporting run and passes to him instead, and the Spaniard has time to control the ball before scoring from six yards! Derby are now 3-0 down at home to Birmingham, Makel Kieftenbeld with their latest. Boro remain at 0-0 against Bristol City. The teams for today’s late kick-off: Aston Villa: Bunn, Bacuna, Okore, Lescott, Cissokho, Westwood, Gana, Veretout, Ayew, Kozak, Gil. Subs: Guzan, Richards, Clark, Sinclair, Richardson, Lyden, Gestede. Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Drinkwater, Kante, Mahrez, Okazaki, Albrighton, Vardy. Subs: De Laet, King, Gray, Ulloa, Wasilewski, Schwarzer, Inler. Referee: Roger East. It’s over a year since Palace last conceded three away goals. And guess where they did that? The home side have been considerably superior today, and the scoreline reflects it. Charlie Daniels raids down the left, Afobe meets the cross six yards out and he can hardly miss. And doesn’t. Miss, that is. In the big game in League One, Burton are now 2-0 up at Coventry, and it looks very much like they will remain on top of the league tonight. Coventry are, as it stands, unbeaten at home this season. Not, though, for long. Tadic comes on and scores almost instantly for the second time in a week! Davis passes into the area and Tadic crashes in a first-time left-foot shot from an acute angle! A long delay at Stamford Bridge, where Oviedo has been receiving treatment for a while, and has now been loaded onto a stretcher. Funes Bori comes on. City will be, temporarily at least, joint top of the league at the final whistle having extended their lead over Palace to three, Agüero being presented with a tap-in after Touré found De Bruyne in the area, and the Belgian crossed low! What a turnaround! Fábregas plays a one-two with Costa and shoots low from the edge of the area, his effort taking a deflection and bobbling inside the near post with Howard nowhere! Chelsea have been huffing and puffing ever since they went two down, and Howard excelled to deny Fábregas, but he doesn’t look quite so clever here, as he hares out of his area as Costa races Jagielka for the ball. The defender I think got a tiny touch, Howard certainly didn’t, and Costa taps into the empty net! Bad news for Derby, who have fallen a goal down at home to Birmingham. Hull are streaking to victory and as it stands they go third, though first-place Boro remain goalless against Bristol City. Not that I can think of. He replaced Pedro Obiang. Chelsea fall further behind! Lennon picks out Baines, and he passes into and across the area, Mirallas controls with his left foot, bringing the ball back inside, and then shoots also with his left foot, inside the near post! The penalty flies in off the inside of the right-hand post! Penalty for Bournemouth! Obidja is cursing and scowling, having punished for a trip on Marc Pugh, whose fall looked remarkable dramatic to my eyes. Terry is not responsible for the day’s most idiotic defending, mind. That prize will surely go to the author of the back-pass from which Jelavic just nipped in and brought West Ham back into the game at St James’ Park! Everton hit the post! Barkley with the effort, hitting the near post from the left side of the area. Those are superlative own goal stylings from John Terry. The ball is worked to Baines on the left touchline, and his powercross is met by Terry at the near post, who volleys it right-footed into his left leg, with which he backheels into his own net! Oooh! Bournemouth should have extended their lead within 30 seconds of the restart, as Pugh tricks his way into space inside the penalty area but his low shot is saved! Half-time double substitution: West Brom bring on Brunt and Rondon for Fletcher and Olsson as they attempt to claw back a 2-0 deficit at Southampton. Scottish weather latest: That’s a first-half hat-trick for Abel Hernández of Hull. “Will the Charlton players be doing another refund for the travelling fans?â€\x9d asks Tom Harp. “Could get costly by the end of the season.â€\x9d Tuesday Saturday Today’s Premier League games have an aggregate score, as it stands, of 11-1. A good day so far for the home sides. The half-time whistles are busily shrieking. Four of the five top-flight games are done, for now. Ooooh! Rudd streaks from his area and trips Afobe, and the referee is immediately surrounded by Bournemouth players demanding a red card! but he was heading away from goal, and there were a couple of defenders in the neighbourhood, so he’s given only a yellow. Palace have given City a decent examination here, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to get anything out of it. Agüero shoots from 25 yards, and it beats Hennessey at the near post after taking a deflection off Dann. Oooh! West Ham should have pulled a goal back at Newcastle, but when picked out by Payet’s free kick Valencia somehow fluffs his shot! Final cricket update: England have won the match by seven wickets, and with it the series. Goal-line clearance! Southampton nearly went 3-0 up, but McClean popped up on the line to divert Targett’s first-time left-foot drive to safety! It might have been postbound rather than goalbound, but even so, fine defending there young man! Ward-Prowse sends the keeper the wrong way, and rolls the ball low to his left to double the Saints’ lead. Targett is bundled over by Craig Dawson (though to me it looked like Dawson was bundled over by Targett). Whatever, it’s a penalty. At the Etihad, Cabaye’s free-kick is athletically tipped round the post by Hart. In the cricket, England have collapsed to 71-3. They need three to win, so should scrape through. “As I watch West Ham meekly let Championship hopefuls Newcastle walk all over them, it begs the question why the Premier League has subjected half the league to two away games in four days?â€\x9d moans Dan Bryant. “First set of midweek fixtures all season and they gift the likes of City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Liverpool etc with doubled up home games. And of course, every home team (bar Chelsea) is already winning. Why not just do home and away like normal? Why change it this week of all weeks?â€\x9d Um, don’t know, really. I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation. Confusion! Ward-Prowse takes a corner and Myhill comes out to punch it, misses completely and the ball hits him in the side and plops straight down to earth, five yards out. To his very great fortune, it lands very near a defender, who wallops clear. So the only goalless top-flight game is at Chelsea, where Everton look to be doing a certain amount of bus-parking. Diego Costa has just been caught offside. Confusion! Hart collects the ball after a Palace corner, runs to the edge of the area, kicks it into the back of the nearest Palace played and Delaney, I think, hits a first-time shot over the bar. The referee gave a free kick, I think. Not sure why. Another home goal! Delph takes aim with his left foot, probably 35 yards out, and it flies hard and low towards the near post. Hennessey got two hands on it, should have stopped it, but, um, didn’t. Penalty? No! Norwich’s Russell Martin pretty much rugby tackles Charlie Daniels, who makes the mistake of not going straight down when two arms appear around his waist, and by the time he does crumple a moment later the referee doesn’t think he needed to. A super, long crossfield pass from Shelvey picks out the rampaging Janmaat on the right, he crosses and Wijnaldum converts having escaped the attentions of Collins. Lovely goal in a very old-fashioned English style. Today’s is Ward-Prowse’s second in the league, in his 47th appearance. Given the dead-ball excellence he’s just demonstrated, he should have more. In cricket news, England are 10 runs from victory in the third Test against South Africa, but have just lost their first wicket (it’s been reviewed, but Hales looks plummish). The Championship strugglers are already struggling: second-bottom Charlton are 1-0 down at Hull, and rock-bottom Bolton are 1-0 down at Nottingham Forest, with the added blow of goalkeeper Ben Amos being sent off. That’s three of the five top-flight home sides in the lead. A left-wing cross from Pugh is cleared, but Bournemouth reclaim possession, work it back to Pugh and this time his cross finds Gosling at the far post, who heads in from five yards! There aren’t many better names in football at the moment than Max Power, and this sounds very much like an excellent example of nominative determanism. It’s not his first chance of the day, either. He had a low shot saved, in the fifth minute, and then he scored in the sixth. Shelvey’s pass zipped to the edge of the area, where it was laid back into Perez’s path and he hit a first-time shot into the right corner! It’s a free kick from five yards outside the penalty area, towards its left corner, and Ward-Prowse slams it into the top left corner with the goalkeeper nowhere! Meanwhile at Newcastle, James Collins is already limping quite badly. Impossible miss for Palace! Or save, if you’re feeling charitable! Joe Hart has kept out an absolute sitter, Damien Delaney with a headed chance at the back stick, seven yards out and completely unmarked. It’s 3pm. Let’s play! Lewis Grabban “said to be unwellâ€\x9d today, so unable to play for Bournemouth against Norwich, the team he just left. Which is convenient. … and out they come! Players are emerging from dressing rooms and congregating in tunnels. Nearly there. Are those strictly necessary? Today’s big transfer news has seen Charlie Austin sign for Southampton, for a rumoured £4m. Great signing, surely. Results so far today: Gary Hooper scores both goals as Sheffield Wednesday beat Leeds 2-0, and the final whistle has just gone on Tottenham 4-1 Sunderland. That’s four in six now for Hooper, who remains on loan from striker-seeking Norwich. “Afternoon Simon,â€\x9d writes sometime volunteer Scotland correspondent Simon McMahon. Afternoon. “Game of the day in Scotland takes place, eh, last night at Tannadice where Dundee United continued to build confidence after last weeks cup win against League One Airdrie by only shipping 4 goals against league leaders Celtic. Just watch us go now. Other SPFL fixtures are Hearts v Motherwell, Kilmarnock v Inverness and, after passing an early pitch inspection, St. Johnstone v Hamilton. A number of games in the lower leagues are off, but in League Two Annan, fresh from their stunning cup win over SPFL Hamilton, face East Fife, still the only team to have won the Scottish Cup when playing outside the top division (in 1938, since you ask).â€\x9d Excellent. That’s a big fat tick in the don’t-totally-ignore-Scotland box. A managerial pre-match interview distilled to its very essence. Good effort. So Jonjo Shelvey starts for Newcastle, and Victor Moses is in West Ham’s squad for the first time since 5 December. Bournemouth v Norwich Bournemouth: Boruc, Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels, Surman, Pugh, Gosling, Arter, Stanislas, Afobe. Subs: Iturbe, MacDonald, Kermorgant, Federici, Distin, Murray, O’Kane. Norwich: Rudd, Martin, Bennett, Bassong, Brady, Odjidja-Ofoe, Tettey, Howson, Jarvis, Hoolahan, Mbokani. Subs: Ruddy, Wisdom, Jerome, Dorrans, Mulumbu, Redmond, Olsson. Referee: Robert Madley. Chelsea v Everton Chelsea: Courtois, Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta, Matic, Mikel, Willian, Fabregas, Pedro, Costa. Subs: Begovic, Baba, Oscar, Kenedy, Remy, Cahill, Loftus-Cheek. Everton: Howard, Oviedo, Stones, Jagielka, Baines, Barkley, Barry, Besic, Lennon, Lukaku, Mirallas. Subs: Robles, Koné, Cleverley, Deulofeu, Osman, Pienaar, Funes Mori. Referee: Mike Jones. Man City v Crystal Palace Man City: Hart, Zabaleta, Otamendi, Demichelis, Kolarov, Delph, Fernando, De Bruyne, Silva, Iheanacho, Aguero. Subs: Sagna, Sterling, Caballero, Jesus Navas, Clichy, Toure, Humphreys. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souaré, Ledley, Cabaye, McArthur, Puncheon, Wickham, Zaha. Subs: Speroni, Campbell, Lee, Jedinak, Mutch, Chamakh, Kelly. Referee: Jon Moss. Newcastle v West Ham Newcastle: Elliot, Janmaat, Mbemba, Coloccini, Dummett, Colback, Shelvey, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Perez, Mitrovic. Subs: Gouffran, Lascelles, Aarons, Saivet, Darlow, Rivière, Toney. West Ham: Adrian, Tomkins, Collins, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Noble, Kouyaté, Obiang, Payet, Valencia, Antonio. Subs: Randolph, Reid, Song, Jenkinson, Moses, Jelavic, Cullen. Referee: Neil Swarbrick. Southampton v West Brom Southampton: Forster, Cedric Soares, Fonte, van Dijk, Targett, Wanyama, Ward-Prowse, Steven Davis, Mane, Bertrand, Long. Subs: Kelvin Davis, Yoshida, Tadic, Romeu, Martina, Pelle, Juanmi. West Brom: Myhill, Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Evans, Gardner, Fletcher, Yacob, McClean, Sessegnon, Anichebe. Subs: Foster, Chester, Brunt, Lambert, Berahino, McManaman, Rondon. Referee: Martin Atkinson. Hello world! So, then, here we are. Another Saturday afternoon yawns before us like a wild chasm of possibility. Untold excitement awaits (I’m an optimist). Here are this afternoon’s English Football League fixtures. I’ve searched high and low but in vain for key games from other leagues – there are 3pm GMT kick-offs in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Israel and Algeria, but I can’t find a single one that seems particularly vital. Do feel free to point out my unforgivable ignorance, though. In the meantime, this is what we’ve got: Premier League Bournemouth v Norwich (preview) Chelsea v Everton (preview) Man City v Crystal Palace (preview) Newcastle v West Ham (preview) Southampton v West Brom (preview) Championship Blackburn Rovers v Brighton & Hove Albion Bristol City v Middlesbrough Derby County v Birmingham City Huddersfield Town v Fulham Hull City v Charlton Athletic Ipswich Town v Preston North End Milton Keynes Dons v Reading Nottingham Forest v Bolton Wanderers Rotherham United v Queens Park Rangers Wolverhampton Wanderers v Cardiff City Middlesbrough’s recent league results (in the last two months they have won eight and drawn one, with an aggregate scoe of 13-0. Yes, nil) are astonishingly awesome. They are, as a result, five points clear at the top of the Championship with a game in hand on every team in the league except 18th-place Blackburn, and two games in hand on some. Today they visit third-bottom Bristol City who, in the two months in which Boro haven’t conceded, haven’t kept a clean sheet and have won only once, and who sacked their manager, Steve Cotterill, this week. Three more points look on the cards. What this does is heap enormous pressure on the chasing pack. Burnley did the business last night, beating Brentford, but Hull and Derby both play this afternoon, at home to second-bottom Charlton and eighth-place Birmingham respectively. You’d certainly have one, and probably both – Derby are a little out of sorts, not having won in three matches, and Birmingham’s away record is pretty good, though they’ve now not won on their travels since 7 November – down as home wins, but even with 20 games remaining they can’t let Boro pull further away, and that can induce wild panic. Meanwhile Brighton, who were level at the top with Boro just before Christmas, undefeated in their first 21 matches, have taken one point from their last five and head to Blackburn clinging desperately on to the last play-off place. League One Blackpool v Scunthorpe United Bradford City v Oldham Athletic Bury v Walsall Colchester United v Sheffield United Coventry City v Burton Albion Doncaster Rovers v Gillingham Peterborough United v Southend United Rochdale v Fleetwood United Shrewsbury Town v Barnsley Swindon Town v Crewe Alexandra Wigan Athletic v Chesterfield Top-of-the-table Burton have two games in hand on most of their rivals, and one on the rest, but could finish the afternoon in fourth. They travel to fourth-placed Coventry, who would overtake them with a win. But even if Coventry do win they could still only end up third, with Gillingham, who visit 12th-place Doncaster, and Walsall, who travel to 14th-place Bury, hoping to end the day above them. League Two Accrington Stanley v Portsmouth AFC Wimbledon v Mansfield Town Barnet v Carlisle United Crawley Town v Notts County Dagenham & Redbridge v Northampton Town Hartlepool United v Wycombe Wanderers Leyton Orient v Exeter City Luton Town v Cambridge United Morecambe v Yeovil Town Plymouth Argyle v Stevenage York City v Newport County Third-place Oxford play fifth-place Bristol Rovers tomorrow, and without that there’s no truly outstanding fixture, with Accrington v Portsmouth – or seventh v fourth, if you prefer – the only meeting between two top 10 teams. Two of the bottom five play, with Newport travelling to bottom-place York. With Dagenham & Redbridge hosting second-place Northampton, victory for York could well take them off the foot of the table. Having said that, they’ve won only once in the league, losing 11, in the last four months, including at one stage a run of 10 defeats in 11 in all competitions, so probably shouldn’t get their hopes up.',
 "Ted Cruz warns at Republican debate: government could 'take your guns' Endorsements from gun-rights advocacy organizations were brandished with gusto on the debate stage on Thursday, with Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump dueling over who would do more to protect the second amendment rights of Americans concerned about their access to firearms. Cruz went furthest in playing to such fears, pointing out that the next president could have multiple supreme court appointments to make, which he said meant: “The government could confiscate your guns.â€\x9d Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo ignited the battle when she asked Bush whether, in light of the revelation that the suspect in the fatal mass shooting that claimed nine lives in Charleston last year was able to procure a weapon despite not passing a federal background test, there was anything that could be done to limit access to deadly weapons by those who would use them to commit violent crimes. Bush touted his A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association and said that the failure lay not with loopholes in the law, but with the federal government. “The FBI made a mistake,â€\x9d Bush said. “The law requires a background check.â€\x9d The true area of the federal government’s focus, Bush said, should be with mental health, rather than restrictions on firearms. When asked if he believed in enacting any restrictions on access to guns, Trump – who has previously described himself as “a big second amendment personâ€\x9d – responded that such restrictions may have led to the deaths of 130 people in terrorist attacks in Paris. “Even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side, going in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have 130-plus people dead.â€\x9d With a variation on an old line, he added: “The guns don’t pull the trigger, the people pull the trigger.â€\x9d Rubio, in a bid to top Trump, declared that any president who was willing to take guns away from American citizens wasn’t a president worth having. “I am convinced that if this president could take away every gun in America, he would,â€\x9d Rubio said. “The first impulse of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is to take rights away from law-abiding citizens.â€\x9d Echoing Trump’s insistence that gun restrictions contributed to the fatalities in the Paris terrorist attacks, Rubio said that restrictions would only aid those who would commit crimes while armed. “Isis and terrorists do not get their guns from a gun show,â€\x9d he said. “[Obama’s] immediate answer, before he even knows the facts, is gun control. Here’s a fact: We’re in a war with Isis.â€\x9d Christie, in his take on the president’s record on the second amendment, gave a variation on a line he has used before. “This guy’s a petulant child,â€\x9d Christie said. He followed that up by saying that “we’re not against you – we’re against your policiesâ€\x9d and that “we’re going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fallâ€\x9d. Cruz also questioned the fidelity of his rivals to the second amendment, saying that as a Republican candidate for president, “unless you are clinically insane, that’s what you say in the primaryâ€\x9d. “But people’s actions don’t always match their words,â€\x9d he added.",
 'Arsenal and Leicester fans furious after date of February game switched Arsenal and Leicester fans have reacted with fury after their Premier League fixture at the Emirates was moved to Sunday from Saturday, four weeks before it was due to take place. The match between the top two was to have taken place on 13 February at 3pm but has been moved to Sunday 14 February after Sky decided they wanted to screen the potential title-decider. A Leicester fan group, called Union FS, suggested boycotting the first five minutes of the game in protest at the change. “‘Why? To make a point that without fans, there is no saleable product,â€\x9d say the fan group. “Just 22 blokes kicking a ball around on some nicely cut grass. We would encourage Arsenal fans to join us with this, as they graciously did with Bayern Munich fans recently. “We appreciate that fans want to watch the game they have paid for, and rightly so, but this is an extraordinary issue and we would ask you to join us and make a one-off stand for all football fans.â€\x9d The TV company said Leicester’s unexpected title challenge had prompted the change. Fans of both clubs are furious at the prospect of being left out of pocket for travel costs. A Premier League spokesman said: “We always seek to give fans a minimum of six weeks’ notice of fixture changes. It is only on extremely rare occasions we don’t meet that aspiration during the normal course of the season. “We are in discussions with Arsenal and Leicester City to see what can be done to help fans affected by this scheduling change.â€\x9d',
 'How can mental health services deliver better care for black patients? Over recent years there has been a growing consensus in mainstream political parties as to how to tackle neglected mental health services and improve the poor outcomes experienced by many service users and their carers. The concern has been of particular significance for black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities. This challenge is reflected in NHS England’s Mental Health Taskforce report which sets out a new cross-system, all ages, national five-year plan for NHS mental health services to 2020-21, launched earlier this year. More than 20,000 people took part in the taskforce consultation process that informed the report. Several key themes emerged: better access, better quality services, better attention to physical and mental healthcare, better preventive care. The taskforce has responded to these requests by outlining: A seven-day NHS providing crisis care across the country, including a new model for children and young people. An integrated approach to mental and physical health. Promoting good mental health and preventing poor mental health. The taskforce concluded that the best way to revolutionise care is to treat people’s minds and bodies equally, hardwiring mental health into the NHS. This means greater transparency in spend and outcomes and a relentless focus on inequalities. The report recommendations for the NHS have been adopted with a target that by 2020-21, at least a million people with mental health problems will be accessing high-quality care they aren’t getting today. This is further backed by £1bn new investment by the year 2021, which we hope will materialise as real money backed up by greater transparency in how this is spent by local services. The report also challenges the government for stronger leadership because a mentally healthy society – and one which cares well for people with mental health problems – involves social care, housing, employment, education and schools. The prime minister has made a personal commitment to this work. The experiences of African and Caribbean service users, carers, and frontline staff were not overlooked by the taskforce. At community events and in informal conversations, black service users and professionals shared their experiences – positive and negative – of mental health services. These conversations also raised issues of stigma and discrimination, not only across services but the perception of how our community views mental health and the stigma that we may hold against people with mental health challenges. It is clear that we can do more to make sure mental health is a strong area of advocacy and campaigning for better services. The introduction of NHS England’s Workforce Race Equality Standard, which aims to increase black and minority ethnic senior representation on NHS trust boards and to tackle bullying of frontline staff, means there is an opportunity to put race equality back on the agenda for mental health services. The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ commission report on adult inpatient care also recognised the issue of BAME over-representation in detained services. Although the report does not recommend a return of the Delivering Race Equality programme, there are specific recommendation for the appointment of a senior mental health equality lead at the Department of Health to oversee how race and other equalities areas are being delivered and implemented by the NHS and social care. A deeper question also emerges: how do we ensure that the issue of race equality is mainstreamed into the delivery of services by the NHS, local government, criminal justice, the police, employers and housing providers? Furthermore, can black-led providers, service user and carer organisations be supported to have a voice which is actually heard and encourage delivery of high quality, culturally appropriate services for our diverse communities? Part of the answer is that we need to raise our game and not become docile and passive citizens. We need to do more in making mainstream service providers and commissioners more accountable by playing an active role as part of a wider social movement of change in mental health services. Without this proactive engagement and informed challenge the taskforce report will not deliver the services we deserve and need; the report provides some of the tools to ask better questions locally and nationally. Its recommendations set the direction of travel. Of course there are those whom are responsible for delivery, but it is also up to us to hold them accountable. Jacqui Dyer is vice-chair of NHS England’s Mental Health Taskforce; Patrick Vernon OBE is a non-executive director of Camden and Islington NHS foundation trust Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'Partisan review – cult thriller suffers charisma bypass The chief oddity in this oddly underpowered, anticlimactic and torpidly acted movie from Australian director Ariel Kleiman is the fact that it only comes to life with the final shot: an ingenious and macabre image, promising retributive violence. But that’s hardly worth the price of admission, and for audiences who have stuck with it that far, this flourish might just be something else to get frustrated about. It’s set in a lawless urban badland of remote, ruined apartment blocks (filmed in Tbilisi), where there is a secret cult run by an allegedly charismatic man called Gregori, played by Vincent Cassel on dismayingly uncharismatic form. He finds desperate single mothers with newborns and persuades them to come as quasi-wives to his strange community, where he trains up the kids in an artful-dodger robbery scam, the spoils being converted into cash by a fence figure called Uncle Charlie (Frank Moylan). Kleiman’s film is arguably interesting in that it sets out to show the relatively calm, day-to-day life of a cult. But Cassel never gives us the terrifying explosion of temper that the film always appears to be promising, or indeed anything in the way of hypnotic charm or leadership aura. He just looks bored – and boring.',
 "Andy Burnham sounds alarm at 'very real prospect' of Brexit The Remain campaign is facing the “very real prospectâ€\x9d of defeat in the referendum in two weeks’ time as it fails to reach traditional Labour voters, Andy Burnham has warned. The shadow home secretary said a vote to leave the European Union on 23 June could lead to social “fragmentationâ€\x9d and the break-up of the United Kingdom. Burnham sharply criticised the party’s campaigning, saying it had failed to reach out to traditional Labour voters amid fears that concerns about immigration are driving them to back Leave. “We have definitely been far too much Hampstead and not enough Hull in recent times and we need to change that. Here we are two weeks away from the very real prospect that Britain will vote for isolation,â€\x9d he told BBC2’s Newsnight. “I think it would have a profound effect on our national life – the fragmentation that will come, the fear and the division. “Those are all the things that the terrorists couldn’t create with their bombs and yet we will have a situation where society becomes more divided. “If this decision is taken, dominoes will start to fall. It won’t just be the EU that starts to break up, it will be Britain too.â€\x9d The warning comes as Ed Miliband tries to inject new momentum into Labour’s campaign effort with an attack on Boris Johnson and the Leave camp for perpetrating a “fraudâ€\x9d on the British people. The former opposition leader and other senior colleagues will make a series of interventions aimed at winning over wavering Labour supporters. The former cabinet minister Yvette Cooper will release a report warning of the damage facing Labour heartlands if the “far right of the Conservative partyâ€\x9d gets its way. The Labour deputy leader Tom Watson will release analysis indicating Brexit could result in £18bn of welfare cuts and tax hikes as the Tories impose tighter austerity measures. The attacks by Labour are aimed at rallying the party’s supporters behind the Remain cause following criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s efforts in the referendum campaign. In a speech in London, Miliband will warn that senior members of the Brexit campaign want to abolish measures protecting workers’ rights. He is expected to say: “The Leave campaign are trying to perpetrate what I can only describe as a fraud on the British people. Tories who in the last days of this contest are trying to disguise themselves in Labour clothes. “Let’s be clear what the Leave agenda would mean for working people. They want out of Europe so we can be out of the social chapter, as Boris Johnson said in terms in 2012. Their competitiveness strategy for Britain is deregulation and the erosion of rights of working people.â€\x9d A Vote Leave spokesman said: “As support drains away from the Remain campaign, they are getting ever more desperate and hysterical with their fanciful Leave predictions. “We need to vote Leave if we want to take back control of our economy, borders and democracy.â€\x9d With Press Association",
 'David Cameron heads to Brussels for summit over Brexit vote David Cameron will travel to Brussels on Tuesday to explain to Europe’s stunned leaders why Britain has voted for Brexit, as Conservative MPs pushed to speed up the process of replacing him as prime minister. Cameron will meet the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the European council president, Donald Tusk, before a working dinner with his counterparts from the 27 other member states, at which the verdict in Thursday’s historic referendum will be the only item on the agenda. The Brussels summit comes against a background of continuing financial market turmoil, as anxious investors weigh up the economic impact of Brexit, despite the chancellor insisting on Monday morning: “Our economy is about as strong as it could be to confront the challenge our country now faces.â€\x9d The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s announced on Monday night that it was stripping Britain of its prized AAA credit rating, underlining the risks that may lie ahead. The executive of the Conservative 1922 Committee of backbench MPs announced that it would fast-track the process of replacing the prime minister against the backdrop of turmoil in financial markets. Candidates hoping to succeed Cameron will be jockeying for position – with Boris Johnson and Theresa May widely seen as frontrunners – with nominations for the Conservative party leadership race set to open on Tuesday. Cameron’s fellow EU leaders are likely to be keen to hear what Britain will demand in the forthcoming negotiations, but the prime minister is determined not to speculate about what formal relationship with the EU his successor will demand. Instead, he will try to explain the British public’s rejection of EU membership. “He’s likely to talk about a number of factors that he thinks were issues in the campaign, and in the debate,â€\x9d his spokeswoman said. “He will want to encourage people to think about how both the UK and the EU need to work together to make the best of the decision the British people have taken.â€\x9d She added that he would not pre-empt any decision on when to invoke article 50, the formal process for withdrawal from the EU. “He will reiterate that article 50 is a matter for the next prime minister.â€\x9d Cameron announced his resignation on Friday morning, in the aftermath of the public’s vote to reject EU membership, by 52-48%. He said he would stay on until a successor could be appointed, before the party’s annual conference in October – but under the new timetable, nominations will close on Thursday and the decision will be made by 2 September. Graham Brady, who chairs the executive of the 1922 Committee, which met on Monday lunchtime, said a quick decision was in Britain’s best interests. “Things are in our hands, and we are moving as quickly as possible,â€\x9d said Brady. “We think that the party and the country want certainty.â€\x9d Their recommendation needs to be approved by the board of the Conservative party, which meets on Tuesday, and the full 1922 Committee on Wednesday. Brady added that if a new prime minister presses ahead with the crucial renegotiations, they could then call a general election to allow the public to give their verdict on Britain’s new relationship with the EU. “We have a big, complicated task to accomplish,â€\x9d he told Sky News. “I think it is entirely reasonable to expect that the government should embark on that, get on with that, seek to negotiate as good an outcome as we can before the people then are asked to approve or reject that in a general election.â€\x9d If there are more than two candidates for leader, Conservative MPs will hold rounds of voting, the first of which would be on 5 July, with the least popular hopeful being eliminated each time. The party’s members would then be given a choice – almost certainly – of two contenders. Cameron held the first cabinet meeting since the referendum result on Monday, with ministers on both sides of the Brexit debate paying tribute to his premiership – and discussing how they can continue to fulfil the government’s manifesto, including on social reform, in the little time left before Cameron hands over to a new prime minister. May, who backed the prime minister’s pro-remain stance in the referendum campaign but made few public appearances in support of the cause, hopes to be seen as a unity candidate to bridge the divide in the party. She also burnished her Eurosceptic credentials by backing a withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. May is widely expected to announce herself as a candidate and is likely to be backed by a significant number of MPs as the “stop Borisâ€\x9d choice. One of the arguments being used to tempt Tory backbenchers to support her is that there would be less need to hold a general election. This is because she was in a significant position in government when the Conservatives stood on their manifesto at the last election and would therefore be better able to argue for carrying on with the same mandate. In contrast, Johnson was not in government then, which would put more pressure on him to seek his own mandate. Johnson, the former London mayor, arrived with an entourage at Portcullis House on Monday after spending the weekend holed up with allies at his country home. The justice secretary, Michael Gove, who chaired Vote Leave, is expected to play a key role in Johnson’s leadership campaign. Earlier, Johnson had set out his thoughts about life after Brexit in his Telegraph column, claiming the UK would be able to introduce a points-based immigration system while maintaining access to the European single market – a possibility that has already been rubbished by EU diplomats as a “pipe dreamâ€\x9d. Some pro-remain Conservative MPs who watched Johnson arrive said they would do everything they could to stop to him taking over as leader of the party. One MP said they had been taken aback by the level of antipathy towards Johnson after the bitter referendum campaign; and there were growing questions about whether he is the right person to lead the complex Brexit negotiations. However, other challengers may yet emerge, including the education secretary, Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd, the energy secretary who made a series of personal attacks on Johnson in the televised referendum debate, and the work and pensions secretary, Stephen Crabb. Liam Fox, the pro-Brexit MP from the more socially conservative wing of the party, has not ruled out running. Crabb has been canvassing MPs about the possibility of running on a joint ticket with Sajid Javid, the business secretary, who would serve as his chancellor. Javid will face questions on his intentions on Tuesday when he hosts a meeting of business leaders to reassure them about the consequences of Brexit. Both men come from working-class backgrounds, and see themselves as an antidote to the Etonian Johnson. Meanwhile, George Osborne ruled himself out as a candidate to replace his friend Cameron as prime minister. In an article for the Times, the chancellor accepted that he was too divisive a figure to reconcile the Conservative party following the EU referendum. Johnson sought to play down the disruption in the financial markets that had followed the public’s decision, saying sterling had been “stableâ€\x9d. But one Tory source ridiculed his comments, describing him as “the pound shop comical Ali of British politicsâ€\x9d. A Tory MP who supported the remain campaign claimed “the liars had won the dayâ€\x9d on the referendum. But they argued that when the electorate realised they couldn’t have everything they’d been promised, they wouldn’t want “the liar in chiefâ€\x9d.',
 'Leicester’s Dannys, Drinkwater and Simpson, seek sweetest triumph at Old Trafford The two Dannys always dreamed of eventually proving Manchester United wrong. They had long hoped to jog a few memories by reminding the Stretford End of what might have been but neither man envisaged it happening quite like this. When Danny Drinkwater takes up his position in central midfield and Danny Simpson stations himself at right-back at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon Leicester City will be one win away from the most startling of Premier League title triumphs. To clinch English football’s biggest domestic prize back at the place where it all began for the pair would make things even more special. The prospects of such an evocative victory may be complicated by Manchester United’s desperate, against-the-odds scramble for a top-four place but even Louis van Gaal will know better than to underestimate Claudio Ranieri’s team. Or their two United old boys. In many ways, the two Dannys constitute a hopelessly romantic, wonderfully feelgood story but if Drinkwater’s journey since being shown the door by United more than fulfils this narrative, Simpson’s progress has been somewhat darker. The 29-year-old made eight senior appearances for Sir Alex Ferguson’s team but spent much of his time on the Old Trafford books farmed out on loan – to Royal Antwerp, Sunderland (where he helped Roy Keane’s side win promotion from the Championship), Ipswich Town, Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United. Eventually, in 2010, Simpson was transferred to Newcastle, where he played a big part in their return to the Premier League under Chris Hughton. Aware Hughton’s successor, Alan Pardew, was keen to replace him with an “upgradeâ€\x9d, a defender who had courted controversy by leaving Stephanie Ward, the mother of his baby daughter, for an ill-starred, volatile romance with the singer and X-Factor judge Tulisa subsequently moved on to Queens Park Rangers. Another promotion was followed by another transfer, this time to Leicester, and last season’s relegation fight. A few months after the move, in January 2015, Simpson was charged with assaulting Ward. Shortly after Nigel Pearson’s then side confirmed a most unexpected relegation escape, he was convicted and sentenced to 300 hours of community service. The judge told him he had been fortunate to escape a six-month custodial sentence for throttling his former partner and, with many Leicester fans demanding his sacking, he was forced to beg the club’s hierarchy for one last chance. Magistrates were told that Simpson was straddling Ward on the living room floor with both hands around her throat when police arrived at her house and officers said they heard screams, crying and then a choking sound before finding Ward gasping for breath. The court heard that Simpson was pulled away from Ward. Simpson found himself spending football-free days variously steam‑ironing bin-bagged clothes in a charity shop, escorting people with mental health problems to the toilet and teaching them to play bingo. “It helped me grow,â€\x9d he said recently. “I was in this football bubble and community service broke that. It made me think. It humbled me. It was a massive eye-opener.â€\x9d Only time will tell if this particular leopard has truly changed his spots. Pardew, though, is delighted to see a full-back he had once regarded as a Championship level player undermined by a Jack the Lad persona, not only prospering professionally but apparently getting his life back on track. “We released Danny from Newcastle thinking we could get something better in his position,â€\x9d says Crystal Palace’s manager. “But here he is in a position to win the title, attracting admiration and envy. I take my hat off to him.â€\x9d Drinkwater, three years Simpson’s junior, was part of a Manchester United youth system that also hot-housed Matty James, another Leicester midfielder. James, something of a forgotten man after rupturing a cruciate ligament last May, was often preferred in midfield by Pearson but his injury created a big opportunity for Drinkwater under Ranieri. Drinkwater has seized it so assuredly he has even forced his way into the England squad – a feat few would have thought possible when he quit United for an uncertain future. Like Simpson he came from the Manchester area – Altrincham to the right-back’s Eccles – grew up supporting United and, again as with Simpson, surprised teachers by obtaining nine good GCSEs. Drinkwater’s Old Trafford class reached the 2007 FA Youth Cup final, losing on penalties to Liverpool. Of that team Danny Welbeck is at Arsenal, James Chester at West Bromwich Albion and Corry Evans with Blackburn but other squad members have drifted out of football. “Some of the guys from that time don’t play professionally any more,â€\x9d said Drinkwater, aka Leicester’s “puppet masterâ€\x9d, recently. “They play Sunday League and I know that could have been me. I didn’t have as good an attitude as I needed but you learn an awful lot when you see players falling out of football. “I still speak to a few of those boys and you can sense the disappointment in them. But a lot of making a breakthrough at big clubs is down to luck.â€\x9d Despite not formally leaving Old Trafford until he was 21 Drinkwater never made the first team and began life on the loan beat at 18, experiencing stints at Huddersfield Town, Cardiff City, Watford and Barnsley. The enduring potential of a youngster determined to emulate Paul Scholes was ultimately spotted by Pearson, who transplanted him to Leicester, then struggling in the Championship. Underwhelmed, Drinkwater was “guttedâ€\x9d by United’s decision but now sees that a move which brought him to his “lowestâ€\x9d ebb ultimately changed and matured him. This metamorphosis did not surprise Keith Hill, his manager at Barnsley. “I always thought Danny would become a Premier League player,â€\x9d says Hill, now at Rochdale. “He was superb.â€\x9d Old ties still bind the midfielder to his original habitat and he continues to take a close interest in United. “I’ve always supported them,â€\x9d he said recently. “But I guess there’s a part of me that wants to prove people they’re wrong.â€\x9d Simpson still relishes memories of training alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney et al. “I tried to base my game on Gary Neville’s,â€\x9d he says. “United was a dream.â€\x9d Now an even bigger fantasy seems about to come true.',
 "George Clooney meets Angela Merkel and backs Germany's support for refugees George Clooney has backed Germany’s open-door policy towards refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. Clooney and his human-rights lawyer wife, Amal, enjoyed a one-hour meeting with Merkel on Friday morning to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the political reaction to it in Europe and elsewhere. Merkel has led Germany’s approach to the greatest movement of refugees since the second world war, which has resulted in Europe’s most populous nation taking in nearly one in two of all asylum applications made by Syrians in EU member states last year. The actor, director and humanitarian, who was also due to meet refugees in Berlin, earlier told reporters: “I absolutely agree with herâ€\x9d. The Clooneys were accompanied by David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary who is now head of the New York-based International Rescue Committee. Miliband told the BBC the meeting involved discussing solutions to the “global problemâ€\x9d and praised Merkel for “showing very strong leadershipâ€\x9d during the crisis. Clooney told the BBC last year that he intended to do more to help the people of Syria, without becoming directly involved with politics, after his marriage to Lebanese-born Amal, née Alamuddin, gave him a new perspective on the country. The actor, a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2008, has urged the US to take in more refugees. Speaking on Thursday at the Berlin film festival, where he is currently promoting his role in the new Coen brothers film Hail, Caesar!, the actor admitted the world’s film industry takes too long to respond to humanitarian crises in the wider world. “I’ve struggled to find ways to make a film about Sudan, about Darfur, something very close to me, and which I spend a lot of time on – but I haven’t been able to find the proper script,â€\x9d he said. “It’s hard enough to find a good script for anything, and you don’t want to do it badly – because if you do you only get one chance.â€\x9d But the actor also reacted angrily to a reporter questioning his commitment to Syria. “I spend a lot of my time working on these things,â€\x9d he said. “And it’s an odd thing to have someone stand up and ask, ‘What are you doing about it?’â€\x9d The refugee crisis has been a major talking point in Berlin, with the city’s mayor, Michael Müller, telling audiences at the film festival that Germany should look to its past as it takes a stand on the issue. “Building new walls and barbed wire, shooting at refugees — these are messages that must never be transmitted from Germany ever, ever again,â€\x9d he said. Germany took in 1.1 million refugees in 2015, many of them fleeing the conflict in Syria. But the country’s attitude towards migrants appears to have hardened recently, with Merkel’s open-door policy under fire from opponents within her own conservative camp and outside. Last month Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice chancellor, announced the country was moving to place Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia on a list of “safe countries of originâ€\x9d – meaning that migrants from those countries would have little chance of winning asylum. He also said some migrants would be blocked from bringing their families to join them in Germany for two years.",
 'US advances on clean energy with first offshore wind farm Several miles off the coast of Rhode Island, a clean energy landmark quietly just powered up. Five 560-foot-tall wind turbines are now spinning their 240-foot-long blades, sending electricity out onto New England’s regional grid. The wind turbines, which are connected to the sea floor via steel foundations, are linked to the broader grid by transmission cables deep under the sea. The wind farm is quite small at just 30 megawatts. That’s a fraction of the amount of energy that can come from an average coal or natural gas plant – it’s enough energy to power about 17,000 average American homes. But what the project lacks in size, it makes up for in importance. The close to $300m Block Island project, which came online yesterday, is the very first wind farm in America. Developed by a company called Deepwater Wind, the wind farm could pave the way for more successful projects in the US after other high profile American offshore wind projects have failed. A 468-megawatt project called Cape Wind was blown off course after wealthy residents of Cape Cod in Massachusetts protested the turbines marring their views. The small size of the Block Island project and the placement of the turbines have helped the Block Island Wind Farm dodge strong criticism, though some local residents are still upset about the new additions to their views. Rhode Island also showed more support for offshore wind. The governor of Rhode Island, Gina M Raimondo, said on Monday that she was proud that the state was the very first to “have steel in the water and blades spinning over the oceanâ€\x9d. Tapping the strong wind out in the ocean for electricity isn’t a new concept. For years, thousands of offshore wind turbines off the coast of European countries have been supplying the continent with an important source of carbon emissions-free electricity. Over that time, the European offshore wind industry has matured, and today the cost of electricity from wind turbines in European seas is at a record low. If the US can follow in the footsteps of Europe, it could find an important source of power for coastal states that have been closing large coal and nuclear plants and are looking for new clean energy sources. Some states with their own renewable mandates have struggled to find large sources of clean energy. Over the years, the federal government has supported the development of an offshore wind industry. As of last year, the Department of Interior had awarded 11 commercial leases for offshore wind development that could one day deliver 14.6 gigawatts of capacity. That’s the equivalent power of 15 large coal or gas plants. Other offshore wind projects are under development, including a 765-megawatt proposal in California that would erect wind turbines on floating foundations. But the election of Donald Trump as the next president may weaken federal support and squelch an emerging industry. Trump has been vehemently opposed to an offshore wind farm off the coast of one of his golf courses in Scotland because it disrupted the course’s views, and has expressed his dislike of wind farms in general. Last month, he even reportedly met with a British politician to discuss campaigning against offshore wind farms. Historically, renewable energy businesses such as solar and wind have relied on generous federal tax credits to help reduce the initial high costs of developing the technology and building power plants. Those costs have fallen significantly as more solar and wind farms come online from California to Florida. The still new offshore wind business is also counting on the same federal incentives, and it will need them more than the solar and onshore wind industries, both of which have grown large enough to compete in price with electricity from coal and natural gas power plants in parts of the country. The Block Island wind farm is eligible to get a tax credit worth 30% of the cost of building the project. That tax credit is set to be lowered in 2019, and its renewal will require an approval from Congress and support from the Trump administration. Trump could make it difficult for the offshore industry to take off even if he doesn’t oppose the extension of the tax credit. If he follows through with his campaign promise to reduce corporate tax rates, his actions could reduce the tax appetite of companies and likewise the interest in tax equity investments, according to Daniel Shurey, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in a new report. Deepwater Wind refused to comment on the Trump administration’s possible effect on the offshore wind industry. The company has another offshore wind project in the works off the coast of Maryland, and its CEO, Jeffrey Grybowski, has noted that the industry has other sources of help, including tax and other incentives passed by states such as Massachusetts. Offshore wind proponents hope the jobs that can be created with the new industry could win them support from Trump, who counts job creation as an important part of his agenda. The Block Island wind farm employed 300 local workers over the several years it took to build and commission.',
 'From Battleship Potemkin to Baker Street: sightseeing with Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Eisenstein was the most notorious filmmaker in the world in 1929, when he made a six-week visit to Britain. Three years earlier, his Battleship Potemkin had created a sensation in Germany and was banned outright in most countries outside Soviet Russia, for fear its impact would incite mutiny and revolution. But it was also admired by all who managed see it, from a young David Selznick starting his career in Hollywood to the British documentary impresario John Grierson, who used a private screening for MPs to extract funding for films to counteract such dangerous propaganda. Potemkin received its long-delayed British premiere at a glittering private Film Society screening, and everywhere the great and the good wanted to meet its director. Now, a new exhibition drawing on Russian archives probes Eisenstein’s enthusiasm for British history and culture, revealing little-known aspects of his life – and art – beyond the famous films. Eisenstein’s Anglophilia ran deep. As a privileged child in pre-revolutionary Riga, he learned English from a governess and read all the great Victorian children’s classics. He later insisted that English authors were the first to take children seriously (citing Dickens’ “little Paul Dombey, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and Nicholas Nicklebyâ€\x9d) and also defending the nonsensical invention of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, while noting wryly that “infantilismâ€\x9d was not much in fashion in the USSR. He knew Sherlock Holmes from childhood and the exhibition, at the Gallery for Russian Arts and Design in London, includes his costume designs from the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum for a 1922 stage extravaganza that would have pitted Holmes against the reigning dime-novel detective, Nick Carter, in the early years of Soviet experimental theatre. It seems unlikely that he could have resisted visiting Holmes’s mythic Baker Street when in London, but otherwise he explored the East End from a modest base near Russell Square and gave lectures to would-be film-makers in a room above Foyles bookshop. As late as 1934, he was impatiently ordering the very latest contribution to the legend – Vincent Starrett’s playful mixture of scholarship and whimsy, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes – from the London bookshop where he was proud to have an account, Zwemmer’s on Charing Cross Road. Shakespeare was a lifelong passion, as was Ben Jonson, whom he had discovered after buying a copy of Volpone for Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations. When Eisenstein came to update his famous theory of montage in 1937, he invoked Shakespeare’s “astounding skillâ€\x9d in using short separate episodes of battle in the last acts of Macbeth and Richard III, but also “the image of the dizzy whirl of a fairgroundâ€\x9d in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair. Eisenstein “woke up famousâ€\x9d, as he recalled, because of the worldwide impact of Battleship Potemkin. And this fame – followed by October, which celebrated the 1917 revolution on an epic scale – allowed him to pursue his intellectual and emotional passions to an unusual degree. In Mexico in 1931, trying to complete a sprawling epic about that country’s history, he started to draw in a new and intense way. In just one day, he produced a vast, astonishing cycle of variations on the murder triangle of Macbeth, his wife and King Duncan. Some of the riotously obscene Mexican drawings would help to blacken his reputation with the backer of his Mexican venture, the socialist millionaire Upton Sinclair. But the Duncan death cycle shows Eisenstein as a gifted draughtsman. Another little-known series of drawings, Thoughts on Music, reveals Eisenstein exploring ideas of visual rhythm with imagery from Alexander Nevsky, the film that restored him to favour in Stalin’s Russia in 1938. Nevsky showed one of ancient Russia’s saintly heroes rallying a peasant army against the fearsome might of the invading Teutonic knights, who are defeated on a frozen lake in a sequence that has influenced countless later screen battles. The film proved a temporary embarrassment when Stalin struck his truce with Hitler in 1939, but after the German invasion began 20 months later, it became a rallying point for all who opposed the Nazi war machine. Nevsky would have a particular resonance in Britain. After it was shown by the Film Society, BBC television pioneer Dallas Bower used it to train his first cameramen. Transferred to wireless after the outbreak of war, Bower proposed a radio version of Nevsky, and commissioned the poet Louis MacNeice to write the text, while Prokofiev’s score was brought in for a full-scale performance to be conducted by Adrian Boult. With Robert Donat starring as Alexander, and 200 performers and technicians gathered at Bedford School, news came of the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbour that brought the US into the war. The transmission of Alexander Nevsky on 8 December 1941 proved not only a landmark in radio drama, but a first celebration of the grand wartime alliance against fascism. Bower next pushed the idea of a British equivalent. Why not film Shakespeare’s rousing Henry V in the style of Nevsky? He managed to interest the producer Filippo Del Guidice and Laurence Olivier in the idea. The eventual result was the great Technicolor production of 1944, which borrowed Nevsky’s combination of historical research and stylised realism, culminating in the Battle of Agincourt shot with Irish troops in Eire. Eisenstein planned an Elizabethan episode for what would be his own last film, Ivan the Terrible. With apparent disregard for the prudishness of Stalin’s Russia, he envisaged that the Russian Tsar would be shown paying court to Elizabeth of England through Moscow’s first ambassador. And his choice of actor for the virgin queen was fellow-director Mikhail Romm, eerily anticipating Sally Potter’s casting of Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth in her 1992 Orlando. This and many other sequences planned for Ivan were never filmed, and the film’s sombre second part remained banned by Stalin for the rest of Eisenstein’s life. By the time it was finally released during the Khrushchev “thawâ€\x9d of the late 1950s, Eisenstein’s reputation had entered what might be considered its cold war phase. In Solzhenitsyn’s 1962 novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a convict dismisses him as an “arse-lickerâ€\x9d for making films that satisfied Stalin. And later, he would be sidelined by western enthusiasm for Dziga Vertov as a more uncompromising radical, and even later by Andrey Tarkovsky’s antagonism to the very idea of montage. But in recent years, awareness has grown of Eisenstein’s prodigious output of writings and drawings, and the many unrealised film projects that filled his short life. The challenge today is whether we are ready to grant this polymath another kind of status: as an artist who, like many before him, worked at the court of a tyrant patron; but also as a thinker, who reached back into the prehistory of art and forward into an immersive future cinema in his last writings. There’s another challenge: imagining the young Sergei, still feeling like “a little boy from Rigaâ€\x9d, as he set out to discover the world beyond Russia in 1929, exploring Bloomsbury, Hampton Court, Eton, Windsor and Cambridge in six hectic weeks. We know from his memoirs that these experiences stayed with him (shaping the court scenes of Ivan the Terrible that so spooked Stalin), along with the books that continued to arrive from Zwemmer’s, and the countless English authors and artists who peopled his memory. Eisenstein may no longer seem as dangerously subversive as he did in 1929. But like another of his heroes and models, Leonardo da Vinci, he remains the nearest cinema has had to a universal genius, with images that even today can still shock and inspire us . Unexpected Eisenstein is at GRAD from 17 February to 30 April.',
 "Dr Dre and Michel'le biopic Surviving Compton to air on Lifetime A new TV biopic will focus on an allegedly abusive relationship between Dr Dre and the singer Michel’le. Next month, Lifetime will premiere Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge and Me, which follows the story of Michel’le, who sang on 1980s R&B hits such as No More Lies, and is the mother of one of Dr Dre’s sons. Michel’le is played by Lincoln Heights actor Rhyon Nicole Brown. The biopic follows the 2015 NWA film Straight Outta Compton, which was criticised by the singer for ignoring “several of NWA’s own harsh realitiesâ€\x9d. Michel’le has claimed that the producer was physically abusive to her. The journalist Dee Barnes has also criticised the NWA biopic. “I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat on and told to sit down and shut up,â€\x9d Michel’le told VladTV last year. This new film is told from Michel’le’s perspective and follows her career and relationship with Dr Dre, from their early studio sessions to the alleged physical abuse and dealing with motherhood. At one point, she is pictured with a black eye, while in another scene, the actor portraying Dre chokes her in front of collaborators in the studio. While Dr Dre has never fully admitted to or addressed allegations of abuse that the film has raised, speaking with Rolling Stone in 2015 he described his regrets about his behaviour when younger: “I made some fucking horrible mistakes in my life. I was young, fucking stupid. I would say all the allegations aren’t true – some of them are. Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really fucked up. But I paid for those mistakes, and there’s no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again.â€\x9d",
 'Michael Gove is wrong: Cameron’s EU agreement will be legally binding Michael Gove described the decision of the EU’s heads of state on the reform package for the United Kingdom as an “international declarationâ€\x9d in his BBC interview on Wednesday morning. That is not accurate. While it is accompanied by a number of declarations that complement its contents, the decision itself is a treaty binding in international law. The renegotiation package belongs to a perfectly familiar category of international treaties, which are concluded by the parties to an existing treaty in order to agree on how elements of it should be interpreted. That is what has now been done. The various representatives of EU nations have expressed their understanding of certain aspects of the treaties that are of concern to the United Kingdom. They did the same in 1992 to address concerns of Denmark regarding Maastricht, and again in 2009 to address the concerns of Ireland regarding the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU court of justice acknowledged that it was bound to take the decision on Denmark into consideration when interpreting relevant provisions of the treaties, and it will have to do the same with respect to David Cameron’s renegotiation. As an instrument of interpretation, the decision will become binding as soon as it enters into force – if the UK votes to remain in the European Union. The purpose of eventually introducing some of those principles into the treaties themselves would be to enhance their status, from interpretative tools to provisions of primary EU law in their own right. A different legal technique employed in the decision, which Gove did not mention, involves what may be termed “council conduct agreementsâ€\x9d. These are agreements binding the member states as to how they will behave in certain circumstances, when acting in their capacity as members of the council (which, with the European parliament, constitutes the EU’s legislature). An important example is the safeguard mechanism to reinforce the protection of non-members of the eurozone. Under this mechanism, the council’s decision-making process can be interrupted by a single member state making a reasoned case that the proposal under consideration infringes one or more of the economic governance principles. An effort must then be made to accommodate those concerns, which may entail referring the issue to the European council. This will be implemented by adding a new provision to an existing council decision, which provides for a similar procedure, where the threshold for a qualified majority decision is achieved by a relatively narrow margin. Council voting agreements are a tried and tested technique of uncontested legality. Another point missed by Gove is that the prime minister’s aims in respect of benefits are to be achieved, without any need to amend the treaties, by agreed interpretations of existing legislation and by the introduction of two significant rule changes. This provides a sound basis for the robust application by courts in the UK of the various limitations on rights of free movement that are recognised by EU law. The rule changes entail giving states the option of indexing child benefits, which are exported, to the standard of living in the member state in which the children are resident, and the introduction of the so-called “emergency brakeâ€\x9d on in-work benefits. These changes can be achieved by amending existing legislation. It cannot seriously be doubted that the commission will fulfil its undertaking to bring forward the proposals necessary to introduce those rule changes, and the members of the council will be obliged to adopt them. While the European parliament will have a part to play in the adoption of the legislation, it is implausible that, in a situation where the UK has voted to remain within the EU and the renegotiation has entered into force, the parliament would see any political advantage in putting the new constitutional settlement in jeopardy. Nor would there be any significant risk of such legislation being struck down by the court of justice. EU law-makers are perfectly entitled to lay down the conditions under which rights of free movement for workers are exercised. A fair overall assessment would, therefore, be that the reform package achieved by the prime minister is legally binding to the extent that it needs to be, and irreversible in practice.',
 'Trump picks prominent white nationalist as delegate A list of delegates chosen by the Donald Trump campaign in California includes a prominent white nationalist who leads a party “to represent ... White Americansâ€\x9d, Mother Jones reported. Read the Mother Jones story I just hope to show how I can be mainstream and have these views. I can be a white nationalist and be a strong supporter of Donald Trump and be a good example to everybody. – Trump delegate William Johnson As a Muslim, Donald Trump inspires me ... to vote Ted Cruz told radio host Glenn Beck that if he beats Trump in the Nebraska primary tonight, he might get back in the presidential race. He was certainly joking, probably. Cruz hints at revival The reason we suspended our campaign was that with the Indiana loss, I felt there was no path to victory. If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly. – Ted Cruz, joking, surely What ex-candidates said when they withdrew Barack Obama has said he won’t “meddleâ€\x9d in the Democratic nominating race. Vice-President Joe Biden? No such qualms: he predicted Hillary Clinton to go all the way. Sanders fans who prefer Trump to Clinton I feel confident that Hillary will be the nominee and I feel confident that she’ll be the next president. – Vice-President Joe Biden It’s just one poll, it’s early, and it’s an outlier. But a Quinnipiac survey published Tuesday had Clinton and Trump in a virtual tie in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. Read the poll A second pollster, PPP, tested Trump’s favorability against various things. Trump beat out hemorrhoids (45%-39%) and cockroaches (46%-42%) but lost to traffic jams (40%-47%), lice (28%-54%) and Nickelback (34%-39%). Read the poll',
 'What to see at the Tribeca film festival, from Tom Hanks to Taxi Driver The Tribeca film festival launches its 15th edition on Wednesday in the wake of the biggest controversy the event has ever weathered, following the festival’s decision to program and then pull the anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Controversy from its program. Co-founder Robert De Niro, who allegedly initially fought to have it included, is no doubt hoping this year’s slate of films and panels will overshadow the Vaxxed fallout. Given the robust lineup, the chances appear to be in his favor. Positioned shortly after the Sundance and SXSW film festivals each spring, and weeks before Cannes, Tribeca often serves as a springboard for artier independent fare from lesser-known film-makers, and star vehicles set to open shortly after the event packs up, in order to add some needed glamour to the red carpets. This year, the star with biggest clout set to attend is Tom Hanks, who will be world-premiering his latest film, A Hologram for the King, at the festival. Based on the popular novel by Dave Eggers, the drama reunites Hanks with one of his Cloud Atlas directors, Tom Tykwer, for a freewheeling tale about a desperate American salesman waiting an eternity to meet a Saudi Arabian billionaire. Hanks is also scheduled to take part in a panel hosted by comedian John Oliver, where he is to discuss his “passion for great storiesâ€\x9d. In fact, the bulk of the star wattage at this year’s edition can be found in the featured speakers sidebar, where Hanks is included on an illustrious roster that also includes Patti Smith, Tina Fey, Jodie Foster, Baz Luhrmann, Jane Fonda, Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo. In a spirited pairing, JJ Abrams is to talk about his career opposite this year’s Oscars host, Chris Rock. Probably most anticipated of all, De Niro himself will be on hand to reflect on the making of Taxi Driver in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary. Martin Scorsese and the writer Paul Schrader will join him for the onstage talk following a screening. Other highlights to feature prominent actors include the drama The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, starring Jason Sudeikis as an introverted architect who bonds with a homeless teen following the death of his wife (Jessica Biel); Custody, which stars Viola Davis, Hayden Panettiere and Catalina Sandino Moreno as three women whose lives are changed after they cross paths at a New York family court; the romance The Meddler, which pairs Susan Sarandon with recent Oscar winner JK Simmons; the coming-of-age drama Mr Church, starring Eddie Murphy as a chef; and the Michael Shannon-led Wolves, about a troubled father whose addiction to gambling threatens to derail his son’s aspiration to go to Cornell on a sports scholarship. Shannon also features as Elvis Presley in the festival’s centerpiece screening, Elvis & Nixon. The Amazon Studios release follows the star in 1970, when he visited the White House seeking to be deputized into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs by the president himself (played by Kevin Spacey). In 2014, Courteney Cox made her feature film directorial debut at the festival with Just Before I Go. This year, the big star to take the leap is Katie Holmes, who will unveil All We Had, her mother-daughter drama based on Annie Weatherwax’s popular novel. The film boasts a script by The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone, and pairs Holmes onscreen with Luke Wilson. Mia Wasikowska also steps into the director’s chair for the first time with a film that features in the anthology effort Madly, which features six shorts from film-makers from across the globe. Wasikowska’s segment follows a young mother’s postpartum struggles. As for the “smallerâ€\x9d pictures, AWOL, premiering in the festival’s US narrative competition, looks to be a standout based on its premise alone: it’s a rural-set love story about lesbians in and around the military. Lola Kirke, who delivered a strong performance in Mistress America and Gone Girl, stars. Also hoping to make an impact is Kicks, an opening night selection about a 15-year-old in Oakland on a mission to retrieve his recently stolen Air Jordans. The film marks the feature debut of Justin Tipping, who won a Student Academy Award for his short Nani. Tribeca has in recent years also become a strong showcase for documentary film. Past standouts include Frédéric Tcheng’s acclaimed Dior and I, which followed Raf Simon’s first couture collection for the Parisian fashion house, and the hypnotic Bombay Beach, from music video director Alma Har’el. Har’el returns to the festival with her anticipated follow-up LoveTrue, executive-produced by Shia LaBeouf. Her new feature is rumored to be similarly experimental in tone, exploring three complimentary stories that aim to “demystify the fantasy of true loveâ€\x9d. There’s also a lot of buzz about All This Panic, a documentary by the artist Jenny Gage, who took a Boyhood-like approach by following two sisters in New York City as they came of age over the course of three years. The 15th edition of the Tribeca film festival will take place from 13-24 April in New York City. It opens on Wednesday with the world premiere of The First Monday in May, a documentary about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibition, China: Through the Looking Glass.',
 'The targeting of Hillary Clinton suggests a vicious campaign ahead We now know how Donald Trump will take on Hillary Clinton this autumn – by framing her as a criminal who should be sent not to the White House, but to jail. Trump had already signalled as much via the two-word label he likes to hang around the neck of his Democratic opponent: Crooked Hillary. But the Republican convention in Cleveland, which on Tuesday formally nominated Trump as its presidential candidate, has given colour and shape to that strategy. Now we know how it will look and sound. Speaker after speaker has pressed the same themes: that Clinton is a liar who regards herself as above the law, that she is corrupt, that she is stained by a series of scandals going back 25 years. On Tuesday night, New Jersey governor Chris Christie used his turn at the podium to play prosecutor, asking the audience in the hall and watching on TV to act as a “jury of her peersâ€\x9d and sit in judgment on Hillary Clinton as he laid out the case against her. He had barely got going when the crowd in front of him began chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!â€\x9d Christie smiled indulgently, before promising: “All right, we’re getting there.â€\x9d It was a telling moment, for it confirmed that, when it comes to this line of attack, the Republican party and the Trump campaign are following as much as they are leading. The activists of the right have been banging this same drum for months; some of them have been doing it for years. On Monday, in a lakeside Cleveland park, a rally convened by longtime Trump backer Roger Stone and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was peppered with posters urging “Hillary for Prisonâ€\x9d, alongside placards depicting the Democratic candidate as “wantedâ€\x9d, in the style of the old west. Also spotted around town: pictures of Clinton in an orange jumpsuit and behind bars. Christie sought to give substance to those slogans and memes. Much of his case related to policy decisions Hillary Clinton had taken, especially as secretary of state. But now those decisions – to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran or to thaw relations with Cuba – were refashioned as crimes. And as he worked through each item – Libya, Syria, China – he invited delegates to bellow their verdict. Never mind that some of the accusations were bizarre – including the claim that Clinton was an “apologistâ€\x9d for Boko Haram – the hall answered loudly and in chorus: “Guilty!â€\x9d The old favourites got a run-out too, naturally. Hillary, said Christie – who having been passed over as a vice-presidential choice hopes to be attorney general in a Trump administration – had lied about the deaths of four US diplomats in Benghazi, deaths for which, according to earlier speakers in Cleveland, Clinton was directly culpable. And she had lied about her use of a private email server, offering an account which, Christie reminded his audience, the director of the FBI had recently deemed untrue. The audience lapped it up, of course they did. For this is the one thing on which all Republicans, those who backed Trump and those who opposed him, can agree: that Hillary Clinton is so corrupt that she must not be allowed to become president. Indeed, my conversations with delegates previously hostile to Trump suggest that this is what enables them to fall in behind the nominee: their belief that, morally speaking, Clinton is even worse. Strategically, you can see Team Trump’s logic. The polls are staggeringly bad for Clinton on this, with some 67% of Americans regarding her as not honest or trustworthy. It makes sense for Republicans to exploit that weakness. But there is a larger calculation at work. The Trump campaign has clearly concluded that there is not much it can do about their man’s stratospherically high disapproval ratings. (He is regarded as dishonest by 62% of Americans, for example, and his other numbers are even worse.) So if they can’t lift him up, they might as well tear her down. The result will be a relentlessly negative campaign from now until November, with both candidates depicting the other as the greater evil. And if talk of evil, rather than the merely criminal, sounds excessive, consider Tuesday’s closing speech by one of Trump’s former fellow candidates, Ben Carson. He suggested Clinton was a devotee of a man, the long-ago radical Saul Alinsky, who had once praised … Lucifer. Yes: Hillary Clinton was just one degree of separation away from Satan. If this is what the Republicans are saying about their Democratic opponent in July, imagine what they’ll be saying come November.',
 'How to … make NGO videos for social media They are called dabs, those short, snappy and highly shareable videos that dominate your Facebook or Twitter feed. News organisations such as NowThisNews and AJ+ (Al Jazeera) are leading the way in this micro-video style, based on the idea of a little bit of news, every now and then. How they work The videos are short and reduce a story to its bare bones, but “that doesn’t mean they are any less sophisticated,â€\x9d says Michael Tait, multimedia commissioning editor at the . A great deal of thought goes into the script, length, amount of words and which images or footage is used. “In fact, it’s really difficult to take a journalistic story and reduce it to 20 lines of texts, and then make all the images graphic enough to be engaging,â€\x9d he says. More and more people watch videos on their mobile phones (Facebook has actually changed its algorithm to prioritise live video) so the videos must be made for mobile rather than, say, created for desktop and pushed through social media channels. Critically, videos must be shareable. “If people don’t share the video, it won’t get the reach,â€\x9d says Fred McConnell, deputy video editor for Australia. “We have 5m followers on Facebook, but have views of more than 18m on some videos.â€\x9d Think beyond your own followers and make the video as accessible to as many people as possible. But don’t make it with the thought that people should share it because that never works, he says. Ask yourself instead, “Would I share it?â€\x9d How to make your own Hire millennials The hardest part is finding the right people to do the job. They need to be digital natives, millennials, and they need to understand the language. “We’re hiring people who aren’t just great filmmakers or who can produce really artistic stuff, it’s about having a strong understanding of why people share stuff on social media and how they interact with content,â€\x9d says Richard Casson, online campaigner at Greenpeace. As well as being social media savvy, you need someone who can use Premier, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and, ideally, AfterEffects to create motion graphics. They should also have some journalism experience. “We’re not close to these stories so we can make decisions that improve the storytelling, but if someone is really invested in the issue, they’re not going to have that distance or that objectivity,â€\x9d says McConnell. Invest in assets You don’t need a huge team to make micro-videos, but you do need access to images, footage and music. “We try to use open source music and we always credit the person whose songs we’re using at the end of the video, with a link to wherever we found it,â€\x9d says Casson. “We also try to use open source footage or pay a fee to use someone else’s. If it’s a small organisation, they’re often happy for us to just credit them.â€\x9d Another option is to buy subscriptions to production libraries or photography agencies for instant access to images and video. “A licence is quite expensive in the short-term but would pay off over time, both in terms of finance and the speed at which you can produce these videos,â€\x9d says McConnell. But these days, says Tait, even an iPhone will do and there are apps – such as Verify – that ensure coverage from news hotspots around the world. If you have that, and the means to steady your iPhone, you can record all sorts of things to include in videos. Grab people’s attention “We call them thumbstoppers,â€\x9d says Tait. “Because you’re scrolling through your news feed on your phone and whatever holding image and headline you choose has to be dynamic and powerful enough to stop someone scrolling.â€\x9d McConnell says you have around a second to get people’s attention, so don’t have an introduction, a build-up, or fade in from a black screen. You should also create a separate eye-catching holding image for the video that gives a good overview of what it’s about. Putting a famous face at the front of the video also helps, says Casson. “When we bring people like George Osbourne or David Cameron to the forefront of the video we tend to get a higher reaction.â€\x9d Be concise If you want the video to be watched on social media, keep it short. “It has to be as tight as you can get it without compromising on the content,â€\x9d says Tait. Micro-videos shouldn’t be longer than two minutes. “Focusing on an individual is really effective when you only have a minute,â€\x9d says McConnell. Make sound optional More than 90% of people watch dabs without sound, so it has to be optional. Avoid talking points, but if someone is speaking, add subtitles that can be read on a small screen. And think carefully about any text used in the video. “Strike a balance between having enough time to read the text and having it move in a way that keeps you interested,â€\x9d says McConnell. “Your eye shouldn’t have to travel from one corner of the screen to the other, either.â€\x9d Also make sure that any words are positioned above the play bar so it doesn’t obstruct the text. Tell real (and positive) stories “Charity videos often feel fake,â€\x9d says McConnell. “We know that person’s probably not called Jean, for example – it’s just an anonymous child you happen to have footage of.â€\x9d Videos can be serious, but doom and gloom is not appealing and won’t make people stop scrolling. Use real people, focus on the issue and deliver character and narrative. Tell a positive story about an inspirational person. “We had really interesting footage of a 26-year-old girl who refuses to leave Damascus and is still teaching ballet at a school without heating or anything like that,â€\x9d says video producer Ekaterina Ochagavia. “She spoke so passionately about the kids, dancing and how she couldn’t leave her home, but it was also interesting about the crisis there. You could show a story like that and, at the end, have a call to action for donations to help her.â€\x9d Include a call to action We try to make it as explicit as possible that there is some sort of call to action,â€\x9d says Casson. “We might put words at the end, such as ‘Share to expose this story’ or ‘Share to celebrate’ if we have some good news. Within the video itself, we always try to have a mini theory of change so that it’s not just reporting on a problem, but actually a way for people to participate in the campaign by interacting with the video afterwards.â€\x9d And ideally, posts should have a link accompanying the video where people can read more. Don’t make it all about the campaign A good approach is to have a desire to create good content that will increase your NGO’s social media reach. If Facebook recognises, through its algorithm, that your page produces good videos, it will continue to place them into people’s news feeds. “A successful piece of content will bring more people to our page,â€\x9d says Casson. “More likes means more reach and more ways for people to support us.â€\x9d Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow@ GDP on Twitter.',
 'UK commander in Iraq calls for patience over retaking Mosul from Isis Britain’s most senior commander in Iraq and Syria told politicians and diplomats to show patience in the battle to remove Islamic State from Mosul, despite Donald Trump’s pre-election demand that bombing against the terror group should be intensified. Maj-Gen Rupert Jones said daily attacks on Isis had led to “an extraordinary amount of progressâ€\x9d in the last year, but warned that the jihadi group was defending the city vigorously and that it was necessary for the Iraqi security forces (ISF) to demonstrate restraint. The deputy commander of the US-led international coalition in the region added: “What we have all got to then have is patience and what you want is the ISF to clear their way through the city in a deliberate manner. “They could hard charge their way through the city and there would be an awful lot of civilian casualties but it has been really impressive to watch [Iraqi prime minister Haider al-] Abadi downwards really care about civilian casualties. Therefore, they are taking a deliberate manner and trying to minimise their own casualties.â€\x9d The remarks contrasts with Trump’s seeming impatience with Barack Obama’s anti-Isis strategy. Trump has pledged that Isis will disappear very quickly after he becomes president, and though he declined to disclose his plan for how that would be achieved, said he intended to hit the militants harder, including bombing “the shit out of ’emâ€\x9d, referring to Isis-controlled oil fields. Last year Trump said: “I know more Isis than the generals do, believe me. I would bomb the shit out of them. I would just bomb those suckers. And, that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up the refineries. I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.â€\x9d Jones declined to offer a timetable for the fall of Mosul, beyond saying it was on schedule and that while Isis was defending the city fiercely, he expected the group to have been cleared from all Iraq’s towns and cities by the second half of next year. Asked about Trump’s criticism that Obama was not being firm enough on Isis, the general said: “I am not going to comment on some of the Trump campaign narrative. What I would say to you is that we are hitting Daesh [another name for Isis] very, very hard. I have just described to you how much progress has been made in the last year. An extraordinary amount of progress. “And that has been built in part on us hitting Daesh day in, day out. By the time the ISF stepped off into Mosul, we had been shaping and degrading that enemy day in, day out for months.â€\x9d Jones is the youngest general in the British army and son of Lt Col H Jones, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross after being killed in the Falklands in 1982. Jones also said a huge intelligence trove was expected from the fall of Mosul and confirmed that documents seized from Manbij in northern Syria in August had revealed plots against targets in Europe and elsewhere around the world. A unit was set up in Kuwait to process all the hard drives, USB sticks and other data collected from the Manbij that reportedly includes details of financing, propagandists and terror plots. It is understood that while plots were identified throughout Europe, including France, there were none specifically targeted against the UK. Jones, who is based in the Kuwaiti headquarters of Operation Inherent Resolve, the campaign against Isis in Iraq and Syria, said the jihadi group was struggling, having lost 56% of the territory it once held in Iraq and 28% in Syria. But he pointed out that Isis was behaving as barbarically in Iraq’s second city as it had ever done, saying it was “being ruthlessly evil on the streets of Mosul as we sit here in the sunshine: beheadings, throwing people in oil pitsâ€\x9d. There have been repeated allegations of atrocities by the Popular Mobilisation Forces militia that form part of the ISF taking back territory from Isis. But British officers said the militias have been barred from entering Mosul was the city was recaptured and that they would be barred from the next objective, Tal Afar. After Mosul falls, Jones said, the next big thing would be a push on Tal Afar, which has effectively been isolated, and to push up the Euphrates river valley, led by the Iraqi army’s seventh division based at the al-Asad base. He anticipated the international community, mindful of the speed at which the US withdrew from Iraq in 2011, would want to remain in the country after the defeat of Isis. Trump on the campaign trail also said he would work with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to defeat the group in Syria. He also challenged the Obama administration for putting its faith in Syrian moderates taking the lead in retaking Raqqa, Isis’s de facto capital, as he demanded a more aggressive military campaign. At the time of Trump’s comments a retired US army general, Mark Hertling, told CNN the Republican’s approach would lead to mass resignations across the military, and that it was difficult to remain apolitical in the face of such statements from people who had not been there. Jones declined to comment on the sensitive issue of of role of Russia, but, asked about Trump’s scepticism about whether there were enough Syrian moderates, he said: “Yes, I am confident that there are. Our partners wouldn’t be partnering on Raqqa if we didn’t think there were sufficient moderate Syrians. The plan is to build on those moderates.â€\x9d Asked if Trump might change his opinions when he takes office on 20 Januaryafter being briefed on Iraq and Syria by the military and intelligence agencies, Jones replied: “Who knows?â€\x9d Syrian Kurdish and Arab militias seized more than 10,000 documents and 4.5 terabytes of digital data in Manbij. Commenting on the trove, Jones said: “I am not going to go into the details but we know that external operations have been getting orchestrated to a very significant degree from within the caliphate critically from within Raqqa and from within Manbij. “They were key external operations hubs. There is a huge amount of intelligence, documentation, electronic material that has been exploited there that points very directly against all sorts of nations around the world.â€\x9d',
 'Eastern promise: the Hollywood films making their money in China The ambitiously, or perhaps foolishly, titled orcs v humans video game adaptation Warcraft: The Beginning was perceived as not just a standalone summer blockbuster but the first instalment in an epic new series of adventures. Before the film had even been released, director Duncan Jones was teasing that more was to come and Universal, a studio that’s seen franchises bloom in recent years from Fast & Furious to Despicable Me to Fifty Shades, was surely eyeing a Lord of the Rings style profit-making saga. But as every poorly received trailer and poster landed online, the buzz started to smell worse than the inside of an orc’s boot. The reviews were reflective of this undeniable stench. It was labelled “a contender for the worst movie of the yearâ€\x9d and one reviewer hoped that the sequel “languishes in development hell foreverâ€\x9d. Audiences made this a safe bet with a disastrous US opening of just $24.4m, meaning its domestic gross would be unlikely to make back even half of its $160m budget. Game over. But on the other side of the world, one country was desperately inserting coins to continue. Warcraft opened in China to a record-breaking five-day total of $156m, the highest ever debut for a foreign release, thanks to the game’s popularity, a whopping 26 brand sponsors and a stack of specially created localised marketing materials. Along with a strong showing from other countries, it’s up to $300m worldwide, with analysts suggesting that an entirely achievable $450m would be the magic break-even number that might even lead to a sequel. Its success has come just a week after news of John Boyega signing on to star in Pacific Rim 2, pushing the film closer to production. In 2013, this seemed an unlikely proposition. The reviews were more positive for Guillermo del Toro’s brash monster movie, but it failed to find the required audience in the US. A $101m total might sound respectable but from a $190m budget, it’s a disaster. Yet the film scored overseas, making $114m in China and topping out at $411m worldwide. The sequel, again teased early on by the original film’s director, was still far from a sure thing, but in the years since China’s box office has become even more important, with 2016 set to be the year that the country overtakes the US. Pacific Rim 2 then became the first Hollywood sequel to be greenlit thanks to international audiences, and, if China continues to embrace the orcs actioner, Warcraft: The Middle could well be on the way. However, it’s not guaranteed. The resurrection of the Terminator franchise was seen as a regrettable decision by critics and audiences in the US, but in China, Terminator: Genisys was a hit, making $113m compared with a US total of just $89m. Ultimately, Paramount decided against their planned sequel, despite a $440m worldwide number. There’s also a problem with heritage when it comes to Chinese blockbusters. The success of Warcraft and Pacific Rim could be traced back to their relative newness. But the success of sequels and reboots often relies on brand awareness, and since many Hollywood films have never been released in China, that’s not always easy to ensure. Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke records around the world, but it was only moderately successful with Chinese audiences and its final underwhelming gross was seen by some analysts as the reason why the film didn’t beat Avatar’s international record. The first film in the series to be released in the country was Phantom Menace in 1999, meaning the saga doesn’t have the same feverish cult following in China. The forthcoming spin-off Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has smartly recruited Chinese stars Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen. If we’re being cynical, it’s a tactical casting decision, but it’s far from a new trend. Transformers: Age of Extinction was part-funded by China Movie Channel and utilised local talent and locations, while Iron Man 3 included extra footage in China with popular actor Fan Bingbing. It all started, though, with a more modestly budgeted film: 2009’s indie time-travel thriller Looper. A co-production with a Chinese company led to a major location change from Paris to Shanghai for key scenes, extended for the Chinese release, and it became the first US film to open to more money in China than at home. Working with a Chinese company also means that the film is exempt from the country’s strict annual quota of just 34 foreign movie releases (a number that may increase next year). Warcraft: The Beginning was also a co-production between Universal and Legendary, a company that has recently become a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Wanda Media Group. Next year, the company is set to release prequel Kong: Skull Island and The Great Wall, a China-set fantasy adventure from director Zhang Yimou starring Matt Damon, a film that’s a clear sign of a growing commercial relationship between the two countries as well as a creative one. It’s still likely to leave many Hollywood films unaffected but could lead to worrying side-effects. While spectacle translates well to international audiences, humour isn’t always as easy. s of the Galaxy proved a hit with critics and audiences in most of the world, but it didn’t catch on in China. The title translation to Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Team goes some way to explain why the film’s unique brand of comedy was tough to convey. The less joke-heavy X-Men: Apocalypse has already eclipsed it. It’s also likely to affect content on a broader level, with Chinese censorship still notoriously stringent. Deadpool was denied a release in the country thanks to its violence, nudity and language, while Crimson Peak was barred because of its supernatural content as the censorship guidelines prohibit films that “promote cults or superstitionâ€\x9d. An alarming, commercially minded future could see all blockbusters conforming to Chinese rules in order to maximise profits. The overseas success of Warcraft: The Beginning is an undeniable turning point for global box office, but the long-term effects remain unknown. Jackie Chan believes that it will lead to more homegrown blockbusters, once the Chinese film industry realises the money that can be made. That would make sense and hopefully curb an influx of overly modified US offerings. Appealing to an international audience doesn’t need to be a bad thing, but if the industry spends too much time and effort directing content to one country, one that has an entirely different view on so many issues, Hollywood could end up losing its domestic audience. Warcraft: The Beginning (and the end), please.',
 '‘I’m with Nigel’: the Farage entourage tries to break America Finally, a catchphrase as iconic as “I’m with Vinceâ€\x9d, the access-all-areas intro dropped by the hangers-on in Entourage. Say hello to “I’m with Nigelâ€\x9d, as the breakout star of Brexit tries to make it big in America, accompanied by his coat-tailing posse from back home. Don’t ask me the title of this shitshow, girls. Cause you know you just switched on Enfarage. First, the set-up. Nigel Farage is a leading man whose success in the referendum vote has drawn offers from That America. Specifically, from Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency, which has taken inspiration from the poll-busting Brexit result, and reportedly wants to pick his brains. Please don’t conclude that the relationship is being wildly exaggerated, and that Farage is so junior that even Trump’s people have people who deal with him. Instead, just get behind the fact that it’s finally happening – Nigel Farage is GOING WEST! He is LIVING THE DREAM! If you’re up to speed with the series, you’ll know that Nigel has already gone to the Republican national convention in Cleveland. Nigel has been permitted to open for Trump in Mississippi. Nigel has been said to be advising Trump in advance of the final two debates. Nigel is on Fox News. Nigel is in the spin room. Nigel is hotly tipped to play the lead in James Cameron’s Aquaman. I don’t know if Nigel has a mid-Atlantic accent yet, but when asked whether he would return as the permanent Ukip leader, his reply was genuinely “not for 10 million dollarsâ€\x9d. Nigel, your official logo is a pound sign. Why are you suddenly speaking in dollars? Is this a bit like that Alan Partridge episode where his mate from the petrol station gets infatuated with a cod-American trucker called Tex? Or do you just prefer to talk in currencies that aren’t tanking? But wait, because Nigel also has a crew, who he wants with him for the journey because 1) he’s codependent, and 2) that’s the entire show, dude! Don’t take it from me – take it from Ukip financier Arron Banks, whose forthcoming book on the gang is called The Bad Boys of Brexit, and features a cover shot I’ve already captioned “Turtle, E, Vinnie, Dramaâ€\x9d. The aforementioned bad boys are Arron, communications chap Andy Wigmore and another businessmen bankroller called Richard Tice. (“Tice is the worst!â€\x9d honks Arron, presumably in a teaser for the episode Tice is the Worst.) Tice doesn’t seem to be with Nigel as we speak, but the others have caught a ride with him at various stages of the US journey. And why not? Entourage was, of course, a show whose almost ineffably complex and nuanced four-way bromance was best summarised in the following exchange: E: “Could you get laid without Vince? That’s the question?â€\x9d Turtle: “Do I give a fuck? That’s the answer!â€\x9d So picture the same dynamic, only with Nigel Farage. Of course, I mean it only metaphorically as far as the bad boys of Enfarage are concerned. I’m pretty sure they all have wives, estranged or otherwise and, anyway, they wouldn’t have gone near the traditional RNC hookers’n’coke bonanza. Fine wines, yes. Blowing rails off a paid friend while telling her about the Breaking Point poster? Don’t be absurd. Essentially, these are country mice. I get the feeling they’re a bit “unsettledâ€\x9d by alt-right comers such as Milo Yiannopolous . Of course, there are some characters too silly even to make the Enfarage cut. There is Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam, for instance, who is running for the Ukip leadership under the Trump-frotting slogan Make Britain Great Again. Raheem once poignantly bought the same coat as Nigel, but his puritan dullardry is preventing him getting even a three-episode arc. “Irony of Trump tape,â€\x9d ran a Raheem tweet revealing a grasp of irony to make Alanis Morissette’s look Sophoclean. “The left has pushed sex liberation & filthy Hollywood culture for decades. Now complaining about the language it causes.â€\x9d “Complaining about the languageâ€\x9d? Also, “filthy Hollywood cultureâ€\x9d? Obviously, no one expects Raheem to have a clue as to why so many Republican women are vocally enraged and disgusted by Trump’s sexual assault boasts – he presumably last spoke to a female sometime during the Dubya administration. But it’s an interesting choice to run for the Ukip leadership on a Mary Whitehouse platform, and he is advised to manage his expectations accordingly. Back to Nigel, though. Back to our star. Clearly, this is the most concerted attempt to break America since Robbie Williams moved there for a decade and became the de facto leader of the Brits in LA for No Good Reason. Robbie’s US career basically consisted of hosting five-a-side football matches for fellow time-rich expats such as Vinnie Jones. Farage’s strategy, in contrast, is to get as close to Trump’s campaign as he possibly can, build up his recognition Stateside, and hope it doesn’t end up like when Cheryl went to US X Factor. Thus he’ll do anything. Farage is now the Paul Ross of the Trump campaign – as in, his answerphone message says: “I’ll do it.â€\x9d Wait – the candidate has been taped bragging about grabbing women’s pussies? Fine, Nigel will go on Fox News to defend him. Like he told the anchor, Trump’s apparent predilection for sexual assault was fine because “he’s not running to be popeâ€\x9d. Quite. That’s the last way to get ahead in the Catholic church. Anyway, the pope bit was sufficiently splashy for Nigel to be invited into the post-debate spinroom, where he dispensed further look-at-me lines. Trump, Farage declared, was “like a big silverback gorillaâ€\x9d – an analysis that makes me wonder if those paw ashtrays are always morally wrong. Either way, the last thing you should think is that Nigel is coming off like a small fish in a massive pond. “I’ve been there myself,â€\x9d he mused of the first presidential debate. “I remember my first debate.â€\x9d Thanking you, Obi-Wan. What is the endgame to all this? If Nigel has an Ari Gold figure, where is he steering him? My feeling is that Farage ultimately wants a berth on Trump TV, the network Trump is rumoured to be launching should his presidential bid fail. Our natural instinct is probably to see Nigel occupying the Partridgean 3am-6am graveyard slot. Then again, in the world of Trump, maybe the small hours are prime time? God knows that’s when the candidate has done some of his most eye-catching work. Or perhaps Nigel hopes Trump will employ him as a sidekick on his own show – kind of like Hank on Larry Sanders. The fear, naturally, is that Nigel will end up some kind of Madge Allsop figure – monstrously insulted and abused, but too beaten to find the courage to escape. All we can do is remind Nigel that lil’ ol’ Britannia will be waiting for him with open arms if all goes tits up. Leave a $10 bill on her nightstand, Nige, and tell her about the time you were big in America.',
 'Five of the best new films in the UK 1 Silence (15) (Martin Scorsese, 2016, Mex/Tai/US) 161 mins Scorsese is in repentance mode with this austere, spiritual drama. Two Portuguese missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) are smuggled into 17th-century Japan, where Christians are violently persecuted, in search of a padre who’s apparently gone native. What follows is an earnest study of faiths – in crisis and in conflict. Non-believers may tire of its longueurs, but it’s a film of depth and devotion. Out on Sun 2 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (12A) (Gareth Edwards, 2016, US) 134 mins The prospect of fresh Star Wars characters, locations and hardware is all many punters need. But despite the retrograde male domination (Felicity Jones excepted), this spinoff is pacy, action-packed, and rendered with a conviction that most effects movies lack. 3 Assassin’s Creed (12A) (Justin Kurzel, 2016, UK/Fra/HK/US) 115 mins The bestselling video game becomes a Matrix-like epic, throwing Michael Fassbender between high-tech prison movie and Spanish Inquisition swashbuckler. The complex mythology takes some explaining (it’s all to do with a secret Assassins v Templars war), but the action scenes are exhilarating, with rooftop and horseback chases that look agreeably non-digital. Out on Sun 4 The Son Of Joseph (12A) (Eugène Green, 2016, Bel/Fra) 113 mins This oddball French comedy contains hints of both Robert Bresson and Wes Anderson in its deadpan story of a young man seeking the identity of his father. Drawing on a range of cultural references, not least the Bible, it’s sophisticated without being pretentious. 5 Why Him? (15) (John Hamburg, 2016, US) 111 mins It’s not going to win any awards, but this Meet The Parents-style bromance is funny enough to pass muster. James Franco was possibly the only option for the part of an overbearing zillionaire dude, whose proposal to Bryan Cranston’s daughter is not exactly welcomed.',
 'Councils failing to monitor most British schools for dangerous air pollution Councils are failing to monitor most schools in Britain for dangerous air pollution despite government advice, freedom of information requests have revealed. All Britain’s 433 local councils were asked by the British Lung Foundation (BLF) whether they placed pollution monitors within 10 metres of school grounds. Of the 322 which replied, only 140 said they did. In urban areas identified by the World Health Organisation as having harmful levels of particulate pollution, nearly half were found to be monitoring only one or two schools. Less than one in three local authorities monitored more than two schools. Air quality monitoring guidance for the UK is drawn up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The government does not insist that schools are monitored and local authorities are left to implement and interpret results and take action where needed. The survey showed “alarming discrepanciesâ€\x9d in council behaviour, said a BLF spokeswoman. Some used very simple diffusion tubes to measure only NO2 gas, but others monitored for different-sized particles called PM10s and 2.5s which are spewed out by traffic and industry, she said. Equally, some authorities monitored the air close to school playgrounds, but others measured air quality hundreds of metres away. “The guidance on monitoring that Defra gives local authorities needs to be revised and strengthened. Parents should be able to tell what their children are breathing, especially if they have conditions like asthma,â€\x9d the spokeswoman said. Concern about children’s health has grown following new scientific research which has shown lung capacity can be permanently impaired by pollution at very early ages. A study of 2,400 children at 25 schools across east London found children had 5-10% less lung capacity, with an increased risk of diseases such as asthma and bronchitis. According to the BLF, nearly 1 million schoolchildren up to 15 years old have been diagnosed with lung conditions. “Children and teaching staff are not being made fully aware of the health risks posed by air pollution. Local authorities need clear guidance to monitor the air that children breathe as well as more resources and funding to tackle it,â€\x9d said Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. “Children’s lung health is particularly vulnerable to air pollution, yet they are not being protected by the government’s air quality monitoring guidance. There is a huge discrepancy in the levels of monitoring outside schools across the country, with many schools in the most harmfully polluted places not being monitored,â€\x9d said Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of British Lung Foundation. A an LGA spokesman said: “Councils follow guidelines on monitoring air pollution which are laid down by central government. These are to take a risk-based approach – monitoring those locations where members of the public might be regularly exposed. “As well as schools this could also include residential properties, hospitals and care homes – depending on which area is at greatest risk. Many schools are actually some distance from busy roads and therefore unlikely to have high air pollution levels.â€\x9d He added that the “real issueâ€\x9d was for councils to move from monitoring pollution to acting on it, which would take government support. A report that was commissioned but not published by London city hall under Boris Johnson showed that the number of primary schools in the capital breaching EU pollution levels had fallen from 433 in 2010 to 357 in 2013. Another report, for the mayor of London, found children at nearly 90 secondary schools in London regularly breathed illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution. Research by the Campaign for Clean Air found that 1,148 schools in London are within 150 metres of roads carrying 10,000 or more vehicles per day, and a total of 2,270 schools are within 400m of such roads. “Children across the UK are exposed to illegal levels of air pollution on a daily basis. Air pollution is an invisible problem and parents have a right to know if their children are breathing dirty air, so it should be monitored,â€\x9d said Andrea Lee, healthy air campaigner at environmental law firm ClientEarth.',
 'Customers’ reluctance to try newcomers props up the banking giants When HSBC held its annual meeting at this time last year, the bank’s shares were trading at around 611p. When outgoing chairman Douglas Flint fronted up to shareholders for this year’s event last week, they were around 472p – 23% lower. If the meeting had been held a fortnight earlier, the picture would have been an even more gloomy 416p. At these sorts of share-price levels, the market is valuing the bank at almost less than half the value of its assets. HSBC is not alone in getting such an assessment from the market. The UK banking sector is lagging behind the wider stock market and as all the major players publish their results in the coming fortnight, they will hope to elicit a better reception. It is all too easy to understand why investors would shy away from the sector. Geopolitics, cybercrime, pressure from digital startups and the risk of financial fines are among the great imponderables for anyone wanting to take the plunge. Errors from the past are still weighing on the banks, as HSBC knows all too well. A monitor installed as a result of a 2012 fine for money-laundering offences by the US has flagged up issues with the speed at which the bank is able to make changes to its internal systems and controls. Libor-rigging and manipulation of the foreign exchange markets have already shaken the public image of banks – and the fines knocked a dent in their profits. Royal Bank of Scotland, meanwhile, could be facing a penalty of as much as £8bn for the way it sold mortgages to US investors during the sub-prime crisis nearly a decade ago. Its prospects of making an annual profit in 2016 – it would be its first since 2007 – are slim. And then there is the payment protection insurance scandal. This has already cost the industry more than £30bn – and while the banks are desperate to draw a line under the compensation payouts through the introduction of a time bar, there has to be a risk that they will have to dig even deeper to cover the cost of mis-selling this insurance. Add to the mix the fact that interest rates are still stuck at record low levels – with little immediate prospect of going higher – and the banking sector is stuck in a mire. Banks are finding it harder to make money on customers’ juicy deposits – and shoving up borrowing costs is difficult to pull off when other rates are so low. These themes will play out in the coming days when the bank bosses line up to provide their latest trading updates – and also face their shareholders. Barclays’ new chief executive, Jes Staley, will address his on Thursday, personally delivering a message that appears likely to be very different to the one incoming chairman John McFarlane hoped for. A year ago, McFarlane described the dividend level as “less than we would wishâ€\x9d. How is he going to deliver the message to impatient Barclays shareholders that the all-important dividend is going to be cut almost in half for the next two years? Yet despite this dismal backdrop, with the reputation of bankers at rock bottom, the established players appear confident about one thing: their high-street customers are reluctant to rock the boat. Barely 4% of retail customers move their current accounts each year – a figure that could increase tenfold, challenger bank TSB reckons, if customers were given more information about the accounts they hold with the big four. One suggestion – handing over information about “foregone interestâ€\x9d on current accounts rather than savings accounts – seems unlikely to happen voluntarily. And the Competition and Markets Authority seems too scared to move – possibly the one piece of good news for the downtrodden banking sector. Even the director-in-chief has had enough of soaring pay First Sports Direct felt its wrath, then the entire corporate world. Having told the billionaire Mike Ashley, who owns the clothing chain Sports Direct, that his treatment of the clothing chain’s low-paid warehouse staff “will leave a scar on British businessâ€\x9d, the Institute of Directors has sent out a wider warning: allow executive pay to soar and the roof will fall in. Or, at least, a welter of government regulation will be imposed on boards, tying them up in administrative knots. It is a counterintuitive message in some ways for a traditional supporter of the free market. The IoD is the oldest of the business lobby groups and its Regency-era Pall Mall offices are steeped in history, most of it centred on protecting the livelihoods of its immensely rich members. Some club members must be asking themselves how self-imposed pay restraint could be considered a feature of a free market. Surely executives should be paid whatever a majority of investors believe they need to offer? But pay restraint is seen by IoD director general Simon Walker, a former press chief at Buckingham Palace, as the crucial element in a campaign to keep meddling politicians and unnecessary regulation out of remuneration. In this way he harks back to the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith, who believed that owners of capital should accept they are part of wider society and honour a compact with workers to achieve a degree of fairness. It was either that or be crushed like the French aristocracy were to be in the 1789 revolution. After BP’s recent AGM, when shareholders registered a protest vote against a £14m pay package for boss Bob Dudley, Walker said British boardrooms were “in the last-chance saloonâ€\x9d. Walker took charge in 2011. In 2012 it looked like the shareholder spring would deliver a victory, but boardroom pay has continued to rise. This week the pharmaceuticals firm Shire is expected to face down a revolt and WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell will defend his £60m pay package. If the votes against excessive pay are large and boardrooms continue to sail on, Walker, who steps down in October, must fear that the pressure for regulation will only build. Energy firms could get burned Business is business and if you expand too quickly nasty things can happen, whether you are in a technology of the future (solar) or a fuel of the past (coal). Just days after Peabody Energy, the biggest US coalmining business, was forced into bankruptcy protection, one of the world’s largest solar companies, SunEdison, did the same last week. Last year Ahmad Chatila, the SunEdison boss, claimed he was aiming for his firm to be bigger than Exxon Mobil and his acquisition record suggested he was driving the business flat out to get there. But last week he admitted the firm needed to be “shedding non-core assetsâ€\x9d to survive. It is a nasty wake-up call for over-ambitious executives but the solar sector is still booming – although not so much in the UK, where the government is determined to put the brakes on subsidies. However, worldwide solar installations are expected to grow by more than 20% this year compared to 2015.',
 'Massive Attack: ‘There was always someone out there ready to bash your head in’ Backstage at the Dublin Olympia Theatre, down a corridor decorated with a painting of Phil Lynott so hideous it appears to have been painted by someone with a longstanding personal grudge against the late Thin Lizzy frontman, Massive Attack’s dressing room is tiny, scruffy and stiflingly hot. In its confines sit Robert “3Dâ€\x9d Del Naja and Grant “Daddy Gâ€\x9d Marshall. The former is voluble and intense, the latter friendly but even more laconic than he was the last time I met them, in 2009, a state of affairs I didn’t think was possible. “Why don’t you say something?â€\x9d asks Del Naja plaintively, at one juncture: “I don’t want to say anything,â€\x9d frowns Marshall, famously no great fan of the interview process. “I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t need to talk about anything.â€\x9d Glamour is in very short supply in the dressing room, unless you count the large framed photo of David Bowie – with whom Massive Attack once collaborated on a version of the jazz standard Nature Boy – exuding insouciant cool on the Olympia’s stage, and a large wicker basket that has just been delivered, containing champagne, Guinness, a recipe for black velvet cocktails and a card welcoming them to Dublin. “It’s from U2,â€\x9d Marshall says. “A very nice gesture,â€\x9d Del Naja agrees, reading the card. “‘Best of luck.’â€\x9d He frowns. “We need it. We need all the fucking luck we can get.â€\x9d On the one hand, this is just Robert Del Naja being Robert Del Naja. For a man who began his musical life as a rapper – not a career much associated with understatement – and went on to release a succession of era-defining albums, including Massive Attack’s 1991 debut Blue Lines and 1998’s Mezzanine, sell 11m records, collaborating along the way with everyone from Bowie to Burial, Snoop Dogg to Sinéad O’Connor, he is remarkably self-deprecating. A pioneering graffiti artist hailed as an influence by Banksy, he has exhibited visual art around the world, but startled a journalist who came to talk to him at a recent London gallery show by informing them that he was “a chancerâ€\x9d who didn’t really know what his own paintings looked like because he is colour blind: “People tell me it’s great and I pretend that’s what I intended.â€\x9d Over the past 15 years, Del Naja has become famous as one of a scant handful of rock stars who engage in political activism – Massive Attack have worked with the Stop the War coalition and visited refugee camps in Lebanon, while in 2011, Del Naja and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke threw a party for Occupy protesters who had taken over a UBS bank building in London. Nevertheless, he seems at pains to play it down. “What’s happened is that once you’ve planted a flag in the sand in one place, people will come and say, ‘Look, do you want to get involved in this and that and the other?’ It’s good to learn and be engaged and listen to people, see what’s going on. But that’s not the motivator: if I was a political person, I’d have gone into politics. I just get involved in things when people come to me: I’m not a musician-slash-activist, that’s not the word.â€\x9d On the other, the first date of Massive Attack’s European tour does seem to be attended by a certain sense of mild panic. The tour was meant to be low-key, small venues, a means of introducing new songs – some of them so new that, as vocalist Martina Topley-Bird later confesses onstage, they haven’t actually come up with titles yet. But the tickets sold out and more dates got added and somehow the UK leg of their low-key tour of small venues has wound up concluding with three nights at London’s 5,000-capacity Brixton Academy. In addition, there’s the sheer complexity of Massive Attack’s audio-visual performance to take into account. This time out it incorporates more than the band’s trademark LED screens, created by Del Naja and London’s United Visual Artists group, that flash up facts, figures, headlines and gibberish created by a “news generatorâ€\x9d, as well as news stories and information specific to whichever city the band are playing in. Apparently, they are a big enough headache in themselves. “Every place we go to, we change them to the local language, so in Belgium, we’ve got to do fucking French and Flemish,â€\x9d Del Naja says. “In Switzerland, we’ve got to do French and German and Italian. You never know which language most of the audience speak, and whichever one it is, they start booing when the other one comes up.â€\x9d In addition, the show also features the work of Giles Duley, the former rock photographer who lost both legs and his left arm after stepping on an IED while taking photographs in Afghanistan in 2011 and who has spent the past couple of years on what is known as the refugee trail, taking portrait photographs everywhere from Syria and Lebanon to the Greek islands and Calais. “He’s captured everything, it’s remarkable,â€\x9d Del Naja says. “Just shots of people. It’s apolitical, really, but they give you a real understanding of how immense and tragic the whole thing is, how important the right response is. I was a bit concerned about putting his photographs to pop music, effectively, but it does have a power and he wants it to be communicated. So we’ve ended up with this mix of reality and … aesthetic pleasure, statistics, a bit of journalism, some irony. It’s a kind of balancing act; you don’t want to be sort of relentlessly battering people over the head with facts when, after all, they’re coming here to be entertained, apparently. But you also want people to get what you’re doing, you want them to join the dots; you don’t want to trivialise anything.â€\x9d To that end, Del Naja called filmmaker Adam Curtis in to the final rehearsals. They collaborated with him and stage designer Es Devlin on a multimedia piece for the 2013 Manchester International festival: this time, says Del Naja, his job was to “idiot-proofâ€\x9d the show, and “make sure it had some political coherence, make sure people could understand what we were trying to sayâ€\x9d. And what are you trying to say? “Well, when we started with the LED screens it was the beginning of the internet age, so it was about data and information, how it was regurgitated, the feedback loops that were created by that. Now the whole world is consumed by the internet and the internet consumes us, so it’s very different. I think, right now, this particular iteration of the show, is more saying …â€\x9d He pauses. “We’re all fucked,â€\x9d he says. “We’re all fucked. Wouldn’t it be nice if these utopian tech companies could save us? But that’s not likely to happen, so we’re all fucked.â€\x9d It’s a mood that permeates the first new Massive Attack material in six years, four songs, helmed by Del Naja, that appeared first not for download or on vinyl, but as an app, Fantom, that uses information from mobile phones – location, movement, time of day, images from the camera – to manipulate the music, “making dub mixes for yourself as opposed to having them pre-mixed for youâ€\x9d, as Del Naja puts it. The versions coming out as an EP meanwhile, feature a variety of guest appearances: Roots Manuva, a new singer from London called Azekel and Scottish trio Young Fathers, whom Del Naja describes as “currently the best fucking band in the worldâ€\x9d. Perhaps most excitingly for longstanding Massive Attack fans, they also feature the return of rapper Tricky, who departed the band amid some acrimony after 1995’s Protection. On one level, it sounds like a charmingly romantic, even nostalgic reunion. Recording at his home in Paris, Tricky insisted Del Naja should rap, something he eschewed years ago in favour of a vocal style he jokingly describes as “melodic whisperingâ€\x9d. The pair ended up “both of us on the same microphone, doing it all in one takeâ€\x9d. On the other, it is clear the reunion wasn’t without its tensions. “It’s always going to be slightly odd working with someone after so much time has passed,â€\x9d says Del Naja. “But after half a day, you revert to type, all the veneer’s stripped, all the posturing’s gone and you’re just what you were back then, 20 years ago, whether you like it or not. You just realise: ‘Oh, I haven’t fucking changed at all, I’ve got all the same issues, he knows how to push my buttons, I know how to push his.’ But that’s the nature of it. It’s kind of funny and difficult at the same time. He literally forced me to rap – ‘Chap, you’d better start bloody rapping again!’ We did it in one take, and afterwards, Tricks goes, ‘You’ll never do that again’, and I said, ‘Let’s hope not.’â€\x9d The new material sounds fantastic, but there’s no mistaking the bleakness of its tone. Then again, Massive Attack have always been a bit like that. The popular image of them as laid-back West Country stoners upon whom an inexplicable mood of paranoid gloom seemed to descend during the fraught sessions for Mezzanine doesn’t really hold up. When Blue Lines was reissued a few years ago, what was striking about the album that virtually singlehandedly spawned the chilled-out trip-hop genre was how resolutely un-chilled it sounded: the braggadocio of its raps spiked with intimations of isolation and depression, the lyrics to Safe from Harm anxiously painting a nocturnal world of “gun men and maniacsâ€\x9d. Del Naja thinks it had something to do with “navigating the choppy waters of nightlife in Bristolâ€\x9d in the 80s: the scene that gave birth to the Wild Bunch, the mythical hip-hop crew that eventually became Massive Attack, appears to have been far from the relaxed multiracial melting-pot it’s frequently painted as. “In the old days, you stepped out, you had to think about what you were wearing, you had to get out at the right time, you had to stand in a corner, you didn’t fucking tread on anybody’s foot, you didn’t make eye contact with the wrong geezer, you definitely didn’t burn someone with your fag. You did anything wrong, you were fucked. You grew up with that survival thing, of how you might get through the night or through an afternoon down the city centre, going to Virgin Records, without getting your head kicked in.â€\x9d “We had our group that we all moved with, so there was always some sense of safety,â€\x9d says Marshall, suddenly animated. “But there was always that thing, you know, of someone out there ready to bash your head in if you stepped out of line. Going back to where we were with Massive Attack and the Wild Bunch, it was always a mixed-race thing, so we were always going into circumstances where it could go either way. Either he could get beaten up for being in the wrong place because he’s in a Jamaican club with me, or I could get beaten up for being a black bloke in a punk club. So we were always treading water in that respect.â€\x9d Massive Attack have, of course, been accused of treading water in other ways. Their reputation as, in Del Naja’s words, “lazy Bristol bastardsâ€\x9d who manage to release something every six years precedes them, although he, in particular, seems a veritable Stakhanovite, churning out film scores, music for computer games and soundtracks to art installations. There’s another Massive Attack EP on the way, this time comprising tracks produced by Marshall, although getting information about that proves a pretty thankless task: “I don’t want to talk about it until it’s finished,â€\x9d Marshall says. After that, there should be an album, although no one seems entirely certain when: Del Naja has been in the studio with a succession of intriguing collaborators, including Run the Jewels and Jack Barnett of These New Puritans. For now, there are more immediately pressing matters to deal with. The pair vanish off to soundcheck, with Del Naja still fretting about the show. “There’s a musical arc, there’s a visual arc, blah blah blah, and amongst that you’re trying to make various points or highlight things or examine things, but then you take that too far and you alienate your audience: people who’ve known you or lived with you for 20, 25 years, you don’t want them coming to a show and just being turned off. It’s a balancing act, and it’s stressful.â€\x9d He needn’t have worried. Later that night, the show is variously overwhelming, potent and, at times, genuinely moving. No one in the audience seems remotely turned off: they receive the new songs pretty rapturously, bellow when Young Fathers and Azekel make their appearances and chant Horace Andy’s name when the veteran reggae singer leaves the stage. As it ends, Del Naja takes the microphone. “Thanks,â€\x9d he mutters apologetically, amid a gale of applause, “for putting up with us.â€\x9d The Ritual Spirit EP is out now on Virgin/EMI. Massive Attack play the O2 Academy, Birmingham, on 30 January, then tour the UK until 5 February. Details: massiveattack.co.uk',
 'RBS paid consortium including Church of England at least £180m for flotation A consortium made up of private-equity firms and the Church of England has received at least £180m from Royal Bank of Scotland for backing the bailed-out bank’s aborted attempt to float off 300 branches on the stock market. The Edinburgh-based bank, 73% owned by the taxpayer, has already admitted that the ill-fated attempt to carve out the 300 branches under the Williams & Glyn (W&G) brand has cost £1.5bn. Documents filed at Companies House shed light on the sums paid by RBS to the consortium – which, as well as the Church of England, included Corsair Capital and Centerbridge – formed three years ago to participate in the flotation of W&G. In a complex deal, they put £600m into RBS through a bond, which was intended to be exchanged for shares when the new bank floated on the stock exchange. RBS may reveal further costs associated with the troubled branch spinout when it publishes its third-quarter results on Friday, at the end of a week in which rival bailed-out bank Lloyds Banking Group also reports, along with Barclays. The sale of the 300 branches was forced upon RBS by the EU as a penalty for its £45bn taxpayer bailout in 2008. It has run into repeated problems and must now be completed by the end of next year. Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, warned last month that RBS faces unchartered territory if he cannot find a solution. An attempt to sell the branches to Santander collapsed in 2012 and the deal with the consortium clinched the following year. But any attempt at stock market flotation was abandoned in August and the bank is now looking for a buyer. The consortium was to have ended up with a stake of between 30% and 49% when W&G floated and the £600m bond converted into shares. The consortium used £330m of its own money to pay for the bonds and borrowed £270m off RBS. Documents at Companies House for Lunar Investors – a limited-liability partnership set up by members of the consortium – show that in the period 26 September 2013 to end-December 2015 RBS paid £184m in interest to the holders of the bond. The consortium was charged £18m in interest for its £270m loan. RBS said at the time the transaction was announced in September 2013 that it would pay the consortium a rate of interest between 8% and 14% a year. The documents at Companies House indicate that RBS was paying the higher rate of interest to the investors. It paid £100m for the 15-month period to end of December 2014 and £84m for the 2015 calendar year. RBS would not comment on the payments, nor would Corsair. The Church Commissioners, which manages £7bn of the Church of England’s investments and helps funds dioceses and parishes and helps pay the pensions for clergy, said it had invested in W&G “due to our belief in the importance of competition in the banking sector and the vital role of challenger banks. “We are pleased to have been able to work with Williams & Glyn on ethics in banking and are grateful to the management team for their enthusiasm on this issue,â€\x9d the Church Commissioners said. It is reported to have a 10% stake in the consortium. There had been hopes that W&G would be a new high-street competitor to the big four – RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC – along with TSB, which was spun out of Lloyds under instructions from the EU because of its taxpayer bailout. TSB is now owned by Sabadell of Spain.',
 'Liar, liar: in a post-truth world, writers reveal their biggest fib ‘Not only had I never done any form of martial art in my entire life, but I couldn’t even do any exercise’ When I was 21, I lived in Hong Kong, having dropped out of university in London and basically run away. Somehow it worked: I was soon making a living working as an extra in Chinese soap operas, which were broadcast on the mainland but shot in Hong Kong, where it was easier to find white people to play roles such as “foreign woman standing at the back of a partyâ€\x9d. I played her quite a lot. Many backpackers tried it for a couple of weeks and then moved on, but I had a childhood background in drama and was keen, so the offers improved. They peaked when I got invited to Jackie Chan’s studios to audition for an unspecified part in his forthcoming film Hot War. By this point, I really felt I was made of magic: I was just some girl from Yorkshire who couldn’t even handle uni – how on earth had any of this happened? So when I got there and filled in the form, which asked if I knew any martial arts, I wrote a big YES. Then I sat and waited, reading all of Jackie Chan’s birthday cards from his mates, which were stapled to his office door. He was away, but the producers finally called me in for my screen test. I think I was videoed reading a few lines from a script. I’m not entirely sure, because all I really remember is the bit where they said, reading from my notes, that I could apparently do martial arts? “YES,â€\x9d I repeated. Not only was this utterly untrue – I had never done any form of martial art in my entire life – but I couldn’t even do any exercise. I was the least sporty person you could imagine, entirely uncoordinated, and had also acquired a beer belly from enjoying the tropical expat lifestyle rather too much. “Can you show us a high kick?â€\x9d they asked. “YES!â€\x9d I repeated, by now fully believing in angels, miracles and just the basic amazingness of me. I wouldn’t say that I fell over exactly, more that my attempt to thrust my leg into the air derailed the rest of my body and the floor seemed to shake a little as my arms flew up towards the heavens. I imagine that, for the panel of Chinese experts watching me, it was a little like watching an elephant pretend to be a bird. “Ah,â€\x9d they said. I did not get the part. Looking back, I’m not even embarrassed. It just felt so madly wonderful to be free. Sophie Heawood ‘He shot me a look of withering, friendship-destroying contempt. All my bullshit turned to ash’ The Argos catalogue said: “Snake Mountain. Skeletor’s stronghold. Talk into the wolf’s head and your voice changes into a scary voice of evil.â€\x9d It should have said: “Snake Mountain. A plastic box that looks as if it once contained dildos. Talk into the cruddy, spring-operated box and your voice sounds exactly the goddamn same.â€\x9d But I was five. I wanted it badly. Everyone else wanted Snake Mountain, too, but it was £40. Nobody’s parents could justify throwing that sort of money around. Matthew’s house was bigger than mine. His school jumper wasn’t handknitted, and he had more toys. One day, he told me he’d just bought Night Stalker, Skeletor’s gold robot horse. The seed of an inferiority complex kicked in for the very first time, and I did something stupid. “Yeah, well, I just bought Snake Mountain,â€\x9d I lied. My regret was instant. Matthew wasn’t the type of kid who would easily forget this. He wanted to come to my house to see it. I tried putting him off, but it didn’t work. He went above my head, asking my mum if he could come for tea. She said yes, so I was screwed. I pleaded with my parents to buy me Snake Mountain, but they wouldn’t budge. I racked my brain, thinking up ways to cobble together £40, but none came. Eventually, in a fit of abject, sweat-drenched desperation, a solution appeared like a ray of light from heaven. The next day Matthew came over, brimming with excitement. With my heart in my mouth, I led him upstairs. I opened my bedroom door. And then… “That’s not Snake Mountain.â€\x9d I was anticipating this reaction. He was right. It wasn’t Snake Mountain at all. It was a damp cardboard box on which I’d drawn a wonky face in Biro. “Yes, it is,â€\x9d I replied, determined to front it out. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Listen to my scary voice. Rargh.â€\x9d Matthew shot me a look of withering, friendship-destroying contempt. All my bullshit turned to ash. This pitiful “my greatest toy is my imaginationâ€\x9d shtick held no truck with him. He was furious. “Don’t tell anyone,â€\x9d I whispered. As mortifying as this still is – to this day, I can’t look at Snake Mountain without feeling my stomach lurch – it did teach me some important lessons about life. It taught me that actions have consequences. It taught me that it’s always better to own up. And, most importantly, it taught me that I should have bought Snake Mountain and left it in its box. Those things go for hundreds of quid now. Stuart Heritage ‘Where’s my salad, he asked. I told him it was still defrosting’ If there was some way of communicating to a bull that china is worth preserving, I’m sure it would have most of the motor skills required to tread carefully through that shop. I say this because, as a teenager, I was that bull – at least when it came to lying. I just didn’t know when to do it. When I was 15, instead of asking my parents if I could “sleep over at a friend’s houseâ€\x9d, as any normal teen would, I asked if I could stay with my 19-year-old boyfriend for two nights. It was all about practicality, you see: we were driving to Oxford one day and Alton Towers the next, and driving to and from my parents’ house on top of all that would have been a pain. Unsurprisingly, they answered (and I’m paraphrasing), “No, 15-year-old-daughter, you obviously may not stay at your much older boyfriend’s house.â€\x9d I scoffed like Harry Enfield’s Kevin: “Ugh! What’s the problem? His parents aren’t even going to be there!â€\x9d They laughed, loudly. “You think we’re worried you’ll be putting his parents out?â€\x9d Relieved at my innocence, but amused by my stupidity, they laughed for roughly 17 years. I worked out the whole lying thing embarrassingly late. I was 17, and had started working Sundays as a waitress in crap pubs on the outskirts of Slough. Early on, I got in trouble for telling an unnecessary truth. The first customer of the day had ordered a sandwich. When I brought it, he asked, “Where’s the salad?â€\x9d I told him it was still defrosting. During the dressing down that followed, I had an epiphany. When the truth will provoke a bad reaction, you can just... lie. It’s magic, essentially. In an establishment where lettuce and pre-sliced tomatoes needed thawing, and the chef morphed from “still drunkâ€\x9d to “monstrously hungoverâ€\x9d in the first two hours of the day, lying became my shiny new toy. For a while, I continued to report customer comments to the chef – “They say the bacon is undercooked/the cabbage is raw/the gravy is lumpier than a rice puddingâ€\x9d – even though the response was always, “Well, tell ’em to fuck off – it’s my fucking menu.â€\x9d But eventually I would just stand in the kitchen for a count of 15 before going back to the table and giving my, “She says she’s really sorry…â€\x9d speech. A grunt and a gruff acceptance usually followed. I had finally learned how to tiptoe through the china shop. Erica Buist ‘I was left unsupervised near a paper shredder, I told someone’ My forearms are striped with self-harm scars. These wounds were inflicted when I was much younger and fed up with everything. (I’m paraphrasing: I was clinically depressed, struggling to find the right medication, and in a lot of pain.) In those days, I wore long-sleeved shirts at all times, until it became unfeasible, or just absurd. You can’t go swimming in a shirt or play football in a cardigan. I am neither Thierry Henry nor Mr Darcy. Years later, when I was either confident or bored or hot enough to start wearing short sleeves again, people began to notice the scars. If they understood, they would stiffen imperceptibly, the conversation becoming suddenly strained. But often they didn’t and asked about them. That’s when I started lying. It’s just easier, I’d tell myself, watching relief flood their faces as I told them I owned a cat who scratched. (Animals offered a handy alibi for the wildness, and deepness, of some of the slashes.) Over time, though, my excuses grew more baroque. I referred darkly to an accident with a thresher, despite the fact the closest I’d ever got to harvesting cereals was bulk-buying Coco Pops. “I was left unsupervised near a paper shredder on work experience,â€\x9d I told someone, without elaborating. As I got older and more frustrated with the question, the lies became preposterous: “My first job was training attack dogs for the police,â€\x9d I’d tell people, looking them dead in the eye. Or, “I became entangled with a flotilla of jellyfish on a European holiday.â€\x9d I sometimes wonder why I responded this way, and what lies beneath a lie. Unacknowledged anger towards the people asking? An English sense of the indecorous? Shame? I think elements of all of them were present, but there was something else, too. As many politicians can tell you, it’s fun to lie. It felt creative. To dip a toe into an alternative history, write my own backstory, go one better than the squalid truth. These days, I am stronger, with less need to lie. Telling the truth is uncomfortable, and can blow up in your face, but that’s the risk that makes any kind of connection precious. The scars on my arms have faded now, and blend better with my natural skin tone. I’m asked about them far less – which is ironic, because I’ve finally reached a point where I can talk about them honestly. Rhik Samadder ‘I pretended to be a Dalek hosting a party at Wagamama’ On occasion, a lie is preferable to the truth. I don’t lie much now, but I have lied an inordinate amount to celebrities. It’s generally been more a fudging of the truth than a downright deceit, and to me has always felt morally sound because it was told in pursuit of another virtue (a salary). I don’t for a minute want to normalise lying – it leads to a decline in trust that creates cynicism, and worse. But, sometimes, needs must. Here are my professional lies I lied to Jake Gyllenhaal I was a teen, he was a teen star; I was a bit drunk, outside the theatre on my own, and he, fresh from starring in Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, was hovering outside, waiting for his car. I walked over, shook his hand and discreetly passed over one of those boxes of matches with a space for your number. I told him I was from London (lie), 24 (lie) and would be happy to show him around. He smiled and said thank you (lie). I lied to Tony Wilson A music festival in Turin, Italy, in the mid-00s, where I lied repeatedly because I wanted to meet Factory Records founder Tony Wilson. First I lied to his manhandlers, a terrifying pair of stone dogs who guarded his DJ booth, then I lied to Tony in order to procure an interview. The lie – that I was a British journalist, not a student, in Turin to review music, and not for a holiday – worked. He did the interview, and then he died a couple of years later. I eventually sold the story posthumously. I’m not proud of this story. I lied to Bob Hoskins It was 2007 and I told him I liked his film. I lied to Benedict Cumberbatch During a roundtable interview with multiple journalists, I asked Benedict whether he felt he could relate to Sherlock in any way. He paused and fixed his eyes on me: “I don’t know what you are insinuating,â€\x9d he said, because I was, of course, insinuating he had Asperger’s. “Nothing,â€\x9d I muttered and passed the mic on. I was then asked where I worked and I lied to my fellow journalists, muttering about a blog. If anyone had known I was there for the News Of The World, asking that sort of thing, there’s a strong chance I would have been lynched. I pretended to be a Dalek’s publicist Or, rather, I was paid to lie in the name of social commentary (to ring up restaurants pretending to be a celebrity publicist and make outlandish demands for my clients). I did this a lot, pretending to represent Tom Cruise, George Clooney and Grace Coddington’s hair. A career high was the time I pretended to be a publicist representing a Dalek who wanted to host a dinner at Wagamama and to check there was sufficient wheelchair access. Yes, they said, there was. I stopped this line of work when the lying became too easy, and when real celebrity demands began to outweigh even my creativity. Morwenna Ferrier ‘Some people are rude to cold callers, some are icily polite and some hang up straight away. I always chose to lie’ I’ve been a freelance writer for 25 years, and in all that time I’ve never not been working. That is the main lie I tell. When people ring or email me about work, I always act and speak as if I am sitting at my desk. Sometimes I am sitting at my desk, but I might just as easily be downstairs watching Homes Under The Hammer, or sitting on the top deck of a bus, or standing in a dusty field in France. That thing I said I’d have finished for you today? Yes, I’m working on that right now and it’s nearly done. I never say, “I’m on holiday and I have no idea what you’re talking about.â€\x9d When I am actually working at my desk, I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m busy. Some people are rude to cold callers, some are icily polite and some hang up straight away. I always chose to lie, boldly and without effect. Whenever my phone rang, I deployed my all-purpose office hours response. “He’s not here,â€\x9d I would say. If the person at the other end asked to leave a message, I would sigh heavily, like a useless personal assistant. “Yeah, fine,â€\x9d I’d say, then pretend to write words on a pad. Sometimes it would turn out not to be a cold call at all, but an urgent inquiry about my lapsed house insurance. But once I started playing someone else, I had to carry on. “And who am I speaking with?â€\x9d said the voice at the other end one day. This was unexpected. A long silence followed. “My name’s Ron,â€\x9d I said. “Ron,â€\x9d said the other voice, with transparent disbelief. “Yes,â€\x9d I said. “R-o-n.â€\x9d “When do you expect him back, Ron?â€\x9d said the voice. “No idea,â€\x9d I said. “He doesn’t tell me anything.â€\x9d “OK,â€\x9d said the voice, exasperated. “Thanks for your help, Ron.â€\x9d I couldn’t understand what was so unconvincing about my bad-tempered PA. He reminded me so much of me, back when I was an office temp. Ron never passed on the message, and I later had to sack him, mostly because he required too much acting. But also because you would sack someone like Ron. No one who called back a week later would believe Ron still had a job. I haven’t answered my landline since. Tim Dowling ‘The only time I told a real whopper, I did it in style: on television, in front of millions’ I am a hopeless liar. In fact, I’m a compulsive truth-teller, to the point of self-destruction. The only time I can remember telling a real whopper, I did it in style: on television, in front of millions. It was, and remains, the low point of my career. I was due to interview the documentary-maker Louis Theroux for the in 2002. He insisted we do it in his office. I thought that was unfair; after all, he likes to follow his subjects around, see them in action. But there was no budging him. At the time, Theroux was making a TV show about the then-undisgraced celebrity publicist Max Clifford. Like many journalists, I knew Clifford a bit, having interviewed his clients over the years. I asked him if there was any way he could get Theroux and I together before our formal, office-based interview. A few days later, I got a message telling me to meet Clifford at Sainsbury’s in Weybridge in a couple of hours. That was it. I hoped this was to do with Theroux, but there was no other information. (This was typical Clifford: keeping his cards close to his chest, manipulating Theroux and me at the same time.) I arrived at Sainsbury’s and spent half an hour self-consciously mooching around the aisles, then decided to leave before I got arrested for lurking with intent. But on my way out I walked into Louis Theroux, Max Clifford and a camera crew. Which is when everything went tits up. “Simon Hattenstone!â€\x9d Theroux exclaimed loudly. “What are you doing here?â€\x9d I hadn’t even anticipated this moment, when I would have to make something up. I burbled some incoherent nonsense about being there to interview Clifford, and suggested that now that we were all happily together, through pure serendipity, why didn’t we just carry on like a happy family; I could quietly observe Theroux observing Clifford. Theroux wasn’t having any of it. “Oh come on,â€\x9d he said, “you’re obviously here because Max told you I’d be here.â€\x9d No, I insisted, my eyes flitting nervously from Clifford to Theroux and back again. “I’m here to see Max.â€\x9d “Do you often shop together?â€\x9d he asked. Yes, no, yes, I don’t know, I whimpered. Why didn’t I just tell the truth? Because I felt a perverse loyalty to Clifford, who had set this up for my benefit. Theroux, slicker than me, suggested that if I had business to discuss with Clifford, I should walk around with him as he shopped, then leave them to make their film. So Clifford and I walked up and down the aisles. “Do you think we should level with him?â€\x9d I asked. OK, begged. “Nooooo,â€\x9d Clifford said, with utter assurance. “You came up to do a piece on me, you’ve read about the Louis thing, you know I come here every week.â€\x9d Five minutes later, shopping completed, we returned to Theroux. “I don’t think you’ve been totally honest,â€\x9d Theroux said to us. “I have,â€\x9d I said, blushing, aware of a huge camera eyeballing me and wanting to die. “The thing is, Max left his mic on,â€\x9d Theroux said, “and we could hear everything.â€\x9d Clifford groped inside his shirt, threw the mic on the floor and walked out, shouting, “You can all fuck off!â€\x9d Theroux and his crew, panicked and thrilled, raced after him. I was left alone, humiliated in Weybridge. For months after the documentary was broadcast, I was stopped on a regular basis. “Aren’t you the journalist who lied?â€\x9d I was asked by a stranger on a train. People were surprisingly generous. They felt sorry for me, they said: I had been caught in a difficult situation, and it was obvious I’d wanted to tell the truth. Friends told my partner she was lucky to be with such a bad liar. And the Mirror got in touch to say they were so impressed by my “rabbit in the headlights impressionâ€\x9d that they would like to offer me a job on their undercover investigations team. I think they were taking the piss. Simon Hattenstone ‘I announced to my classmates that my real family was in fact the A-Team’ Like most people, I grew up being told not to lie, and broke that rule when I was but a girl. As the daughter of immigrants, and someone who felt I was the wrong colour, culture and somehow born into the wrong family, I devised what I thought was an ingenious lie. I announced to my classmates that my real family was, in fact, the A-Team. Despite them pointing out that a small Asian woman called Nilu came to pick me up every day from school, I ploughed on. “That’s all a cover, you wallies, because of the Situation. My real father is Hannibal, but he’s on an international wanted list. Murdock is in a mental health institution and BA can’t get on a plane. So I’m having to stay with this family called the Hazarikas who live in Coatbridge for safety reasons. But I’ll be back with the gang soon.â€\x9d It’s no wonder I ended up being a political spin doctor. I have since become highly conscious of the value of truth in a profession that can treat it casually. When I got my first job, as a junior press officer at the ministry of agriculture, the director of communications, a very hard-drinking, well-connected, Westminster operator, took me aside and gave me the most important political advice of my career: “Never lie, even if your boss tells you to and you think you can get away with it. Don’t. It’s always the lie or the cover-up that gets you in politics.â€\x9d I always remembered those words, mainly because I was so scared of them. Of course, politicians, like most humans, at times sail close to the wind, and sometimes for understandable reasons – personal, security, confidentiality. But there is a dangerously relaxed approach to the truth that has infected our political discourse. I think every politician should be reminded of my old boss’s words on an annual basis. Especially when there’s a big red Brexit bus involved. Ayesha Hazarika',
 'Charmian Carr obituary The actor Charmian Carr, who has died from complications relating to dementia aged 73, was a supporting player who appeared in only one feature film. But that film was the perennially popular, five-Oscar-winning The Sound of Music (1965), which has attracted obsessive devotion from legions of fans. Radiating youthful charm, Carr played Liesl, the slightly rebellious oldest daughter of the Von Trapp children, all seven of whom sang and danced to Do-Re-Mi, The Lonely Goatherd and So Long, Farewell. However, it was in the duet Sixteen Going On Seventeen that Carr had a chance to shine. Liesl makes a play for Rolfe (Daniel Truhitte), the blond telegram delivery boy, singing “I need someone older and wiser, Telling me what to do. You are 17 going on 18. I’ll depend on you.â€\x9d When a storm breaks out, the couple shelter in a gazebo, where they dance romantically, ending with Rolfe giving Liesl a quick kiss, to her obvious delight. Carr later reprises the song in a duet with Maria (Julie Andrews), the fresh-faced singing governess. Carr was 21 going on 22 when she got the role of Liesl. She was a student attending San Fernando Valley State College, California, studying speech therapy and philosophy, and working in a lab for a doctor, as well as modelling on the side, when her mother arranged for her to audition for a role in The Sound of Music, although she had never sung or danced professionally. Yet the producer-director Robert Wise chose her over several other beginners, including Mia Farrow, Geraldine Chaplin and Teri Garr, and changed her surname from Farnon to Carr. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rita Oehmen, a vaudeville performer, and Brian Farnon, a musician. Her winning the role of Liesl came after a four-month search by Wise. She could never have imagined how popular The Sound of Music was to become. With its catchy Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, the film, set in spectacular Tyrolean scenery and shot in magnificent Todd-AO and De Luxe Color, grossed $200m worldwide on its first release. More recently, since 1999, it has engendered a Sing-Along-A-Sound of Music, an interactive entertainment in which audiences dress up as characters from the film, and sing all the songs. Carr, who attended many a cast reunion, felt that singing along was a perfect therapy for people’s woes. In 1966, she co-starred with Anthony Perkins in Evening Primrose, a 60- minute musical written by Stephen Sondheim. The haunting work takes place after closing in a department store inhabited by night people, including Carr as a 19-year-old who has lived in the store since she was six. She and Perkins, as a poet seeking refuge, fall in love and attempt to escape. Carr’s poignant performance, which included singing Take Me to the World and I Remember, makes one wonder why she did not become a star. Perhaps one reason was her marriage, in 1967, to a dentist, Jay Brent, with whom she had two daughters. (They divorced in 1991.) However, she later ran an interior design firm, Charmian Carr Designs, in Encino, California. Among her faithful clients was Michael Jackson, who became a friend. She also wrote two books (co-written by Jean Strauss), Forever Liesl (2000) and Letters to Liesl (2001), inevitably dominated by her candid reminiscences of the shooting of The Sound of Music and its aftermath. In the memoirs, Carr revealed that she had a “huge crushâ€\x9d on Christopher Plummer, 13 years her senior, who played Captain von Trapp, her handsome widower father in the film. Carr is survived by her daughters, Jenifer and Emily. • Charmian Carr (Charmian Anne Farnon), actor, born 27 December 1942; died 17 September 2016',
 'Beth Orton – hear Moon, from her forthcoming album Kidsticks Beth Orton was never just your conventional singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar and a desperate need to share. She made her name in the 90s by incorporating the electronics of dance music producers into her music. On Kidsticks, her sixth album and her first for four years, she has worked with Andrew Hung of Fuck Buttons, combining both her past and a look to the future. The origins of Kidsticks lie in the electronic loops Orton began working with when she moved to California two years ago. From that she has produced a record apparently inspired by Los Angeles as well as her early work with Andrew Weatherall, William Orbit and Kieran Hebden. We’ve got an exclusive track from Kidsticks – which is released on Anti on 27 May – for you. Have a listen to Moon and let us know what you think.',
 'Where do we even start with Michael Gove’s hypocrisy on scaremongering? My word, Michael Gove, you have some front. First, he accuses the remain campaign of treating voters like children, waging a campaign of fear, seeking to leave the electorate “frightened into obedience by conjuring up new bogeymen every nightâ€\x9d. Then he goes on national radio to warn Brexit must happen “before it’s too lateâ€\x9d, that a vote for remain would mean “voting to be hostages, locked in the back of a carâ€\x9d before warning of the threat posed by foreigners and criminals. Call it what you want. Chutzpah, shamelessness, brazen hypocrisy, an attempt to put satirists out of business because reality is too absurd to be mocked. Last month Gove’s Vote Leave campaign released a list of murders and rapes committed by EU nationals. Who, other than the terminally disingenuous and the chronically mischievous, can convincingly argue that the Vote Leave campaign is doing anything other than infantilising the electorate, of waging a quite frankly sinister campaign of fear? Actually, I’ve overstepped the mark in appropriating Gove’s arguments. Children are often smart, inquisitive, critical, and certainly not gullible. Gove – a man who once argued that all schools should be better than average, which is statistically impossible – and his allies are not treating us as though we are children, but as though we are thick. Brexit will mean an end to austerity, they argue: the very austerity they have gleefully imposed as a means to an end, not to balance the books but rather to roll back the state. It will save the NHS, they say, as they castigate the policies of Jeremy Hunt that many of them have championed and indeed voted for. Boris Johnson is among leading Vote Leave figures who have advocated scrapping a NHS free at the point of use. Brexit will save the steel industry, they argue: the very same people who still swoon over Thatcher and her ideology that laid entire industries – and the communities they supported – to ruin. They have as much interest in industrial strategy as I do in dancing the fandango naked down Whitehall. Let’s just say I suspect their sudden conversion to the causes of anti-austerity, the NHS and industrial salvation will not outlive a referendum. Are the Cameron and Osborne remainers themselves waging a campaign based on fear? Yes, but a campaign of fear was waged to prevent Scotland from voting against independence. I didn’t support independence, but still objected to the fear campaign on a point of principle. Did they? No – they were waging it. Similarly, when an outlandish campaign of scaremongering was directed towards Labour in the run-up to the general election, did they object? No, again, they were waging it. And now, again, they are conducting another campaign of fear, including deploying the threat of raping and murdering foreigners. If only there were as many English words for hypocrisy as Eskimo words for snow, then I might be able to accurately sum up the brazen shamelessness of this bunch of shysters. In February, I wrote that the issue isn’t whether the Tories teeter on the brink of civil war, but how civil that war will be. I’m not sure I predicted the brutality that was to come. How the Tories are supposed to get back into bed with each other post-referendum remains to be seen. But for those of us who want to change the European Union into a democratic Europe run in the interests of working people, we have no dog in this pathetic fight. Let them shred each other to pieces and trash each other’s reputations and throw around fear and hysteria. Let’s stick with those – like Britain’s Another Europe Is Possible and Yanis Varoufakis’s Democracy in Europe Movement – who have a positive, compelling vision. Let them have their race to the bottom in fearmongering, and opt for hope instead.',
 'Louis van Gaal’s time at Manchester United is surely up after new low Lads, it’s Manchester United. Or at least, it’s something that looks a bit like them, United at one remove, a United‑style product. On a chilly, slow-burn, ultimately raucous afternoon at White Hart Lane the contrast between the collection of energetically baffled red shirts currently representing English football’s champion club of the past 25 years, and the team Alex Ferguson could send out to feast on their opponents with a flick of his finger was so pronounced as to be more or less completely meaningless This was instead a kind of alternate red and white world, Manchester United glimpsed through a psychedelic prism. Weird, late, jumbled up. Expensively acquired, dotted with youth, charged with pace. But somehow also lost in their own ponderous moments, like a collection of dying flies trying to batter their way out of a fluorescent tube. There have been a few disjointed, downright odd days in the recent history of Manchester United. The competition is pretty stiff here. But this has to be up there, an afternoon to make you question not simply whether Louis van Gaal should carry on as manager of the club, but whether anything could actually be gained from getting rid of him, an existential-crisis 3-0 defeat for a United team so devoid of urgency and bite the only emotion it seems to inspire is a kind of humorous relief, a perverse kind of weirdness-fascination. United started brightly here, before descending slowly, but inevitably into entropy. No doubt in those opening 20 minutes Spurs were a little spooked by United’s late arrival for the game, the time to reflect on and digest Leicester’s victory at Sunderland , a result that took a great deal of heat out of this game. Even in victory Tottenham ended the day seven points behind. Leicester have been top or joint top on all but four Premier League weekends since the 21 November. Oh for a more open league. In effect there was more riding on this fixture for United, who came here with a fair chance of edging Manchester City for fourth place. By the end both the result and the performance felt like the final, rasping breaths of their league season that has spluttered and sparked without ever seeming to thrum into life. What now for Van Gaal, who seems to be wheeled out at the end of games such as these as much out of a perverse, vicarious fascination with what he might say next? Even for a Van Gaal sympathiser it is almost impossible to make a case for keeping him in place for the final year of his contract. Not because any team has a right to win trophies, or because it is a disgrace to come fifth in a competitive league. The positives of the Van Gaal interlude were on show here in a team containing three players aged 20 or younger. Anthony Martial might have opened the scoring here in the second half. He looks a wonderfully pure modern footballer, blessed with speed, power and driving intelligence. Timothy Fosu-Mensah is a hugely impressive teenage powerhouse, and was United’s best player until he limped off. It is simply that United continue to play with so little verve and joy. There is no sense here of a team emerging, of a shape and a purpose being found, simply of a collection of parts poking out in various places, occasionally offering the odd misleading sparkle of hope, before collapsing back into a froth of confusion. For 20 minutes Tottenham played like a team with a slow puncture. For 10 minutes midway through the second half they began to surge and swarm in familiar fashion At which point United abruptly buckled. Dele Alli had been quiet, but he was there to sweep in Christian Eriksen’s excellent cross from the left on 70 minutes. Three minutes later it was 2-0. Six minutes later it was 3-0, each goal coming from United’s right via a fairly simple cross. And suddenly United looked utterly hollowed out, bumbling, slope-shouldered, a group of players who simply no longer wanted to be there. At least at the start of the second half there was an opportunity to speculate exactly why, how, with what in mind – satire, boredom, an obscure absurdist protest at the rigidity of identity politics – Van Gaal would have decided to send on Ashley Young not as a false nine, or a deep-lying striker, but an actual lead-the-line centre forward. By the end Young had moved to right-back, Jesse Lingard had shuttled most of the way across the midfield, Juan Mata had spent an inconclusive spell filling in at right-wing, Fosu-Mensah had done a fine job winkled in at right-back. At the final whistle Van Gaal stood up as the players trooped off and ordered them down the touchline to applaud the away support. They looked more than a little surprised, but trudged over and waved a bit, to a mixed response. It was a fittingly half-cocked end to an afternoon on which the most jumbled, oddly skewed and seasick-looking United team of modern times more or less reached an end point in the Premier League season.',
 'The view on Jeremy Hunt and the doctors: stop fighting, start talking At last, common sense, and maybe a revived awareness of their responsibilities to patients, has persuaded both the health secretary and the junior doctors to agree to another attempt to find a settlement in their painful and damaging dispute. After eight months, 30,000 delayed operations and more than 100,000 postponed outpatient appointments, and after the first ever full-on strike by doctors, there is a chance of breaking the deadlock. But the two sides need to meet in a more positive atmosphere than the armed neutrality that followed Thursday’s exchange of letters, which opened the door to talks. Whitehall’s instinct is to continue with the same confidence-sapping handling of the dispute it has shown to date. The first response from the Department of Health to Wednesday’s plea from the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges for both sides to accept a five-day period of negotiation without preconditions, including a pause in imposing the new contract, was a flat “noâ€\x9d. Jeremy Hunt insisted the process of implementation was too far advanced to delay even for a few days. Happily, Downing Street (which is driving the negotiations) was prevailed upon to sanction a more emollient letter a few hours later. Understandably, Mr Hunt – who feels that attempts to get a deal have been derailed by the junior doctors’ refusal to focus – is demanding that this small window of opportunity is only about what he insists is the last substantive difference remaining – the question of antisocial hours and Saturday working. Doctors have taken big risks to pursue their cause; the depth of support for industrial action – four-fifths of the ’s junior doctor members took part in the two days of all-out action last month – indicates the profound disillusion, frustration and low morale among a workforce that fears its very professionalism is being eroded. But they too have sometimes appeared to negotiate in less than good faith. They do not often acknowledge the concessions the health secretary has made. In his response to Mr Hunt, the BMA junior doctors committee chair, Dr Johann Malawana, promised an open mind; but he also argued that there was more than just the pay issue to resolve. That argument may be justified, but it feels unwise. If they genuinely want constructive talks, then it might be smarter to leave issues such as the potentially discriminatory nature of the contract to be resolved by the courts, where actions are already under way. On Saturday, the junior doctors committee meets to discuss how to escalate the dispute. There has been talk of mass resignations or an all-out strike that would not, unlike last month’s, operate within restricted daytime hours, which allowed hospital trusts to manage cover and minimise the risk to patients. Either of those courses would be fraught with danger. People who care about the meaning of being a professional should not jeopardise public trust and respect, damage the reputation of the entire profession nor, above all, endanger lives. It would surely be a helpful gesture if those options were taken off the table at least while talks take place. On the other side, there should be no ramping up the temperature with chest-thumping talk of the dispute being the new miners’ strike, nor whispers of concessions for the doctors opening the floodgates of public sector pay demands. It is probably too much to hope that both sides might abandon the contest for public support, which the doctors are winning easily. But the public deserve to know that everyone is genuine in their search for a deal, and that both sides are prepared to make concessions to reach one.',
 'How bad will Brexit be for UK farmers, retailers and consumers? Will higher tariffs on UK exports to the EU following Brexit be bad for farmers, retailers and the consumer? Nick Clegg has claimed that quitting the European Union without staying inside the single market will devastate British farming. He said a hard Brexit would be followed by “punishing tariffsâ€\x9d on products including beef, cheese and wine, effectively pricing them out of their biggest export market. The former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister warned that reverting to rules governed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after the article 50 process has run its course could saddle companies with extra bureaucracy and costs that push them out of business. In a report published on Monday the Lib Dem MP gives a breakdown of the £11bn worth of agricultural products the UK sells to the EU each year and how they will be hit with an average tariff of 22.3%. This average is constructed from some extreme highs, including 59% on beef, 38% on chocolate, 40% on cheese and and some tariffs that are not so onerous, like the 14% on wine. Under WTO rules, he says these tariffs will also have to be applied to all imports into the UK until a trade deal with the EU is struck. “This will cause a significant increase in food prices, compounded by increased costs to producers from extra red tape such as customs checks and labour shortages caused by the end of EU free movement,â€\x9d he said. These are the longer-term consequences of a move towards a hard Brexit that has already sent the pound plummeting and import prices rising. The recent Marmite battle, in which Tesco resisted demands from Unilever to raise prices, is an early skirmish in a battle that retailers will soon begin to lose, leading to the soaring cost of a weekly shop. According to Clegg: “It’s clear that Marmite was just the tip of the iceberg,â€\x9d as food importers either pass on prices or see their profit margins wiped out. “The only way the government will be able to avoid this outcome is if it maintains Britain’s membership of the single market,â€\x9d he said. Will higher tariffs cripple the agriculture industry and lead to higher prices in the shops? The answer is not as clearcut as Clegg argues. The gains and losses from operating outside the single market are the subject of several studies. Most economists agree that in the coming months, prices of certain goods will rise. Next, the clothes retailer, said the cost of its shirts and skirts could rise by 5% over the next year, more than eight times the rate of inflation. The company’s boss, Lord Wolfson, said this after a 10% fall in the pound. Sterling has fallen almost 18% since Wolfson, a Brexit campaigner, made his assessment. Yet, British supermarkets will use their buying power to minimise the impact and keep prices low. They could also increase productivity, which is another way of saying they will try to sell the same amount of stuff with fewer staff. Clegg assumes the UK would impose retaliatory tariffs that mimic the EU’s, based on a speech by the trade minister Liam Fox. But Economists for Brexit, the grouping that supported Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in the referendum debate, recommend abolishing tariffs, a move that would offset the fall in the pound. This might be tough for the burgeoning British wine industry and its exports to the continent, and French and Italian wine would flow freely into the UK. And even if a future chancellor of the exchequer imposed tariffs, once outside the EU, shops could also start to source goods from countries where the tariff is less significant because prices are at rock bottom. That would mean replacing Irish beef with the South African equivalent. New Zealand wine would step in to replace the more expensive Italian and French varieties. Economists for Brexit agree the agriculture industry will face a challenge. South African beef will undercut British beef as well, forcing them to use the land for something else. But an opportunity opens up to farm organic livestock to achieve higher profit margins or, in the case of low value land that is only farmed to grab a subsidy from the common agricultural policy, left to become wilderness again. It will mean a huge shakeup that is long overdue, as left-leaning commentator George Monbiot has argued. And the government could use some of the funds repatriated from Brussels to cushion the blow to those farmers worst affected. Ryan Bourne, head of public policy at the free market Institute for Economic Affairs, said by his calculation the EU’s food was 15% more expensive than the average world price between 2002 and 2011. This is not just the cost of CAP subsidies, but the “overbearing regulationâ€\x9d that Brussels has imposed over the years, though his version of overbearing regulation includes a block on genetically modified food. If the UK could achieve a little more than half this cost reduction once outside the single market, it would ease the pain of the estimated 8% increase in costs that a study for the National Farmers Union said would take effect by 2025.',
 'Max Landis: there are ‘no A-list female Asian celebrities’ who could have taken Scarlett Johansson’s Ghost in a Shell role The Hollywood screenwriter Max Landis has denied defending the casting of Scarlett Johansson in a “whitewashedâ€\x9d remake of the classic Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell. Landis, writer of films such as Chronicle and American Ultra, took to YouTube on Friday to explain why studios chose Johansson over Asian actors for the part of cyborg policewoman Major Kusanagi in the controversial live action reworking. “The only reason to be upset about Scarlett Johansson being in Ghost in the Shell is if you don’t know how the movie industry works,â€\x9d he said, arguing that there were no “A-list female Asian celebritiesâ€\x9d capable of getting a major Hollywood movie green-lit in 2016. “It’s infuriating,â€\x9d added Landis. “There used to be, in the 90s, diversity in our A-list actors. Jackie Chan and Jet Li were famous at the same time, they could both get movies made. We don’t have that guy any more, we don’t even have Lucy Liu any more. “That is not the fault of the movie industry, really,â€\x9d continued the film-maker. “That’s culture and movies getting more and more afraid because movies make less and less money.â€\x9d The blogosphere hummed with articles describing Landis’ comments as a “defenceâ€\x9d of Johansson’s casting over the weekend. But the screenwriter later took to Twitter to angrily deny such a reading. “NO I FUCKING DON’T [defend it] he wrote in response to an Indiewire post about a recent article. “I list it as PART OF A BROKEN SYSTEM that FUCKS OVER ACTORS and MINORITIES.â€\x9d Johansson was plunged into a fresh Twitter storm over her casting in the Hollywood remake on Thursday after the first image of the Hollywood star as Kusanagi hit the web. High-profile critics included the actor Ming-Na Wen, the voice of Disney’s Mulan, who said she had “everything against this whitewashing of Asian roleâ€\x9d. Adding to the controversy, fan blog Screencrush alleged on Friday that studios Paramount and DreamWorks commissioned visual effects tests that would’ve altered Johansson in post-production to make her appear more “Asianâ€\x9d. Paramount has denied the tests, which were “immediatelyâ€\x9d abandoned, involved Johansson. Ghost in the Shell, with Snow White and the Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders in charge of the cameras, is due out in the UK on 31 March 2017, with US multiplexes seeing the film a fortnight later.',
 'Mark Carney: Bank of England will tolerate higher inflation – as it happened Before we close the blog for the day, here is a summary of the main events. Predictably, it’s been Brexit focused. The day began with a message from the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, who said US banks had told him they were definitely planning to move operations out of the UK now that Brexit looks certain to go ahead. The pound has suffered no major lurches, hovering around the $1.22 mark (although it did dip below at one point). It is currently at $1.2208. European markets have built on gains throughout the day, with all the major indices up more than 1% and in some cases up more than 2%. Europe’s STOXX 600 is up 1.6% at 341, while the FTSE 100 is up 1% at 7,048. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, told an audience in Nottingham that he is willing to tolerate an inflation overshoot above the Bank’s 2% target. The former chancellor George Osborne decisively threw his weight behind Heathrow airport expansion. US retail sales rebounded in September, while UK construction data showed a surprise fall in output in August. A final point: Traders have been offloading government bonds today following Carney’s inflation comments and fears of a hard Brexit. The yield on benchmark 10-year bonds climbed to 1.14%, up from 0.97% a week ago. On that note, we’ll close up. Thank you for reading the blog and for all the comments. You can follow all the latest breaking business stories here. Have a great weekend and please join us again on Monday. AM Wall Street has opened higher, with better than expected results from Citigroup and JP Morgan lifting financial stocks. Dow Jones: +0.8% at 18,238 S&P 500: +0.6% at 2,144 Nasdaq: +0.6% at 4,830 Over in Greece today, a conversation that allegedly took place at the height of the euro debt crisis between the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is causing ructions. Did he or didn’t he? That is the question on the lips of many as the fallout from revelations in a book about the French president, François Hollande, reverberate around Athens. In the tome, entitled “A president shouldn’t say thatâ€\x9d, Hollande is cited as saying Putin had confided that in summer 2015, Tsipras asked him if Russia would consider printing drachma in the event of Athens being ejected from the eurozone. Putin is claimed to have said: “Greece has asked us to print drachma in Russia, since it no longer has a printing press to do it. I wanted to tell you so you understand that we don’t want something like that.â€\x9d But did Tsipras ever utter such words? Sources close to him swear not – even if it is now well known that his request for a €10bn loan from Russia was refused at the time. Earlier today, the deputy defence minister, Dimitris Vitsas, a close confidant, fiercely denied the claim, calling it “nonsense.â€\x9d Officials in Moscow have also rejected the allegation. With Tsipras and his Syriza party now enthusiastically embracing the eurozone, despite the immense price Athens is paying in terms of bailout-induced austerity, the spat is overshadowing a much-anticipated Syriza congress. In a speech opening the three-day event last night, Tsipras insisted that leaving the euro would have destroyed Greece and was not an alternative the progressive left could adopt. The Prime Minister has met the chief executive of Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, to discuss the impact of Brexit. It follows a warning from the Japanese carmaker that it could pull further investment at its Sunderland plant, unless the UK government guarantees compensation for any Brexit-related tariffs it might face in the future. A Nissan spokesman said: The purpose of this meeting between Mr Ghosn and Mrs May is to ensure both Nissan and the UK government have an aligned way forward that meets the needs of both the company and the country. We do not expect any specific agreement to be communicated followin g this initial introductory meeting of the chief executive and the prime minister. Chris Williamson at IHS Markit says the headline rebound in US retail sales in September masks a weaker picture for “coreâ€\x9d sales, which strip out food, fuel and cars. While the September upturn is good news, take a step backwards and it’s clear that the picture is not so bright. The September upturn leaves total sales 0.7% higher in the third quarter, less than half of the 1.5% expansion seen in the second quarter. The data on core sales are even more worrying. Over the third quarter as a whole, core sales were up a mere 0.1% (or 0.4% annualised), which is the worst performance since the second quarter of 2013. It’s core sales which tend to be a better guide to wider measures of consumer spending, so this weakening trend is a big concern and will likely lead to some downward revisions to third quarter GDP forecasts. Retail sales in the US rose by 0.6% in September, following a 0.2% drop in August. The increase was in line with economists’ expectations, and will support expectations that the Fed could raise rates in December. US data for factory gate inflation also suggested price pressures are starting to build, which is likely to further fuel expectations of a hike. James Knightley, senior economist for the UK and US at ING: Overall, the reasonably firm retail sales number and slightly higher inflation data support the idea of a Federal Reserve rate hike in December – Fed funds futures currently pricing a 66.7% probability of this happening. The only things that can really stop momentum building for such a move would be a market unfriendly election outcome and softness in the two payrolls reports between now and the December Fed meeting. European new car sales rose 7.2% in September, figures published earlier showed. It was slower than the 9.8% growth in the same month last year, held back by weaker sales in the UK. A total of 1.45m new cars were registered last month, according to European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the highest September total on record. Sales in Italy were up 17.4% over the month at the top end of the table, but sales rose by just 1.6% in the UK. Carlos DaSilva at IHS Markit said there was no sign of a Brexit impact in the data: After a bumpy ride through the summer months, with a disappointing July followed by a surprisingly strong August, the European passenger car market came back to a more normal pattern in September − one of solid but not outstanding growth. By and large, September was broadly in line with expectations with still no evidence of any impact from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Britain is committed to leaving the EU, a spokeswoman for Theresa May has said, brushing off a suggestion by the European council president, Donald Tusk, that the country might change its mind. Tusk said on Thursday that Britain was facing a choice between hard Brexit or no Brexit. May’s spokeswoman said: The prime minister has been very clear ... that the British people have made their decision and we are now going to get on with that, with taking the UK out of the EU and on making the most of the opportunities ahead. The spokeswoman pointed out that Tusk had said Brexit talks should be approached in good faith: That is the sort of spirit the prime minister wants to encourage and foster with other European partners, that we approach this constructively. There are opportunities both for the UK and for the EU with the decision to leave and so we now need to come together, work together effectively to agree on a new arrangement, a new relationship that can work in the interests of all of us. Weak UK construction data for August shows that the government needs to invest more in infrastructure, according to the TUC. Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, says: Today’s construction figures are a timely reminder for the chancellor. We are not building enough homes, roads and railways. Philip Hammond must use next month’s autumn statement to green light investment in housebuilding, high-speed rail and a new runway at Heathrow. With investors twitchy after Brexit, the government needs to step up. Mark Carney has said he is willing to tolerate an overshoot of the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target. The governor’s comments suggest that the Bank’s policymakers will focus on supporting economic growth through low interest rates following the Brexit vote, rather than acting to bring inflation down. Speaking at an event in Nottingham, Carney said: Our judgment in the summer was that we could have seen another 400,000-500,000 people unemployed over the course of the next few years. So we’re willing to tolerate a bit of overshoot in inflation over the course of the next few years in order to avoid that situation, to cushion the blow. UK inflation was 0.6% in August, well below the 2% target. But the Bank and other commentators have warned that inflation will soon start to rise, as the sharp fall in the pound since the Brexit vote starts to feed through to higher import prices. Carney also conceded that it’s “going to get difficultâ€\x9d for people on lower incomes as prices start to rise at a faster pace. The former chancellor George Osborne has made it very clear that he is not ready for a quiet life on the backbenches. In a series of tweets on the controversial and long running subject of UK airport expansion, Osborne decisively backed Heathrow. A formal decision is expected next Tuesday ... The former chancellor George Osborne has said Britain must work hard to retain its status as the world’s financial centre. Comments this morning from Michel Sapin, the French finance minister, show that London’s rival European cities for finance are prepared for a fight to win business in the post-Brexit vote world. Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, says the weak construction data suggests that the sector has relapsed into recession. He adds: The construction sector’s outlook will brighten if the chancellor cancels planned cuts to public sector investment in next month’s autumn statement. But with firms’ investment intentions still depressed by the Brexit vote, commercial construction work looks set to fall sharply. Meanwhile, the recent flat trend in housing starts and skilled labour shortages suggest that housebuilding will continue to track sideways for now. Supplementary point on Marmite-gate ... The detail of the UK construction output data shows the biggest drag in August came from a 5.1% monthly drop in infrastructure building. It followed a 6.1% increase in July. The ONS said infrastructure is particularly volatile because of “the range of products that are included within this type of workâ€\x9d. That sub-sector of the construction industry covers a range of big projects such as windfarms, roads, railways and nuclear plants. New house building meanwhile fell by 1.3% over the month. As far as investors are concerned, Tesco came out on top following its spat with product supplier Unilever over prices. Tesco is the FTSE 100’s best performer this morning, with shares up 3.9%. Unilever on the other hand is near the bottom of the pack, with shares down 0.4%. Construction output fell 1.5% in August, surprisings economists who had forecast a 0.2% rise. The slightly better news was that the Office for National Statistics revised up the figure for July from zero to 0.5% growth. Kate Davies, a statistician with the ONS, said the fall didn’t appear to be related to the Brexit vote: Construction output has fallen back quite sharply in recent months and contracted by 1.5% in August. As the fall this month is led by infrastructure, it seems unlikely that post-referendum uncertainties are having an impact. Monthly construction data can be quite erratic, though, so we would warn against trying to read too much into one set of figures. The annual rate of growth in construction output was 0.2% in August, better than July’s -1% but much weaker than the 1.5% predicted by economists. Berenberg’s “chart of the weekâ€\x9d is entitled migration to Germany: beyond the big surge. The German bank says the number of new arrivals has fallen sharply this year for a number of reasons, including the German government’s decision to tighten its policies since early 2016. It follows a huge surge in 2015, when about 890,000 asylum seekers went to Germany, adding 1.1% to the resident population. The equivalent annual number for 2016 is about 160,000-170,000, which the bank says should be manageable in “economic, fiscal and political termsâ€\x9d. Here is the chart: Holger Schmieding, chief economist, says: Providing for the migrants and refugees is adding to German government spending. Partly as a result of this, the growth rate of government consumption in Germany has risen from an average of 2.5% year on year in the first half of 2015 to 4.1% in the first half of 2016. This amounts to a fiscal stimulus worth 0.3% of GDP. The mostly state-financed consumer spending of migrants and refugees and the impact on housing construction add to that. The pound has fallen below $1.22, currently down 0.6% at $1.2176. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, says the Brexit comments from French finance minister Michel Sapin, and those from Donald Tusk on Thursday (“it’s hard Brexit or no Brexitâ€\x9d) are weighing on the pound: The President of the European Council (Donald Tusk) poured cold water on the idea, propounded by Boris Johnson, that Britain could potentially strike a better deal with the EU post-Brexit, claiming that a hard exit is the only offer on the table. Sapin, the French finance minister, then stated this morning that some US banks are already looking to move their operations out of London in favour of the continent. Unsurprisingly this kind of rhetoric hasn’t been welcomed by the pound, which has fallen half a percent against the dollar and 0.1% against the euro. While this keeps sterling above the week’s (and, indeed, decades’) lows, that fact will provide mere crumbs of comfort for the currency. The FTSE 100 is faring better, as Campbell points out: As for the FTSE, the abrupt end to Marmite-gate last night, with Tesco and Unilever coming to a price agreement, and a rebound from its mining stocks has allowed the UK index to climb back above the 7000 mark. Higher food prices pushed official inflation in China to 1.9% in September, from 1.3% in August. It was higher than the 1.6% predicted by economists, and helped to ease investor fears about the health of the world’s second largest economy after disappointing trade data on Thursday unnerved global markets. Producer prices (or factory gate prices) also rose unexpectedly in September for the first time in almost five years because of higher commodity prices. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said it was good news: In an encouraging sign this morning’s Chinese consumer prices inflation data does appear to show that inflation is gaining traction, with CPI coming in at 1.9%, above expectations. Factory gate prices still remain sluggish, though they have finally made it into positive territory at 0.1%, the first time that has happened since February 2012. Chinese PPi prices have been slowly improving for several months now so this return to positive territory is welcome news, especially so when prices were -5.9% at the beginning of this year. After hitting an record intraday high on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 slipped back below 7,000 on Thursday when disappointing trade data from China hit mining stocks. It’s a different story this morning, with European markets up across the board: FTSE 100: +0.6% at 7,021 FTSE 250: +0.4% at 17,956 Germany’s DAX: +0.6% at 10,476 France’s CAC: +0.7% at 4,438 Italy’s FTSE MIB: +0.5% at 16,353 Spain’s IBEX: +0.9% at 8,683 Europe’s STOXX 600: +0.7% at 338 Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s says the pound could lose its status as a save haven currency following the Brexit vote. Ravi Bhatia, S&P’s director of sovereign ratings for Britain, told the Telegraph: To be a reserve currency means that the world has trust in you and is happy to hold its savings in your currency. It creates a pool of available capital. If you lose this and sterling becomes just another currency, a key advantage is lost. He also suggested some complacency on the part of the UK government as it prepares to negotiate its way out of the EU: There seems to be this view that ‘we’re a big important economy, the Europeans export a lot to us, so they have got to give us what we want’, but is that really true? The pound is down slightly against the dollar this morning, by 0.4%, but is just about managing to stay above the $1.22 level. It is currently at $1.2206. It is also holding steady against the euro, down -0.1% at €1.1075. European markets have opened higher. Full details to follow. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Marmite-gate might have been settled for now (read here how yesterday’s dramatic events unfolded), but there are other tales this morning of how Brexit might negatively affect Britain. The French finance minister Michel Sapin has told a press conference in Paris that US banks are definitely pressing ahead with plans to move some operations out of the UK in favour of other European countries. Sapin was in Washington last week for the IMF meetings and he says that now that Britain’s exit form the EU seems certain, US banks are busy making plans to leave the UK. Paris, of course, would welcome the banks with open arms, but it will undoubtedly encounter stiff competition from other cities such as Frankfurt. Of course we’ve heard it all before that banks will consider moving out of London, but Sapin suggests the plans have moved up a gear. Here is what he had to say about US banks: For them, until now, the question was ‘will Brexit take place? Will it really be implemented? You talk about two years but maybe it will last three or four years?’. That’s over now, there’s no more of that. It’s no longer ‘will there be’ or ‘if’ there’s a Brexit. It’s ‘there will be a Brexit in two years and after two years we will have to take decisions. Sapin said some banks had already decided that activities will be transferred to the continent. Those are their words, not mine. [It is an] inevitable outcome, whatever the result of the Brexit negotiations.',
 'Minister vows to clarify NHS abortion rules for Northern Irish women A government minister has pledged to examine an “interesting anomalyâ€\x9d that means Northern Irish women are not entitled to abortions on the NHS in the rest of the UK. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Ben Wallace, parliamentary under-secretary for Northern Ireland, said he had asked his officials to provide clarity on the rules surrounding the issue. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland, except when a pregnancy is deemed to pose a serious long-term or permanent threat to the mother’s health. Women from the region regularly travel to other parts of the UK to terminate pregnancies, but they have to pay privately for the procedure. The British Abortion Act 1967 was never extended to Northern Ireland and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 still dictates its abortion law, with life in prison the maximum penalty. Wallace was responding to a question from Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, who said: “The minister will be aware that women in Northern Ireland can and do travel to England for abortions. However, they cannot access NHS abortions. They have to pay to go privately. Does he agree that this is an inequality issue between women in Northern Ireland and women who live, say, in England.â€\x9d Wallace said: “The honourable member points out a very interesting anomaly and … I’ve asked my officials to provide clarity. I do know that there is a court case pending, before the courts, in Northern Ireland on that very issue and I think it is really important that we get to the bottom of the differences between living in one part of the United Kingdom and another, and what NHS services are available to those people.â€\x9d Pro-choice campaigners in Northern Ireland staged demonstrations this month against the first prosecution of a woman in 40 years for inducing a termination. The 21-year-old from County Down appeared in a Belfast court on 11 January charged with taking abortion pills she bought over the internet. The woman’s case is separate from the ongoing prosecution of a woman who obtained abortion pills for her underage daughter. This month a number of Northern Irish women openly challenged the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Public Prosecution Service through the to arrest and prosecute them for their decision to take abortion pills.',
 "A 'total lie': Trump University ex-staffers condemn school as 'fraudulent scheme' Some of the harshest critics of Trump University have been revealed to be former employees of the now-defunct university majority-owned by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican US presidential candidate. In sworn testimony, three former staff members have described the real estate school as “a facade, a total lieâ€\x9d and a “fraudulent schemeâ€\x9d that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their moneyâ€\x9d. In extracts from their evidence to a class-action lawsuit against the school, made public this week, the former staff tell the inside story of the “front-end high-pressure speaker scamâ€\x9d at Trump University. Ronald Schnackenberg, who worked at Trump University’s headquarters on Wall Street between 2006 and 2007, said he felt compelled to resign because he thought the company was “engaging in misleading, fraudulent and dishonest conductâ€\x9d. Schnackenberg said the “primary goal of Trump University was not to educate studentsâ€\x9d but to “make money, as quickly and easily as possibleâ€\x9d. In his experience, he said, “virtually all students who purchased a Trump University seminar were dissatisfied with the program they purchasedâ€\x9d and he was not aware of “a single consumer who paid for a Trump University seminar program [who] went on to successfully invest in real estate based upon the techniques that were taughtâ€\x9d. Corrine Sommer worked as manager of the events department at Trump University in 2007. She said that the university worked to “lure consumers into the initial free course based upon the name and reputation of Donald Trumpâ€\x9d and then “try and up-sell consumers to the next course using high-pressure sales tacticsâ€\x9d. Sommer said Trump University staff regularly advised prospective students to “max out their credit cardâ€\x9d to pay for the course and said some instructors were trained to ask students in introductory seminars to “call their credit card companies and raise their credit limits two, three or four timesâ€\x9d. Jason Nicholas, worked as a sales executive for Trump University in 2007, said he was forced to read from a script that told customers they would “work with Donald Trump’s real estate expertsâ€\x9d. He said most of the teachers were “a jokeâ€\x9d. The testimonies were released by US district court judge Gonzalo Curiel alongside Trump University “playbooksâ€\x9d, which instructed staff in how to sell courses costing up to $34,995 to prospective clients. Judge Curiel released the documents and depositions, which are central to a class-action lawsuit against Trump University in California, despite sustaining repeated public attacks from Trump, who had fought to keep the details secret. Curiel ruled that the documents were in the public interest now that Trump is “the front-runner in the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race, and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issueâ€\x9d. Trump hit back, calling Curiel a “haterâ€\x9d, a “total disgraceâ€\x9d and “biasedâ€\x9d. “I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump. A hater. He’s a hater,â€\x9d Trump said at a rally near the courthouse in San Diego. “His name is Gonzalo Curiel. And he is not doing the right thing … [He] happens to be, we believe, Mexican.â€\x9d Curiel, who is Hispanic, is American and was born in Indiana. Lawyers for Trump disputed the former staff testimonies, describing them as “completely discreditedâ€\x9d. A Trump spokeswoman said: “Trump University looks forward to using this evidence, along with much more, to win when the case is brought before a jury.â€\x9d The trial is due to begin in San Diego on 28 November – not three weeks after the US goes to the polls. Trump has made it clear that he intends to attend the trial and give evidence in his own defence, which raises the prospect that the newly elected president of the United States could take the stand. • This article was amended on 1 June 2016 to correct the time period between election day and the start of the trial.",
 "Chaos ahead after Brexit vote, says UK's food and drink industry body The UK food and drink industry is facing a period of uncertainty and chaos following the vote to leave the EU as more than a quarter of its workforce come from eastern Europe, according to the sector’s trade body. Ian Wright, director general of the Food and Drink Federation, which represents 6,620 businesses, said 130,000 of the industry’s 450,000 staff came from eastern Europe. The body’s members range from big brands such as Britvic, McVitie’s and Mr Kipling to small-scale producers such as the oatcake maker Maclean’s Highland Bakery. “Inevitably they are very frightened and unsure of what they should do,â€\x9d Wright said. “We may see many decide to go home. The reassurance we have heard from the leaders of the Leave campaign at the moment does not amount to much,â€\x9d he told attendees at the annual conference of the Grocery Code Adjudicator, the industry watchdog. Wright said the industry faced chaos because of the outcome of the referendum vote which he personally thought was “catastrophic and inexplicableâ€\x9d. The likely devaluation of the pound against the euro could drive up the cost of ingredients sourced from abroad while the “entirety of regulation on food labelling and safety is about to disappearâ€\x9d because it was set in the EU. He said prices for shoppers were likely to increase as a result of the fall of the value in the pound, and businesses would be pausing investment because of the difficulty in writing a business or marketing plan in such a volatile environment. Before last week’s referendum, 71% of the FDF’s members wanted the UK to remain in the EU and just 12% backed leaving. Wright said most international businesses would now freeze their investment decisions and he knew of three major businesses – though none were in the food and drink sector – which were already planning to inform staff of their long-term strategy to exit the UK. Some eastern European workers, whose rights here would not be guaranteed on Brexit, were likely to be planning to leave the UK because they would want more certainty about their future, he added. “We now face a period of complete chaos. The country is leaderless on both sides. The remain camp has no plan B and those who voted leave have no plan at all. We face months of profound uncertainty.â€\x9d He said the economy was about to go on a “big dipperâ€\x9d ride. Wright’s warning comes after the National Farmers Union also warned of price rises following the Leave vote. Meurig Raymond, president of the NFU, said the EU referendum result had been a “political car crashâ€\x9d and that UK farmers who receive up to £3bn in subsidies from the EU each year were headed into “uncharted watersâ€\x9d. One retail analyst, Bruno Monteyne at Bernstein Research, suggested last week that the cost of food for retailers could rise by as much as 2% or 3%, compared to deflation of about 2% at present if the pound devalues against the euro. While retailers are likely to absorb some of that rise, because economic uncertainty will mean shoppers are being very cautious, some inflation will hit the shop floor. A high proportion of fresh produce sold in July, August and September – peak harvest time – tends to be grown in the UK but that diminishes into the autumn when prices are likely to rise, particularly on fresh produce. According to the NFU, only 15% of the fresh fruit sold in the UK and 55% of the vegetables are grown here. Most of the rest comes from the EU. Pork is another foodstuff likely to be heavily affected, as nearly 40% sold in the UK comes from overseas.",
 "The secret formula for bridging the digital divide? It's 1 for 2, claims study Without urgent action, the international community will be 22 years late in fulfilling its pledge to bring affordable internet access to the world’s poorest countries, denying hundreds of millions of people access to online education, health services and a political voice, a report claims. When they met in New York last September to agree the sustainable development goals (SDGs), which will underpin the development agenda for the next 15 years, the UN’s 193 member states agreed to “strive to provide universal and affordable access to the internet in least developed countries by 2020â€\x9d. But according to a study by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), progress on meeting the internet access goal is so slow that, on current trends, the world’s least developed countries will not achieve it until 2042. The reports defines universal access as at least 90% internet penetration. At the moment, more than 4 billion people – 56% of the global population, mostly women – are not using the internet. The report argues that an entire generation will lose out on the opportunities offered by the net unless more is done, and calls on the UN to accelerate progress by bringing down broadband prices. Even in countries that have managed to get broadband costs down to the UN-agreed threshold of 5% of average national income for 500MB of mobile data a month, levels of poverty and income inequality mean that women and the poor are often excluded from the digital revolution. The study says the UN should rethink its measure of “affordable internetâ€\x9d, because 70% of people in the world’s least-developed countries simply cannot afford to pay for a basic monthly 500MB broadband plan. If the world is to hit the target, says A4AI, it needs to commit to a more ambitious affordability agenda: 1GB of mobile broadband data priced at 2% or less of average monthly income. According to the report, the new target – dubbed “1 for 2â€\x9d – would be the best and quickest way to speed up progress and get hundreds of millions of marginalised people online. However, the alliance said it will take more than lower prices to connect those left behind, and urges governments to provide free or subsidised public access as well as digital education. The alliance – whose members include Google, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, the UK Department for International Development and its US counterpart, USAid – seeks to place the internet within the reach of everyone on the planet. Sonia Jorge, A4AI’s executive director, said the report is a wake-up call to policymakers, business leaders and civil society groups all over the world. “If we are serious about achieving universal access by 2020, we need to condense almost 30 years’ worth of work into the next five years,â€\x9d she said. “Immediate, collaborative action is required – let’s work together to build open and competitive markets that can drive prices down to 2% or less of monthly incomes, while creating innovative public access programmes to reach those that market forces can’t.â€\x9d",
 'Bill Ryder-Jones review – a magical talent spills melody and emotion With dishevelled clothing and hair over his eyes, Bill Ryder-Jones looks more like a sleepy teenager than a seasoned music industry veteran. However, now 32, he co-founded Wirral psychedelists the Coral aged 13, and subsequently enjoyed No 1 albums before agoraphobia and stress-related illness led to his departure from the band. Eight years on, any music business-related trauma is confined to an impishly comical tirade against the venue’s overpowering smoke machine. “Is that supposed to be on all the time, or is someone trying to kill us?â€\x9d he chuckles. The rooms may be more intimate, but he is packing them out as he becomes a solo artist of considerable heft. Waterfalls of melody spill from his and Liam Power’s guitars as the band’s sound fuses Pavement’s 90s alt.grunge with the gentler Velvet Underground. His eyes in some faraway place and voice cracking with strain and emotion, Ryder-Jones’s delivery is delicately compulsive as songs from last year’s West Kirby County Primary album find magic in the everyday. “Take me somewhere I’m not likely to forget,â€\x9d he sings, affectionately. “Two singles to Birkenhead.â€\x9d However, few songwriters would tackle the almost unbearably raw subject matter of Daniel – about the death of Ryder-Jones’s brother, and its devastating impact on the family – let alone turn it into a song of such humbling beauty. Cheers greet the gorgeously yearning Wild Roses, before the transcendent Satellites alludes to his post-Coral breakdown and recovery: “Of all the things I’ve loved, but had to tear apart. I got lost in myself, and time got lost as well.â€\x9d Perhaps music almost lost him, too, but it is graced by the return of such a magical, colossal talent. • At Stereo, Glasgow, 8 March. Box office: 0141-222 2254. Then touring.',
 "Viola Beach's debut album tops the UK charts Viola Beach, the band who tragically died in a car crash in Sweden, have reached No 1 with their debut album. The band’s four members and their manager were killed in February when the car they were in fell from a highway bridge into a canal in Stockholm. The families and friends of the group released a self-titled collection of nine songs as a tribute to vocalist Kris Leonard, guitarist River Reeves, bassist Tomas Lowe, drummer Jack Dakin and manager Craig Tarry. In a statement, the families said: “The tragedy that ended Craig, Jack, Kris, River and Tom’s lives in Sweden and the pain and sense of loss will never leave us. By sending the Viola Beach album to Number 1 the public have sent out an important message to the world. “The tragic circumstance that met Viola Beach and their manager Craig that fateful night in Sweden will not now define their lives. What will now define their lives and what they will be remembered for, forever, is the music they were so passionate about making together.â€\x9d At the time of the crash, Viola Beach were a rising guitar band steadily building a fanbase. The story of a group who never got the chance to realise their potential touched a nerve with many music fans, including Coldplay, who dedicated a section of their Glastonbury headline slot to them. Chris Martin told the crowd: “We’re going to create Viola Beach’s alternate future for them and let them headline Glastonbury with their song,â€\x9d before playing Boys That Sing. Martin Talbot, chief executive of the Official Charts Company, said: “It is hard to think of an album more people were rooting for than the Viola Beach release – nor a success which has felt so bittersweet. We’re delighted that it has taken the No 1 spot, but it is an awful tragedy that Jack, Kris, River, Tomas and Craig are not here to see themselves take a place in the annals of British music.â€\x9d",
 'UK banks get two more years to meet capital rules The Bank of England has given banks an extra two years to comply with new rules that are intended to avoid a repeat of the taxpayer bailouts needed during the financial crash. Setting out regulations about the shares and bonds banks must hold to absorb losses, Threadneedle Street said they would have until 2022, rather than 2020, to build up their buffers. Since 2008, regulators around the world have been trying to find ways to make banks safe during a crisis without recourse to the taxpayer and the latest rules from the Bank are part of a package of measures intended to avoid bailouts. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said: “This policy is a significant milestone on the journey to end ‘too big to fail’ in the UK.â€\x9d The aim, he said, was to “ensure that banks that provide essential economic functions hold sufficient resources to be resolved in an orderly way, without recourse to public funds, and whilst allowing households and businesses to continue to access the services they need.â€\x9d The rules will apply to banks that have more than 80,000 accounts – double the number first suggested by the Bank of England – which means some of the smallest lenders will not need to comply. The Bank of England said institutions were already holding several times more capital than they did before the crisis and were subjected to annual stress tests. The next results will be published at the end of the month. The latest rules “represent one of the last pillars of post-crisis reforms designed to make banks safer and more resilient, and to avoid taxpayer bailouts in futureâ€\x9d. The Bank added: “These requirements will make it possible to resolve failing banks by ensuring that they hold sufficient equity and debt to absorb losses. It will enable the recapitalisation of businesses that need to keep operating during the process because they provide important financial services to households and businesses. This process is called ‘bail-in’.â€\x9d The rules relate to what is known as minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) – part of an EU directive.',
 'A Prehistory of the Cloud by Tung-Hui Hu review – the reality behind virtual storage The cloud is “a system of networks that pools computing powerâ€\x9d. You may think of it as a mute and ethereal concept but for Tung-Hui Hu it is “both an idea and a physical and material objectâ€\x9d. His slim yet wide-ranging study attempts to reify and historicise a concept that has “become a potent metaphor for the way contemporary society organizes and understands itselfâ€\x9d. The idea dates back to a 1922 design for predicting weather using a network of human “computersâ€\x9d, or mathematicians, connected via telegraph. From the 19th-century train tracks repurposed as routes for fibre-optic cables and the cold war bunkers retrofitted to store data, Hu shows that the intangible cloud has a solid and polluting infrastructure. He also reveals the human costs, such as the poorly paid foreign workers screening content for Silicon Valley companies, and explores the monetisation of the user: “the cloud is a subtle weapon that translates the body into usable information.â€\x9d Witty, sharp and theoretically aware, Hu deconstructs this much-discussed but poorly understood “cultural fantasyâ€\x9d. • A Prehistory of the Cloud is published by MIT',
 'Mobile web browsing overtakes desktop for the first time Mobile devices are used more than traditional computers for web browsing, as smartphone and tablet use overtook desktop for the first time, October figures show. Mobile web browsing has been steadily growing since 2009, while the desktop’s share of web traffic has steadily decreased. In October, the two crossed over, with global mobile and tablet browsing accounting for 51.3% versus the desktop’s 48.7%, according to the latest data from web analytics firm StatCounter. Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of StatCounter, said: “This should be a wake up call especially for small businesses, sole traders and professionals to make sure that their websites are mobile friendly. Many older websites are not. “Mobile compatibility is increasingly important not just because of growing traffic but because Google favours mobile-friendly websites for its mobile search results.â€\x9d Despite following a similar downward trend, the desktop is still king in some parts of the world. In the UK, the desktop accounts for 55.6% of browsing, 58% in the US and 55.1% in Australia, according to StatCounter, but it seems only a matter of time before they follow the global trend, with mobile taking the majority of web browsing. The ’s data indicates that an on an average weekday, just over 40% of visitors to the site are reading on a desktop, while that number drops to just under 30% on a weekend. The rest are using a combination of mobile browsers on a tablet and smartphone, or the mobile app. Google identified the trend towards mobile browsing several years ago and has since accelerated the shift with changes to its search favouring mobile. It began ranking sites within its search index by mobile accessibility in 2015 and recently made a change making mobile search potentially more up to date than desktop. At the same time, PC sales have been in decline for years, while smartphones have reached at least 80% saturation within most developed markets and have become the sole point of access to the internet for many in developing nations. Google hides URLs in mobile web search results',
 'Various: PC Music Volume 2 review – the smartest gang in British pop PC Music first presented its ridiculously saccharine and relentlessly weird dance-pop to the world three years ago, and were greeted with a mixture of fervour, revulsion and skepticism: was it a deliberately crap parody or digital music taken to bracing new extremes? It never quite disrupted the mainstream, but has made inroads into proper pop through collaborations with artists such as Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX. Now, with the hype muted, this second compilation provides an opportunity to appreciate the music on its own terms – and it feels more beautiful and progressive than ever before. Highlights include Hannah Diamond and her slickly plaintive musings on online life, GFOTY introducing nu-rave and industrial influences into the PC universe, and head honcho AG Cook’s sublime postmodern pop song Superstar. The latter, which balances on a knife’s edge between sincerity and pastiche, is proof that Cook and his gang are the cleverest, most thoughtful people in British pop.',
 'Wide Open Sky review – Young Talent Time goes bush in a charming documentary Lisa Nicol’s modestly charming documentary Wide Open Sky takes some potshots at the Australian education system for its general emphasis of sport over music. But from a cinematic point of view, when it comes to narrative structure and key themes there is usually not a great deal that differentiates feel-good films focused on either pastime – particularly when it comes to stories propelled by young participants. Youth-oriented music or sports films with a group dynamic (think School of Rock or The Mighty Ducks) often take the form of triumph-of-the-underdog tales. You know the kind: a motley array of personalities band together and work hard en route to a big public performance, like a grand final or a concert, where heart-on-sleeve emotions shoot for the bleachers. Wide Open Sky reminds us this is as much a feature film concept as one equally conducive to documentary. Nicol directs a sort of Mrs Carey’s Concert on wheels (or Young Talent Time gone bush) with private school city slickers swapped out for children from disadvantaged rural locations. The film-maker goes off-road into remote New South Wales to follow the annual recruitment process of conductor and music teacher Michelle Leonard, a pragmatic, inspirational figure who commands an army of singing pipsqueaks. Every year Leonard journeys 4,000km to audition 2,000 children from 55 schools, selecting 13 to join her Moorambilla Voices choir. The chosen few attend a three-day training camp in Baradine, where Leonard gives their vocal cords a work out and preps them for a one-night-only performance at a music festival in Coonamble. There’s a lot of “repeat after meâ€\x9d sessions, during which intensely focused li’l tykes stretch their mouths and contort their young faces to hit the right notes. Presumably a number of clips from the film will resurface at 21st birthday parties. One choir member, Opal, announces to the camera her ideal future: “When I’m older I’d like to be a singer and a naturalist.â€\x9d Like a lot of docos where children are encouraged to speak candidly, Wide Open Sky has a whiff of Kids Say the Darndest Things. Also of the 1972 outback tournament movie Sunstruck, about a teacher who recruits a choir of bumpkin shoe-size-exceeds-their-age amateurs and takes them to Sydney to compete in a talent show at the Opera House. You get a feel for Wide Open Road pretty quick: it’s sweet, slight and good-natured to the core. Hardly riveting or must-watch material but equally difficult to hate. Like the kid-oriented Australian documentaries Gayby Baby and I Am Eleven, the film probably works best as a perspective-widening educational package informing children of other young lives whose cultural and socioeconomic circumstances differ from their own. Even if – unlike, say, the bling-lathered That Sugar Film – its no-frills vanilla aesthetic suggests the look and feel of it has not necessarily been tailor-made for them. Leonard reveals, in a moment given only cursory consideration, that she doesn’t have proper financial support for her altruistic initiative, implying something of a shit fight when it comes to extracting enough money to make the singathong possible year-on-year. Perhaps this also poses the question of whether Wide Open Sky is actually some kind of elaborate exercise in support, or even fundraising. If so, what the hell – only a hard heart wouldn’t want to throw a coin or two in the tin. • Wide Open Sky is showing in Australia now',
 'Donald Trump takes poll lead over Hillary Clinton – is it time to panic? For the first time, Republican Donald Trump seems to have edged ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton in presidential polling. But only just. What does it mean and should those opposed to Trump be worried? The polling data site RealClearPolitics (RCP) takes an average of national polls that ask Americans who they would choose in a contest between the two candidates (a scenario that now looks inevitable). On Sunday, RCP updated their numbers to show that Trump is now, on average, 0.2 percentage points ahead of Clinton. That gap might be narrow, but it has still led some (including a senior elections analyst at RCP) to conclude “it’s probably time to panicâ€\x9d. I’d disagree. For those concerned about the prospect of a Trump victory, it’s been time to panic for a while – zooming out from a single statistic shows it. Delayed panic? Although this might be the first time that Trump has come out on top in the RCP polling average, he has come very close to doing so on two prior occasions – in September and December of last year. Since September, Clinton’s lead has fluctuated significantly from being as large as 11 percentage points to as narrow as 0.6. In other words, there have been many other periods when Trump’s opponents should have been worrying before now. Just as it took pundits a while to wake up to the fact that Trump was a sufficiently popular candidate to win the Republican nomination, it seems that they have also been slow to switch focus to his chances of winning the White House. Part of the reason why they didn’t panic before was a belief that measuring American public opinion a long time before a national election is a bad predictor of voting patterns. Why? Because people change their minds. November is still six months away. The alternative view is that preferences may be becoming hardened now, making voter behavior less likely to shift. Looking backward, rather than forward, results from the last six presidential elections suggest that 31 states are “safeâ€\x9d – based on the fact that the same party has consistently won them. Unsurprisingly, polling companies are investing their time and resources in states they think might “swingâ€\x9d and therefore determine electoral outcomes nationally – states like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. So far, polling suggests neither candidate has a significant lead in those states which could provide extra cause for concern for those worrying about a Trump win. Polling on a pedestal All that said, the RCP polling average is not the perfect political barometer it is so often held up to be. The polling average has become the go-to number for those trying to make quick sense of the state of the presidential race. That’s problematic in itself; this election can’t be predicted on the basis of just one number, not least because a candidate’s vote share does not neatly translate to their chances of winning the White House. Each state wields a different number of electoral votes, so it matters how a candidate’s support is distributed throughout the country. Democratic victories in highly populous states, which have more electoral votes to award, could cause the performance of the Democratic candidate in the electoral college to outstrip her or his performance in the popular vote. In 2008, Barack Obama won 68% of the electoral college vote with only 53% of the popular vote. Clinton may be buoyed in the 2016 election cycle by traditional Democratic strength in populous states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California. There’s another, much bigger problem with the RCP average, though: it’s only as good as the individual polls that make it up. RCP always takes a straight average of the five most recent polls that were conducted. Once you peek under the hood, you’ll see that an average of 0.2 percentage points flattens out some very different findings. These are the five latest polls RCP used to calculate Trump’s narrow lead: ABC News/Washington Post: Trump leads by 2 percentage points NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Clinton leads by 3 percentage points Rasmussen Reports: Trump leads by 5 percentage points FOX News: Trump leads by 3 percentage points CBS News/New York Times: Clinton leads by 6 percentage points These polls have different results in part because they use different methodologies for assessing public opinion. Although they were all conducted during a relatively similar period of time (which is essential when trying to get a snapshot of what the public thinks now), the polls by NBC/WSJ and Fox News only spoke to registered voters, Rasmussen interviewed “likely votersâ€\x9d, while the ABC News/Washington Post poll simply spoke to adults (82% of whom were registered voters). All polls claim to speak to a “nationally representativeâ€\x9d sample of adults, but virtually none will publish data showing where their respondents were based. Perhaps Rasmussen Reports had to adjust their findings to account for the fact that they only managed to speak to two people in Iowa – we just don’t know. Languages matter too. Two of the polls mentioned above conducted their interviews in Spanish and English – it seems that the others did not. Methodologies matter. They’re one reason why the footnotes in each poll mention slightly different degrees of accuracy. Take the ABC News/Washington Post poll for example – those numbers have a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. That means that Trump’s reported lead of 2 percentage points could have actually been as high as 5.5 percentage points. Or it could be that Hillary Clinton actually led by 1.5 percentage points. Polling is far from perfect. To understand what will happen when the country votes this November, pundits would do better to look at the electoral map, demographics and – most importantly of all – listen to the concerns of voters. Tom McCarthy contributed to this article.',
 'This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for scientists, these are desperate measures. Tuesday in San Francisco’s Jessie Square, approximately 500 people gathered for a ‘rally to stand up for science.’ Many of the attendees were scientists who had migrated to the rally from the nearby Moscone Center, where some 26,000 Earth scientists are attending the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference this week. This was an unusual activity for scientists to participate in; after all, they’re often accused of remaining isolated in the ivory towers of academia. Scientists generally prefer to focus on their scientific research, use their findings to inform the public and policymakers, and leave it to us to decide what actions we should take in response. In fact, one of the keynote speakers at the rally, Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes made that exact point: We don’t want to be here. We want to be doing the work we were trained and educated to do, which is science ... but we are at a moment in history where we have to stand up. As Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb noted, with the appointments made thus far by the incoming Trump administration, science is under attack and scientists feel compelled to protect their research, and their ability to keep doing it. Cobb also called on more of her scientific colleagues to step outside their comfort zones and engage in activism: The rally followed other recent efforts by scientists to advise the Trump administration and reassure the public. For example, over 800 Earth scientists and energy experts signed a letter urging the President-elect to take six key steps to address climate change: 1) Make America a clean energy leader; 2) Reduce carbon pollution and America’s dependence on fossil fuels; 3) Enhance America’s climate preparedness and resilience; 4) Publicly acknowledge that climate change is a real, human-caused, and urgent threat; 5) Protect scientific integrity in policymaking; and 6) Uphold America’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. Over 11,000 women scientists also signed a pledge committing “to build a more inclusive society and scientific enterprise.â€\x9d The leaders of 29 scientific societies signed a letter encouraging Trump to appoint a “nationally respectedâ€\x9d science advisor with sufficient expertise. And more than 2,300 scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize recipients, published an open letter with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) urging the Trump administration and Congress to set a high bar for integrity, transparency, and independence in using science to inform federal policies. UCS plans to act as a watchdog protecting science and scientists during the Trump Administration, as it did during the Bush administration. Scientists under attack, win the first battle These scientists have been motivated by concern stemming from President-elect Trump’s decision to fill the key powerful positions in his administration with an oil industry dream team of climate deniers. Some of those selections include individuals who have harassed and intimidated climate scientists, like David Schnare and Chris Horner, whose tactics forced the creation of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) five years ago. The CSLDF began in an effort to assist Michael Mann with the legal attacks documented in his book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (Mann also has an excellent new book co-authored with cartoonist Tom Toles, The Madhouse Effect). Over the past five years, CSLDF has provided legal assistance to over 100 scientists, and has helped coordinate counsel for approximately 20 scientists facing litigation. The Legal Defense Fund has had a significant presence at the AGU conference, assuring scientists that their organization can answer basic legal questions, or help with potentially costly legal attacks and litigation. Adding to scientists’ alarm, the Trump Department of Energy transition team submitted a questionnaire that raised serious concerns about the incoming administration’s plans to influence or curtail DOE’s research, potentially engage in a witch-hunt, and perhaps even tamper with or destroy scientific data. After much public and media backlash, the Trump team now denies that the questionnaire was authorized. This retreat was the first victory for science in an impending battle with the incoming administration. Scientists also have any ally in California Governor Jerry Brown, who spoke at the AGU conference and promised: If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite. We’ve failed to hold up our end of the bargain On the issue of climate change, it’s been decades since scientific research first identified the threats and dangers resulting from human-caused global warming. A growing number of climate scientists had already begun to speak out about the need for much more aggressive global efforts to cut carbon pollution if we’re to avoid its worst impacts. Finally, nearly all of the world’s countries signed last year’s agreement in Paris, creating a framework to limit global warming below the dangerous level of 2°C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. Less than a year later, the world’s largest cumulative carbon polluter elected a president who promised to do what he can to reverse that landmark Paris agreement. Though he has since claimed he will keep an “open mindâ€\x9d about climate change and the Paris agreement, at every opportunity Trump has hired individuals who deny climate science, work for the oil industry, and/or have spent years harassing and attacking climate scientists. As author Robert Fulghum once wrote: It doesn’t matter what you say you believe - it only matters what you do. Scientists have reached a breaking point In the AGU conference, many scientists have voiced their grave concerns about these events, about the relevance of science in a post-truth world, and about the attacks they seem to be facing from the incoming government. Scientists have expressed emotions ranging from bewilderment and fear, to the defiance exemplified in their rally. In order to protect science, more such defiance will likely be needed, and scientists will also need public support to help protect their critically important research.',
 'Academy addresses Oscars race row with new appointments The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has added three new governors from diverse backgrounds to its 51-member board and appointed six minority ethnic members to other leadership positions, amid a fresh row over lack of diversity surrounding the Oscars. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the new appointees after a meeting of the organisation’s board. The Academy fulfilled its promise to add new board members from diverse backgrounds, appointing Oscars producer Reginald Hudlin, Selena director Gregory Nava and Kung Fu Panda stalwart Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The board also ratified other changes in response to the #OscarsSoWhite crisis aimed at increasing diversity, including limiting voting rights to those active in the movie business. Boone Isaacs has been under intense pressure since the row over racially homogeneous acting nominees at the past two ceremonies. On Tuesday she was forced to issue another apology after two dozen Academy members published an open letter to organisers complaining about “tasteless and offensive skitsâ€\x9d based on racial stereotyping at this year’s ceremony. They referred to skits in last month’s broadcast, during which host Chris Rock introduced three children of east Asian descent named “Ming Zhu, Bao Ling and David Moskowitzâ€\x9d, who he said were “the accountantsâ€\x9d who had tabulated the Oscars results.',
 "Japan recognises 'right to be forgotten' of man convicted of child sex offences Japan has taken another step towards recognising “the right to be forgottenâ€\x9d of individuals online after a court ordered Google to remove news reports about the arrest of a man who, according to the judge, deserved the chance to rebuild his life “unhinderedâ€\x9d by records of his criminal past. While Japanese courts have demanded the removal of information strictly for privacy reasons, the recent ruling by Saitama district court is the first in the country to cite the right to be forgotten – something that has been enshrined in law in the European Union – in demanding the removal of personal information online, according to legal experts. The decision in December, which was only revealed in recently unearthed court documents, is expected to ignite a debate in Japan over whether authorities can reconcile an individual’s right to have expunged details of, say, a crime committed in the distant past with freedom of information and the public’s right to know. In handing down the ruling the judge, Hisaki Kobayashi, said that, depending on the nature of the crime, individuals should be able to undergo rehabilitation with a clean online sheet after a certain period of time has elapsed. “Criminals who were exposed to the public due to media reports of their arrest are entitled to the benefit of having their private life respected and their rehabilitation unhindered,â€\x9d Kobayashi said, according to the Kyodo news agency. Kobayashi added that it was difficult to live a normal life “once information is posted and shared on the internet, which should be considered when determining whether (the information) should be deletedâ€\x9d. The man, who has not been named, had demanded that Google remove reports posted online more than three years ago detailing his arrest and conviction for breaking child prostitution and pornography laws, for which he was fined 500,000 yen (£3,165). He complained that the case appeared whenever his name and address were entered into Google search. Google has appealed against the decision in the high court, although media reports say that the man’s criminal record no longer appears in its search results. The Saitama case is not the only ruling to suggest that Japan is following the lead set by the EU, where residents can request the removal of search results that they feel link to outdated or irrelevant information about themselves on a country-by-country basis. In November, a court in Tokyo became the first in Japan to issue a temporary injunction ordering Google to delete search results relating to the arrest of a dentist who had been arrested for illegal dental practices. A month earlier, the same court issued an injunction ordering Google to remove search results that revealed the identity of a man who complained that articles implicating him in past criminal activity were violating his right to privacy and harming his reputation. Yahoo Japan, meanwhile, said last year it would comply with requests to remove information from search results if they included an individual’s address or telephone number, or referred to minor crimes committed years earlier. Google has been resisting attempts to widen the application of the right to be forgotten since the EU’s court of justice ruled in May 2014 that Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevantâ€\x9d data from its results when a member of the public requests it. That decision came after a Spanish man, Mario Costeja González, took Google Spain to court after he failed to secure the deletion of his debt records dating back to the late 1990s.",
 'More companies risk shareholder anger over excessive pay deals Banks, miners, energy groups and building materials specialists are among companies in shareholders’ sights as discontent mounts over exorbitant pay deals for boardroom bosses. After an explosive start to the annual general meeting season on Thursday - when shareholders voted against pay deals at BP and Smith & Nephew – big City investors are now scrutinising pay deals at FTSE companies such as mining company Anglo American, building products group CRH and advertising firm WPP. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, will hold its AGM on Monday and boardrooms are on high alert for further signs that investors are preparing to revive the 2012 “shareholder springâ€\x9d, when a wide range of companies faced rebellions over pay. “The AGM season has started with a bang. It is unprecedented for two FTSE 100 companies to have their pay voted down on one day,â€\x9d said Sarah Wilson, the chief executive of shareholder advisory body Manifest. Shareholders said they were less willing to accept big pay deals and companies that judge bosses’ performance without considering the wider context. That context refers directly to BP, which had awarded its chief executive Bob Dudley £14m, including 100% of his possible bonuses, even though the oil group had run up record multibillion-pound losses. Oil companies and miners, which are cutting thousands of jobs, are especially under scrutiny but other pay packages could also cause unrest, with the gap between rich and poor highlighted by the Panama Papers and benefit cuts. Paul Lee, the head of corporate governance at Aberdeen Asset Management, said: “The mood has hardened and people are taking a more robust approach to pay than they have done. “Companies in some cases have eased the restraints that we’ve seen in the difficult years since the financial crisis and that’s leading to some actions that shareholders aren’t happy about. We don’t say there’s a number that’s too much but if it’s a very large number it needs to be justified.â€\x9d Shareholder advisory group ISS has recommended a vote against boardroom pay at next week’s AGM of mining company Anglo American. The firm’s chief executive, Mark Cutifani, received £3.4m and could earn £6.3m this year for achieving his targets, according to the small investor group ShareSoc. Anglo American – where the share price slumped from 1152p to 328p last year – said Cutifani’s bonus was reduced by 40% and his salary had been frozen. CRH has increased pay for all its directors including the chief executive, Albert Manifold, who was paid €5.5m (£4.4m) last year. His salary has risen to €1.4m from €1.29m and he can now earn almost six times that in bonuses and shares, compared with less than four times on last year’s salary, taking his maximum earnings to about €10m. Dublin-based CRH said the increases were justified by acquisitions that had made it a bigger company and insisted it had consulted shareholders. But a fund management source said investors were unhappy about the increases because they reward CRH bosses merely for doing deals and said the company’s consultation with shareholders was lacking. HSBC is the first major bank to hold its AGM this year, on Friday 22 April, when executive pay, succession planning – the chairman, Douglas Flint, has said he will step down next year – and its links to Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers, are expected to be raised by investors. Other banks – accustomed to rows over pay – hold their AGMs in the coming weeks, including Barclays, where a move by new boss Jes Staley to cut the dividend for the next two years is expected to unleash rows over boardroom pay. Pay deals at consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, where the pay of the chief executive, Rakesh Kapoor, almost doubled to £23m last year, and advertising firm WPP, whose chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell is in line for at least £63m for last year, are other potential flash points. Shire, the drugs company, Standard Chartered, the Asian-focused bank, and Man Group, the hedge fund, also face potential unrest over pay. Luke Hildyard, the governance and stewardship lead at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, said: “Lavish incentive payments should not be made to executives while their companies face an uncertain outlook and their employees are losing jobs. “It’s unnecessarily divisive and likely to weaken industrial relations and human capital. It’s perfectly possible to exercise a bit of discretion and hold back on pay awards that are plainly inappropriate, even if certain operational targets included in the policy have been met.â€\x9d Tim Bush, the head of governance at Pensions & Investment Research Consultants (Pirc), a shareholder advisory group, said: “Any remuneration committee chairman with a similar scheme to the one at BP is at risk of similar rejection. There are a lot of concerned people out there.â€\x9d',
 'Bishop campaigns to highlight issue of body image among children Rachel Treweek, the bishop of Gloucester, has said she is highlighting the issue of body image among children to challenge perceptions that physical appearance determines self-worth. On Monday, Treweek – the first female bishop to sit in the House of Lords – will visit All Saints Academy in Cheltenham to talk to a group of 13- to 16-year-olds in the first of a series of school visits in her constituency to discuss the issue. It follows a report from the Children’s Society last month that found one out of three girls aged 10 to 15 was unhappy with her appearance and felt ugly or worthless. The study highlighted the growing pressure of social media with regard to body image. The proportion of girls with negative feelings about their bodies increased from 30% to 34% over five years; among boys it remained unchanged at 20%. Treweek told the the issue urgently needed addressing. “When I talk to girls, it strikes me how much of how they view themselves and their self-worth is caught up with appearance and the way that society sees them,â€\x9d she said. “Issues of health and mental health are more and more linked with how people are viewed by others, and much of that begins with external appearance.â€\x9d The bishop plans to listen to the concerns of teenagers over the coming months before considering what action can be taken. “I want to challenge the subconscious messages we’re giving,â€\x9d she said. “We need to look at the language we use as adults and how it shapes our culture. For example, when adults engage with girls, nearly always the first thing we say is a comment on appearance. We need to find out who they are, what they enjoy, what they’re good at, what makes their souls sing.â€\x9d She added: “I don’t want to say to girls: ‘Don’t worry about hair or nails or fashion’ – I want them to enjoy those things. But I want these things to be an expression of who they are, not their starting place.â€\x9d Treweek acknowledged that as one of a handful of female bishops she had a different perspective on society than her male colleagues. “The church doesn’t always appear in touch with people’s everyday lives. This faith stuff has got to connect with people’s lives – and if this is shown to be an issue affecting girls’ mental health and happiness, then we have to be listening to that, the church needs to engage with it.â€\x9d The Children’s Society report found that 14% of girls aged 10 to 15 were unhappy with their lives as a whole. Another study last month by the Department for Education found an increase in psychological distress among 14-year-olds in 2014 compared with similar research in 2005.',
 "FCA says it is watching algorithmic traders linked to pound's flash crash The City regulator has said it is keeping a close watch on algorithmic traders of the type that may have been connected with the flash crash in the pound earlier this month. Sterling plunged in a few minutes of early trading in Asia on 7 October, prompting the Bank of England to say it was looking into possible causes of the sudden movement. On Wednesday, a senior official at the Financial Conduct Authority was asked how it regulated algorithmic trading – computers programmed to take bets on markets. Megan Butler, director of supervision at the City regulator, said: “Our approach is to recognise that a poorly designed, poorly controlled, inappropriately used algo[rithm] can have a very significant impact on proper operation of the market.â€\x9d Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of the FCA, said the use of such trading systems had been discussed with companies in the City in the run-up to the EU referendum on 23 June. Bailey, who took over at the FCA in July after a long career at the Bank, was setting out his “missionâ€\x9d for the regulator as he pledged to clean up the behaviour of major financial companies after a “very sorryâ€\x9d history of scandals. There had been two financial crises in the past decade, he said, the first about the strength of the banking industry, which called into question “our financial stability at the level of the whole systemâ€\x9d. “The second crisis has involved the conduct of business by financial firms,â€\x9d he said, highlighting the mis-selling of payment protection insurance to individuals and interest rate swaps to businesses, the rigging of the Libor rate and foreign exchange markets, as well as breaches of money laundering rules. “This is a very sorry history and the future needs to be radically different from the past. We owe this to the public, who are the consumers of financial services,â€\x9d said Bailey, as he launched a consultation on the regulator’s mission. His appointment followed the decision by the then chancellor, George Osborne, not to renew the contract of Martin Wheatley, the first head of the FCA when it was set up after the financial crisis. When the regulator was launched, Wheatley said he would “shoot first and ask questions laterâ€\x9d. But Bailey said he was not steering the FCA towards a different approach around regulating City firms. “I should also point out that this is not a document about Brexit. In fact, that is the only time the word appears in the document. “This is because we believe that the issues we are setting out in the mission are at the heart of financial conduct regulation, whatever we do next,â€\x9d he said.. In a speech to a City audience later on Wednesday, he said any attempt to water down the rules put in place since the financial crisis should be resisted. “We should not now start to regret the policies that are in place, but remember the scale of the crisis and what has been avoided,â€\x9d Bailey said. Earlier this week, a report by the thinktank New City Agenda, which Bailey described as disappointing, warned that regulations were being scaled back. Bailey was speaking alongside his successor at the Bank, the deputy governor Sam Woods, who told guests at Mansion House that banks needed to make sure their business models could cope with extra regulation and the low interest rate environment. “This is a first-order issue for us,â€\x9d said Woods, who is the chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority. “Firms need to review their business models for the new world,â€\x9d said Woods, indicating that rules would continue to be implemented despite the Brexit vote.",
 'David Cameron: I know I should have handled it better. Not a great week The report published by the on Blairmore Holdings Inc landed on Monday afternoon: David Cameron’s father had run an offshore fund that for three decades avoided paying tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork. In Downing Street, the initial response was lofty and dismissive. A spokeswoman for the prime minister lazily swatted questions away, referring to a story four years ago that revealed the existence of the investment fund. “Most of you seem to be aware that that story was written in 2012 and we responded at the time. I don’t have anything to add to that,â€\x9d the spokeswoman said. Asked whether the Cameron family still had any money invested in the fund, she responded: “That is a private matter.â€\x9d Not any more, it isn’t. The world now knows all about the Blairmore shares held, quite legally, by Cameron and his wife Samantha, which were finally sold in January 2010. But the wider fallout from a week that began with stonewalling and worked its way to full disclosure via prevarication and partial explanation remains to be seen. Right now, the starring role of Blairmore in the Panama Papers appears to have dented the credibility of a prime minister who now faces the battle of his political career to ensure the continued membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union. Yesterday, speaking to the Conservative spring forum, Cameron wryly observed that it was “not a good weekâ€\x9d. It was, as he knew, an understatement. Rarely has the “establishmentâ€\x9d looked more, well, establishment-like. As thousands of employees at the Port Talbot steel works pleaded for their livelihoods after being left to the mercies of global competition, the Panama Papers revealed the squalid manoeuvres of a monied class devoted to stashing away their cash in sunny places well away from the taxman’s reach. And yet it is the British establishment – most particularly the prime minister – that is asking the country to put their faith in their judgment and stay in the EU. “This walks straight into every Eurosceptic’s dream,â€\x9d Matthew Parris, the former Tory MP, wrote in the Times, “Every swivel-eyed populist loon, every crazy Corbynite, every ‘they’re all in it together’ pub bore, will be hugging themselves this weekend. This tax story may be minor, it may be overblown, it may be unfair on David Cameron. But it is very, very dangerous.â€\x9d Downing Street’s refusal to discuss Blairmore was never likely to hold in the febrile atmosphere created by the disclosure of the Panama Papers – an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca, to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). It was on Friday morning – five days after questions first began to be raised about whether the prime minister had ever benefited, or would in future benefit, from the trust set up by his late father Ian – that Cameron and his aides decided he had no option but to give the kind of detail the media was after. Insiders claim that it was on seeing his father’s picture featuring again and again on the television evening news channels that the prime minister felt he had to try to bring the saga to an end through a frank interview. Some believe that as attention was also falling on the financial affairs of his chancellor, and favoured successor, it was considered wise to cause a distraction. Whatever the truth, Cameron belatedly thought strategically and decided to take action. An interview had already been arranged with Robert Peston, the political editor of ITV News, for Friday afternoon, during which the prime minister had planned to talk about the importance to young people of Britain’s continued membership of the EU. That theme was pushed aside to deal with the questions about Blairmore Holdings Inc, (a shift of emphasis that felt ominous to many Remain campaigners). “Of course I did own stocks and shares in the past – quite naturally, because my father was a stockbroker,â€\x9d Cameron told Peston. “I sold them all in 2010, because if I was going to become prime minister I didn’t want anyone to say you have other agendas, vested interests. Samantha and I have a joint account. We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000… I paid income tax on the dividends.â€\x9d But if the prime minister thought that the interview would, or could, put an end to the matter, he was wrong. Cameron must account for himself in parliament, insisted Labour. The Labour MP John Mann even called for Cameron’s resignation. Jeremy Corbyn demanded he give a “full account of all his private financial dealingsâ€\x9d. Newspapers pored over the finances of the wider Cameron clan, showing to the world just how very different he was from the rest of us. The images of David and Samantha enjoying a beer during an Easter break in Lanzarote were swiftly overshadowed in the public consciousness by screaming headlines such as at that published in yesterday’s Daily Mail: “Cameron Inc – The father with the £20m property empire, the step-father with a 20,000-acre estate and the mother who founded a £30m company... You thought Dave and Sam were super-rich, now meet the rest of the family!â€\x9d Yet more damage limitation was required from a chastened PM. A precedent had to be set. “I know I should have handled this better,â€\x9d the prime minister told yesterday’s spring forum. “I could have handled this better. I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them. And don’t blame No 10 Downing Street, or nameless advisers – blame me. And I will learn the lessons.â€\x9d Cameron added he had been “very angry about what people were saying about my dadâ€\x9d. “I love my dad. I miss him every day,â€\x9d he said. “He was a wonderful father and I’m very proud of everything he did. “But I mustn’t let that cloud the picture. And the facts are these. The facts are I bought shares in a unit trust, shares that are like any other sorts of shares, and paid tax on them in exactly the same way. I sold those shares – in fact, I sold all the shares that I owned on becoming prime minister. “And later on I’ll be publishing the information that goes into my tax return, not just for this year but for years gone past because I want to be completely transparent and open about these things. I’ll be the first prime minister, the first leader of a major political party, to do that. But I think it’s the right thing to do.â€\x9d The published tax figures may finally put this chapter to bed. Many fear, though, that it may be too little, too late. The Tory MP Mark Pritchard recognises the tactics being deployed by campaigners for the UK to leave the EU. “Some Brexit campaigners do think if you damage Cameron you will also damage the Remain campaign,â€\x9d he admitted. “[But] it is a rather binary and polarised view of politics, which is thankfully both an inaccurate assessment and one of their strategic weaknesses.â€\x9d Maybe. Cameron’s worst critics will admit that his great strength as prime minister has always been that the public finds him convincing, decent, trustworthy, competent. He has consistently polled better than his party and, indeed, anyone in it. In making the case for EU membership those are precisely the qualities he needs to exude in the weeks ahead, pollsters suggest. Yet he suddenly looks weakened, and, for a time at least, somewhat diminished; which is a problem not just for Conservatives but for all those who want the UK to remain in the European Union. “This has profound effects on domestic politics in that it is very good news for Jeremy,â€\x9d one senior Labour MP said last week. “But for those of us who want to stay in the EU and are relying on Cameron to carry the torch, it could be completely bloody fatal.â€\x9d At no point was the damage to the prime minister more apparent, perhaps, than on Thursday, during a visit to Exeter University to try to talk young people round to backing EU membership. Refusing to take questions from the assembled media, who had one thing on their mind, Cameron opened the discussion for questions and a student threw back at him the question of his tax affairs. “I am very interested in what the collective EU states could do to combat tax avoidance – something you have personal experience of,â€\x9d the student said with a twinkle in his eye. The comedian Jimmy Carr, whom Cameron had condemned as “morally wrongâ€\x9d in 2012 for his use of aggressive tax avoidance schemes, tweeted: “I’m going to keep it classy. It would be ‘morally wrong’ and ‘hypocrytical’ [sic] to comment on another individual’s tax affairs.â€\x9d Harsh words, and personal attacks, politicians can take. When the public starts to laugh and mock, the rot on a political career may well have set in. Soon after the publication of the Panama Papers, a YouGov poll published last week suggested an extraordinary turnaround in sentiment among the general public: Cameron’s approval rating had fallen below Corbyn’s for the first time. Just 34% cent of voters had responded that the prime minister was doing a good job, while 58% felt he was not. Only 30% approved of the job Corbyn was doing, but 52% disapproved. On net scores, Corbyn had nudged ahead by one of his whiskers. Tomorrow, Labour will call for a series of actions to rebuild trust, including a public inquiry into the revelations in the Panama Papers, a change in the register of MPs’ interests to include details that the prime minister had been able to leave out of his records, and a set of minimum standards for crown dependencies and overseas territories. Next month, Cameron will host an international anti-corruption summit which gives him a much-needed opportunity to take back some high moral ground. The global fallout from the Panama Papers will rumble on for a long time yet. But no other country has quite such a pressing date with destiny as Britain. Former Labour MP Ian Davidson, who is the party’s coordinator for the Vote Leave campaign, believes the most significant impact of last week’s drama could be witnessed on 23 June. “This is a referendum on Dave’s deal on the EU,â€\x9d said Davidson, who was MP for Glasgow South West until the general election in 2015. “Cameron came back saying he had achieved something and it all fell apart. It is very much a vote about him and if he loses this referendum he will have to resign. “It will be the end for Osborne too,â€\x9d Davidson added. “This is a vote on the future of both of them. Why would you trust a man about the European Union if you can’t trust him on his own tax affairs?â€\x9d How the prime minister’s position changed MONDAY So, is Cameron family money still invested in Blairmore Holdings, the offshore fund set up by the prime minister’s father, which appears in the Panama Papers? “That is a private matterâ€\x9d says a spokeswoman for David Cameron TUESDAY The media persist. Pressed by Sky News’s Faisal IslamCameron begins to open up. “I have no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that. And so that, I think, is a very clear descriptionâ€\x9d Not quite clear enough, though. Downing Street issues a statement later that day: “To be clear, the prime minister, his wife and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds. The prime minister owns no shares. As has been previously reported, Mrs Cameron owns a small number of shares connected to her father’s land, which she declares on her tax returnâ€\x9d WEDNESDAY Cameron’s spokesman issues a further clarification which raises an obvious question. “There are no offshore funds/trusts which the prime minister, Mrs Cameron or their children will benefit from in the futureâ€\x9d Did they benefit in the past, though? THURSDAY Cameron tells the full story to Robert Peston of ITV News: “We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010â€\x9d The shares were sold for £31,500. SATURDAY Addressing the Tories’ spring forum, the prime minister admits it has “not been a great weekâ€\x9d He goes on to take full responsibility for a week of botched answers and explanations: “I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better. “I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them. “And don’t blame No 10 Downing Street or nameless advisers, blame me. And I will learn the lessonsâ€\x9d',
 'Desert Trip festival reportedly sells out in less than three hours The Desert Trip festival – featuring the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and the Who – sold out all its 70,000 three-day tickets for each of the festival’s two weekends in under three hours, Billboard reports. Although the festival’s organisers – Goldenvoice and AEG z – have not made an official announcement about how quickly all tickets for the event have sold, Billboard reports that its sources say both Desert Trip weekends – 9-11 October and 16-18 October – sold out in less than three hours. Billboard estimates the gross revenues from ticket sales at $150m (£104m). Last year’s highest grossing festival was Coachella – run by the same people who are putting on Desert Trip, on the same site near Palm Springs, California – which made $84.26m over two weekends, according to Forbes. Desert Trip would be, comfortably, the highest-grossing event in music history. As well as ticket sales, the organisers will be making money from ancillary activities such as selling licenses for catering and luxury camping. Desert Trip promises “over 30 culinary mastermindsâ€\x9d providing food, as well as assorted catering packages starting at $129 per person per day. Desert Trip, with its likely appeal to a prosperous audience of baby boomers, has charged premium prices. The 35,000 reserved seats for each weekend sold for between $699 and $1,599, while general admission was $399. The last tickets to sell out were the $199 day passes. However, the cost of booking the six acts who are appearing would have been colossal. One source familiar with the logistics of booking huge acts, and who had worked with some of those appearing at Desert Trip, suggested to the that Desert Trip might well be paying between $6m and $9m to each of the six acts.',
 '£24k for an Adele ticket? But there could be a bargain in the next seat A rather apocalyptic report in the on Sunday noted how much one might pay to get tickets for Adele’s UK tour. It found that you could be charged up to £24,000 to see the superstar at the O2 in London, if you went through “secondary ticketing sitesâ€\x9d. That was true. There were sellers asking those prices, but that doesn’t reflect the whole picture. Get Me In, the site that was – alas no longer; the listing has disappeared – offering four seats in row R of the top tier of the O2 for £22,000 each plus fees, also has tickets a couple of rows further forward for £180 each. It has tickets in block A3 – the seating block on the floor in front of the stage – for £2,750. That’s not meant to excuse those prices. They are horrific. The secondary ticket sites (where people resell tickets they have already bought, for events they can’t go to, often discovering they can’t go just seconds after buying the tickets, incredibly) have succeeded in turning touting into a leisure activity: lots of people now think nothing of buying an extra ticket or two and then offsetting the cost of their own attendance against the profit from tickets they resell. Worse still, secondary ticketing sites have become havens for organised touts, who’ve found ways around the flimsy security devices intended to deter them. What’s worse, plenty are engaging in what’s known as “speculative ticketingâ€\x9d – copying one of the less attractive practices of City trading by selling something they don’t have, in the hope that before the event comes, they’ll be able to buy the ticket they are advertising at a price less than they are selling for. If they can’t do that, of course, the secondary buyer never gets the ticket. It’s not really a surprise to learn that the Association of Chief Police Officers believes organised crime gangs are active in the secondary ticketing market, given the ease with which it’s possible to make a fortune. The government has also launched a review of the secondary ticketing market. Ticketmaster – which owns Get Me In and Seatwave – offered this defence: “Ticketing marketplaces react to demand and the willingness of fans to pay. With high-profile events, such as Adele, tickets are sometimes listed at prices higher than the face value. Tickets very rarely sell at these elevated prices though, with many selling at face value or below the original price.â€\x9d What that means is that tickets for sold-out shows will go for more than face price, while tickets for shows that don’t sell out might go for less than face price. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get the best seats in the house for half price, mind you – if all the premium seats are gone, you’ll still have to pay through the nose. But if there are plenty of rubbish seats left at the box office, you might get them cheaply through a secondary seller. But the point about secondary ticket prices responding to demand is absolutely correct. The people who are charging a fortune for terrible tickets, having set the prices themselves, are either a) trolls b) misreading the markets or c) not expecting anyone to buy the tickets until the very last minute, when all other options have disappeared, and the only way someone with a great deal of money can get to see the show is if they are willing to be taken to the cleaners. It is routinely the case that when you see a ticket being sold for a truly eye-watering price, one that stretches credulity, then you will find a seat of similar quality for very much cheaper. It doesn’t make it right – I find the secondary ticketing business reprehensible, which is why I’ve always refused to do PR-driven interviews with the big players at any of the companies (they are offered frequently; these people are well aware of how bad they look when a story like the Adele tickets breaks) – but it’s important to remember that the headline price you might see offered isn’t the definitive price, it’s one price. How the big summer show prices compare on the big resale sites Beyoncé The cheapest seat we found for any of Beyoncé’s UK dates on Viagogo was £75.90, to sit in row 19 of block 519 at Wembley Stadium on 3 July – on the top tier, in the furthest corner from the stage. That’s to sit in a seat from which Beyoncé will be little more than a rumour. The most expensive was £12,101, for row 7 of block 520 on 2 July – another terrible seat, and the worst value we found. Leaving that one aside, it was a £10,000 drop to the next most expensive seats: £2,300 for block 206 was still awful value, given that while lower down, it’s still a long way from the stage, especially when £2,250 would buy you a “Beyhiveâ€\x9d package with a standing place at the very front of the stage. Seatwave was much the same, with a cheapest ticket of £80 for block 516 of Wembley on 3 July, and a priciest one of £1,500 for Old Trafford cricket ground on 5 July, in its “The Pointâ€\x9d section. Though that looks badly overpriced when you can still buy the top hospitality package for The Point for £375 for that show. Give it a couple of months. It’s the same story at the cheap end for Get Me In (£75.99 for block 526 at Wembley on 3 July), while its most expensive is an optimistic £5,500 to stand in the golden circle at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light on 28 June. You can get the same ticket, for the same show, on the same site, for £550. Stubhub has Wembley top tier seats for £75, with a Beyhive package topping the price list at £2,250 – how interesting that it’s the same price as on Viagogo. There’s also a general admission standing ticket for £2,500. That’s to stand miles away from the stage with no golden circle or Beyhive privileges. Coldplay Things are much the same at the bottom end for Coldplay – all four of the big resellers have their cheapest offers for seats in Wembley’s top tier, and all for the band’s show on 15 June (one of four Wembley gigs they are playing), with prices ranging from £70.91 (Viagogo) to £81.99 (Seatwave and Stubhub). At the other end of the scale, for three of the sites, the most expensive tickets are for the band’s gig at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester on 4 June. Viagogo is offering a “VIP passâ€\x9d for block 204 – second tier, decent position relative to the stage – for £900. The same block with no pass is £1,023.75 on Seatwave, and £1,320 on Get Me In. The most most expensive Stubhub seat for Wembley is £1,300 for block 227 of the Club Wembley tier – a decent seat, but not £1,300 worth of decent seat.',
 "Ava DuVernay backs 'DuVernay test' to monitor racial diversity in Hollywood A new test designed to challenge Hollywood’s record on racial diversity has received backing from its inspiration, the award-winning African American director Ava DuVernay. Dubbed the “DuVernay testâ€\x9d, the initiative was first posited by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis in a review of this year’s Sundance film festival. The long-established Bechdel test, first proposed by the US cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a 1985 comic strip, requires two women to talk to each other about something other than a man to prove its egalitarian values. Dargis said her “DuVernay testâ€\x9d would merely require “African Americans and other minorities [to] have fully realised lives rather than serve as scenery in white storiesâ€\x9d. While the critic appears to have used the term as a light-hearted framing device for a piece on diversity in Sundance movies, the concept may have legs. DuVernay’s name symbolises the ongoing battle by African American film-makers to get movies made in Hollywood, given the furore over the Oscars’ decision to limit her acclaimed civil-rights drama Selma to just two nominations (for best picture and best song) in 2015. After the feminist film blog Women in Hollywood tweeted about Dargis’s coinage, DuVernay posted: “Wow. Floored. What a lovely cinematic idea to embrace. What a thrill to be associated with it. Absolutely wonderful.â€\x9d In a blogpost, Slate magazine’s Megan Logan suggested the concept could be developed. “Though the Bechdel test is, of course, an over-simplified yardstick for feminism in film, it remains a simple, straightforward way to begin the conversation about how any given movie humanises its female characters,â€\x9d she wrote. “Perhaps it’s just as well that Dargis doesn’t propose any specific measure for the DuVernay test; rather than producing a simply binary yes/no, it can serve similarly as a way to begin discussing the diversity, representation, and depth of the stories of minority characters in the films we make and watch.â€\x9d The idea of a Bechdel test focused on racial as opposed to gender diversity has been proposed before. In 2013, the author Nikesh Shukla suggested the “Shukla testâ€\x9d, requiring two ethnic minorities to talk to each other for more than five minutes about something other than race. In the wake of the ongoing row over the all-white lists of Oscar nominees, bloggers Nadia and Leila Latif proposed a more complex test for racial diversity in film. In a piece for the , they suggest films should feature two named characters of colour with lines of dialogue, who were not romantically involved with each other and did not talk about comforting or supporting a white character. The bloggers also said neither of the two main black characters should conform to the hated “magical negroâ€\x9d stereotype.",
 'European entrepreneurs say Brexit will harm their business Two-thirds of European entrepreneurs feel that Brexit will harm their business and 95% want a stronger say in European Union trade policy. More than 700 entrepreneurs, from businesses in all sectors and sizes, met in Brussels on Thursday to debate their role in the EU. The business owners voted on a range of topics as part of the bi-annual European Parliament of Enterprises (EPE) event, which is organised by the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry. While they are supportive of the value of the EU negotiating trade deals on their behalf (94% feel it makes a difference to the competitiveness of their business), an overwhelming 92% are not sufficiently aware of the commercial implications, meaning that opportunities for job creation and economic growth could be left on the table. Much of the EU is struggling with high levels of unemployment, particularly among young people in countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece. But business owners say it is harder to recruit staff with the right skills now than it was in 2010 and 64% say a lack of transparency between national qualification systems makes it difficult to recruit from other member states. Almost all (98%) attendants support the integration of practical, work-based learning with all vocational education and training programmes. And 94% want entrepreneurship skills to be taught at all levels of education. The support for the EU as a whole, and the benefits it provides, was evident but many entrepreneurs do not feel that the single market is sufficiently integrated, and more could be done to remove barriers to cross-border trade and investment. Only 49% of business owners search for finance outside their own country. Entrepreneurs also believe national governments need to help companies tackle the problem of late payments between the public sector and businesses. The European small claims procedure is suitable for claims up to a value of €2,000 and there are proposals to increase this to €10,000. However, 83% do not feel that governments do enough to tackle the economic conditions and power imbalances in the market. Concern about the rise of China’s influence was also discussed, with 80% agreeing that granting the country market economy status would negatively effect European businesses. Beijing has been campaigning for the change, which would require trade regulators to compare Chinese bids with those of domestic suppliers, and would limit their ability to introduce tariffs. The EPE event has been running since 2008 in an effort to bridge the gap between EU institutions and entrepreneurs. Representatives from the 27 member countries were invited, as well as entrepreneurs from 24 non-member states. In attendance were the European parliament vice-president, Antonio Tajani, and the European commission vice-president, Jyrki Katainen. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.',
 'We need you, Andrew Tyrie. Without you, the bankers will get away with it A new year and, for bankers, it seems, a new regime. Not a tough new rule book which would help regulators to clamp down on the outrageous behaviour that caused the 2008 crisis and the ensuing economic recession, but a regime in which an official review into the culture of banking has been abandoned and the government has U-turned on a pledge to toughen up the rules holding senior bankers to account. What has prompted this change of heart? Have the bankers mended their ways after the $150bn (£96bn) of fines imposed on major banks since 2008? (Those fines, incidentally, have deprived the real economy of $3tn of credit, holding back growth around the world.) Perhaps rules to clamp down on bankers’ bonuses have finally started to erode the “greed is goodâ€\x9d culture of the City? Or have banks started to treat their customers with respect after paying out £27bn in compensation for sustained mis-selling of payment protection insurance? There is little evidence to suggest any of this has happened. In the coming months (possibly weeks) Royal Bank of Scotland – rescued with £45bn of taxpayer money – is expected to hand over billions of dollars to the US authorities because of how it sold off dodgy packages of mortgage debt in the run-up to the financial crisis. While RBS might try to pass the penalty off as a “legacy issueâ€\x9d, it is also awaiting the outcome of a review by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority into its treatment of small business customers. Barclays – still being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over the way it raised money from Middle Eastern investors to avoid a taxpayer bailout – provides the clearest illustration that fines do little to change behaviour. On the day after it was fined for rigging Libor in 2012, one of its traders was busy fixing the price of gold despite the immediate public backlash following the interest rate manipulation penalty. When it comes to pay, bankers are also having the last laugh. The bonus cap imposed by the EU, instead of putting a lid on excess, has resulted in bankers getting a boost to their fixed pay through new handouts alongside their salaries and bonuses. Data last week showed how four US banks paid out at least £736,000 to almost 900 individuals in 2014. The 2015 bonus season is about to begin, and will no doubt be just as lucrative. On the crucial matter of how banks treat their customers evidence of reform is also thin. Lloyds Banking Group has been fined for a bonus culture that put staff under pressure to sell. Santander also showed it had scant regard for its customers by naming Chris Sullivan as its new corporate business chief at 8pm on the day before Christmas Eve. Sullivan left RBS – where he was deputy chief executive – exactly a year ago after being forced to apologise to Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee. Tyrie had accused him of being “wilfully obtuseâ€\x9d. This is the backdrop against which a more softly-softly approach is being adopted for big City firms, no doubt in a bid to ensure that HSBC does not move its headquarters out of the UK. George Osborne appears to be in some confusion. In November he was talking tough, saying bankers were getting off more lightly than shop lifters. But a few months earlier the chancellor had set out his hopes for a “new settlementâ€\x9d with the City, signalling a more relaxed approach after being released from a coalition government. It seems to be a good moment for Tyrie – who presided over the parliamentary commission on banking standards set up in the wake of the Barclays Libor-rigging fine – to step forward. His committee is the one hope for making sure that bankers will not be able to sleep easy in 2016. Ashley will struggle to copy John Lewis Sports Direct’s attempt to turn itself into another John Lewis will begin in earnest this week. Mike Ashley’s comment that he wants to make Sports Directhis chain the best employer on the high street behind John Lewis was unprecedented. In the coming months we will see whether he means what he says or whether the 15p pay rise for staff was, as trade union Unite claims, a PR stunt. As ever with Ashley, people will look for ulterior motives. He was forced into this position by a investigation last month into working conditions at the Sports Direct warehouse in Derbyshire and by investor impatience with SD’s shares. Key things to watch in 2016 are how the retailer changes its employment practices and its share price. The more the shares fall, the more Ashley will be pressured into sweeping changes. The shares have been under strain since a handful of City analysts claimed Sports Direct may be past its peak. The company’s pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap approach has attracted bargain-hungry shoppers, but its reputation has been tarnished with customers and key suppliers. Major brands such as Adidas and Nike have become unhappy with Sports Direct’s presentation of its products and turned instead to JD Sports to launch new trainers and football shirts. In 2015, Sports Direct shares fell almost 20% while JD shares more than doubled. Sports Direct is revamping its stores and moving to larger, out-of-town locations, but this could deter the canny customers who have made the company what it is. Some of Sports Direct’s overseas businesses are also struggling, so Ashley and his lieutenant Dave Forsey have a lot on their plates. While the rest of the world starts a new year by looking ahead, retailers begin January by looking back. Christmas trading updates kick off this week with John Lewis, which is expected to set the benchmark for performance as well as working practices. Ashley and Sports Direct are a very long way from both. This rail fare rise is unreal By the standards of recent years, commuters may feel they have escaped lightly as they return to work with rail fares having increased by a mere 1.1% after the weekend’s annual rise. Even among the worst-hit season ticket holders, few will see their train operator lift more than an extra £60-£70 a year from their wallets. But before passengers thank George for small mercies, let’s not allow the chancellor to persist with his claim of a real-terms “freezeâ€\x9d on fares. The rate by which they are rising is pegged to the retail price index, a measure the government scorns when it comes to other areas. Inflation as generally counted – the CPI measure – is zero. This is, in real terms as well as on the bank statement, another of the manyfare rises, small or large, overt or by stealth, that have compounded and accrued to make Britain’s privatised railway the most expensive in Europe. And now, that little bit more so.',
 'Shared parental leave is suffering teething problems Talk about baby steps. On the first anniversary of the government’s shared parental leave scheme, figures show men have not leapt at the chance to have a chunk of time at home with their new baby. According to the research by My Family Care and the Women’s Business Council, the main obstacle was family finances. This should not come as a surprise. Equality campaigners have long warned too few families can afford for fathers to take shared parental leave. The government’s own analysis estimated that only 2-8% of fathers would take up the entitlement. The financial reality for many families is that the father is still the main breadwinner. The arrival of a new child and the extra financial strain is understandably seen as the worst time for them to take extended leave. In other words, the UK’s enduring gender pay gap is keeping old roles entrenched. Men go out to work, women stay home as carers. That is underscored by this new research, which found half of men believe that taking shared parental leave is perceived negatively at work while 57% of women say it would impact negatively on their partner’s career. Shared parental leave should in time help cut that gender pay gap – something which David Cameron has vowed to do “in a generationâ€\x9d. That men currently feel unable to take the career risk or financial penalty of extended leave shows they also stand to gain from greater equality. Sadly, recent history shows progress is painfully slow. The Equal Pay Act was passed more than four decades ago and the latest official figures still put the gender pay gap at more than 9%. PPI savings account - with interest Mis-sold payment protection insurance policies have turned out to be a lucrative form of savings account. Banks are obliged to pay 8% interest on the money they are returning to hapless customers. They are not only getting back their premiums but a sizeable chunk on top. It is worth thinking about what this means for the banking sector. The latest reporting season provided a new wave of provisions for PPI refunds with Lloyds alone adding a further £4bn to the pot. The figures are mindboggling. Calculations by Which? show that the total amount set aside by the big five banks alone is £32.2bn. Since 2011, £23bn has been handed over – seemingly a fair chunk of the £44bn paid in premiums between 1990 and 2010. However, once the interest payments are factored in, there appears to be scope for further payouts. According to the Professional Financial Claims Association (PFCA), only about half the £23bn represents refunded payments. The rest is interest. The PFCA chairman, Nick Baxter, suggests that on a conservative estimate about three-quarters of policies were mis-sold. Not all of those sales would warrant a full refund – in some cases a policyholder may have been flogged an expensive single premium policy when they would have willingly bought one that they paid for every month. But, by some measures, there could be a further £22bn worth of premiums to repay – plus interest. Clearly the PFCA has an axe to grind. It represents claims management companies and is lobbying against the Financial Conduct Authority’s proposed 2018 deadline for customers who want to complain. This time bar is also causing controversy with consumer bodies and Baxter argues the banks can hardly claim to be “nearly thereâ€\x9d in tackling the scandal if half of what they have paid out is in fact interest and not just the return of premiums. The political and regulatory mood is clearly for the time bar to proceed – the sale of PPI was lucrative for the industry, while the prolonged period over which compensation is being repaid is a drag on the sector. But the implementation of any time limit on claims needs to be carefully thought through. Executive pay’s long-term flaw Who’d have thought that selling kitchen cleaners, condoms and throat soothers could be so lucrative? Six years after Bart Becht, the then boss of Reckitt Benckiser, received an eye-watering £90m pay deal, the Slough-based company revealed his successor has been handed £23m for 2015. Rakesh Kapoor’s total is down to an £18m payout from a long-term incentive plan. These “Ltipsâ€\x9d are deployed by most major companies and, largely, based on performance over three years. Stefan Stern of the High Pay Centre points out that they are hopelessly flawed and that three years is hardly long term. It has been said many times, but it is worth repeating: executive pay deals need a radical rethink.',
 'Trump campaign manager sued to get on Massachusetts ballot as 21-year-old Donald Trump this week threatened to sue the Republican party over disputed results in a bitterly contested presidential primary that may yet end up in the courts if the party establishment denies him the nomination this summer. The has found that Trump’s pugnacious campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has more experience in this field than was previously known, having resorted to litigation in his only election as a candidate himself. Profiles of Lewandowski have noted that as a Republican college student, he ran for a seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1994 but lost to Thomas Golden Jr, the Democratic candidate. Golden still represents their native Lowell in the state’s house of representatives. Lewandowski was not, however, the Republican candidate. Nobody was. According to court records, Lewandowski was denied a place on the ballot for the Republican primary that September. “My memory is that he didn’t get as many signatures as the party required,â€\x9d Golden recalled this week. Despite being unopposed, Lewandowski then failed to get 150 Republicans to name him as a “write-inâ€\x9d candidate in the primary, which he required to subsequently appear as the Republican candidate on the ballot in November’s general election. So Lewandowski, then just 21 years old, sued the Massachusetts secretary of state, Michael Connolly, and election officials in Middlesex County superior court. He demanded in a lawsuit that they declare him the winner of the Republican primary, and tried to have Connolly banned from printing general election ballot papers without his name on them. In an affidavit filed to the court, Lewandowski argued that the results were not accurate and blamed the people who counted them. “Poll workers put in very long hours on election dayâ€\x9d and “errors are madeâ€\x9d, he wrote. His claim was rejected by Judge Mary-Lou Rup, apparently forcing Lewandowski to again run as a write-in candidate in the general election. “At that stage, it is usually an insurmountable task to overcome,â€\x9d said Golden. According to state records, Golden won 99.9% of the vote in the 17th district of Middlesex County, while “all othersâ€\x9d received just seven votes between them. A state elections official said on Thursday that no record had been kept of how many, if any, of those seven votes were cast for Lewandowski. Almost 2,000 blank votes were cast, which the official said was normal for a down-ballot race. Golden’s district is now the 16th, following redistricting. Lewandowski, who was on Tuesday charged with the battery of a young reporter at a Trump campaign event in Florida, did not respond to a request for comment about the election. An account of factual findings written by the judge as she considered Lewandowski’s lawsuit painted a picture of a chaotic primary day in Lowell in September 1994, where a system of punch-cards and coloured envelopes appeared to confuse some voters. Several people wrote in Lewandowski’s name on a pink Democratic party ballot card rather than a blue Republican one, rendering them useless to his campaign. Lewandowski argued in his lawsuit that the apparent “will of the voterâ€\x9d should be respected. After his total was initially stated at 133, Lewandowski requested a recount. It increased to 142. One more vote was then awarded to him after a batch of missing ballot envelopes were recovered, bringing him to 143. Four envelopes from what Lewandowski said was “the most heavily registered Republican section of the cityâ€\x9d remained missing. He was, however, seven votes short. Golden, who was raised on the same street as Lewandowski in a blue-collar neighbourhood in Lowell, said his opponent’s newfound controversy took him by surprise. “I know there’s a lot going on now, but I’ve known him for 30 years,â€\x9d he said. “He was very likable, very affable. It’s just not the person I know.â€\x9d',
 "Julia Gillard: 'We've made progress in education and gender equality – but more must be done' A few years ago, an outbreak of cholera and other deadly diseases swept through one of the poorest villages in the northern region of Ghana, taking the life of Ruhainatu’s mother, Jamila. Ruhainatu was in her teens. A decade ago, Jamila’s death would have extinguished Ruhainatu’s chances of getting the education she needs to succeed in life. Instead of going to school, she would have taken on her mother’s role of caring full time for her home and family. But efforts by the Ghanaian government, together with development partners like the Global Partnership for Education, have strengthened the country’s education system. Now Ruhainatu and girls like her have a more hopeful prospect for life. One of the top performing students in the local school, Ruhainatu has ambitions to go away to university to become a nurse and then return to her village to help others remain healthy. Her story is one of countless affirmative real-life testimonials showing how educating girls can help them be healthier, more economically prosperous and become more civically empowered women. Their new knowledge can also improve the health and wellbeing of others around them. But enabling children to succeed requires the right combination of support, so that they will be healthy, well-nourished and can attend a quality school that has access to clean drinking water and toilets. Providing school meals and deworming programmes, for example, can have an important impact. The 2016 Unesco global education monitoring report notes that school meals and deworming programmes promote better education outcomes, especially for girls. For very poor families, the prospect that their daughter will be fed means that sending her to school is a more attractive option than keeping her at home so she can attend to domestic duties, farm work or taking goods to market. Greater access to clean water can also translate into education improvements for girls, by reducing the time they take to collect water for the family and giving them more time for school. This give-and-take between education and other social development factors has received more emphasis since the unveiling of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) last year. We are breaking down the silos that have historically divided development sectors. Education and global health groups now understand that improvements in each are essential to progress for both and we are already creating opportunities for deeper collaboration. Now the evidence of what works is increasingly clear, let’s just get on with it and drive progress on the mutually reinforcing goals for global education (SDG 4) and gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG 5). For groups like the Global Partnership for Education, whose board I chair and which partially funded the program in Ghana that helped Ruhainatu, “getting on with itâ€\x9d includes continuing to support countries to close the gender gaps in their education systems. Closing those gaps requires recognising and breaking down barriers to gender equality. Poverty is the biggest, but other significant factors include ethnicity, language, disability, early marriage, the distance from home to school, gender-biased pedagogy, fragility and conflict, absence of proper sanitary facilities, pressure to take care of family or earn money, and insecurity within and on the way to school. We – in education or in any other related development sectors – could accomplish much more in less time if there was sufficient political support and enough financing. This includes first and foremost more domestic financing for education by developing countries themselves. But it also requires more donor funding. We can’t “just get on with itâ€\x9d when education’s share of overseas development aid has fallen from 13% to 10% since 2002. The International Commission for Financing Global Education Opportunities, notes in its just-released report that under present trends, only one in 10 young people in low-income countries will be on track to gain basic secondary-level skills by 2030. Clearly, this is completely unacceptable. The Education Commission, on which I serve as a commissioner, advocates for a range of far-reaching transformations to improve education. The commission’s work provides new evidence on what works and costs out what it would take for the world to educate every child. The call to action in financing is to increase total spending on education from $1.2tn (£0.9tn) per year today to $3tn (£2.3tn) by 2030. That’s a big jump but not an insurmountable one. Making the leap starts with developing countries, donors, NGOs, the private sector and many others choosing right now to just get on with it. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter.",
 'How West Ham United are laying the foundations for long-term success Four years after promotion from the Championship, West Ham United, who take on Arsenal in the early kick-off on Saturday, are challenging for Champions League qualification under an exciting manager and on Wednesday face Manchester United for a place in the FA Cup semi‑finals. As West Ham prepare to move to the Olympic Stadium, people are asking whether this season is a flash in the pan or if they are capable of establishing themselves as title contenders. What are the key factors determining current success and future prospects? 1 The manager It always was a marriage of convenience between West Ham and Sam Allardyce and no one was getting anything out of it in the end. Supporters pined for a manager with a more expansive approach, someone who got their desire for attractive football and Slaven Bilic ticked that box. As a former player, he understood the West Ham way. At the same time, the club knew that replacing the pragmatic Allardyce with someone who had not managed in the Premier League was a risk, despite Bilic’s experiences with Croatia, Besiktas and Lokomotiv Moscow, and a shambolic 4-3 defeat at home to Bournemouth in August generated a sense of foreboding around Upton Park. Those fears quickly proved unfounded, though, as Bilic demonstrated he is a quick learner, reacting to the Bournemouth game by masterminding a 3-0 victory at Anfield, West Ham’s first win there since 1963. The holder of a law degree, he is a highly intelligent man and those close to him speak of a manager whose charisma, charm and passion allow him to command the respect and admiration of his squad. The players have embraced his methods. They are free to express themselves on the pitch and those who have been around for a long time cannot remember training being this intense. A day off early in the week is followed by sharp sessions as match day approaches and Bilic is a prominent figure on the training ground, allowing his assistants, Nikola Jurcevic and the popular Edin Terzic, to run the sessions while occasionally stepping in to offer a quiet word of advice here and there. West Ham are not flawless. They have struggled to assert themselves in several games, often starting slowly against lesser sides, and have ridden their luck at times. It makes their overall level hard to assess. Which is the real West Ham? The one that took 30 minutes to string two passes together against Norwich in September? Or the one that outplayed Tottenham Hotspur last month? Either way, they know how to stay in games. Take the 2-1 victory over Southampton on 28 December, when they were fortunate to be only 1-0 down at half-time, before Bilic’s substitutions changed the game. He can make tactical tweaks on the go and he is not afraid to ditch Plan A, which is why West Ham have recovered 12 points from losing positions this season. Bilic is capable of surprising his rivals, with the win over Spurs notable for his use of a 5-3-2 formation after months of veering between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1, and his calm demeanour behind the scenes has helped the team maintain their composure when they are behind. Survival was the main objective at the start of the season but it was not long before West Ham were setting their targets higher. 2 The board As one board member puts it, 20 minutes in Bilic’s company is all it takes for people to warm to him and David Sullivan and David Gold, the club’s co-owners, knew that they had their man at the end of the interview with the Croat. There is chemistry, trust, a sense that the owners and the manager are pulling in the same direction. Sullivan and Gold have not got everything right since buying the club just over six years ago. Hiring Avram Grant in 2011 was a huge mistake. West Ham went down and needed Allardyce to piece them back together. Yet Sullivan and Gold are experienced and the good has outweighed the bad. Reeling under Icelandic ownership in 2010, West Ham were on the brink of financial oblivion. The squad was a mess and Mark Noble has admitted that the club was run like a circus. Now they are challenging for the Champions League qualification and will move into the Olympic Stadium this summer. The challenge is to keep growing. West Ham have had successful seasons in the past but the problem has been backing it up consistently. Previous regimes have stood still, leaving supporters cold with faceless PR. Sullivan and Gold are not everyone’s cup of tea but they have engaged with fans via traditional and social media and while West Ham cannot compete with the financial muscle of the traditional big clubs they are starting to challenge. 3 Recruitment Without spending eye-watering sums, West Ham have been astute in the transfer market in the past two years. Sullivan is heavily involved in identifying and securing targets, while Tony Henry, who worked with David Moyes at Everton, has performed excellently since being put in charge of the recruitment department. Diafra Sakho, signed for £3.75m, was playing in the French second division. Cheikhou Kouyaté joined from the Belgian champions, Anderlecht, for £5.63m. Angelo Ogbonna arrived for £8.25m from Juventus, the £4.5m midfielder Pedro Obiang has impressed since joining from Sampdoria and even Dimitri Payet, signed for £11.25m from Marseille, was overlooked by other clubs. It has reached the point where even the groundsmen cannot tear their eyes away when Payet practises his free-kicks in training and sighs of disappointment can be heard around Chadwell Heath when the ball flies off target. West Ham believe that the 29-year-old is worth every penny of his £125,000-a-week, five-year deal. That was a sign of West Ham’s intent and perhaps they will look to make one marquee signing this summer; they have targeted two expensive forwards, for instance, Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette and Marseille’s Michy Batshuayi. Yet they have not been afraid to sign players from the Championship. Aaron Cresswell cost £3.5m from Ipswich Town, Sam Byram cost £3.7m from Leeds United and Michail Antonio cost £7m from Nottingham Forest. Antonio, 26, has scored seven goals despite breaking into the team only in December. Loan deals have also given West Ham time to think. While they signed Manuel Lanzini on a permanent basis last month, waiting before spending £9m on a 22-year-old Argentinian who had been playing in the Middle East, Emmanuel Emenike, Victor Moses and Alex Song will probably be sent back to their parent clubs. 4 Squad depth Bilic has selection headaches now that he has a fully fit squad and, although West Ham’s FA Cup quarter-final replay against United is a few days away, he will play his strongest side when Arsenal visit Upton Park on Saturday afternoon. But for the injury crisis that decimated West Ham’s attack in the winter months, they might have challenged for the title. Yet Bilic looks back on that period positively. The squad players stepped up and West Ham had to graft during a nine-game unbeaten run. Bilic did not hide his frustration about the spate of muscle injuries that threatened to derail his side, prompting the former West Ham winger Matthew Etherington to criticise the quality of the pitches at Chadwell Heath. There is respect for the experienced fitness coach, Miljenko Rak, and West Ham hope that moving to their new site in Rush Green will solve the problem. 5 The stadium Arsenal are generating more match‑day revenue than any club in the world, making over £100m from the Emirates Stadium last year. Manchester United made £87.96m from Old Trafford, Chelsea made £71.84m from Stamford Bridge. Liverpool made £57.85m from Anfield and Tottenham made £41.83m from White Hart Lane. West Ham made £19.9m from Upton Park, which holds 35,000. Although the majority of income for Premier League clubs comes from the broadcast money, moving to a bigger, commercially attractive stadium will strengthen West Ham’s position. Far from struggling to fill the Olympic Stadium, West Ham are expanding the capacity from 54,000 to 60,000 and could eventually increase it to 66,000. The attraction is clear. Upton Park can be difficult to reach and even harder to get away from after full time. Getting to Stratford is simple. The team are playing well. There are whispers of a visit from Barcelona in pre-season. Champions League football is a possibility. What West Ham can hope to make from the stadium remains unclear, with critics of the move pushing the London Legacy Development Committee to release the full terms of a deal that has led to disputes over the use of public funds and the cost to taxpayers, but it has boosted their commercial potential. Last year they agreed a record shirt sponsorship deal with the online bookmakers Betway, who agreed to pay £20m over three and a half years. “When the deal was signed with West Ham United we were in the right place at the right time, but there was certainly a long term view towards the Olympic Stadium and the growth of the club because of that move,â€\x9d a spokesman for Betway told the . The challenge for West Ham is to keep their identity after the move. Upton Park remains one of the most atmospheric grounds in the country and, while the club are pulling out all the stops to make the Olympic Stadium feel like home, the adjustment will not be straightforward. Ambition must not come at the cost of the club’s soul.',
 'Trump blames media after more sexual misconduct accusations reported Donald Trump disassembled his teleprompter during a North Carolina rally on Friday night, in the same week that he boasted on Twitter Tuesday about having his “shackles offâ€\x9d. The Republican nominee, who saw further accusations of groping on Friday from two different women, responded by trashing the media. Speaking to a crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina, he seemed to allege that the New York Times was part of a Mexican conspiracy to undermine him. “The largest shareholder in the Times is Carlos Slim,â€\x9d Trump said. “Now, Carlos Slim comes from Mexico. He’s given many millions of dollars to the Clintons and their initiative.â€\x9d In Trump’s conclusion, “reporters of the New York Times, they’re not journalists, they’re corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clintonâ€\x9d. The Republican nominee denounced the media in more abstract terms in his rally in Charlotte, insisting that the press was responsible for “rigging the systemâ€\x9d as well as the coming election. The Republican nominee also insisted that he could not have sexually harassed Jessica Leeds, a businesswoman who said Trump groped her on a 1979 flight because Leeds was unattractive. “Believe me – she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.â€\x9d The candidate’s campaign also rolled out an eyewitness who claimed that he was sitting across from Leeds and Trump and that nothing ever happened. The witness, Anthony Gilberthorpe, an Englishman who would have been a teenager at the time that he said he was flying first class on the domestic US flight, has also claimed that he procured underage male prostitutes for British MPs and that Margaret Thatcher covered up the scandal. A campaign aide told the that Gilberthorpe was “just the beginningâ€\x9d in their effort to fight back against the allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump denied all accusations against him and suggested that women coming forward might be motivated for “financial reasonsâ€\x9d. He told the crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina, “these allegations are 100% false. They are made up, they never happened. When you have met tens of thousands people as I have ... it’s not hard to find a small handful of people make false smears for personal fame, maybe financial reasons.â€\x9d The controversy over Trump’s sexual misconduct towards women was launched last Friday when a 2005 tape emerged of the Republican nominee discussing kissing and grabbing women by the genitals without their consent. After repeated questioning during Sunday’s presidential debate, Trump eventually said that he had never engaged in such actions. Since then nearly a dozen women have accused Trump of inappropriate, unwanted sexual conduct including groping them, putting his hand up skirts and barging in on dressing rooms. In addition to commenting on Leeds’ attractiveness, Trump also appeared to attack the appearance of his rival Clinton. Referring to the second presidential debate in St Louis, he said: “I’m standing at my podium and she walks in front of me, she walks in front of me and when she walks in front of me, believe me, I wasn’t impressed.â€\x9d Later, in Charlotte, he added of his opponent that “she was the most corrupt person to ever seek the presidency of the United States and her specialty has been, as you see over the years, it’s character assassinationâ€\x9d. The Republican nominee eventually reverted to standard lines from his primary campaign after his teleprompter broke down on Friday night at a rally in Charlotte. Trump laid the devices on the stage before returning to old chestnuts, including his attack on the Obama administration’s concern over climate change. “Obama thinks global warming is our biggest threat. I happen to think it’s nuclear warming,â€\x9d Trump said. He also went to jab at former rival Jeb Bush, using the epithet “low energyâ€\x9d while going on a tirade about primary opponents who signed the RNC pledge to support the eventual nominee but are now not backing Trump. The day after Trump spoke in ominous tones about global elites and Hillary Clinton meeting “in secret with international banks,â€\x9d President Barack Obama bashed those comments in a campaign trip to Cleveland. “This is a guy who spent all his time hanging around trying to convince everybody he was a global elite,â€\x9d Obama said, laughing. “Talking about how great his buildings are, how luxurious and how rich he is and flying around everywhere. All he had time for was celebrities and now suddenly he’s acting like he’s a populist out there. I’m going to fight for working people.â€\x9d Obama added, “Come on, man.â€\x9d On a fundraising swing in Seattle, Clinton expressed disappointment in the tenor of the campaign. “This election is incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side with my opponent,â€\x9d Clinton said at a stop at a campaign office in Seattle. “I am not at all happy about that, because it hurts our country, it hurts our democracy, it sends terrible messages to so many people here at home and around the world. Damage is being done that we’re going to have to repair. Divisions are being deepened that we’re going to have to try to heal.â€\x9d Clinton has no public events scheduled Saturday as both candidates prepare for the final presidential debate to be held Wednesday in Las Vegas. Trump will speak at an event at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, car dealership before holding a rally in Bangor, Maine.',
 'The growing list of Republicans withdrawing support for Donald Trump On Friday and Saturday, after the release of an 11-year-old recording that revealed Donald Trump boasting about his advances on a married woman and his desire to “grab [women] by the pussyâ€\x9d, a succession of Republican lawmakers condemned the remarks and in some cases withdrew their support for their party’s presidential nominee. Here is a list of those Republicans and their current statements and positions regarding Trump, in context of what they have previously said on the subject. Republicans who have endorsed and now abandoned Trump John Thune, South Dakota senator and third-ranking Republican in the Senate: “Donald Trump should withdraw and Mike Pence should be our nominee effective immediately.â€\x9d In May, Thune argued Trump was a necessary candidate of “changeâ€\x9d, saying: “We have to get it right in 2016 because the future of our country is hanging in the balance in so many different ways. And there are three words that ought to scare everyone in this room: President Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d John McCain, Arizona senator and 2008 presidential nominee: “I have wanted to support the candidate our party nominated. He was not my choice, but as a past nominee, I thought it important I respect the fact that Donald Trump won a majority of the delegates by the rules our party set. I thought I owed his supporters that deference. “But Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts of sexual assaults, make it impossible to offer even conditional support for his candidacy … We will write in the name of some good conservative Republican who is qualified to be president.â€\x9d Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire senator: “I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women.â€\x9d Last week, Ayotte called Trump a “role modelâ€\x9d and then promptly recanted the remark, saying neither he nor Hillary Clinton were worthy of admiration. Jason Chaffetz, Utah representative: “I’m pulling my endorsement. I cannot support in any way, shape or form the comments or approach Donald Trump has taken.â€\x9d This summer, after some public struggle, Chaffetz said he would support the nominee. Bradley Byrne, Alabama representative: “It is now clear Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States and cannot defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe he should step aside.â€\x9d Gary Herbert, Utah governor: “Donald Trump’s statements are beyond offensive & despicable. While I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for Trump.â€\x9d Dennis Daugaard, South Dakota governor: “Enough is enough. Donald Trump should withdraw in favor of Governor Mike Pence. This election is too important.â€\x9d Joe Heck, Nevada representative: “I can no longer look past the pattern of behavior and comments that have been made by Donald Trump. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience continue to support Donald Trump, nor can I vote for Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d Mike Crapo, Idaho senator: “His repeated actions and comments toward women have been disrespectful, profane and demeaning.â€\x9d Deb Fischer, Nebraska representative: “It would be wise for him to step aside and allow Mike Pence to serve as our party’s nominee.â€\x9d Lisa Murkowski, Alaska senator: “I cannot and will not support Donald Trump for president. He has forfeited the right to be our party’s nominee.â€\x9d Dan Sullivan, Alaska senator: “I’m calling on Trump to step aside for Gov. Pence. Trump can’t lead on critical issue of ending dom violence & sexual assault.â€\x9d Ann Wagner, Missouri representative: “I must be true to those survivors and myself condemn the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump. I withdraw my endorsement and call for Governor Pence to take the lead so we can defeat Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d Brian Sandoval, Nevada governor: “This video exposed not just words, but now an established pattern which I find to be repulsive and unacceptable for a candidate for president of the United States. I cannot support him as my party’s nominee. Martha Roby, Alabama Representative: “Donald Trump’s behavior makes him unacceptable as a candidate for president, and I won’t vote for him.â€\x9d Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia senator: “Women have worked hard to gain the dignity and respect we deserve. The appropriate next step may be for him to re-examine his candidacy.â€\x9d Cory Gardner, Colorado senator: “If Donald Trump wishes to defeat Hillary Clinton, he should do the only thing that will allow us to do so – step aside.â€\x9d Tom Rooney, Florida representative: “If I support him for president, I will be telling my boys that I think it’s OK to treat women like objects – and I’ll have failed as a dad. Therefore, I can no longer support Donald Trump for president and will not be voting for him or Hillary Clinton.â€\x9d Frank LoBiondo, New Jersey representative: “I will not vote for a candidate who boasts of sexual assault. It is my conclusion that Mr Trump is unfit to be President.â€\x9d John Boozman, Arkansas senator: “If I ever heard anyone speak this way about [my daughters and granddaughters] they would be shopping for a new set of teeth … I am focused on saving the US Senate.â€\x9d Rodney Davis, Illinois representative: “The abhorrent comments made by Donald Trump are inexcusable and go directly against what I’ve been doing in Washington to combat assaults on college campuses. Because of this, I am rescinding my support for Donald Trump.â€\x9d Rob Portman, Ohio senator: “While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him. I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency. I will be voting for Mike Pence for President.â€\x9d (Portman did not disavow Trump in his initial statement Friday night.) Nevada representative Cresent Hardy, Utah representative Chris Stewart, and Nebraska representative Jeff Fortenberry have also rescinded their support of Trump but not released statements. Republicans who condemned remarks but still officially support Trump Mike Pence, Indiana governor and Trump’s running mate: “I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them. I am grateful that he has expressed remorse … we pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night.â€\x9d Paul Ryan, speaker of the House and most powerful Republican in Washington: “I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.â€\x9d Mitch McConnell, Kentucky senator and Senate majority leader: “As the father of three daughters, I strongly believe that Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere, and take full responsibility for the utter lack of respect for women shown in his comments on that tape.â€\x9d Ted Cruz, Texas senator and failed presidential candidate: “These comments are disturbing and inappropriate. There is simply no excuse for them. Every wife, mother, daughter – every person – deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Marco Rubio, Florida senator and failed presidential candidate: “Donald’s comments were vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify. No one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private.â€\x9d Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee: “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.â€\x9d Rand Paul, Kentucky senator and failed presidential candidate: “His comments are offensive and unacceptable.â€\x9d Bob Dole, former senator from Kansas and 1996 presidential nominee: “It was 11 years ago. He shouldn’t have said it, but there’s nothing he can do about it except to do well in the debate.â€\x9d Joni Ernst, Iowa senator: “The comments DJT [Donald J Trump] made are lewd & insulting. There is no excuse, and no room for such reprehensible and objectifying talk about anyone, ever.â€\x9d Bob Corker, Tennessee senator and chair of the foreign relations committee: “These comments are obviously very inappropriate and offensive and his apology was absolutely necessary.â€\x9d Richard Burr, North Carolina senator and Trump national security adviser: “I am going to watch his level of contrition over the next few days to determine my level of support.â€\x9d Jon Cornyn, Texas senator: “I am disgusted by Mr Trump’s words about women: our daughters, sisters and mothers. Phil Bryant, Mississippi governor: “Donald Trump’s remarks are unacceptable … They do not square with the man I have gotten to know the past few months. He has done the right thing and apologized.â€\x9d Ryan Zinke, Montana representative: “The language is shocking and wrong and should never be used ever. Lola and I have talked about it and we pray he has grown from this mistake.â€\x9d Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas governor: “While he has acknowledged it as wrong and apologized, it is important that he demonstrate in the debate on Sunday and in the future that he understands and respects the value of women.â€\x9d Chris Collins, New York representative: “There is no change in my support of Mr. Trump as our nominee because he remains the only candidate who will bring our jobs back, secure our borders and stand up to our enemies.â€\x9d Dan Coats, Indiana senator: “Donald Trump’s vulgar comments are totally inappropriate and disgusting, and these words have no place in our society.â€\x9d Greg Abbott, governor of Texas: “Deeply disturbing rhetoric by Trump. An insult to all women & contrary to GOP values. Absent true contrition, consequences will be dire.â€\x9d Republicans who have never supported Trump John Kasich, Ohio governor and failed presidential candidate: “Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours is surprising to me or many others … It’s clear that he hasn’t changed and has no interest in doing so. As a result, Donald Trump is a man I cannot and should not support. The actions of the last day are disgusting.â€\x9d Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and 2012 presidential nominee: “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.â€\x9d Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and failed presidential candidate: “As the grandfather of two precious girls, I find that no apology can excuse away Donald Trump’s reprehensible comments degrading women.â€\x9d Ben Sasse, Nebraska senator: “Character matters. @realDonaldTrump is obviously not going to win. But he can still make an honorable move: Step aside & let Mike Pence try.â€\x9d Susan Collins, Maine senator: “It was comments like these, including the statements he made about John McCain, a disabled reporter, the family of a fallen soldier and more, that caused me to decide this summer that I could not support his candidacy.â€\x9d Mike Lee, Utah senator : “Your conduct, sir, is the distraction … I respectfully ask you, with all due respect, to step aside. Step down. Allow someone else to carry the banner of these principles.â€\x9d Mark Kirk, Illinois senator: “DJT [Donald J Trump] is a malignant clown – unprepared and unfit to be president of the United States.â€\x9d Jeff Flake, Arizona senator: “America deserves far better than @realDonaldTrump.â€\x9d Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California: “For the first time since I became a citizen in 1983, I will not vote for the Republican candidate for president. Like many Americans, I’ve been conflicted by this election – I still haven’t made up my mind about how exactly I will vote next month … But as proud as I am to label myself a Republican, there is one label that I hold above all else – American. So I want to take a moment today to remind my fellow Republicans that it is not only acceptable to choose your country over your party – it is your duty.â€\x9d Mia Love, Utah representative: “Mr Trump has yet to clear that bar and his behavior and bravado have reached a new low. I cannot vote for him.â€\x9d Mike Coffman, Colorado representative: “For the good of the country, and to give Republicans a chance of defeating Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump should step aside.â€\x9d Fred Upton, Michigan representative: “I urge him to think about our country over his own candidacy and carefully consider stepping aside from the ticket.â€\x9d Erik Paulsen, Minnesota representative: “For months I have said Donald Trump has not earned my vote. The disgusting statements revealed last night make it clear he cannot. I will not be voting for him.â€\x9d Justin Amash, Michigan representative: “Character matters. @realDonaldTrump has been saying outrageous, offensive things the whole time. He should have stepped aside long ago.â€\x9d Pat Tiberi, Ohio representative: “Donald Trump’s comments and behavior were reprehensible, vulgar and extremely disrespectful. He was not my choice for our nominee and I never endorsed him. I have always said that I want to see a positive message and winnable strategy against Hillary Clinton from the Republican nominee. It is disappointing, especially for Americans who are looking for real leadership and integrity in their presidential candidate, that Trump has not been able to clear that bar. Americans deserve better choices for the highest office in the land. Trump should consider stepping aside. Otherwise, this will continue to consume the remainder of the campaign and help Clinton become the next president.â€\x9d Never committed for or against Trump Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania senator: “Donald Trump’s comments were outrageous and unacceptable.â€\x9d Rob Portman, Ohio Senator: “As I said yesterday, Donald Trump’s comments were offensive and wrong. I had hoped to support the candidate my party nominated in the primary process. I thought it was appropriate to respect the millions of voters across the country who chose Donald Trump as the Republican Party nominee. While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him. I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency. I will be voting for Mike Pence for President.â€\x9d Barbara Comstock, Virginia representative: “No woman should ever be subjected to this type of obscene behavior and it is unbecoming of anybody seeking high office. In light of these comments, Donald Trump should step aside.â€\x9d Will Hurd, Texas representative: “I never endorsed Trump and I cannot in good conscience support or vote for a man who degrades women, insults minorities and has no clear path to keep our country safe.â€\x9d Condoleezza Rice, George W Bush’s secretary of state: “Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw.â€\x9d Susana Martinez, New Mexico governor: “That’s why I have withheld my support from the very beginning, and will not support him now.â€\x9d Bill Haslam, Tennessee governor: “I want to emphasize that character in our leaders does matter.…It is time for the good of the nation and the Republican Party for Donald Trump to step aside.â€\x9d Kay Granger, Texas representative: “Watching that video is disgusting. Mr Trump should remove himself from consideration as commander in chief.â€\x9d',
 "For 12 years I've felt a burden at work. Now I'm ready to talk about mental health Even though I have been an occupational therapist in adult mental health for 16 years, it took me a long time to learn how to balance the demands of the job with a healthy lifestyle. Over the years in previous working environments, I have had many comments from different colleagues such as: “Why are you returning to work in mental health?â€\x9d “Are you sure you are up to this type of emotionally demanding work?â€\x9d “You’re not fit enough to work in this type of environment.â€\x9d “It’s about trust. I have to think about risk.â€\x9d I have felt judged; thought to be not strong enough, unreliable and at times a liability in the workplace. A burden, not a valued member of the team. In 2013, , I was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, 18 months after the birth of my twin boys. It has been incredibly difficult over my career to gauge how much to say about my mental health at work. As a junior occupational therapist, I was well supported by my colleagues in my phased return to work after my first episode. I felt fully recovered, applied for promotion and did not disclose in the application or interview process. Not disclosing made it impossible for my new team to put support in place when I did need it. I came up against some difficult situations, with a senior colleague suggesting I had bipolar even though I hadn’t been diagnosed with it. I felt that boundaries between work and my health and personal life had been crossed. However, I worked hard to prove to everyone that I was good at my job. Phased returns were put in place when needed and occupational health support was all in-house and on-site at the time, so I saw the same doctor and could build up trust and communication. But lots of sickness absences eroded trust from management in my capability to work safely with people with severe and enduring mental health issues. It often felt more about risk and liability than valuing my resilience and empathy as a person with lived experience of mental health difficulties. Nine years ago, things came to a head and I was witness to a difficult personal situation in my team. The pressure was too much, I became isolated within my team, and one day found I could not go back to that workplace. I was just too worn out and demoralised. Seven months later, after I successfully battled a grievance filed against me and negotiated medical redeployment, I began working in a different locality. I continued to struggle with my confidence in my ability and performance at work. I grappled with how much to share in one-on-one meetings with my line manager when I was trying to cope. When I had a terrible manic depressive episode 18 months after the birth of my twins, I finally received the proper treatment for my underlying bipolar disorder, following a hospital admission and a long period of home treatment. I wanted to open up more about my health condition, but did not know how to do this safely. By this point I was too scared of feeling judged and not trusted. So I attended speaking out training through charities Rethink Mental Illness and Time to Change in August 2014. Since the integration of my small team with a larger one, I have grown in confidence and been able to show what I can do with a great bunch of people around me when I am trusted and given autonomy. This year, I felt it was time for me to talk about my mental health. Tips for disclosing mental health conditions at work • It’s your choice – say as much or as little as you want. Being open on a one-on-one basis with individual colleagues in the team helped me. Being upfront on my terms gave me an amazing sense of freedom. • You are the expert on your own needs – ask for a meeting with your line manager to discuss your mental health if you feel you need it. • Agree a plan of changes with your boss and a time to meet again to discuss whether things have improved. • You have rights – under the Equality Act, mental health conditions are a disability so you are likely to be protected, but always seek legal advice. Union support has helped me fight for my reputation at work in the past, so always check whether your employer is affiliated to one. Consider signing up. • You are not alone – one in six workers experience mental health issues each year. With time and practice, it is possible for many of us to balance our health with the demands of a job. For more information and advice, go to Mind or Time to Change",
 'BHS inquiry, act III: enter the bankers and lawyers Goldman Sachs merely had a walk-on role in the great BHS sale giveaway, but Sir Philip Green should have listened more closely to Anthony Gutman, his old mucker from the investment bank. Gutman seems to have taken about two minutes to spot the obvious flaw in selling BHS, a loss-making chain of department stores with 11,000 staff and 20,000 pensioners, to Retail Acquisitions: the outfit was led by Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt individual with no retail experience waving a sketchy business plan. Gutman did the sensible thing and flagged his worries to Paul Budge, finance director of Green’s Arcadia group. The rest of the saga seems to have been a tale of the various other parties – lawyers, Arcadia’s management – convincing themselves that Chappell’s past bankruptcies were not a deal-breaker, or else were somebody else’s lookout. Monday’s select committee session heard a Linklaters partner deliver an effective hatchet job on his counterpart at Olswang, the lawyers acting for Chappell and thus the firm responsible for checking their client’s credentials. Olswang’s version of its fact-finding efforts is keenly awaited. For his part Budge pointed to the experienced and competent folk who later surrounded Chappell, including advisers Grant Thornton who were all over his business plan “like a rashâ€\x9d. Besides, argued Budge, Arcadia gifted Retail Acquisitions a load of cash and working capital to have a good crack at a turnaround. It was all fascinating detail. None of it, however, changes the central fact that Green was taking a huge risk in selling BHS to Chappell’s bunch of amateurs. On Monday’s evidence, Green’s moral obligation to do the right thing for BHS’s pensioners remains. Biggest cash takeover in history? Bayer beware A $62bn (£43bn) cash bid should be contemplated only if you can be confident you’ve got – or can secure – the backing of your shareholders. Bayer chief executive Werner Baumann, in pursuit of US seeds business Monsanto, isn’t remotely able to make this claim. Bayer’s share price has fallen 14% since news of the adventure broke, and Monday’s confirmed bid price – $122 a share, or a 37% premium to Monsanto’s old share price – will do little to calm investors’ nerves. Naturally, Baumann was full of smooth talk about how Bayer’s pesticides and Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds would create “a global leader in agricultureâ€\x9d, spread joy among the world’s farmers and deliver an instant kick to earnings. “Arrogant empire-buildingâ€\x9d that will destroy shareholder value, reckoned fund manager Henderson Global Investors’ John Bennett. That sounds closer to the mark. First, Bayer would be stretching its balance sheet to the limit. Even after whacking shareholders with a hefty rights issue, Bayer’s debt would sail past four times’ top-line annual earnings. Such financial leverage flatters earnings per share, assuming all goes well, but taking on €55bn-plus of debt is not without risk. Second, annual “synergiesâ€\x9d of $1.5bn in the third years don’t look large in the context of the size of the deal. Third, any hopes of Bayer’s expanding its pharmaceutical division would be on hold while it sweats off the Monsanto debt; given that many investors think prospects in pharma are stronger, that’s a serious drawback. Fourth, there’s the mystery factor of whether US competition regulators would allow one company to be so dominant in the US agriculture business. If it happens Bayer/Monsanto would be the biggest cash takeover in history. On day one, Baumann is struggling. Every little trip hurts Taxi for Mr Higgins. Actually, no, it seems Tesco is gloriously relaxed about Benny Higgins, boss of its Edinburgh-based bank, running up a London taxi bill of £18,000 in just eight months, as revealed in Saturday’s . Higgins is still in his post, says a company spokesman, declining to elaborate on the mundane statement that “all Tesco colleagues adhere to a clear policy that allows travel and other expenses for business reasonsâ€\x9d. So no explanation as to why it is OK to claim £389.85 for a trip from Soho Hotel to the Victoria & Albert museum, just five stops away on the underground. And no explanation as to how Higgins’ liberal use of taxis squares with the parsimonious approach taken by group chief executive Dave Lewis, who likes to parade the fact he takes the train to London from the Hertfordshire head office to save money and keep a checkout worker in employment. In the grand scheme of things, an £18,000 taxi bill doesn’t move the profits dial at a company the size of Tesco. But, to judge by the sickly share price, it won’t be long before Lewis is firing off another of his uplifting all-staff emails about the urgent need to pull together as “a total Tesco teamâ€\x9d. Good luck in explaining to staff why the daughters of your £2m-a-year banking executive are transported to the airport apparently at the company’s expense.',
 'Virtual fracture clinics enable patients to receive care online A physiotherapist and orthopaedic surgeon are transforming the way patients with fractures are treated and saving the NHS more than half a million pounds in an initiative which could become a national model. Physio Lucy Cassidy and consultant James Gibbs have established a virtual follow-up clinic for patients with simple fractures or soft tissue injuries. In the past these patients would have come through A&E and have to return for a follow up appointment at a consultant-led fracture clinic. But today these patients receive all their post A&E care online. The patient’s x-ray and injury is assessed within 24 hours by a physiotherapist and an orthopaedic consultant to decide if they can self-manage their recovery remotely. Patients are then phoned by the physio and offered a virtual clinic referral. Virtual clinic patients are emailed a video message from the consultant talking through the injury and the prognosis and a link to an individual rehabilitation video – one of 27 which have been produced – with a six-week exercise plan to follow. Patients can phone a specialist physiotherapist if they have any problems; the option to come into a traditional face-to-face consultant outpatient clinic remains open. Cassidy, an extended scope practitioner says: “This is a no brainer – it works for the patient, it works for the consultants and physios and it’s cost-efficient. Patients absolutely love the virtual clinic they say ‘What, I don’t have to come in?’ They really appreciate the service and they have a safety net.â€\x9d Some 12,000 patients have been referred to the virtual clinic run by Brighton and Sussex University hospitals NHS trust since it began three years ago. Fifty seven per cent of those patients are discharged without ever having to return to hospital; 37% have a follow up appointment at a consultant out-patient clinic and 6% are seen by a specialist physio. The service has already saved the NHS around £500,000 as the cost of a virtual referral is £67 – half the price of a traditional clinic appointment. Those savings are expected to double in the next year because since May the service has expanded to include wrist and hand injuries which account for almost half of all fracture clinic referrals. Under the virtual system patients who require a face-to-face appointment are now booked in with the most appropriate specialist consultant at an outpatient clinic. Cassidy explains: “Under the old system it was a bit of a lottery who you saw. The patient would come to the fracture clinic and if it was run by the shoulder consultant on that day, but you had broken your ankle, you would still be seen by the shoulder consultant. One of the complaints I get from the consultants now is that ‘all my clinics are now full with people that need to be seen.’ â€\x9d Gibbs first had the idea of a virtual fracture clinic when he was a junior doctor: “I would sit in the fracture clinic and feel exasperated for me, and for the patients, because the majority of injuries you see heal on their own with the passage of time and we were seeing people in clinic unnecessarily.â€\x9d He admits his consultant colleagues were sceptical at first about the changes but there would be a “hue and cryâ€\x9d now if the trust reverted to the old system: “It’s standardised treatment for specific injuries, it’s freed up consultants’ time and we are working smarter.â€\x9d The virtual clinic – which is being showcased at the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo 2016 in Manchester next month (September) - is already being adopted by others. Virtual clinics are now run at Western Sussex hospitals NHS foundation trust and Maidstone and Tonbridge Wells NHS trust in Kent; others in Hastings and Eastbourne are due to launch in January. A free “plug and playâ€\x9d package – an electronic virtual clinic blue print – is available for trusts to use as a starting point. Computer software which will allow hospitals to run their own branded virtual clinic on their own system – to be sold under license – is due to be launched next February. Cassidy and Gibbs believe the virtual clinic – which was recognised in the NHS Innovations Challenge awards this year – could become a national model. That ambition is shared by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists. Society professional advisor Priya Dasoju says: “We would like to see this model rolled out but it’s key that it is a physio-led service because it’s physios who can provide the rehabilitation service. It’s such a simple concept but makes such a massive difference.â€\x9d Virtual fracture clinics are new to the UK but others already exist worldwide – particularly in rural areas of Scandinavia, according to orthopaedic surgeon Stephen Cannon, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He says: “It does require resources in terms of time from the physio and the consultant and is a huge change for patients. But it is patient-centred, it works in other parts of the world – it’s a great idea.â€\x9d Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester on 7 and 8 September will explore the Five Year Forward View in action. High profile health leaders will speak across two stages, while feature zones will explore digital health, personalised medicine and new models of care. NHS colleagues can attend free-of-charge. Click here to register. Do you work in the NHS? Please take our survey and tell us whether bullying is a problem and how it affects your work. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.',
 'SXSW: John Legend goes down smooth and Rae Sremmurd delivers rowdy trap After a dispiriting morning watching Tony Visconti give an impression of an old man yelling at clouds in his keynote speech which basically said that the music industry is screwed, something uplifting was needed. It was time to head to the space in Austin, Texas co-sponsored by Spin magazine and Axe, the kind of deoderant worn by teenage boys. Into this unpromising environment came John Legend, who took his seat at a grand piano set on stage at one end of a courtyard and performed a handful of numbers solo. Legend’s melismatic R&B will never been anywhere near music’s cutting edge – and arguably it’s a lot less interesting than his politically savvy Twitter feed – but on a sticky St Patrick’s Day afternoon, a swirling take on Green Light goes down like a cold Guinness. It’s followed by Ordinary People (“some of y’all were 10 when it came out,â€\x9d notes Legend), which inspires a spontaneous audience singalong. Suave and smiley, Legend is a winning presence, and while his version of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song has none of the rawness of the original, it’s smoothness doesn’t make it any less sincere. With an announcement that he has a new album coming out in September, and a shamelessly slushy All of Me to conclude, Legend leaves the crowd sweaty enough to require some of that deodorant – even if the free sticks being given away are scented with “amber and tobaccoâ€\x9d. Over at the Fader Fort, sponsored by another music magazine and a bewildering number of other brands, the audience is showing admirable restraint in the face of a bar giving out free Jack Daniels, and enjoying a bill that prides itself on its diversity. Neon Indian takes the stage, aka Mexican-born local boy Alan Palomo, whose Todd Rundgren-inspired chillwave has evolved into something even more colourfully 80s-tinged – think Prince jamming with Discovery-era Daft Punk. The first song is decorated with the kind of drums Sheila E used to play in Prince’s band the Revolution, while Annie dares to approach that most toxic of genres, white reggae, but with a playfulness that prevents it from being obnoxious. Slumlord, which begins with a ridiculously dramatic synth flourish, has a glossy bounce that sends some in the crowd into paroxisms of delight. It’s euphoric, slightly arch, clever pop and Palomo is an enjoyably daft presence with his knock-kneed Matt Bianco dance moves and luxuriantly cascading fringe. It’s quite a transition from that to the fratboy-friendly trap exuberantly purveyed by Atlanta duo Rae Sremmurd. Stripped to the waist, covered in tattoos and headbanging harder than Slayer, it’s a total rock’n’roll show, assisted by the regulation posse including one man wandering around in a cherry MIA jacket and bulging floral backpack. With their songs about strippers (Come Get Her), getting too “swollâ€\x9d (No Flex Zone) and dodgy exes (My X) there’s nothing exactly groundbreaking going on, but it is a lot of fun. The concluding No Type (“Bad bitches is the only thing that I like,â€\x9d it elaborates) provokes a cascade of free Jack and Cokes to be launched into the air, while their ode to Donald Trump, Up Like Trump, concludes with an appeal to the crowd to vote for Bernie Sanders. Rowdy, funny and packed with energy, it’s the perfect late-afternoon set. Hearing the rapid-fire, pounding sounds of Jlin’s take on Chicago footwork as the sun streamed into the Hype Hotel was strange. Tracks like Abnormal Restriction from last year’s well-received Dark Energy bounced around the cavenous hall with the unsettling samples from Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest combining with the instrumentation to make things unnerving. Jlin’s palette is varied and although things moved along at the 160 bpm that footwork is known for, within those parameters Jlin has found spaces to explore and develop. When she played Black Ballet – arguably the best track from Dark Energy – there’s a noticeable shift in the room with the half a dozen or so fans who were head banging from the first snare, now swaying from side to side. A later billing in darker room probably would have benefited Jlin, but it was still a showcase of a singular talent. DAWN (formerly Dawn Richard) followed Jlin and brought with her a slick and polished show that saw her meld electronica, R&B and techno. She’s been working with footwork producer Machinedrum (Not Above That) and her sound has morphed into something that’s got an eye on the dancefloor. The live show itself features two male dancers in all black and ab-baring crop tops who perform choreography that recalls early Janet Jackson, while Richard commands the stage and nods approvingly at her drummer and keyboard player. It’s an interesting proposition, but when she plays a cover of Rihanna’s Work the gulf in songwriting is apparent. Nothing really jumps out of the Richard repertoire and in the short show, there’s not enough stand out hooks or moments to draw you in. Kacey Musgraves was the first country star to ever grace the cover of Fader, a magazine that’s known for its courtship of rap and R&B’s biggest stars. At the Fader Fort she closed the show on Thursday. The crowd, which had been bulging and riotous for Rae Sremmurd, has now calmed and more than half the audience had left by the time Musgraves came on. But that didn’t kill the atmosphere, instead it felt like an intimate show with the singer and her band – who were doused in glitter – playing to a dedicated audience. Slower rancheras were followed by bigger hits including Step Off and a cover of Gnarls Barkley. There was a segue into a cod reggae version of Three Little Birds before she played her hit Late To The Party and her defiant anthem Follow Your Arrow. She closed the show with a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s and Lee Hazlewood’s classic These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ before striding off herself. Toronto’s Dilly Dally played Hype Hotel in the evening and delivered their brazenly scuzzy punk rock wares. There’s plenty of charm from frontwoman Katie Monks, who screeches and wails her way through the bands Pixies-esque single Desire. Like the Pixies, Dilly Dally mix loud and quiet and go as far to play their cover of fellow Torontonian Drake’s Know Yourself. Rather than drenching it in a load of feedback, they keep the melancholy tale of counting money and driving through Toronto clean and just turn up the volume on the chorus. Recent single Purple Rage rattles through the venue and shows off a punk band that know when to hold a tune and when to distort it beyond all recognition.',
 'RBS reports £469m loss for the third quarter Royal Bank of Scotland has been driven deep into the red again by legal costs and a hefty restructuring bill as it enters its ninth year under government ownership. The bailout of the Edinburgh-based bank was announced in October 2008 and £45bn of taxpayer money was eventually pumped into the bank, which has not reported a full-year profit since then. In the first nine months of 2016, RBS made a £2.5bn loss after incurring a £469m loss in the third quarter. It was profitable in the same three months last year. As Ross McEwan, the chief executive, tried to focus on the £1.3bn of profits generated in the third quarter before the legal and restructuring charges, he said the 73% taxpayer-owned bank faced several hurdles in the months ahead. Among them is the admission that it will fail to meet a deadline to divest 300 branches – which were to be known as Williams & Glyn. That deadline was imposed by the European Union as a result of its taxpayer bailout. After a number of failed attempts, RBS said full separation and divestment could not now be achieved by the end of 2017. Discussions are under way with the Treasury to discuss how it can spin off the branches. The bank was ordered to get rid of them by the EU as a penalty for its bailout. The inability to dispose of W&G – a process which has already cost £1.7bn – is one of the barriers to the government selling off any more of its stake and the bank’s ability to pay dividends. The third quarter was knocked by restructuring costs of £469m, largely W&G, a £425m legal bill and a £300m loss incurred because of changes to tax rules. “We’ve said that 2015 and 2016 would be noisy as we work through legacy issues and transform this bank for customers,â€\x9d said McEwan. “These results reflect that noise. Our core business results were good with a £1.3bn adjusted operating profit, our best quarter since 2014.â€\x9d In its third-quarter results, RBS warned that it faced a “range of uncertaintiesâ€\x9d, which included a settlement with the US Department of Justice over the sale of mortgage bonds. The bank said it could face charges and costs that would be so large it could knock its level of capital. RBS said it did not know when it would be able start paying dividends, with McEwan adding that performance targets he set for 2019 would not be met. He is expected to announce in February what measures would be needed to respond to the post-Brexit-vote environment. The bank’s shares initially rose on Friday but fell back to close at 194p, down 1.2% and well below the average price of 502p paid by taxpayers during the bailout. As a result of missing the W&G deadline, McEwan faces the possibility of the EU installing a trustee at end of next year. But he said he did not know what the consequences would be of missing the already extended deadline. RBS had deployed 7,000 staff to work on the divestment but this has now been cut back to 350. The bank has abandoned any hope of a stock market flotation for W&G, bringing that formally to a close this week by redeeming a bond it had sold to a consortium of private equity firms – and the Church of England. The bond was to convert into W&G shares. A trade sale may be possible as Clydesdale bank said this week it had made an offer for the branches. Small-business owners were angered when RBS did not set aside any money to pay compensation for the poor treatment they claim they received from the bank’s now defunct global restructuring group. A delayed report into the conduct of the division is expected to be published by the Financial Conduct Authority by the end of the year. “RBS continues to mislead the market by not making adequate provisions to meet pending legal challenges,â€\x9d said James Hayward, chief executive of RGL Management, which was formed to sue RBS over the claims. RBS set aside an unspecified sum to cover a £4bn legal claim from investors in relation to its 2008 cash call. Attempts at mediation have failed and McEwan said: “We are exploring settlement options. If that fails we’ll be in court in March 2017.â€\x9d This raises the prospect of former RBS boss Fred Goodwin being called to court.',
 'The view on Donald Trump: years of living dangerously Donald Trump’s election shook the world as no other event of 2016. His presidency is still four weeks away, so it would be wrong to pass a verdict on it before there is any evidence. Yet the world can be justifiably fearful. Mr Trump’s cabinet picks, an overwhelmingly white male cohort of low tax and small government obsessives, climate change denying oilmen, and career soldiers, add to the dismay. But it is Mr Trump who matters. This week, the president-elect has revived the idea of a ban on Muslims entering the US and has given the green light to a new nuclear arms race. For Americans to choose someone with Mr Trump’s prejudices and instincts remains as outrageous now as it did on 8 November. It will not be hard to stay shocked. Never before has a candidate tried so hard to make America hate again. That’s why the Trump election was bigger than Brexit, both in itself and because of its global impact. Never before has someone endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan prepared to enter the White House. Never before, if you believe the CIA, has a foreign power intervened so audaciously in a US election. The impact on America itself is already enormous. No elected president has been greeted with more overt hostility, more protests and, perhaps most important of all, more soul searching. The biggest question for 2017 and beyond is how Mr Trump’s personality, judgment and behaviour will impact and shape America and the way it is governed. Election has not obviously changed him. He remains by turns shameless, impulsive, vain, threatening, slapdash, abusive – and much else. The personality matters; it shapes his judgment. It also matters because he appears to recognise so few boundaries between his private interests and his public responsibilities. This is one of those moments when those who report politics and analyse policy need to summon fresh rigour to their tasks. Mr Trump’s election will not mean politics as usual. His victory, the election of an authoritarian and demagogue in the world’s most important democracy, has raised fundamental questions of whether America is in some sense falling apart, its historic norms now unsustainable, perhaps to the extent that it is a failed state. Serious people are even asking how far and in what ways it is appropriate to consider Mr Trump a fascist or whether the republic itself can endure. To ask such questions is not to presuppose that the answer is yes. America is not a failed state. Mr Trump is not a fascist (though it is unnerving even to discuss whether he is a little bit fascist). The US remains one of the most prosperous and innovative places in the world. It is still governed according to the rule of law. It has both a well-educated and a large ageing population – each of which is a seedbed for stability, not revolution. And America is a more serious place, in the best sense, than it can seem from outside. As David Runciman has written, “its frustrations are those of a country where all this is true and yet still things are going wrongâ€\x9d. But the echoes of the 1930s should be taken seriously. Mr Trump says his nation is broken, corrupt and violent and he is the answer to all three problems. Race remains an often virulent obsession among his supporters. He charged during the campaign that Hillary Clinton “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of US sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors,â€\x9d language drenched in classic antisemitism – as he must surely know. This triggers the question of whether those who voted for him really believed him. What they believed, perhaps, was that he would shake things up in ways that might be good for them and that no other candidate would do. To reach a verdict on Mr Trump means keeping several once unthinkable questions in mind. One of these is whether Americans truly believe that the US is a place whose institutions no longer provide stable government. Another is whether these institutions have forfeited consent so badly that the people want them overthrown and replaced. A third is whether they genuinely expect Mr Trump is going to do that. Another America America is certainly not working. Its failings have generated destabilising fears (see graph above). These have in turn produced Mr Trump. He was not a normal candidate. The election was not a normal election. Mr Trump will not be a normal president. It remains to be seen what he does in office. But it is neither honest nor true to pretend that this is the same America as in earlier eras. This is another America, and it has to be judged as such. Yet rigour also means acknowledging things that point in a different direction. The US stock market is currently surging in the expectation of a big fiscal stimulus in the spring. Though the president-elect’s favourability ratings remain negative – and are far inferior to Barack Obama’s increasingly positive figures – they are clearly narrowing. And a Pew poll this week showed that fewer Democrats now feel angry about the result of the election than expected to, just before it happened. None of this may last. All of it may be transient. But it can’t just be ignored. Two days before the election, Mr Trump went to an old steel-making community near Pittsburgh. There he told a cheering crowd: “We are going to win the great state of Pennsylvania and we are going to win back the White House … When we win, we are bringing steel back, we are going to bring steel back to Pennsylvania, like it used to be. We are putting our steel workers and our miners back to work. We are.â€\x9d Parallels with Brexit Some bits of that have come true. Mr Trump won Pennsylvania – by 44,000 votes. He won back the White House – though more than 2.8 million more people voted for Mrs Clinton. Other parts, however, were and are lies. It is not true that Mr Trump will be bringing steel back to Pennsylvania like it used to be. He can’t. It is not true that he will be putting steel workers and miners back to work. He won’t. Most Trump voters were relatively well off, not poor; most of the poorest Americans voted for Mrs Clinton. But blue-collar white workers in swing states like Pennsylvania tipped the election to Mr Trump. Just 80,000 of them in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania made the difference. These voters were fired up that here, at last, was a candidate who took, or said he took, their lives seriously – and who might win. But that does not mean they believed his promises. The elusive truth about the Trump presidency may be that it rests on a tacit understanding on both sides: that he was telling lies, that his voters knew it; that they were going to vote for him anyway because he would rattle the system; but that they could simultaneously rely on the system to shield them from the worst effects of their reckless choice. In that respect, there may be a parallel with the UK’s Brexit vote. Two things can nevertheless be said with some confidence. The first is that, even if they do not believe him, Americans have elected their most unpredictable and dangerous president of all time. The second is that Mr Trump will fail in the end, in spite of the damage he does on the way, because he will not be able to satisfy those who swung the vote his way in November. However you look at the possibilities, the Trump presidency makes 2017 a fearful prospect for America and the world.',
 'Former Asda director takes helm of Amazon’s UK operations Amazon has brought in Doug Gurr, the boss of its Chinese business, to run its UK operations in a move that could signal an acceleration of the online firm’s plans to sell groceries in Britain. Gurr was development director at Asda for nearly five years before joining Amazon in 2011. His return to the UK comes weeks after Amazon revealed a deal to sell fresh, chilled and frozen food made by Morrisons, the Bradford-based supermarket chain. Last September Amazon also began selling frozen items via its Prime Now one-hour delivery service, which is offered in big cities including London and Manchester. That followed the expansion of the Amazon Pantry service, which enables shoppers to fill a box of grocery items from a range of 4,000 household products, including big brands such as Kellogg’s, Ariel, Colgate and Kronenbourg. Fresh and frozen food is not available. Gurr replaces Chris North, who will quit the company in May to join the US online photo gift retailer Shutterfly. Under North, Amazon has achieved strong growth in the UK, confirming its position as one of the company’s most important markets. However, his tenure has also been fraught with controversy over Amazon’s tax arrangements, handling of weapons and employment practices. Gurr has also attracted controversy after he was appointed as a non-executive director at the Department for Work and Pensions in January. The Labour MP and tax campaigner Margaret Hodge described his appointment as “disgustingâ€\x9d, given Amazon was among the companies embroiled in a row over taxes. There have been concerns that US-based technology giants such as Amazon are having an increasing influence on government, even during growing public pressure for them to pay more tax in the UK. Gurr stepped down from his role at the DWP on Wednesday in order to “focus on his new role,â€\x9d according to Amazon. Xavier Garambois, the vice-president of EU Retail at Amazon, said: “Doug has a deep knowledge of Amazon’s business and is ideally placed to provide both continuity and progression in the UK as we continue to focus on providing our customers with ever better selection, value and convenience.â€\x9d When Gurr joined Amazon he led its UK hardlines division, which includes products such as lawn and garden equipment and toys. But Gurr has extensive experience of running online food business. At Asda, where he spent about four and a half years, he was responsible for strategy, logistics and online operations helping the supermarket strengthen its dotcom business. Before that he was chief executive of Blueheath Holdings, an online grocery wholesaler he founded and led to its listing on London’s AIM market. The group later merged with cash and carry group Booker.',
 'Malcolm Turnbull insists bank inquiry unnecessary after fresh rate-rigging case Malcolm Turnbull has rejected calls for a royal commission as a third bank faces legal action for rate-rigging allegations, saying the financial watchdog was “sinking its fangsâ€\x9d into suspects. The prime minister said the corporate sector was “well regulatedâ€\x9d and the government had already increased the Australian Securities and Investment Commission’s powers and resources. “The watchdog is sinking its fangs into a few suspected culprits and doing his job, that’s what he should do.â€\x9d But Labor has redoubled its efforts to push for a bank royal commission after Asic launched legal proceedings against National Australia Bank for “unconscionable conduct and market manipulationâ€\x9d. The allegations relate to setting the bank bill swap reference rate (BBSW) during the period 8 June 2010 to 24 December 2012. NAB will fight the claims. Asic is also investigating Comminsure – the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank – which is accused of manipulating reports to avoid life insurance payouts to sick and dying customers. NAB is the third bank, after ANZ and Westpac, to face rate rigging allegations in the federal court and the news spilled into the federal election campaign where Labor and Greens have been pushing for a bank royal commission. Bill Shorten said evidence for a royal commission was growing by the day. “How many more people need to suffer and get ripped off before Mr Turnbull stops covering up for the banks?â€\x9d Shorten said. “Rather than hold the big banks accountable, Mr Turnbull is gifting them a $7.4bn tax hand out.â€\x9d Labor’s shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said addressing the public’s trust in budget was not a binary choice between Asic or a banking royal commission. “We don’t have to say we can have Asic or the royal commission, you can have both,â€\x9d Bowen said. “Asic is determining illegality, Asic is determining whether what has happened here is illegal. They may or may not be able to prove that to the standard of proof required.â€\x9d Bowen said the culture required investigation as well as the “cowboy-like behaviourâ€\x9d. “We are interested not only in the illegality but in the culture that allows this to happen,â€\x9d Bowen said. “If you read the transcripts of the tapes you see the contempt not by everybody involved but by people making key decisions on Australian interest rates which means the Australian economy, businesses, have paid the price for that contempt. “That is a matter of culture as much as it is a matter of law. Asic can not determine culture.â€\x9d The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said the Coalition had already given additional powers to the watchdog with the “same powers as a royal commissionâ€\x9d. “It is important to note that the alleged events took place between 2010 and 2012 under the period of the previous Labor government, incidentally when Bill Shorten was the minister for financial services,â€\x9d Cormann said. “Since then we have had a financial system inquiry, there have been various inquiries through the Senate. We don’t need more enquiries. We need to ensure that a well resourced regulator with the appropriate powers can take effective action. That is precisely what Asic is doing.â€\x9d In a statement after Asic announced the action National Australia Bank Group’s chief risk officer, David Gall, said “trust in the integrity of our financial markets is crucial to a strong Australian economyâ€\x9d. “A fair, well-functioning and competitive financial system is crucial to providing the best outcome for customers and the wider community,â€\x9d Gall said. “NAB takes its role in upholding high standards of professional conduct seriously. We are committed to service, integrity and ethics and our values reflect this.â€\x9d The Greens finance spokesperson, senator Peter Whish-Wilson, said the Asic case against NAB highlighted the “inadequacyâ€\x9d of the penalty regime for white-collar crime, given the the BBSW was used to price $2.5tn worth of securities trades each year. “The maximum civil penalty for market manipulation is capped at $200,000,â€\x9d Whish-Wilson said. “This is ridiculous. It’s the equivalent of a parking fine for the big banks. They simply factor this into the cost of doing business. “Australia’s penalty regime is not deterring the sort of behaviour that is alleged. Asic needs to be given the power to recover ill-gotten gains. Disgorgement provides a real deterrent. Taking back the money that is effectively stolen will provide a real deterrent.â€\x9d',
 'Paul Verhoeven and Pedro Almodóvar among record 85 foreign language Oscar entrants The 85 entrants for next year’s foreign language Oscar have been announced – which beats the previous record of 83, from 2014. A shortlist of nine will be revealed in December, before five nominees are unveiled along with the other Oscar nominations on 24 January. The Academy Awards ceremony takes place on 26 February. Key contenders at this stage include Toni Erdmann, the three-hour German comedy reckoned by many to have deserved the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, and Elle, a rape revenge comedy directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Isabelle Huppert, also a hit at Cannes. Familiar names include Asghar Farhadi, whose film A Separation won the Oscar – Iran’s first – in 2011 and is back in contention with The Salesman, as well as Pedro Almodóvar, for Julieta. Two key, politically contentious films are also on the list: Fire at Sea, Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary about life on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa amid the migrant crisis; and Clash, Mohamed Diab’s thriller set inside an Egyptian police van in 2013 as post-revolution tensions boil over. This year’s prize was won by László Nemes’s harrowing Auschwitz-set drama Son of Saul. The full list of submissions Albania: Chromium (directed by Bujar Alimani) Algeria: The Well (dir Lotfi Bouchouchi) Argentina: The Distinguished Citizen (dir Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat) Australia: Tanna (dir Bentley Dean, Martin Butler) Austria: Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (dir Maria Schrader) Bangladesh: The Unnamed (dir Tauquir Ahmed) Belgium: The Ardennes (dir Robin Pront) Bolivia: Sealed Cargo (dir Julia Vargas Weise) Bosnia and Herzegovina: Death in Sarajevo (dir Danis Tanovic) Brazil: Little Secret (dir David Schurmann) Bulgaria: Losers (dir Ivaylo Hristov) Cambodia: Before the Fall (dir Ian White) Canada: It’s Only the End of the World (dir Xavier Dolan) Chile: Neruda (dir Pablo LarraÃ\xadn) China: Xuan Zang (dir Huo Jianqi) Colombia: Alias Maria (dir José Luis Rugeles) Costa Rica: About Us (dir Hernán Jiménez) Croatia: On the Other Side (dir Zrinko Ogresta) Cuba: The Companion (dir Pavel Giroud) Czech Republic: Lost in Munich (dir Petr Zelenka) Denmark: Land of Mine (dir Martin Zandvliet) Dominican Republic: Sugar Fields (dir Fernando Báez) Ecuador: Such Is Life in the Tropics (dir Sebastián Cordero) Egypt: Clash (dir Mohamed Diab) Estonia: Mother (dir Kadri Kõusaar) Finland: The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (dir Juho Kuosmanen) France: Elle (dir Paul Verhoeven) Georgia: House of Others (dir Rusudan Glurjidze) Germany: Toni Erdmann (dir Maren Ade) Greece: Chevalier (dir Athina Rachel Tsangari) Hong Kong: Port of Call (dir Philip Yung) Hungary: Kills on Wheels (dir Attila Till) Iceland: Sparrows (dir Rúnar Rúnarsson) India: Interrogation (dir Vetri Maaran) Indonesia: Letters from Prague (dir Angga Dwimas Sasongko) Iran: The Salesman (dir Asghar Farhadi) Iraq: El Clásico (dir Halkawt Mustafa) Israel: Sand Storm (dir Elite Zexer) Italy: Fire at Sea (dir Gianfranco Rosi) Japan: Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (dir Yoji Yamada) Jordan: 3000 Nights (dir Mai Masri) Kazakhstan: Amanat (dir Satybaldy Narymbetov) Kosovo: Home Sweet Home (dir Faton Bajraktari) Kyrgyzstan: A Father’s Will (dir Bakyt Mukul, Dastan Zhapar Uulu) Latvia: Dawn (dir Laila Pakalnina) Lebanon: Very Big Shot (dir Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya) Lithuania: Seneca’s Day (dir Kristijonas Vildziunas) Luxembourg: Voices from Chernobyl (dir Pol Cruchten) Macedonia: The Liberation of Skopje (dir Rade Å erbedžija, Danilo Å erbedžija) Malaysia: Beautiful Pain (dir Tunku Mona Riza) Mexico: Desierto (dir Jonás Cuarón) Montenegro: The Black Pin (dir Ivan Marinović) Morocco: A Mile in My Shoes (dir Said Khallaf) Nepal: The Black Hen (dir Min Bahadur Bham) Netherlands: Tonio (dir Paula van der Oest) New Zealand: A Flickering Truth (dir Pietra Brettkelly) Norway: The King’s Choice (dir Erik Poppe) Pakistan: Mah-e-Mir (dir Anjum Shahzad) Palestine: The Idol (dir Hany Abu-Assad) Panama: Salsipuedes (dir Ricardo Aguilar Navarro, Manolito RodrÃ\xadguez) Peru: Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) (dir Juan Daniel F. Molero) Philippines: Ma’ Rosa (dir Brillante Ma Mendoza) Poland: Afterimage (dir Andrzej Wajda) Portugal: Letters from War (dir Ivo M. Ferreira) Romania: Sieranevada (dir Cristi Puiu) Russia: Paradise(dir Andrei Konchalovsky) Saudi Arabia: Barakah Meets Barakah (dir Mahmoud Sabbagh) Serbia: Train Driver’s Diary (dir Milos Radovic) Singapore: Apprentice (dir Boo Junfeng) Slovakia: Eva Nová (dir Marko Skop) Slovenia: Houston, We Have a Problem! (dir Žiga Virc) South Africa: Call Me Thief (dir Daryne Joshua) South Korea: The Age of Shadows (dir Kim Jee-woon) Spain: Julieta (dir Pedro Almodóvar) Sweden: A Man Called Ove (dir Hannes Holm) Switzerland: My Life as a Zucchini (dir Claude Barras) Taiwan: Hang in There, Kids! (dir Laha Mebow) Thailand: Karma (dir Kanittha Kwunyoo) Turkey: Cold of Kalandar (dir Mustafa Kara) Ukraine: Ukrainian Sheriffs (dir Roman Bondarchuk) United Kingdom: Under the Shadow (dir Babak Anvari) Uruguay: Breadcrumbs (dir Manane RodrÃ\xadguez) Venezuela: From Afar (dir Lorenzo Vigas) Vietnam: Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass (dir Victor Vu) Yemen: I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced (dir Khadija Al-Salami)',
 'Nissan got a sweetheart deal. Under hard Brexit, everyone will want one Welcome to the wonderful world of Brexit PLC: a nod here, a wink there, something under the counter and “I-don’t-mind-if-I-doâ€\x9d. No one knows, yet, what a government minister or official said to the Japanese company Nissan, to secure a massive new investment in Britain’s biggest car plant in Sunderland. We can only be sure it is neither the first nor the last. As Theresa May’s government steers its unsteady course between the shoals of soft Brexit and the storms of hard, it assures all and sundry that everything will be fine on the night. But harsh business reality is immune to the cliches of political spin. Nissan has to make a decision now on a planned 2018 investment for its new Qashqai and the X-Trail SUV vehicles. Vague assurances would not do. This was hard cash and 7,000 jobs, threatened by a double-figure tariff on trade with Europe under “hard Brexitâ€\x9d. The idea that industry minister Greg Clark could have got away with “just trust meâ€\x9d is ludicrous. Clark’s reported guarantee of continuing “competitivenessâ€\x9d, plus subsidies for training and other forms of job support, must have been expressed in bankable terms. Similar deals are rumoured to be busting out all over Planet Brexit. The farmers have allegedly been given assurances that the migrant worker schemes on which their harvests depend will be protected. The big banks are told over ministerial lunches there is no question of obstacles to the free movement of their staffs round Europe. Care homes, NHS hospitals, the construction industry, tourism are all beating paths to Whitehall’s doors, relying as they do on low-paid continental and seasonal labour. Within the car industry, it goes without saying that Toyota, Ford and other big manufacturers are awaiting the same soothing words as Nissan has received. Otherwise all hell will break loose. The British government complains when international companies are offered sweetheart deals from Ireland, Luxembourg or Monaco. When investment becomes a free-for-all, there is a rush to the bottom. Countries compete with each other, either to subsidise business or – the same thing – to excuse them taxes or compensate them for tariffs. The prospect under a “hardâ€\x9d Brexit, and a reversion to World Trade Organisation tariffs, would result in myriad such deals, day in, day out. And when clout is the issue, one thing is for sure: the smaller the business the less clout. Ever since the industrial revolution, free trade has been one of the greatest boons that politics has brought to mankind. The idea that it should start to unravel within the European cradle of that revolution is appalling. Soft Brexit is a no-brainer. Britain has to trade openly with Europe and Europe with Britain.',
 'EasyJet profits fall due to weak pound and discount fares EasyJet suffered a sharp fall in annual profits – its first decline in six years – and expects a further drop this year after the budget airline was hit by the weak pound and was forced to cut prices. Currency movements cost the company £88m as the pound’s fall against the dollar increased fuel costs. The company said unexpected events such as increased competition, terrorist attacks, airport strikes and higher holiday expenses for British customers cost it £150m. Pre-tax profit for the year to the end of September dropped 27.9% to £495m, at the top of the company’s guidance, on flat revenue of £4.7bn. The company cut its dividend by 2.5% to 53.8p. City analysts expect profit to fall again this year to £405-410m and the company said it had no reason to encourage them to lift forecasts. Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s chief executive, said the company’s performance was “resilientâ€\x9d in a difficult market for all airlines. McCall said: “I think we are still very successful and that is what is important to convey. Half a billion of profit in a time of external challenges and upheaval is an extraordinary performance for an airline. We are a very successful airline and strong airlines get stronger at times like this.â€\x9d EasyJet shares, which have fallen 40% this year, rose 3% to £10.62 in late morning trading. McCall, who has run easyJet since mid-2010, said the pound’s decline had affected easyJet more than its rivals because the company reports in sterling. EasyJet said the weak pound would affect next year’s results, reducing annual profit by about £90m. Like Michael O’Leary, the boss of low-cost rival Ryanair, McCall said fares would continue to fall for a fourth straight year amid economic and political concerns. But she said easyJet’s long-term prospects were good because people are flying more and inefficient established airlines cannot match budget carriers’ prices. “The fundamentals of European short-haul aviation haven’t changed. Low-fare, low-cost models are the winners. Ryanair and easyJet – both of them will win. We are competing with the legacy carriers.â€\x9d McCall said airlines such as Air France-KLM had gained some breathing space from ultra-low oil prices, which encouraged them to fly more planes, putting pressure on air fares, but that as oil rises those carriers will find trading tough. She said at least seven terrorist incidents during the year, including attacks on Belgium and France, had made people wary of flying, prompting fare cuts. “The demand environment is there but it has needed a lot of stimulation, particularly in France, as you would expect … From the consumer’s perspective it’s an absolutely brilliant time to be booking leisure or business.â€\x9d McCall said she was not worried by persistently low fares because easyJet was designed for low prices and was selling more add-ons such as rental cars, hotels and in-flight extras. EasyJet increased seat capacity by 6.5% last year and flew 73.1 million passengers, up from 68.6 million the year before. Profit per seat fell to £6.19 from £9.15. It will increase capacity by 9% this year, including in the UK, where it is the biggest airline, and in France. McCall said she did not expect Britain’s departure from the EU to disrupt easyJet’s operations. It will apply for an air operator certificate in another EU country where some planes will be registered but the company is keeping its head office at Luton airport, where it has been based since it was founded 20 years ago. “Our headquarters would remain in Luton and the jobs we have in Luton would remain in Luton.â€\x9d',
 "Brexit minister accuses Bank of England of 'dangerous intervention' The Bank of England’s warning that leaving the EU could lead to a recession is an “incredibly dangerous interventionâ€\x9d that has increased financial instability, a Tory minister campaigning for Brexit has said. Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative energy minister, accused the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, of disrupting the markets and jeopardising his independence, after he argued last week that leaving the EU could lead to a financial downturn in the short term. In the face of fury from the leave camp, Carney defended his impartiality, saying it was important that people do not ignore economic risks. He was swiftly backed by George Osborne, the chancellor, who tweeted that he agreed with the governor that those “telling voters EU exit will have no impact on economy are in denialâ€\x9d. On Thursday, Carney had said Brexit could send the pound sharply lower, stoke inflation and raise unemployment, leaving the Bank with a difficult balancing act on interest rates. His comments infuriated leave campaigners, who responded by accusing the Bank of having a chequered record on forecasting. But Leadsom went further on the BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, claiming Carney had destabilised financial markets just weeks before the June referendum and had increased the chance of self-fulfilling prophecy. She said that “to get involved in what might happen, that’s just not in their remitâ€\x9d, adding: “They are not there to promote financial instability but that is what they’ve done. “It is institutional ganging up on the poor British voter who is trying to get a decent primary school place and doctor’s appointment.â€\x9d The Bank of England governor had “come out with some nonsense that is totally unjustifiable, totally speculative stuffâ€\x9d and predicted that he would be wishing that he had not done it, she said. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a backbench Tory MP, said Carney should be fired and had become highly politicised in what was meant to be an impartial role. Carney strongly defended his intervention on the same programme, saying it was a lesson of the last financial crisis that an independent institution should have responsibility for stability. He said another lesson was “not to cross your fingers and hope that risk would go awayâ€\x9d and that his job was to be “straight with peopleâ€\x9d. It was “absolutely notâ€\x9d overstepping the mark to warn of possible storm clouds ahead, he said. “The lesson of the financial crisis, of the run-up to the financial crisis, was to give an institution responsibility for identifying risk, not to cross your fingers and hope that risks would go away or everything would be all right on the night,â€\x9d Carney said. “But to identify the issues, come straight with the British people about them and then take steps to mitigate them – what brings those two approaches together, those two big lessons of the last quarter century, is transparency. “So we don’t just have a responsibility to the British people to be fair and not pop up after the vote and say: ‘Oh by the way this is what we thought at the time.’ But we also have a responsibility to explain risks and then take steps, because by explaining them, by explaining what we would do to mitigate them, we reduce them. And that is the key point: ignoring a risk is not to reduce it.â€\x9d Carney said it was a short-term forcast, and declined to be drawn about the longer term financial modelling on the consequences of Brexit.",
 "Lib Dems 'could force Theresa May to reveal Brexit plans before article 50' Pro-remain Liberal Democrat peers believe they could insert extra clauses into even the most tightly worded Brexit bill to force Theresa May to tell parliament more about her negotiating plans before she triggers article 50. With the supreme court judgment on whether the government must consult parliament before invoking article 50 – the formal process for leaving the European Union - not expected until the new year, the government is thought to be quietly drafting a basic bill that its lawyers believe would be hard to amend. But constitutional experts have told the Lib Dems there is no obstacle to adding extra clauses to such legislation, which could force the government to publish a white paper detailing how it plans to approach talks with the other EU member-states – and even offer voters a second referendum. In a statement, four Lib Dem peers who are also QCs – including Menzies Campbell and Alex Carlile – said: “We welcome the acceptance that a parliamentary bill is likely to be needed. We shall use parliamentary procedure to ensure that the act of parliament that emerges ensures that the government has to have regard to MPs’ and peers’ reasonable expectations of the negotiation process.â€\x9d Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “The Liberal Democrats believe that the voters should have a say through a vote on the final deal, because departure is not the same as the destination. We will try to amend the bill and, if necessary, we will do this by proposing extra clauses to it to ensure proper debate and scrutiny of the process and the issues.â€\x9d Labour has said it will not join any collective effort to delay or block an article 50 bill, and shadow chancellor John McDonnell has described Brexit as an “opportunityâ€\x9d. But Labour sources have suggested that this would not rule out the party’s peers backing clauses that would oblige May to report back to parliament regularly on her progress, for example – something that need not cause a delay. The government is appealing against the high court judgment in the case brought by Gina Miller over whether the government could invoke article 50 using its prerogative powers, without winning parliament’s backing. May has set herself a deadline of the end of March for triggering article 50, which would leave the government a tight timetable for getting legislation through both houses of parliament if it loses the supreme court case. In the House of Commons, few MPs have said they would vote against a brief bill triggering article 50 — but even some Conservatives privately suggest they might withhold their support unless the government is clearer about its negotiating stance. The supreme court case will be heard by all 11 justices because of the seriousness of the issue. One of them, Brenda Hale, caused controversy on Tuesday by discussing the case in public at a lecture in Kuala Lumpur. Critics including former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith condemned her decision to speak about the appeal, and warned of a “constitutional crisisâ€\x9d if the supreme court upheld the high court’s verdict. But in an interview with Solicitors Journal on Wednesday, Lady Hale defended herself by insisting she had simply offered a neutral explanation of the issues at stake. “I have exhibited no bias and those that suggested that I have are simply mistaken,â€\x9d she said. Hale also lamented the negative press coverage of the high court judgment, which saw the judges who ruled on the case referred to as “enemies of the peopleâ€\x9d. “It is unfortunate that it isn’t made clear to the British public, because it is very important they understand what the role of the judiciary is, which is to hear cases in a fair, neutral, and impartial way,â€\x9d she said. “You have to be independent and true to your judicial oath and cannot allow yourself to be swayed by extraneous considerations that have nothing to do with the law.â€\x9d",
 'What has the EU ever done for my … fellow creatures? From the sea to the land to the air, EU directives on habitats and birds have protected and enabled the recovery of wildlife, including dolphins, orchids and butterflies and the booming marsh-dwelling bird the bittern. But, with the intensification of farming having seriously harmed wildlife in past decades, the impact of the EU’s huge common agricultural policy (CAP), has often been in the opposite direction. Among the most beneficial of the EU interventions has been the Natura 2000 network of specially protected sites. It now covers 18% of the EU’s land area and half of that area has no protection under national laws, and so would otherwise be unprotected. Sites protected include landscapes and plants, from peatland on the Isle of Lewis to heaths in Dorset, and the delicate fen orchid in Norfolk and Wales. Freshwater pearl mussels and Atlantic oakwoods are among the species and habitats supported by EU funding. The directives have also helped strengthen UK protections that were in place. Before the directives, 10-15% of sites of special scientific interest were damaged every year but this fell to 2-3%. Research has shown that birds protected by the EU directive have fared better than those that are not. The red kite, a spectacular bird of prey, is one success story. Its population was once widespread but persecution almost led to extinction in the UK. However, EU protection has allowed reintroduced birds to flourish and there are now 2,000 in the UK. However, there are 421 million fewer birds in Europe overall than there were 30 years ago, including far lower populations of skylarks, house sparrows and starlings. CAP subsidies that encouraged harmful farming are a significant factor, although some more recent agri-environment measures funded by the policy have reversed declines at local levels in species such as the corn bunting, turtle dove and the marsh fritillary butterfly. Bees and other crucial pollinators could also benefit from an EU ban in 2013 on harmful neonicotinoid pesticides, a move the UK opposed. The RSPB’s Martin Harper says the questions for supporters of staying in the EU are how they would keep the directives intact in the face of pressure from industrial lobbies and how they would reform the CAP. The question for the leave camp, he says, is how they would maintain current levels of protection for wildlife and support for farmers. The father of the prominent leave campaigner Boris Johnson, Stanley Johnson, who helped write environment directives at the European commission, says: “I personally believe that our country’s greatest resource – its nature – will be better protected and better preserved for future generations if we remain an active, full, partner within Europe.â€\x9d',
 'Ashley Williams sinks Watford to lift Swansea out of relegation zone In many ways this felt like another of those days when it was hard to make sense of the storyline that is unfolding at Swansea City this season, yet at least on this occasion there was a happy ending for the Welsh club. Ashley Williams chose a good time to score his first Premier League goal at the Liberty Stadium, the captain’s first-half header being enough to lift Swansea out of the relegation zone and to give Francesco Guidolin, who was watching from the stands, something to build on. Guidolin, who has been named as the new head coach in the latest bizarre development at Swansea, was looking down from the directors’ box on a night when Alan Curtis took charge of his last game before preparing to take a step backwards. It was not exactly comfortable viewing for Guidolin and at one stage near the end, after Neil Taylor’s careless header gave José Manuel Jurado a chance to equalise, the Italian could be seen running a hand over his face in despair. Swansea, however, held on and the raucous celebrations that greeted the final whistle provided evidence of how significant this victory was regarded for a club that had won only two of its previous 17 league matches and, in terms of results, has been playing relegation football since September. Curtis had initially been charged with the task of reviving the club and it is hard to escape the feeling that there is something very odd about the way that Swansea have handled things since, even if the Welshman sounded relaxed about the chain of events that has effectively seen him replaced only 11 days after he was told he had the job until the end of the season. “I’ve always been quite happy if the club thought it was necessary to bring somebody in,â€\x9d Curtis said, reflecting on Guidolin’s appointment. “It sounds an obvious thing but I think if we had won more games, then possibly there might not have been a need. I think our performances have been good and we haven’t had the results those performances warranted. You’re bringing in an experienced coach and manager and maybe he can get points out of those good performances. Again, I haven’t really got a problem with that.â€\x9d Gabriele Ambrosetti has joined the coaching staff and the impression that Curtis gave is that the former Chelsea midfielder will be used as an interpreter as much as a coach. What is clear, however, is that Guidolin, who led Udinese to third place in Serie A and has a colourful CV with a vast amount of coaching experience over several decades, will pick the team and take the lead in the training. “You can’t have a joint managership. It’s got to be one or the other. I’m quite happy for Francesco to have that,â€\x9d Curtis said. With eight points from his seven games in charge since Garry Monk’s sacking last month, Curtis may privately reflect that he was a little unfortunate to be asked to hand over the reins so soon. At least he has the satisfaction of doing so on the back of a win and with Swansea above that dreaded drop zone. Swansea did enough to pick up three points here but it was not a hugely convincing performance and Watford, who slumped to a fourth straight league defeat, proved to be obliging opponents. Quique Sánchez Flores’s side were particularly flat in the first half, which the Watford manager attributed to a hangover from their disappointing display at Southampton last Wednesday, and, although there was an improvement after the restart, the visitors never did enough to expose Swansea’s weaknesses. Miguel Britos headed Ben Watson’s deep free-kick on to the roof of the net and Jurado, who offered a sporadic threat drifting in from the left, had that late chance but otherwise Watford struggled to create much. “We are not happy with the first half,â€\x9d said Flores, who will hope that the arrival of Nordin Amrabat from Málaga in a club-record £6.7m deal will give the team a lift. “But we have enough points to be positive.â€\x9d Williams’ goal was something of a collector’s item and provided a rare moment of excitement in a drab first half. Wayne Routledge, one of the smallest players on the pitch, won an important header on the edge of the area and Williams was able to hook the ball on to Ki Sung-yueng. Afforded the time and space to pick out his man, Ki delivered a measured centre from close to the byline that Williams headed emphatically beyond Heurelho Gomes. Swansea looked anxious in the second half although Bafétimbi Gomis did thump the upright late on. “It was a massive win, takes us out of the bottom three and psychologically that will give us a lift,â€\x9d Curtis said. “I think over the course of the 90 minutes we deserved it. We got a little bit edgy in the second half, that’s probably more down to the situation we find ourselves in. Certainly I think if we had got that second goal we would have relaxed but I suppose that’s going to be the way between now and the end of the season.â€\x9d',
 '400 Days review – like Solaris performed by sock puppets This low-budget sci-fi thriller starts out semi-promisingly and then runs out of steam, ideas and, seemingly, interest from the film-makers in getting the job done, given its fizzle of an ending. Four would-be astronauts – Brandon Routh, Dane Cook, Caity Lotz and Ben Feldman – sign up for a private-sector-funded experiment, a sort of hi-tech dress rehearsal, in a fake space ship buried underground to simulate the conditions of deep-space travel. They are warned that there may be surprises in store to test how they handle emergencies. But when the air supply is damaged, is the quartet’s paranoia the result of oxygen deprivation or justified anxiety about who is controlling the experiment and what’s going on? The first third generates a modicum of drama out of interpersonal tensions, especially given the revelation that Routh and Lotz used to be a couple. But nearly all the spooky bits are achieved by pure aural assault, and the characters are such stock types, haunted by such predictable backstories, it’s like watching Solaris performed by sock puppets.',
 'I’ve seen enough genitals to know we are all truly unique When people find out what I do for a living, they mostly want stories - and tend to hold off shaking my hand until they are quite sure I’ve washed them. I do have stories - by the bucketload: of mystery objects inserted in unusual places, tattoos you wouldn’t expect a pain threshold to manage, discharge that has put me off custard for life, and the occasional bifurcated penis … (Google it. Go on. Unless you’re at work. Then maybe don’t.) But the average day involves very few weird and wacky cases. I fell into sexual health after working in South Africa and wanting to get experience in HIV nursing. The lure of the bright examination lights caught me, and I’ve been in the specialism for 10 years now. The first few shifts were an eye-opener, but it is surprising how quickly you get used to asking, “Any fisting, rimming or sex toy use?â€\x9d with a completely straight face. My waiting room is full of people from all walks of life, from teenagers to septuagenarians, all worrying about the same things: “Am I going to get told off?â€\x9d “Will she laugh at my bits?â€\x9d “Have I caught something?â€\x9d First, it’s not my place to tell you off. You’re asking for help, and I’m here to help. So short of being concerned about window periods (the incubation time when a test may be inaccurate), and what you’ve been putting where, I really don’t mind how many times, with how many people. I’m here to listen, not to judge. Equally, I will never, ever, laugh at your junk. I’ve seen enough genitals now to know that we are all truly unique. No one has a flawless lady garden, and despite what many like to believe, the perfect penis does not exist. No, not even yours. So go ahead, wax your flaps, bleach your anus, tattoo the entire cast of Fraggle Rock down there if you wish. But don’t do it on my behalf, I’m just here for the diagnostics. Have you picked up something? Quite possibly. Many people do. And this is where my job gets tricky. Fortunately, many infections are now curable with a quick course of antibiotics and a week of living like a nun. There are some that, though manageable, are still incurable. Telling a patient they have a lifelong condition is a challenging part of the job. Reassuring someone that, with careful management, they can live a normal life has to be balanced against the knowledge that this person has to go home to tell family, friends, partners. They may face stigma from their community or from their own beliefs about their condition. Finding ways to navigate this with a patient is one of the hardest but also the most rewarding parts of the job. And these patients aren’t just diagnosed, then off they go. They stay with me. I check up on them, feel proud when they make progress in their treatment, worry when they miss follow-up appointments. The moment of diagnosis can bond you to someone in a profound way. Many people carry secret shame about their sex life, and everybody wants to know if they’re “normalâ€\x9d. The longer I do this job, the more I realise there is no “normalâ€\x9d. I love hearing people’s stories and am fascinated by the complexity of human sexuality, how it is so entangled with our identities and emotions. The downside of this is when I bump into patients outside of work. More often than not they will be trying to remember where they know me from, and I will be hoping they don’t. The general rule in sexual health is that if we pass a patient in the street we treat them as a total stranger. Confidentiality is essential. Which is tricky if you happen to treat someone famous. But my lips are sealed. One of the most startling changes of the past decade is how much porn appears to have affected attitudes and practices. Ten years ago, it was rare to see women with no pubic hair, let alone men. Nowadays it is practically the norm. As seems to be the expectation that anal sex is part of everyone’s sexual repertoire. Which is fine, if people are enjoying it. But the relief I often see on patients’ faces when I say, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have toâ€\x9d suggests we have a long way to go with teaching our young people about consent and mutual pleasure. It depresses me that, although most patients don’t come in as a result of a sexual assault, when I ask, “Have you ever been pressured into having sex, or been too drunk to remember agreeing to it?â€\x9d the overwhelming majority of women, and many men, say yes. If I had control of the national curriculum for sex education in schools, consent and sexual wellbeing would be in every single lesson. Another big change is how sexual health is seen within the NHS. Now that the terrifying crisis of Aids has died down, it is not a speciality that gets much sympathy or publicity. As a result, perhaps, we have been one of the areas to feel the pinch of austerity, with further cuts looming. Many sexual health clinics are now run by private companies, and it has been an interesting ride, finding out what life may be like with a privatised health system. The pressure to see more patients in a shorter space of time is very real; quantity is prioritised over quality. A few minutes spent reassuring a patient in distress is questioned when the waiting room is full. I miss the days of being able to make a patient a cup of tea and give them the time and care they need. For the most part, my job is great fun, meeting interesting people and hearing their interesting stories, alongside an incredibly hardworking and dedicated team. Obviously, I would say that nurses should be paid more. But we get just about enough to live on, and our jobs are secure. As long as the gonorrhoea keeps on coming, we’ll always be needed. • Are you a doctor, a chef, a teacher? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here',
 'The Anchoress: Confessions of a Romance Novelist review – a rich and complex debut The richness of this debut album from Welsh singer-songwriter Catherine Anne Davies betrays its years in the making, through griefs, injuries and heartbreaks paid wry tribute to in the darkly dreamy 70s pop of Doesn’t Kill You. Styles from the romping Kate Bushisms of Popular to the Princely post-punk of One for Sorrow are stitched together by the theme of the titular “second-rate writerâ€\x9d, sketching portraits of bitter ex-lovers in the likes of PS Fuck You, sending up confessional singer-songwriterdom at the same time as crafting a blackly witty breakup album. That concept could come through more clearly, and on the slower, heavier piano ballads such as Bury Me, the drama of Davies’s gothic Broadway stylings can grow suffocating, but her vengeful vision remains compelling.',
 "David Bowie's Blackstar sales soar as tribute shows announced Sales of David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, have soared after the singer’s death, as a series of tribute shows and memorial events in his honour were announced. Sales and downloads of Blackstar, released on the singer’s 69th birthday two days before he died, have reached 43,000 in the UK in the 24 hours since the news of Bowie’s death shook the world. The critically acclaimed album, described by his long-term producer and friend Tony Visconti as Bowie’s “parting giftâ€\x9d, has also topped the iTunes charts, and more than half of the UK’s top 40 chart has been taken up by albums from Bowie’s back catalogue. Spotify has reported that global streams of Bowie’s music were up by 2,822% since Monday – totalling more than 6.5m listens – and Life on Mars, Heroes, Let’s Dance and Blackstar have entered the site’s top 10 chart. It was announced on Tuesday that a tribute would be paid to Bowie at the Brit awards in February, celebrating what the chairman, Max Lousada, described as the “extraordinary life and work of one of our greatest iconsâ€\x9d. New York’s Carnegie hall will also host a memorial concert on 31 March. The show, announced hours before Bowie’s death, was originally scheduled as a tribute with performances of the singer’s hit songs by Visconti, Cyndi Lauper, and The Roots among others. But the event that organisers spent the last seven months planningwill now memorialise Bowie’s life and his influence on music. “This year’s concert will certainly be remembered as a poignant celebration of his music by his friends, peers, and fans,â€\x9d a statement on the organisers’ website said. “The show is taking on many more emotions. RIP David and may God’s love be with you.â€\x9d Bowie died age 69 after suffering from cancer for 18 months. Notoriously private, Bowie kept his illness a secret until the end, only letting a small inner circle know of his diagnosis. The musicians who worked with Bowie on jazz-inspired Blackstar have said they had no idea the musician was ill, and Bowie’s family have chosen not to confirm what type of cancer he had, the circumstances around his death or where he died. The family have also requested that those close to Bowie do not give interviews. It is thought the Brixton-born singer’s funeral will be held in New York, where he moved to in 1993 after marrying his second wife, Iman, and where they raised their daughter, Alexandria. Visconti’s supergroup, Holy Holy, which also features Bowie’s Spiders From Mars drummer Woody Woodmansey, will also perform two tribute shows to Bowie on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Toronto Opera House. Ivo van Hove, director of Bowie’s musical Lazarus, was one of the few people Bowie had informed of his illness, in November 2014, to explain why he would not be able to attend all rehearsals. The singer had asked that van Hove keep the information to himself. The director said Bowie had “fought like a lionâ€\x9d through his illness and had been determined to keep working to the end. Speaking about Lazarus rehearsals, Van Hove told the New York Times that Bowie came “whenever he couldâ€\x9d. He said: “Sometimes he sent me an email – ‘I’ve had a bad day’ – but he was very close to the whole process.â€\x9d The director said that on the production’s opening night last month, the last time the singer was seen in public, Bowie had seemed very frail, adding: “I felt it deeply, that this would be the last time I see him.â€\x9d",
 'Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Start of a tough run for the Hammers On the last day of the 2006-07 season Manchester United, who had won the title five days earlier, fielded a weakened side – Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic were all left out of the starting XI – at Old Trafford against a West Ham team who needed at least a point to avoid relegation. Carlos Tevez, who was to join United a few weeks later, scored the only goal on the stroke of half-time. “They couldn’t have come to Old Trafford on a better day,â€\x9d said Sir Alex Ferguson after the game. “We had already won the league and the edge was off our game.â€\x9d There was also a 1-0 win in December 2001, against a wretchedly out-of-form United side that were completing a memorably horrific run of five defeats in seven league games. Those two games are the Hammers’ only highlights in a miserable run of top-flight visits to Old Trafford that now extends over 30 years and in which they have otherwise drawn once and lost 20 times. And now they must go there twice in four days, with Sunday’s match being followed by an EFL Cup quarter-final on Wednesday (in the same time period they have visited Old Trafford four times in cup competitions, losing two and winning one). With the Manchester double-header to be followed by games against Arsenal and Liverpool, stories this week suggesting “West Ham chiefs have started to consider their options should they feel forced to make a changeâ€\x9d are not just unwelcome but almost cruel. After the visit to Anfield the Hammers have a less daunting run of four fixtures before the turn of the year and it would seem sensible to delay any judgment until they have been completed, which will helpfully coincide with the start of a new transfer window and, less helpfully, another game against Manchester United. SB • Are Manchester United really the unluckiest team in the Premier League? 2) Karanka’s bewildering persistence with Negredo Ã\x81lvaro Negredo has failed to score for Middlesbrough since forcing home a close range debut goal with his shoulder against Stoke City on the opening day of the season and there is a growing clamour on Teesside for Aitor Karanka to drop the on-loan Valencia striker from a team that is joint bottom of the Premier League goalscoring charts alongside Hull with just 10. Karanka, whose side face Leicester City on Saturday, recently came out in defence of his compatriot, who has failed to find the net in 11 consecutive matches and looked woeful against Chelsea, where his obvious lack of speed and mobility came in for criticism. “He is working and fighting but he is not playing at Chelsea or Manchester City,â€\x9d said Karanka, before expanding on a theme that is unlikely to boost dressing-room morale at the Riverside. “He is not with the team-mates he had in the past or the team-mates Diego Costa had at Chelsea.â€\x9d Negredo has played 85 minutes or more in 10 of the 12 matches he has featured in for Boro this season and on the only occasion he was substituted – replaced by Jordan Rhodes against Tottenham Hotspur – Karanka’s switch was greeted with loud applause from the Riverside faithful. Middlesbrough’s manager may still have faith in his striker, but the fans do not. Rhodes and his fellow striker David Nugent have yet to complete a game in eight Premier League appearances between them this season and surely can’t do any worse than the man who has restricted them to little more than fleeting cameos off the bench. BG • Leicester City top dogs after Shinji Okazaki leads win over Club Brugge • Ranieri delighted but desperate to focus on Premier League problems • Danny Drinkwater to serve three-match ban for violent conduct 3) Cherries struggle against top five Bournemouth have impressed all impartial observers since their promotion in 2015, and indeed for a while before that, but their results against the current Premier League top five have disappointed: in 12 games so far they have won one – against Chelsea shortly before José Mourinho’s sacking last December – lost 10 and sit on the wrong end of an aggregate score of 31-5 (every other team that was in the division last season has been beaten at least once except Watford and Leicester, against whom they have neither won nor lost). Arsenal won both of their meetings last season by the same score, 2-0, and will face a Bournemouth side forced to play without the influential and injury-free midfielder Jack Wilshere, on loan from Arsenal. Despite his absence it might be a tough day for the woodwork, with these teams being the two most post-rattling in the top flight: the Cherries lead the way in this regard, having struck the frame of the goal 13 times so far, and Arsenal follow behind with eight. SB • Wenger not panicking on Arsenal second place in Champions League • Barney Ronay: Özil’s vision prevents Arsenal from drifting against PSG • Match report: Arsenal 2-2 Paris Saint-Germain 4) A touch of dead ball inspiration from Sigurdsson? Between them, Crystal Palace and Swansea City have managed just four wins and a staggering 15 defeats in 24 Premier League matches so far this season, a state of affairs that makes this contest the weekend’s equivalent of two drunks swinging at each other in an alley. Should either manager lose a game likely to be low on finesse but no less compelling a spectacle for its absence, they will find themselves the subject of no end of criticism from fans for whom the spectre of relegation looms increasingly large. Alan Pardew seems genuinely delusional, having convinced himself his side do not concede from set-pieces even though the stats suggest otherwise. Nine of the 21 goals shipped by Palace this season have come from dead ball situations and in Gylfi Sigurdsson, Swansea have one of the most accurate set-piece specialists in the business. Whether it’s from one or more of the free-kicks and corners Pardew’s team have proved so hopelessly inept at defending, the in-form Icelandic midfielder could well prove instrumental in helping Bob Bradley secure his maiden victory as Swansea City manager in a game that looks must-win for both men in charge. BG • The Knowledge: players confused by penalty rebounds 5) Ighalo’s woes to continue There has only been one home win in the last eight matches between Watford and Stoke, the away side winning five of those games including both of last season’s encounters. But Stoke have only won one away game since their visit to Vicarage Road in March – at Hull last month – and will probably have to overcome a Watford side buoyed not only by last week’s victory over Leicester but by the new formation that brought it. When preparing for his last visit to Hertfordshire Mark Hughes spoke about the Hornets’ key threat at the time, their front two of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney. “The two guys up top have had a big influence on what they’ve done,â€\x9d he said. “They are a good pairing who work off each other really well and certainly they are something we’ll talk about before the game.â€\x9d This time he needn’t bother: Ighalo’s influence in recent months has been minimal, leading to him being dropped in favour of Isaac Success for last month’s victory at Middlesbrough. Injuries to both Success and Watford’s other first-team striker, Stefano Okaka, allowed Ighalo to return to the side for their following three games but last week he was on the bench again as Walter Mazzarri played a 5-4-1 formation in which Troy Deeney was given considerably more effective support by a combination of the two wide midfielders, Roberto Pereyra and Nordin Amrabat, and by Etienne Capoue’s running from central midfield. When Deeney was replaced late in the game, it was by the recently-recovered Okaka; with Success now ready to return to the squad, Ighalo’s hopes of a return to the starting XI appear, like his recent form, underwhelming. SB • Football Weekly Extra: AC Jimbo and co preview the weekend 6) A third consecutive win for Sunderland? Free-scoring Sunderland have never beaten Liverpool at Anfield in the Premier League era but will fancy their slim chances of bucking that trend as they arrive on the back of consecutive wins for the first time since last May. Sunderland last won three consecutive league games three seasons and three managers ago, on the run-in of the 2013-14 campaign when wins over Chelsea, Cardiff City, Manchester United and then West Brom helped them pull off the mother of all escape acts. The bookies give them little or no chance of beating Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who drew a rare blank against Southampton last weekend and have had a full week to find their range. You can get odds of 16-1 against David Moyes’s side making it three wins on the spin, but with confidence high, Moyes having bought himself some much-needed wriggle room and Victor Anichebe joining Jermain Defoe among the goals, Sunderland could conceivably leave Anfield with a point or even more. Of course the far more likely scenario is that they will get thumped but in facing top class opposition will at least get to see if their two recent victories were more down to good luck (Bournemouth) and the poor quality of their opposition (Hull City) than any major advances they have made under the stewardship of Moyes. BG • Steven Gerrard retires from football after ‘incredible career’ • Paul Wilson: Charlton and Guardiola offer Gerrard lessons from history • Sean Ingle: Do stats support ‘benefits’ of Liverpool’s European absence? 7) Burnley have a chance of an upset Manchester City’s last two Champions League games were followed by disappointing 1-1 draws at home to Southampton and Middlesbrough, and now they must follow a similar result at Borussia Mönchengladbach with a visit to a side that has already beaten Liverpool and Everton (as well as Watford and Crystal Palace) and come within a whisker of holding Arsenal, all at home. Burnley are the division’s Jekyll and Hyde side, boasting the sixth-best home record with an average 1.86 points per game (having played once more at home than any other team) and the second-worst away record, with the goalless draw at Old Trafford last month securing the only point they have won in five games on their travels. Motivated by the rollicking Sean Dyche gave them following a 4-0 capitulation at West Bromwich Albion on Monday – he told the press they “got drunk on the ballâ€\x9d and “just looked weak willedâ€\x9d – and against opponents who are themselves out of form and against whom they have a decent recent record (amounting to two draws and a win each in four Premier League encounters, though Burnley’s victory was a tight 1-0 win in March 2015, and City’s a 6-1 thumping in April 2010), there is reason for genuine optimism. Dyche said his side are relying on little more than “the marvel of footballâ€\x9d and the fact “random results turn upâ€\x9d, but he is perhaps understating the chances of an upset. SB • Joey Barton back training with his former club Burnley • City through after Silva earns draw at Mönchengladbach • Yaya Touré left off shortlist for 2016 African player of the year award • Luis Enrique gives Messi to Manchester City rumours short shrift 8) Some sanity after the all poppy madness Football is never slow to embrace a cause and the Premier League has promised to throw its weight behind Stonewall’s rainbow laces initiative on a weekend when its own branding will feature a rainbow motif and most, if not all, Premier League players will wear rainbow laces on their boots as part of a wider push to encourage diversity in grounds around the country. Along with several extremely courageous former footballers, the ’s chief football correspondent, Daniel Taylor, continues to shine a light on the hitherto unreported scandal of historical cases of child abuse of footballers in a depressing story that looks likely to run and run. Considering some of those victims who have come forward to tell their horrific stories previously felt unable to speak out for fear of being labelled “gayâ€\x9d, any campaign to support LGBT people and stamp out homophobic abuse in football can only be applauded. BG 9) Some resilience from Spurs Ten minutes. That’s how long Chelsea need to keep Tottenham Hotspur at bay this weekend to rack up 600 Premier League minutes without conceding a goal. Should they beat Spurs and hold them scoreless, Antonio Conte’s men will have recorded seven consecutive league wins without conceding a goal, two shy of the record set by Stockport County, then of League Two, between 13 January and 2 March 2007. It will be intriguing to see how Spurs bounce back from the midweek disappointment of their defeat at the hands of Monaco, in which there were several conspicuous absentees from Mauricio Pochettino’s starting lineup and few of those the manager did select covered themselves in glory. After their midweek meltdown, Tottenham could hope for no stiffer test than a run-out against the Premier League leaders with their apparently impregnable defence and an attack that is behind only Liverpool in terms of goals scored. With Pochettino having questioned the mental fortitude of his players during the week, the manner in which Spurs bounce back from Wednesday’s Champions League reverse ought to give a fair indication of whether their season will end with a half-decent title challenge or merely end up petering out and finishing up in an underwhelming and characteristically Spursy fashion. BG • Pochettino: Tottenham will stay at Wembley for Europa League • Summer signings and lack of savvy: why Spurs failed in Europe • Pochettino says changes needed after Spurs flop in Monaco • Barney Ronay: Conte stamps his dynamic personality on Chelsea 10) Koeman’s return to Southampton It is the season of reunions for Southampton, who after facing Liverpool’s selection of ex-Saints last week prepare for Ronald Koeman’s first return to the club he departed in the summer under something of a cloud, a few weeks after promising supporters that “I know nothing about the Everton jobâ€\x9d and that not only does “everybody know I have a year on my contractâ€\x9d but he “could sign a [new] contract next weekâ€\x9d. After his move was announced the former Southampton goalkeeper Artur Boruc tweeted something Koeman had said a couple of moths previously, criticising “the lack of loyalty in modern day footballâ€\x9d and asserting not only that would not be tempted away from the St Mary’s Stadium for “short-term gainsâ€\x9d, but he “would hate to ever become that kind of managerâ€\x9d. As he walks out before the game he may become the latest manager to be reminded that it is not so much the leaving of a club by which they will be judged, but the manner of it. SB • ‘What’s this geezer doing? He’s hopeless’ – the Ali Dia story, 20 years on • Everton Under-23s to sleep rough for homeless charity',
 'Henry Wagons: After What I Did Last Night … – exclusive album stream It’s a cliche to compare every male Australian singer with a deep timbre to Nick Cave, but there’s something appealing in the idea of a Cave in cowboy boots – an alternative-universe country Cave who found redemption not in gothic post-punk but in winding tales of high melodrama and the twang of Nashville guitar. Meet Henry Wagons, a musician Justin Townes Earle has described as “Dr Seuss meets Conway Twittyâ€\x9d. After more than a decade of touring and recording with his band Wagons (Cave, in fact, co-produced their 2014 album Acid Rain and Sugar Cane), Henry is releasing a solo album – an autobiography of songs that spans his life so far, from a rowdy misspent youth to a stint as a tour-hardened troubadour, to his latest role as a new father. To record After What I Did Last Night…, Wagons headed to Nashville, the home of country music, where he worked with producer Skylar Wilson. “So many of my favourite albums have been made in Tennessee with sort of pick-up studio musicians,â€\x9d Wagons says. “And over my many years of going there, I’ve gotten drunk enough at bars there to have met some great musicians. Basically, it was great to be able to rock up and do the same process as so many of my favourite albums, from [Bob Dylan’s] Blonde on Blonde to [Neil Young’s] Harvest.â€\x9d Wagons says he’s hooked on the city. “Good burgers on tap, fine bourbons and American accents, Southern gentlemen, kind manners and long stories,â€\x9d he says. “I suspect I’ll be over to the States again to record one day soon.â€\x9d',
 'Kids in Love review – gap-year angst This fatuous coming-of-age drama plays out like an advertisement for entitlement. Jack (Will Poulter) has a case of gap-year angst that is not helped when he meets Evelyn (Alma Jodorowsky) and her well-heeled bohemian chums (including Cara Delevingne, underused in a supporting role). A tourist in this world of privilege, Jack is fascinated, until he gets his visa revoked and financial reality bites. It’s staggeringly shallow stuff.',
 'Dispatch from Myrtle Beach: Trump ignites rally, Cruz tastes the offseason Broadway Louie’s in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 11pm on a Wednesday: there’s a man singing Sir Mix A Lot’s Baby Got Back, and two women dancing with vigor nearby. I was in town to attend Donald Trump and Ted Cruz’s respective campaign events, which both took place on Friday morning. I’d arrived early to soak up some culture, to provide some context. What would happen when the billionaire collided with the senator here, a city of jet ski shows and afternoons on inner tubes, of biker rallies and a reputation for the real spring break experience? I’ve seen films. I know how it works. I wanted to drink Bud Light in a rowdy bar. I wanted to wear wraparound shades on the top of my head. I wanted to punch a dweeb in the face and then dive-bomb into a pool. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s dueling campaigns had given me my chance. On Friday morning, Cruz seemed ready to get into the spirit of the town. He showed up with his favorite bro, Phil “Duck Dynastyâ€\x9d Robertson. The crowd was less into it. Cruz told them that last week’s debate had revealed personalities. He tried out a call-and-response with the audience. Cruz: “Who’s best prepared to be commander in chief?â€\x9d Crowd: an awkward silence. Then about five people shouted: “Ted Cruz.â€\x9d An elderly woman was loudest. The lackluster atmosphere spread beyond Cruz’s rally. On my Wednesday night out I had discovered that Myrtle Beach is deathly quiet in February, with plenty of Bud Light but nobody to drink it. There weren’t any rowdy bars or wraparound shades or compliant dweebs. The man and women performing Baby Got Back, for example, were in town for a leadership conference. I wanted to find people other than aspiring management executives – maybe even some voters – so I dipped out of Broadway Louie’s. A bunch of other bars nearby line the faux downtown area: cobbled streets, old-timey buildings with balconies. Then I found Señor Frogs, a chain restaurant and bar; I hastened inside. “It’s offseason,â€\x9d the bartender told me. There were four of us, including the bartender. I ordered a Bud Light. This didn’t feel like the full Myrtle Beach experience. When Donald Trump swept through Myrtle on Friday he probably missed the quiet melancholy that pervades the tourist town in the offseason. Hundreds of people lined up for Trump’s event, in a queue that wrapped around the venue and two artificial lakes. There were thousands more inside. An attendee named Bill was wearing a hard hat and a high visibility vest, and held a sign saying: “I’m ready to work on the wall.â€\x9d There were cheers as Trump came out on stage. The billionaire called Ted Cruz “the biggest liar I’ve ever seenâ€\x9d. Trump alluded to a picture that the Cruz campaign doctored, appearing to show rival Marco Rubio shaking hands with Barack Obama. He mocked their photoshopping skills. “I’m not sticking up for Marco Rubio but I looked at this picture: Marco Rubio looked like he was about four feet tall,â€\x9d Trump said. “I never saw anything like it.â€\x9d A little later on some protesters started shouting something. “Get them out! Get them out!â€\x9d Trump shouted back. “Don’t hurt them but get them out.â€\x9d Trump also seemed to dismiss his feud with Pope Francis. “The pope is great, he made a beautiful statement this morning,â€\x9d Trump said. “They had him convinced that illegal immigration is a wonderful thing,â€\x9d he added, implying a reference to the pope’s Mexican hosts. “Not wonderful for us, it’s wonderful for Mexico.â€\x9d But Cruz got a taste of the offseason at his rally, no thanks to his pal Robertson. You’d have thought a “duck commanderâ€\x9d would give an uplifting intro to his favorite senator, but instead Robertson whipped out a Bible and railed against everything Myrtle Beach stands for – venereal disease, especially. Sex should be reserved for marriage, he said. Between one man and one woman. “Then you won’t get a debilitating disease.â€\x9d There are “110 million Americans with STDs at any given timeâ€\x9d, he added, harshing the already fragile spring-break vibe. Finally Cruz came out. “Just imagine for a second: Phil Robertson, ambassador to the United Nations,â€\x9d the senator said. I think it was a joke. Then Cruz got fired up. Very fired up. He lamented the death of Antonin Scalia. It made this election all the more important, he said. “One more justice on the left and the second amendment is written out of the bill of rights. One more justice on the left and our religious liberty is gone for a generation,â€\x9d Cruz shouted, with a clenched fist. He sounded like he was ready to grab his musket and charge at Washington DC, or Hillary Clinton, or any dweeb at the party who couldn’t tell Creed from real Christian rock. “Nobody here should be confused what we are fighting for,â€\x9d Cruz summarized. “We are fighting for the rights of our children and grandchildren.â€\x9d But neither Cruz nor Trump had excited the gang of revelers I met on Wednesday. Paula Davis and Carol Martinelli, on a “girls’ night outâ€\x9d, for instance, didn’t know either candidate would be in town. “I liked Trump until he opened his mouth,â€\x9d Martinelli said. What came out of Trump’s mouth? “Pretty much shit,â€\x9d she said. “We’re a joke to other countries,â€\x9d Davis said. Back inside Louie’s, which seemed to be the only bar in Myrtle Beach with more than 10 people, a woman gave a rousing rendition of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer. She wore a sash saying “40 looks goodâ€\x9d. Her name was Nesha Madox, and she had travelled to Myrtle Beach from Charlotte “to partyâ€\x9d. “I’m scared,â€\x9d she said, when asked about the election. “There’s no strong candidate. They’re so divisive.â€\x9d I asked Madox who she thought was divisive. She said Donald Trump. “The way he speaks, I genuinely don’t believe he means what he says. But the way he says it, people who have hatred seize upon it,â€\x9d she said. “He’s dividing the country.â€\x9d Madox returned to partying and I went for a walk around Louie’s. The man who had been singing Baby Got Back was called Tiger. He was 37. “A lot of [the election] is pretty comical,â€\x9d he said. “Some of the things these guys are out here saying, it’s pretty reckless.â€\x9d “The Trumps and others who are fearmongering … we’re better than that as a nation, as people,â€\x9d Tiger said. I asked him what was important in this election. “Minimum wage is a big issue,â€\x9d he said. “Republicans are in favor of leaving it where it is. The reality is that a person working a full-time job on minimum wage, they are below the poverty line.â€\x9d I could feel the Bud Light kicking in. A woman called Melissa came over at the bar and ordered a pint of Stella Artois. “I find politics so exhausting that I would rather crawl up in the fetal position and sleep right through it,â€\x9d Melissa said. She said she worked for a “bigâ€\x9d insurance company. “Can’t we talk about something more fun?â€\x9d Melissa asked. She showed me a picture of her dog, a pug called Rooney, named after Dan Rooney, the chairman and owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. She wrote “Donald Trump sucksâ€\x9d in my notepad and stole a pin badge I was wearing. I left at 1am. It was not a classic Myrtle Beach party experience. Neither I nor anyone else was socked in the jaw. I never met anyone wearing wraparound shades, failed to dive-bomb into a pool, and didn’t get up to any high jinks at all. “But,â€\x9d I thought, as I wobbled back towards a brightly lit building that looked like it might be my hotel, “Is that such a bad thing?â€\x9d',
 "Grattan Institute: ageing population 'will not cause collapse of health system' The ageing population will not cause a collapse of the healthcare system because it is not the primary cause of increased health costs, the Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett has said. Duckett warned against panic over sustainability of the system, despite accepting it was an “issue of concernâ€\x9d, with health costs to rise from 9% of GDP to 12.5% in the next 20 years. The former health and human services department secretary made the comments at a Council of the Ageing forum on primary healthcare for older Australians in Canberra on Thursday. The ageing of the population was outweighed as a cause of rising health costs by changing patterns of care, including increased visits and higher quality services, Duckett said. “People at age 85 are getting different treatment now than an 85-year-old did 10 years ago.â€\x9d Duckett said the Grattan Institute had analysed the cause of increased spending on health and found “the pure ageing component is relatively smallâ€\x9d. Between 2004 and 2014, the increase in the number of people aged 70 and over accounted for 18% of the increase in hospital admissions, he said. That was dwarfed as a cause by population growth of those under 70 (which accounted for 35%), change in treatment patterns for people under 70 (26%), and change in treatment patterns for those over 70 (22%). “Increase in expenditure is blamed on ageing and it’s just not true,â€\x9d Duckett said. “When they say ageing is the cause of these health cost increases – they are either numerically challenged or benefit from self-education.â€\x9d Duckett warned against the “Henny Penny approach to sustainability of the healthcare system – people saying the sky is falling inâ€\x9d. “It forces you down the path of thinking you need to do something dramatic and do it soon.â€\x9d The Abbott government cut $57bn from hospitals over 10 years in the 2014 budget and extended the Medicare rebate freeze until 2020 in the 2016 budget. The Turnbull government restored $2.9bn to hospitals, after warnings from the states they faced serious revenue problems in paying for health. In its 2016 election campaign Labor promised to restore $2bn more to hospitals than the Coalition and to spend $12.2bn reversing the Medicare rebate freeze. Speaking in the same session as Duckett, the research director of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, Ross Clare, in part blamed intergenerational reports produced by Treasury for alarmism about health spending and debt levels. “The intergenerational reports are more of a propaganda device than a serious public policy analysis most years,â€\x9d he said. “A range of them in recent years have had quite peculiar themes that have been selected for whatever Treasury or their masters want them to do. “The last one had a lot about the impending debt crisis and quite far-fetched projections … but we seem to have moved on from that.â€\x9d Australian Medical Association president Michael Gannon met health minister Sussan Ley for the first time since the election on Monday. Gannon said the discussion had focused on the fact health was not the problem with the budget and should not be targeted in further attempts at budget repair. Duckett said it was inevitable the number of elderly people would increase, but far from being a “grey tsunamiâ€\x9d it was a “grey glacierâ€\x9d. “It is slow: we have time to do something about it, and redesign the system.â€\x9d Duckett said warnings that focused only on costs overlooked the fact that people might be receiving higher quality care. Deaths attributable to healthcare failings fell from 200 per 100,000 in 1987 to about 80 in 2007. “And if you ask people how well they feel, people who report having poor or only fair health is going down, so we are feeling better,â€\x9d Duckett said. He said it was not clear whether the improved outcomes were worth the increased spending, but argued “it is improper to look at the cost side without looking at the benefit sideâ€\x9d.",
 'We asked: what do people outside the US wonder about presidential race? The reaches millions of engaged readers around the world, and some of our most exciting work comes when they talk to each other. As we looked through our coverage of this US election cycle, we realized that this was already happening: people wanted to know what the situation looked like from outside and inside the US, and they had some real questions about what exactly is going on. And hey, we did too: we asked readers who live outside the US to ask some questions of our American audience. We also asked our American readers to come up with a list for readers abroad. Hundreds of people submitted. We read all of the responses, then edited them into the list below. The next step is getting some answers. This too will come back to our readers: AKA, you. If you’re a US citizen, answer as many of the questions posed by our international readers as you’d like. If you’re not a US citizen, answer as many of the questions posed by our US citizens as you’d like – just scroll down to find them. As the responses come in, we’ll read through and again select the most interesting and emblematic to publish late next week. Live outside the US? Here’s what our American readers want you to answer: Live in the US? Here’s what some of our international readers want you to answer:',
 'Live music booking now Despite the revival hype, most of grime’s old guard never actually went anywhere. Kano is one such artist who has been plugging away (albeit punctuated by a high-profile acting stint on Channel 4’s brilliant Top Boy) just above street level since his mid-00s heyday. He’s found the spotlight again now, though, collaborating with Little Simz, JME and Giggs in recent months, and will embark on a string of dates to coincide with upcoming fifth album Made In The Manor (16-26 Mar, tour starts Concorde 2, Brighton) … Meanwhile, fellow grime stalwart Big Narstie plays London next month (O2 Academy2 Islington, N1, 24 Feb) … Antony Hegarty is soon to release a new album under new moniker ANOHNI, entitled Hopelessness. A collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, it has some accompanying Barbican dates, during which ANOHNI will be “performing embodied within a live avatarâ€\x9d, whatever that means (7 & 8 Jul, EC1) … Finally, anti-socialite, new pop hope and general breath of fresh air Alessia Cara briefly tours the UK (23-25 Mar, tour starts Electric Brixton, SW2).',
 'Serious mistakes in NHS patient care are on the rise, figures reveal Serious mistakes by hospital staff that put patients at risk are on the rise, despite the government’s drive since the Mid Staffs scandal to make care safer, official NHS figures reveal. The last few years have seen more cases of delayed diagnosis, staff failure to act on patients’ test results, poor care of seriously ill patients and blunders during surgery. The figures, obtained by former health minister Norman Lamb from NHS England, have sparked concern that the unprecedented strain on hospitals – created by rising demand for care, shortages of doctors and nurses, and the need to save money – is making staff more likely to make errors. The number of cases in which NHS England recorded that a patient whose health was deteriorating received what it calls sub-optimal care more than doubled, from 260 in 2013-14 to 588 in 2015-16. Similarly, the number of diagnostic incidents – either a delayed diagnosis or an NHS worker not acting on test results – rose from 654 to 923. “Jeremy Hunt [the health secretary] has talked a lot about wanting to make the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world,â€\x9d said Lamb. “But is that ambition realistic? These figures show worrying rises in the number of incidents which have a damaging and potentially fatal effect on patients. “My worry is that the NHS is under such impossible pressure, with clinicians too often working under intense strain, that increases the risk of serious harm being caused to patients, which can have incalculable consequences for them and their families. “These figures confirm the stark and distressing reality that thousands of people are being failed in their hour of need because the NHS is under such intolerable pressure, with overstretched hospital staff unable to give patients the care and treatment they deserve,â€\x9d he added. The figures that he obtained, using the Freedom of Information Act, also show that the number of surgical incidents more than doubled from 285 in 2013-14 to 740 in 2015-16. There were 202 surgical errors and 83 cases of wrong-site surgery – in which surgeons operated on the wrong part of a patient’s body – during 2013-14. They rose to 248 and 114 respectively a year later. But after changing the way it collates data in May 2015 regarding incidents in which patient safety is endangered, NHS England says that 30 surgical errors and 19 wrong-site surgeries occurred in 2015-16, as did another 691 cases of a “surgical/invasive procedure incidentâ€\x9d. The disclosures come amid growing fears among NHS bodies, health trade unions and thinktanks that the service in England will experience its first full-blown winter crisis since 2011-12 and that both the quality and safety of care are in danger of deteriorating in coming weeks and months. Worsening gaps in medical rotas, big year-on-year rises in the number of patients attending and being admitted, and the growing complexity of patients’ illnesses are also key factors. Hunt has launched an array of initiatives to improve the safety of NHS care since Robert Francis QC’s seminal report in 2013 into the scandal of poor care at Stafford Hospital between 2005 and 2009, which led to patients dying. “We have long warned that underfunding and staff shortages within the NHS will impact on patient safety. It appears that our worst fears are now being confirmed,â€\x9d said Eddie Saville, general secretary of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, which represents several thousand hospital doctors. “Hospital doctors and fellow medical staff are increasingly hampered by the spending constraints placed on frontline services. It is time that the government listened to those voices warning that it has got funding wrong. It shouldn’t be a case of waiting for a major incident to hit the headlines before acknowledging this fact and changing tack.â€\x9d The figures also paint a mixed picture of patient safety in NHS maternity services. There were fewer maternity-service serious incidents (82), mothers’ unplanned admissions to intensive care (134) and unexpected neonatal deaths of a newborn (122) in 2014-15, compared with 2013-14. However, 535 newborn babies had to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit in 2014-15, up from 380 the year before. The number of maternal deaths also rose over the same period from 54 to 62. The Department of Health denied the figures were proof that patient safety was slipping. “To suggest this indicates a decline in standards is a simple misreading of the information,â€\x9d a spokesman insisted. The rises in these types of serious breaches of safety were due to better recording of such occurrences, he said. “This data is precisely what we would expect given the government’s focus on building the safest and most transparent healthcare system in the world. The NHS is becoming ‎far better at recording and learning from the open reporting of a wider range of incidents,â€\x9d he said.',
 "UK press accused of 'misinformed media storm' over email spying story The British press has been accused of whipping up a “misinformed media stormâ€\x9d over a court case in which judges decided that a man whose employer accessed his personal messages had not had his rights violated. Europe’s top human rights body took the unusual step of issuing a statement explaining how the European court of human rights works after a series of what it called “inaccurate scare storiesâ€\x9d was published this week. “Certain parts of the UK media sometimes have trouble getting their facts right when covering ‘Europe’. It’s understandable, to a certain extent. Europe’s institutions are complicated, journalists cover lots of different issues and they work to tight deadlines,â€\x9d a spokesman for the body said. “Nonetheless, this week’s reporting of a judgment from the European court of human rights on monitoring personal communications at work has set something of a new benchmark.â€\x9d The case centred on a Romanian man, Bogdan Barbulescu, who asked the human rights court to rule that his right to a private life had not been upheld. Barbulescu sent private messages to his fiancee and brother on a Yahoo Messenger account his employer had asked him to set up for work purposes. The firm argued that it had forbidden any use of the internet for private purposes. When confronted by his bosses, Barbulescu denied the personal use of the account and, in order to establish the facts, his employer accessed both the professional and private messages he sent. He was subsequently fired. After fighting an unsuccessful battle in the Romanian courts, he took the country to the human rights court. But judges decided that there had been no breach of his rights. The spokesman said: “Numerous outlets – primarily, but not exclusively, from the UK – have portrayed Tuesday’s judgment as giving bosses across the continent a new ‘right’ to snoop on all of their staff’s personal messages sent using Facebook, Twitter, What’sApp, Gmail or any other platform. “It sounds scary, and it makes a good story, but it’s not true.â€\x9d He added that the reporting was a “striking example of how far and wide inaccurate scare stories can spread if journalists, and others, don’t get their facts rightâ€\x9d. The story was reported on the front page of the Sun, the Mail, Metro and the Financial Times on Thursday. Metro issued a clarification the following day, saying it had erred in linking the court to the European Union. It was also covered by the Telegraph, the and the BBC, as well as by the Independent and the Times. Besides those titles, the Mirror, the Star and the Express, as well as Huffington Post, the Evening Standard and many others produced articles on it. The spokesman for the Council of Europe, which upholds the convention and of which the human rights court is a part, did not name the specific titles or news reports that had led the body to issue the statement clarifying the workings of the Strasbourg court and the details of the case. The European convention on human rights obliges the governments of the 47 countries that have ratified it to abide by the decisions of the human rights court in the cases that involve them. Any not named as a party are not affected. The effect of the court’s decisions on domestic judges differs from country to country. In the UK, for example, the human rights act requires judges to take the decisions into account, but there is no obligation to follow them. The Independent Press Standards Organisation, which does not regulate all of the outlets that covered the story, said it has not received any complaints about the media coverage.",
 'Individual athletes more prone to depression, researchers find Athletes in individual sports are more prone to depression than those in team games, according to German research to be presented at a conference in Cardiff. The research by the Technical University of Munich confirms not just the loneliness of the long distance runner but a range of other depressive symptoms among solo sportsmen and women more generally. Prof Jürgen Beckmann, the university’s chair of sports psychology who will be presenting the research, said: “Individual athletes attribute failure more to themselves than team sports athletes. They take the blame more than team players. On a team there is a diffusion of responsibility, as social physiologists would say, compared with the performance of an individual athlete.â€\x9d One of the studies compared 128 young German footballers and hockey players with 71 junior athletes in a range of individual sports including swimming, speed skating and badminton. They were assessed on a depression scale that measures symptoms such as guilt, sadness and suicidal feelings. It found that individual athletes showed significantly more signs of such symptoms than athletes in team sports. The finding was replicated in a study of 162 senior elite athletes including many in various German national teams. Individual athletes including triathletes, golfers and cyclists were found to have higher symptoms of depression than team players in games that included volleyball, rugby and football. The research, which is to be presented at the British Psychological Society annual sport and exercise conference in Cardiff on Monday, found that the individual athletes tend to blame themselves for sporting failure. One of the papers to be presented suggests that individual athletes take both sporting success and failure more personally than team players. “The internal attribution could lead to stronger experiences of emotions such as pride (positive events) and guilt or shame (negative events) in athletes in individual sports,â€\x9d one of the papers says. The researchers also expected to find more signs of perfectionism among individual athletes but were surprised to discover that team players were more prone to perfectionism. A separate long-term study found that perfectionism and chronic stress often led to burnout but not depression. Depression was found to be linked with a lack of time to recover from stress and injury. The research also found that depressive symptoms were particularly prevalent among young athletes. Beckmann said: “The real problem is with young athletes. Those who receive social support from parents and peers experience much less stress than those who don’t. That’s especially important during adolescence. “We found that up to 20% of young athletes do have a problem with higher depression scores. In the general population its range is between 9% and 12%. “We are not diagnosing them as being depressive, but on the depression scales they have quite a score.â€\x9d He said subsequent studies have suggested that the level could be even higher among solo athletes only. “We have very high prevalence rates in swimming, for example,â€\x9d Beckmann said. He called for more support to be given to athletes to help them recognise signs of depression and to suggest ways of tackling it. He said: “In Germany, we have developed a burnout and screening instrument for junior athletes and a website to give them advice on coping with stress and other psychological problems they may experience.â€\x9d The mental health charity Mind said the research underlined pressures facing athletes. Hayley Jarvis, Mind’s community programmes manager for sport, said: “Following the increasing number of ex-sportspeople who have spoken out about struggles with their own mental health and some high profile suicides, Mind commissioned research to explore how sports’ governing bodies and players’ organisations currently deal with mental health, and identify best practice which can be shared with other sports. “To help create an environment where all sports professionals can fulfil their potential, we need to see managers, coaches, clubs, governing bodies and players’ unions all support athletes to manage their mental wellbeing.â€\x9d Andy Baddeley’s story Andy Baddeley, a two-time Olympian and Britain’s former No 1 1,500m runner, has blogged about his experiences of depression on the Mind website. Speaking to the , he said: The hardest thing about running is that you are on own before a race. When things are great that’s what’s good about it. I’m not dependent on 10 other guys being on the top of their game in order for me to be successful. But there is also nothing to fall back on. The nature of athletics is that one guy gets to win each race, and so there’s 11 or more in my event who don’t. And its that unpredictability that’s the hard bit. It got to a point with my coach when I couldn’t express how low I was. There are not many people I get to talk to about these things. I’m not surrounded by a team. I don’t have to turn up to a training ground. I have often felt that I would be better suited to a team sport. What I enjoy most is group training, but the nature of distance running is that that doesn’t happen every day. You’re the only one who can train hard. It is a lonely decision each day, especially when it’s cold and raining. If I plan to meet someone, I find that’s powerful in terms of motivation. And it’s the days when I am not meeting someone that it takes me a lot longer than it should to get myself out of the door. Talking to someone is what has helped me. My mental health has been best when I’ve been meeting coaches and other team members. Having a mental heath struggle doesn’t mean you are not mentally strong for a race. These things are separate. You can still run through the pain barrier but still have bad days – they are not mutually exclusive. People think admitting mental health problems makes them seem weak or susceptible to being beaten. But after I wrote about my experiences I felt stronger. I was lucky enough to see a sports psychologist when I was on lottery funding. When I was injured I saw someone privately and that helped. I deliberately chose a non-sports psychologist because I wanted more of an idea of what was normal, rather than what’s normal in elite sport.â€\x9d In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.',
 'Everyman cinema chain is next to drop zero-hours contracts The Everyman cinema chain is set to move hundreds of staff off zero-hours contracts by the end of next year, joining a wave of companies turning against the controversial employment contracts. Crispin Lilly, the chief executive of the boutique cinema group, said five of its 19 outlets would be free of zero hours by the end of this year and the rest in 2017. The group began experimenting with guaranteed monthly hours at its Birmingham branch and has already introduced that system in new outlets in Harrogate and Chelmsford. In the next few months two further sites, including Leeds, will switch to the system, which promises at least 40 hours a month. Lilly said: “If all goes well we want to take it across the chain. Some people say, ‘why not do it tomorrow?’ but we want to make sure that when we move existing sites we don’t lose good employees in the process. We’ve proven it delivers the same level of flexibility that zero hours did but zero hours has been much maligned by [businesses] that treated it badly. “Our staff have never had problems with zero hours but it has become a bad word and there are employees out there who would not come to us if we’re associated with it.â€\x9d He revealed the plans alongside a trading statement in which Everyman said revenues had risen nearly 51% to £12.1m in the six months to June as it opened a string of new sites. Box office takings at established cinemas fell by about 2%, in line with the wider market, as some box office blockbusters failed to ignite. Successes included Jungle Book and The Revenant but none was as popular as Jurassic World in 2015. Lilly said takings had picked up briskly in July and August with the release of The BFG, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. The appeal of the boutique chains has been tarnished by rows over the use of zero-hours contracts and low pay. Film fans have criticised poor pay and conditions when they are paying as much as £18.50 a seat to watch a film. In January last year, the Curzon chain moved all 200 cinema staff at its 14 sites off zero hours and onto the living wage. Cineworld, which owns the Picturehouse chain, told the it continued to use zero-hours contracts across the business but implemented them “on a ‘responsible use’ basis, which allows staff the same benefits pro rata as their fixed-hours counterparts.â€\x9d Picturehouse said it offered staff the choice of zero- or guaranteed-hours contracts. Everyman’s move comes after retailer Sports Direct said it would offer 18,000 workers at its shops contracts guaranteeing at least 12 hours’ work a week following heavy criticism of its employment practices, although it has emerged that this change could take until the end of the year. Earlier this week Greene King said it would move thousands of pub workers at chains including Wacky Warehouse off zero-hours contracts after fellow pub firm JD Wetherspoon announced it would allow 24,000 staff to choose between a zero-hours contract and one offering fixed hours.',
 'Billions: Showtime’s power-mad Wall Street drama is worth investing in What’s the name of this show? Billions. When does it premiere? Sunday 17 January, at 10pm EST on Showtime. You can also watch the pilot episode for free on Showtime’s website. What’s this show about? Money, stupid. Well, yeah, of course. But what, exactly, about money? The core of the story concerns Paul “Axeâ€\x9d Axelrod (Damian Lewis, with a spot-on American accent, as always), a rags-to-riches hedge fund billionaire who has been less than clean in his ascent to the top. His company Axe Capital becomes a company of interest for US attorney Chuck Rhodes (Paul Giamatti), who is hell-bent on making the wolves of Wall Street pay for their various and assorted crimes. The show is essentially a cat and mouse game between the two as they try to outsmart each other and eat the other for breakfast. Can it be a cat and cat game? I’m not sure exactly what a hedge fund does. Will the show explain it? Not really. There’s lots of talk about “short squeezesâ€\x9d and “holding positionsâ€\x9d that make absolutely no sense to non-traders and the show doesn’t bother with much exposition about what it all means. This is especially tricky for viewers trying to determine why a move one of the traders makes might actually be illegal. However, I give the show credit for not talking down to its audience. And much like watching the Great British Bake Off makes you feel like you can bust out a Victoria Sponge without a recipe, this show gives you a sort of confidence about the financial world. Who are we supposed to root for, Lewis or Giamatti? The answer is both and neither. “Prestigeâ€\x9d television such as this loves an antihero, and here is one of the few shows where you have two going after each other. Axe is a total shark who will screw anyone over to make money, but he has a weird moral code all of his own. Rhodes is nominally doing the right thing by punishing the rich who break the law, but his dogged determination belies something else. In one scene, he makes a guy who didn’t pick up his dog’s poop clean it up with his bare hands. That’s kind of Rhodes in a nutshell. So, you like them both but you know they both have to pay. Are there any other characters worth rooting for? Rhodes’ wife, Wendy (Maggie Siff, who played Rachel Menken on Mad Men), is my favorite character on the show. She is a psychologist who works for Axe, using her expertise to make him and his analysts work even harder and better. She’s also a badass dominatrix who puts cigarettes out on her husband’s chest, which makes for some, ahem, colorful scenes. Axe’s wife, Lara (Malin Akerman), the sort of yoga mom who will shank you if you cross her, is a great character too, but so far there isn’t enough meat on her bones for the always charming Akerman. Is the show any good? Yes, quite. Though sometimes it doesn’t manage to thread the needle between complicated and convoluted, watching two men at the tops of their games trying to take each other down makes for a very interesting dynamic. Rhodes, I think, is the better character; a principled lawyer from a rich family who is into S&M makes for much showier television than another guy who is driven by greed and the desire to prove he’s no longer the poor kid he used to be. Their motivations are often murky, their quest to win driven more by winning itself (or simply staying out of prison) than some more noble or complicated goal. However, the show does provide interesting insight into the elite world of traders, including the pressure, bravado, and moral sacrifice it takes to work in such a business. Unfortunately, this leads to some eye-rollingly silly talk about “stocks popping like a prom queen’s cherryâ€\x9d meant to impress the boys. This sort of language is masterful in the hands of Armando Ianucci, but here it often falls with a thud. Who writes this dialogue? It’s a collaboration between Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the writers of Ocean’s Thirteen, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, the writer of Too Big to Fail and a former Wall Street reporter. Should I watch this show? I think you should. It’s an interesting world worth investing in (pun entirely intended), full of colorful characters and the sorts of giant mansions and incredible yachts few of us are ever invited on in real life. The financial jargon might be a bit hard to follow, but the more human elements of the story make it worth slogging through.',
 "Spotlight and The Revenant deserve their Oscars – but where were Carol's? Insofar as it’s possible to get a surprise at the Academy Awards – an event in which outcome-permutations are notoriously reduced almost to zero before anything happens at all – we had one tonight. Spotlight has won best picture: a high-minded, heartfelt and thoroughly absorbing movie about a journalism campaign pursued at the beginning of the last decade by the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team Spotlight. It exposed child sex abuse by the Catholic church and the way the city’s conservative and clubbable institutions conspired to cover it up and look the other way: and this included the Globe itself. It was a classic issue movie, in this case about journalists caring about something other than building their personal brand on Twitter. And it reminds everyone working in today’s digital, atomised world of journalism that sometimes only big, old-fashioned newspapers have the collective, institutional weight and clout to go up against wholesale wrongdoing. Perhaps after the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy has found a way of showing its accusers that it does care about progressive issues. But by next year the Academy will have to find a way to show the world it is a more modern, transparent institution — perhaps by publishing its membership criteria and even the voting breakdown? The Revenant was such an exciting and sensual piece of work that it seems strange that its victories in this year’s Academy Awards feel like an anticlimax. It picks up best director for Alejandro González Iñárritu (his second in a row after last year’s Birdman), best cinematographer for Emmanuel Lubezki, and of course best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio for his highest-of-high-octane performances as the 19th-century fur trapper Hugh Glass who endures an ordeal of survival and revenge – and an unforgettably grisly encounter with a bear. DiCaprio is, to use an old-fashioned, studio-era phrase, an above-the-title player: a real star. In truth, he made the other nominees look a little dull, although The Revenant was not really about his acting. It was the spectacle, the physical immersive effect. As for DiCaprio, this was his night, although I prefer him in comic roles, such as the ones he played in Django Unchained and The Wolf of Wall Street. But he really embodied the muscular power and fanatical concentration in The Revenant. Now I have to utter a futile howl of rage and pain on behalf of that wonderful film Carol, directed by Todd Haynes, adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel by Phyllis Nagy and with sublime performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. How on earth has this superb movie been so overlooked by the Academy? I now hope that Carol has a kind of One Direction career: snubbed by the awards establishment, it may get an underdog bounce as everyone realises that it is better than most of the films being showered with praise. As far as the screenplay Oscars go, I applaud the prize going to Spotlight, which cleverly approximated the steady and relentless drumbeat created by effective and consistent investigative journalism. However, at the risk of being churlish, I have to reiterate my scepticism about The Big Short – the winner of best adapted screenplay – a smug, shallow film endlessly congratulating itself on how clever it is and not seriously interested in challenging the status quo. The film simply goes along with the system, and worships the half-dozen or so money guys who found a way of doing well out of the 2008 crash. Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell give awful performances. But Christian Bale was good in it. In the best supporting actor category, Mark Rylance delivered a technical knockout to Sly Stallone, up for his sentimentally revered revival of Rocky Balboa in Creed. Rylance was a worthy winner. A few years ago, when Christoph Waltz won this Oscar for Inglourious Basterds, he gave a gallant speech noting that everyone else was supporting him. This in its way was true of Rylance, who was (in the nicest possible way) such a scene-stealer in Bridge of Spies that he drew the eye magnetically and made it seem as if everyone else, including the veteran star Tom Hanks, was just there to lend more lustre to this unique performer. As the convicted spy Rudolph Abel in cold war America, Rylance was wily, calm, unreadable, with the deadpan air of a villain – a distant cousin to Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter in his imperturbable stillness – and yet on the side of the angels. Or rather: Tom Hanks is on his side. And the fact that his accent is so unlocatable makes his performance even more exotic: a weird blend of English, Scottish and Hollywood Russian. I have been a partisan for best actress nominee Saoirse Ronan who gave a lovely, ingenuous performance as Éilis, the young Irish girl forced to emigrate and then partially re-immigrate, and therefore contemplating parallel life-choices, in the heartfelt drama Brooklyn. But I have to concede the justice of Brie Larson’s win for Room, in which she plays the mother forced to bring up her infant son in a tiny cell, having been captured by an abuser. It was a challenging role in which Larson really showed what she could do in that film’s remarkably subtle and complex final act. Alicia Vikander’s win for The Danish Girl in the best supporting actress rewards a performance and a performer with beauty, charisma and guile, although I would have preferred to see her get the prize for Ex Machina, the sci-fi thriller in which she was more interesting as the automaton who may or may not have a mind of her own. Vikander’s success is a conservative if plausible choice, though I feel that Vikander’s best is yet to come, and I think the more powerful turns came from Jennifer Jason Leigh in Tarantino’s incendiary The Hateful Eight and of course Rooney Mara who was so good in Todd Haynes’s Carol. What a remarkable win for Ennio Morricone, who at 87 years old gets his very first Oscar, for best original score. It is genuinely exciting that this remarkable man is doing vital creative work. His theme for The Hateful Eight was insistently and insidiously catchy, trailing its own disquiet across the landscape, and played its own crucial dramatic role. What a glorious Oscar. The least surprising win of the evening was for Pete Docter’s Inside Out, which of course best animation: it is a thoroughly decent, overwhelmingly attractive and good-natured film. The fact that it won over Charlie Kaufman’s conceptually stunning stop-motion film Anomalisa is no surprise and though in terms of strict merit Anomalisa should really have won – and in fact should have been nominated for best picture and best work of art and indeed best sex scene – Inside Out has developed an enormous claim on everyone’s loyalty and love. In fact, its win casts an interesting light into how cinema competes with literature. The movies traditionally offer spectacle, drama, action and speech: they offer the thrilling interplay of those externals, while literature can give you direct, unmediated access into consciousness: you can go inside characters’ minds and hearts to discover what they are feeling. But actually, that is exactly what Inside Out is offering. With those five characters, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, Inside Out gives you a most accessible and unpretentious version of the stream of consciousness. This year’s best foreign language film has its own claim to be the best film tout court and is one of those occasions where the Academy really has got it right. László Nemes’s Son of Saul is the extraordinary film about Auschwitz in 1944, telling a brutal story the Sonderkommando, the inmates forced to do petty tasks and police the actual business of extermination itself – and imagines one survivor’s discovery of the body of his own son. It is hardly something to compare to Spielberg’s far more conventional Schindler’s List which by comparison pulls punches. But the remarkable Son of Saul is something to compare with Klimov’s Come and See. Asif Kapadia’s Amy has become in its own unshowy way, an awards-season juggernaut, now effortlessly demolishing the last obstacle in its way: the best documentary Oscar. Perhaps strict justice should have given this to Josh Oppenheimer for his The Look of Silence, effectively the second panel in a masterly film-diptych about the way Indonesia’s ruling classes have perpetrated horrific human rights abuses since the 1960s, and became blandly content with this grisly achievement. But Amy packed an enormous punch: it was a viscerally passionate picture about Amy Winehouse and her music and made the best possible use of its treasure-trove of home video. Finally: a host of technical wins for Mad Max: Fury Road, including best costume design for Jenny Beavan. It’s great to see a rewards for that terrifically enjoyable film which was not encumbered by looking like a solemn piece of Oscar bait.",
 'Brexit vote pushing up household energy bills, claim experts Energy experts are warning that household energy prices could be about to rise for the first time in two years, driven partly by higher import costs following the Brexit vote. The Co-op started the ball rolling when it told some of its 500,000 energy customers that, from 1 October, it would be raising bills by between 3% and 6% – the latter equating to a potential rise of almost £70. The price of wholesale gas has steadily risen over the last three months but Britain is facing a double hit because gas imports from the continent are about 10% higher still, due to a fall in the value of sterling against the euro. The Co-op is raising the average bill for dual-fuel customers on a standard plan from £1,152 to £1,184 a year. People with pre-payment meters could find their bills rising from £1,115 to £1,184, according to the price comparison site uSwitch. “This is a worrying warning bell that the wholesale price honeymoon may be drawing to a close. Wholesale prices are now climbing at the fastest rate in years, driven by upward pressure on the cost of energy imports from the falling value of sterling following the EU referendum, future supply concerns and higher transmission costs,â€\x9d said Claire Osborne, energy expert at uSwitch. “Unfortunately, it’s the smaller suppliers who are less able to cope as they cannot buy their energy as far ahead as the big six [companies]. The danger is that other small suppliers could now follow suit and raise their prices – just in time for winter.â€\x9d Osborne claimed the Co-op service was now more expensive than British Gas, SSE or any other of the big six suppliers. She urged consumers “to fight backâ€\x9d by transferring their business to cheaper firms. But there could be still cheaper deals available from a raft of new independent companies. Cornwall Energy, an independent energy consultant, confirmed that changes in the exchange rate since Brexit had made power more expensive in Britain. Gas imported from other European countries was used in the home directly and for burning in power stations to produce electricity, it pointed out. Co-op Energy was unable to immediately comment on its price rises. But critics pointed out that the energy trading group of Midcounties Co-op had also been put at the top of a complaints league by the energy ombudsman last November. SSE attracted the least complaints, while uSwitch said it now believed that British Gas offered one of the cheapest standard rate tariffs, at £1,102 a year. None of the big six firms have increased their prices in the last two years but they have also being losing market share. Figures from the industry lobby group Energy UK, indicate that 1.3 million customers moved from a large supplier to a small one during the past 12 months, partly persuaded by bad publicity. The Competition and Markets Authority at one stage concluded that customers using standard tariffs were wasting collectively as much as £1.7bn a year. It is still possible to find rates from an independent supplier, such as Avro, of £770 a year, but experts say that the smaller firms are less able to withstand rises in wholesale costs as they do not have the cash to hedge their investments. A reduction in the market share of the big six, from over 99% to less than 87%, over the last seven years, has also forced those companies to cut prices and improve customer service.',
 'Juliet Stevenson: why I bought a double decker bus on eBay First excursions on to eBay often tend toward the modest. A pair of shoes, a coffee table. A bicycle, at a push. Not so for Juliet Stevenson. “It’s surprisingly easy to buy a double-decker bus, you know, once you start looking,â€\x9d says the 59-year-old actor, picking over a chicken salad in a London restaurant. “I immediately discovered that a red one costs twice as much. And older ones are better, if they’re working well, because the parts aren’t as complicated. There’s less to go wrong.â€\x9d All this is said in a helpful manner, as though she has heard I might be in the market for a bus myself and is determined I make an informed purchase. Celebrities are permitted their indulgences. Johnny Depp has an island. Rupert Grint owns an ice-cream van. Juliet Stevenson’s bus, however, cannot be written off as an eccentricity. After visiting the Calais refugee camp in February, she asked one of the volunteers what was needed. The surprising answer was that a double-decker would go down a treat. “There are hundreds of kids in the camp,â€\x9d she explains. “You can take the seats out of the upper deck, turn it into a dormitory, and it can also be a day centre. It’s warm, dry, safe. No one can knock it down and, if necessary, it can be driven away.â€\x9d Within a few weeks of returning, she and a friend had snapped up a blue bus for £5,500 and driven it to the camp. She is keenly aware that the tabloid press never knowingly gives a break to posh liberal celebrities. Has she come in for any luvvie-bashing? “‘Luvvie’,â€\x9d she shudders. “Now there’s a word I’d like to ban. Generally the press hates people like Emma [Thompson] and Jude [Law] and myself for doing these things. It’s the very same media desperately craving stories about well-known people who are then the ones to slag us off for wanting to help.â€\x9d As if on cue, the director Stephen Daldry pops over to our table to give Stevenson the latest update on his own efforts to get a theatre going at the camps. Were a tabloid photographer in the vicinity, this snapshot of two luvvies saving the world over lunch might be worth a pretty penny. Still, Stevenson is fairly sure that “even the Mail would have a hard time saying there’s anything wrong with rescuing children living in mud and shitâ€\x9d. Word is that the bus has been a big success. “I’ve got a young film-maker out there filming what’s going on for fundraising purposes. He sent back footage at the weekend of children on the top deck watching Mary Poppins.â€\x9d She sounds genuinely moved – not easy given she has to practically holler to be heard over the boisterous lunchtime trade. But then Stevenson has always been able to embody apparently contradictory qualities. She is tall and, at times, indomitable-looking. (“I do think tall women have to work harder to get sympathy. I often joke about this with some of my smaller friends.â€\x9d) And yet her best work has involved devastating displays of vulnerability. Her screen breakthrough was the bittersweet 1990 romcom Truly, Madly, Deeply, in which she alternated authentically messy tears and radiant laughter as a grieving woman whose partner returns as a ghost. She was offered a part in Schindler’s List on the strength of it. “I was in the bath and my mum called through the door: ‘Darling, there’s a Steven Spielberg on the phone.’ ‘God that’s hilarious mum!’ ‘No I really think that’s his name.’â€\x9d Only she’d already committed to do a play in Los Angeles. “The tragedy of life is mistiming. I’ve turned down wonderful stuff. But is there even a right or wrong? It’s more like, ‘That’s what I did. I can’t do anything about it.’â€\x9d The LA trip had been at the insistence of her agent. “I went a bit reluctantly. I’m not very good at self-promotion. So I did a play out there because I wanted to be working rather than hanging out by swimming pools trying to look nice.â€\x9d Then she received an offer to come home for what transpired to be her second great signature role: Paulina, the torture victim who turns the tables on her former tormentor, in Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court. Bang went any more LA meetings (“Much to my agent’s dismayâ€\x9d). But she did get the 1992 Olivier award for best actress. “I loved doing it. A philosophical proposition that was also a thriller.â€\x9d It was Stevenson’s idea to have Paulina shove her knickers in her torturer’s mouth. “It came up in rehearsal. I think it’s made its way into the stage directions now.â€\x9d Did she feel her Hollywood moment was over? “No. I’ve done American films: Being Julia, Mona Lisa Smile. It’s ticked over. And that’s fine. Being flavour of the moment is not a good place to be. If you’re flavour of the moment, by definition you’ll be the bad taste of the moment in five years’ time.â€\x9d Her career – a model of longevity – bears this out. In 2014 she brought formidable pluck and cheer to the partially entombed Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days. The ’s Michael Billington called her interpretation “brilliantly intelligentâ€\x9d. Her range is exploited well in the new British drama Departure, in which she plays a newly single woman clearing out her French holiday home, with her teenage son. With her husband gone and her son on the cusp of leaving home, she has to face her own incompleteness. “Everything has been motivated by and structured around their child. He reaches adolescence, and then … well, they leave you. They don’t leave you for good. I’ve got children myself [Rosalind, 22, and Gabriel, 15, with her husband, the anthropologist Hugh Brody] so I’ve been through this. There’s a necessary and painful letting go.â€\x9d The film is striking for giving a middle-aged woman unpredictable notes to play. “Female roles are often not complex because they’re adjuncts,â€\x9d Stevenson sighs. “Very often the interesting things happen to the man. The woman is there as wife, mother, daughter, PA. A lot of writers won’t give you your own narrative because it isn’t deemed necessary. So much in our culture about women’s identities relates to their sexual value. When that is no longer of interest they, as individuals, are past the point of being of any interest either. It’s a source of frustration. As you get older, you get more experience, you have more to say, more layers. And at exactly the same time that’s happening in your life, the roles are narrowing down. It’s like you’re on the up escalator but the parts are on the down escalator. You’re waving to your actress self: ‘Byeee!’â€\x9d As a young performer, the pickings weren’t as slim. “I got offered a wide range in my 20s and 30s. My only hand on the rudder through all that was to to try not to get pinned down as one thing. After Truly, Madly, Deeply, I got many wacky, daffy, quirky single women, trying to cope in their daft, loveable way. But I’d done that. I need the insecurity of not knowing where I’m going.â€\x9d Born in Essex, Stevenson had an itinerant childhood. Her father’s job in the army uprooted the family every few years; there were spells in Germany, and at boarding school in Berkshire. She studied at Rada and got roped into the RSC in 1978, when she was 22. “I was an unhatched egg that had just rolled out of drama school. But someone fell sick in The Tempest and they needed a replacement quickly. They grabbed my coat and suitcase off me when I arrived in Stratford, rushed me into the wings and said, ‘Do whatever she does!’â€\x9d ‘She’ turned out to be Ruby Wax. “If she barked, I barked.â€\x9d The production had its shortcomings. “It had all been designed around laser beams. Only they never worked.â€\x9d But it was invaluable for another reason: it introduced her to Alan Rickman, with whom she later starred in Truly, Madly, Deeply and on stage in the legendary 1986 RSC production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. “I’d seen Alan playing King Rat in Dick Whittington at Bristol rep and I thought, ‘That is one sexy, charismatic actor’. He befriended Ruby and me, little sprogs that we were. Ruby was so funny, and he told her: ‘Write it down.’ They stayed best friends. She wouldn’t brush her teeth without ringing Alan first.â€\x9d To Stevenson, he was like a big brother. “That’s why I wasn’t happy in Truly:‘I can’t snog my brother!’ I’d sometimes drive him mad, occasionally vice versa. But it was an unconditionally loving friendship. He came to see everything I ever did, right up to Happy Days. If you wanted notes, there’d be a whole list after and they’d be brilliant. I can hear his voice in my head: ‘Get off the front foot, on to the back foot. Jules, less is more’.â€\x9d She doesn’t need to say she misses Rickman. The loss resonates every time she mentions him. “Nobody scared me more in the audience because I minded so much what he thought. I’m a mother of grown-up children but it was like I was 20 years old needing his approval.â€\x9d About his legacy, she is clear. “He collected talent around him, nurturing it, giving people opportunities. You would come into your own working with him. ‘What you need is this script editor’ or ‘What you need is this director’. He’d hook you up. Many hundreds of people probably owe their careers to Alan. There was no one else like him.â€\x9d Departure is released 20 May.',
 'Soft Hair: Soft Hair review – Connan Mockasin and LA Priest do icky sex-pop Connan Mockasin and LA Priest make some of the most peculiar modern-day pop-funk, and so a collaboration was always going to be oddball. Together, they present an Iggy and Bowie-ish pairing, except with trembling falsetto, dolphin mating sounds and rippling electronic effects. But it’s unclear whether they are sending up macho male sexuality by contrasting pervy lyrics with their wimpy bare chests and luscious locks, or just using their “weirdos, us!â€\x9d image as an excuse to be a bit Bloodhound Gang. Relaxed Lizard sets out their stall with slippery psychedelic pop, as Mockasin rebuffs a younger love interest (“I’d love to fuck you but I’m older …â€\x9d). In Love is their answer to Iggy’s Tiny Girls, its submerged sax not quite matching Bowie’s arrangement, but the lyrics about fancying “Japanese/Chinese girlsâ€\x9d living up to its grim message. Lying Has to Stop strikes a better balance, where silly tales of “babes and wineâ€\x9d and how they’ll “never touch your bumâ€\x9d meet loopy synths, cooing and groovy underwater whammy effects. Delightfully weird and yet unmistakably icky.',
 "Can Amazon's new 'dream team' fix the company's sustainability reputation? Amazon has a reputation for forward thinking, but when it comes to sustainability, the company has often fallen behind the times. For years, it has weathered criticism over its worker treatment, recycling and other sustainability metrics. Recently, however, the online retailer has signaled that a change may be on the way. Dara O’Rourke, a leading expert on global supply chains, has joined the company’s sustainability team. O’Rourke, 48, joins three other notable corporate responsibility executives at Amazon. Kara Hurst, the company’s director of worldwide sustainability and social responsibility, is the former CEO of The Sustainability Consortium; she became Amazon’s first sustainability leader in 2014. Christine Bader, author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist, joined Amazon last August. And, in December, the company hired Christina Page, who led energy and sustainability strategy at Yahoo for eight years. It’s a dream team, of sorts. The question is, will it change Amazon? “They’ve hired great people,â€\x9d says sustainability consultant Andrew Winston. “But we really don’t know what they’re doing. Amazon is a very quiet company.â€\x9d In keeping with that reputation, Amazon didn’t make any of the executives available for interviews. Hurst and O’Rourke – neither of whom had previously been known for their reticence – declined to respond to questions via email. Ironically, O’Rourke’s career has largely been about increasing transparency. In the 90s, he drew attention to the issue of sweatshops in developing countries by exposing what he called “exploitative and hazardous working conditionsâ€\x9d in factories in China, Vietnam and Indonesia, notably those supplying Nike. He later co-founded Good Guide, which rates the environmental and social performance of consumer products, enabling buyers to make well-informed choices. Since 2003, he has taught environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Dan Viederman, the chief executive of Verite, a nonprofit that aims to eliminating child labor, slavery and dangerous working conditions from global supply chains, says of O’Rourke: “He’s one of the most knowledgeable and independent people in the field.â€\x9d At Amazon, O’Rourke will be a senior principal scientist, leading a team called Sustainability Science, a spokesman for the company said. Amazon now has more than 50 people in its sustainability group, working on six teams: social responsibility, energy and environment, customer packaging experience, sustainability services, sustainability technology and sustainability science. A spokesman declined to elaborate on what each team does, but said the company expects its sustainability operation to grow significantly this year. There’s certainly plenty to do. For years, Amazon has been mostly absent from the corporate responsibility conversation. In terms of corporate sustainability, Amazon continues to lag behind its competitors in the internet and technology industry, such as Apple and Microsoft, as well as rival brick-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. Unlike most big companies, it has never published a sustainability report, nor has it reported on its carbon emissions to the CDP, an investor-backed nonprofit that has collected the most comprehensive set of global environmental data. It’s also not made itself a visible player in the environmental arena. Walmart, its biggest retail rival, has partnerships with respected nonprofits like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and aggressively works to drive efficiencies in its stores and fleet, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its supply chain. Best Buy has an industry-leading electronics recycling program. On recycling, Barbara Kyle, the national coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, has called Amazon the “king of laggardsâ€\x9d. Its human rights record is harder to discern: unlike many companies that rely on global supply chains, Amazon does not disclose its overseas suppliers or publish the results of factory audits. Domestically, it is reputed to be a brutal place to work. Working conditions in its warehouses have been criticized in a series of stories in the Morning Call, a Pennsylvania newspaper, as well as by Mother Jones and Harper’s. White collar workers are under pressure, too, according to an an investigative story last year in the New York Times that was strongly disputed by Amazon. All of this might have been understandable during Amazon’s startup days, but the company is now 20 years old and – at last count – the seventh largest US company by market capitalization, just ahead of Johnson & Johnson and GE. That said, Amazon has recently taken steps towards recognizing its social and environmental responsibility. It has invested in wind and solar farms, and says that 40% of its electricity will come from renewable sources by the end of 2016. “They’re now on the short list of companies that buy large amounts of renewables,â€\x9d says Winston. The company headquarters are Leed certified, and it promotes recyclable packaging. Citing a single study from 2009, it says online shopping is inherently more environmentally friendly than traditional retailing. Yet Amazon Prime, a subscription service that offers free shipping and has helped drive the company’s rapid growth, remains a problem according to some environmental advocates. “Free shipping means people don’t think about the consequences of shipping,â€\x9d says Amy Larkin, a former Greenpeace executive and author of Environmental Debt: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy. In reality, she notes, shipping isn’t “freeâ€\x9d – it requires packaging, generates carbon emissions and may create waste – and a sustainable economy would account for those costs. It’s not yet clear how Hurst and her team will advance Amazon’s sustainability efforts. But another technology company – Apple – has shown that getting the right people in place can turn around a company’s sustainability practices. Lisa Jackson, the former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief, has worked wonders for Apple, although to do so she needed the backing of the company’s new chief executive, Tim Cook. Apple is now transparent about its supply chain, a major buyer of renewable energy and a visible advocate for climate action. Speaking of his company’s years of inertia, Cook said that “the time for inaction has passedâ€\x9d. It remains to be seen if, with his new sustainability team, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is echoing the sentiment.",
 'Restricting immigration will be at heart of Brexit deal, Theresa May says Theresa May has agreed with her cabinet that restricting immigration will be a red line in any negotiations with the EU, in a move that experts claim will end Britain’s membership of the single market. The prime minister and her team, who met at Chequers – the PM’s country retreat – also confirmed that MPs will not be given a vote before the government triggers article 50, beginning the two-year countdown to a British exit. “There was a strong emphasis on pushing ahead to article 50 to lead Britain successfully out of the European Union – with no need for a parliamentary vote,â€\x9d May’s spokeswoman said, before setting out how restrictions to freedom of movement would be at the centre of any Brexit deal. “Several cabinet members made it clear that we are leaving the EU but not leaving Europe, with a decisive view that the model we are seeking is one unique to the United Kingdom and not an off-the-shelf solution,â€\x9d she said. “This must mean controls on the numbers of people who come to Britain from Europe but also a positive outcome for those who wish to trade goods and services.â€\x9d May began the session, which is the first cabinet meeting since the summer break, by telling her ministers that there will be “no attempts to stay in the EU by the back doorâ€\x9d. She said that meant no second referendum, before restating the slogan from the early part of her premiership: “Brexit means Brexitâ€\x9d. Her spokeswoman said the group also had a long discussion on their commitment to the devolved nations of the UK, promising to “make sure Brexit works for allâ€\x9d. However, they made clear that it would be the UK government’s decision to establish the terms of Britain’s EU exit and when it would begin, ruling out any possibility of a Scottish veto. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said immigration controls meant Britain’s Brexit deal would not be along the lines of that used for Norway or Switzerland. Instead, it put the UK on track for a Canada-style agreement, with free trade for manufactured goods but not necessarily for services. “People have been assuming there will have to be restrictions on immigration of some sort, either an emergency brake, or an Australian-style points system for European workers,â€\x9d he said. “Whatever system we go for it is going to be unacceptable to our partners if we want access to the single market. We will only have limited access to the single market and have to content ourselves with a free trade agreement, which would not cover many of our key services sectors including financial services.â€\x9d The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has suggested that Britain could retain membership of the EU with restrictions on freedom of movement but European diplomats have responded by calling it a “pipe dreamâ€\x9d. Officials in Johnson’s department are some of the most keen in Whitehall to remain as close to Europe as possible, while those in the Treasury are also pushing hard for single market access in particular sectors such as financial services. David Davis, secretary of state for the newly created Department for Exiting the EU, has claimed that European countries will offer Britain a good economic deal because it is in their interest to do so. Liam Fox, who will be leading trade efforts with the rest of the world, has argued that not being in the single market is a price worth paying for border control. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, seized on the cabinet’s discussions about no vote for MPs and no veto for the devolved nations. “The country was dragged into this mess by a Tory party acting as a law unto themselves, and now they want to trust us to get them out of it, acting in exactly the same way,â€\x9d she said. “It is sheer, high-handed arrogance for them to say they will take all the decisions themselves, with no consultation of parliament or the public, with the devolved administrations consulted but not listened to, and with the governments of London and Gibraltar now not even mentioned.â€\x9d May and her team were keen to emphasise the idea that Britain would still be open for business and agreed to brand the first day of Tory conference as being about “global Britain – showing that we are more outward-looking than ever beforeâ€\x9d. During a presentation, Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin said the party would have the largest attendance in a decade for October’s event, and said the party’s membership had grown by 50,000 over the summer. The theme of the four-day gathering in Birmingham would be “a country that works for everyoneâ€\x9d, he said, echoing the message delivered by May when she delivered a speech before entering Downing Street as prime minister for the first time. At Wednesday’s meeting at her country retreat, which stretched across much of the day, with a political session in the afternoon without civil servants, May praised the fantastic success of Team GB in the Olympics. She called it “absolutely greatâ€\x9d and wished the country’s Paralympians well. The prime minister said she wanted to discuss social reform, arguing that a major priority was wanting “to be a government and a country that works for everyoneâ€\x9d. “I want it to be a society where it’s the talent that you have and how hard you’re prepared to work that determines how you get on, rather than your background,â€\x9d she said. And she insisted that the government had to discuss how “we can get tough on irresponsible behaviour in big business – again making sure that actually everyone is able to share in the country’s prosperityâ€\x9d. The ministers were keen to stress that their party was “unitedâ€\x9d and to contrast that with Labour, which the spokeswoman described as an “inward-looking and divided oppositionâ€\x9d. The cabinet meeting came as a new ICM/ poll gives the Conservatives a 14-point lead over the opposition, with May’s party up one point to 41%, while Labour has fallen one point to 27%. The survey had Ukip third with 13%, followed by the Liberal Democrats on 9%. The Tories’ strong lead could be underpinned by consumer confidence, according to ICM director Martin Boon, who said that while 53% of the public were confident in the measure of financial security, just 19% were not confident. “The gap of +34 is well ahead of the +23 noted in March 2015 and indeed not beaten since June 2002. The rampant fears of Brexit appear to have manifestly failed to dent the hardy British consumer, at least for now,â€\x9d he said. The economic outlook was also discussed at cabinet alongside a commitment to fiscal discipline and “seizing the opportunity of Brexit to confirm the UK’s place as one of the great trading nations in the worldâ€\x9d. Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, who sat next to the prime minister, updated colleagues on the campaign against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and Libya. “The foreign secretary highlighted the progress that had been made in squeezing the territory held by Daesh [Isis], with 40% reclaimed, as well as a fall in support for Daesh’s ideology around the world,â€\x9d added a spokeswoman. This story was amended on 31 August 2016 because Liam Fox’s stance on single market membership was misrepresented.',
 'Pro-Brexit minister attacks EU over anti-corruption measures The justice minister Dominic Raab has said the European Union is in “violation of international lawâ€\x9d for failing to take steps required by the UN to tackle corruption. Raab, a high-profile Brexit campaigner, said the EU had so far failed to take the first step in implementing the UN convention against corruption, despite approving it in 2008. He pointed to a statement by Transparency International, an NGO, which said the EU should be “mildly embarrassedâ€\x9d given that it had claimed to be at the forefront of this debate. The group said: “Eight years after ratifying the convention they have failed to implement the first step, which is an assessment of its own anti-corruption rules and capacities. This baffling delay does not help its cause when engaging with its member states on anti-corruption matters.â€\x9d Raab also pointed out that there had been a huge increase in the amount of EU money linked to irregularity or fraud. The European anti-fraud office (Olaf) identified €901m (£685m) to be recovered in 2014, the most recent figures available, compared with €194m in 2011. Raab said it represented “systemic fraudâ€\x9d. The most recent year also had a record 1,417 fraud allegations, he said. Raab argued that the figures ought to raise serious concern given Britain’s net contribution to the EU, which he said was £10bn. “We are pouring huge amounts of money into the EU, huge sums that could be spent on schools and hospitals and whatever else British elected lawmakers decide. People ask, understandably, why are you pouring it into the EU, which has got these rising reports of fraud?â€\x9d he said. “While you’ve got systemic fraud within the EU, Transparency international have put their hand up and said: hold on a minute, the EU has signed the UN convention against corruption and eight years after having ratified it and approved it, it hasn’t done the first step which is to have a systematic analysis of its practices.â€\x9d The NGO itself, which is neutral in the referendum debate, sought to play down its recent statement on the EU’s lack of action. A spokesman described it as an “embarrassment rather than an issue of overwhelming significanceâ€\x9d. He added: “But it does suggest that the EU has not prioritised assessing its own compliance with the world’s most wide-ranging anti-corruption convention.â€\x9d The spokesman indicated that Transparency International was not keen to be drawn into the debate over Britain’s membership of the EU, adding: “We are a non-political organisation and this is a highly politicised debate, therefore we have no further comment at this time.â€\x9d Raab said the organisation had documented systemic risks of corruption at EU institutions and asked if it was now “scared of a backlash from the establishmentâ€\x9d. He said: “With reports of fraud at the EU soaring to record levels, British taxpayers will view this is as more than just presentational embarrassment.â€\x9d A European commission spokesman said: “We have zero tolerance for fraud against the EU budget. Olaf’s work is part and parcel of the efforts to uncover and prevent fraud in the member states, including the UK, and to get money returned to the taxpayers.â€\x9d A spokeswoman for Olaf said its job was to seek the recovery of EU funds defrauded in the member states, or to prevent additional amounts being disbursed. “Typical examples of Olaf investigations relate to public procurement fraud, evasion of customs duties or smuggling of goods,â€\x9d she said. “As member states are in charge of managing most of the EU budget, they are responsible for recovering any money which has been subject to irregularity or fraud from the beneficiaries. It is important to note that this money will progressively be recovered.â€\x9d She argued that the very large sums identified for recovery in 2014 were linked to complex investigations, suggesting the rise in numbers wasn’t simply down to a spike in fraud. A spokesman for Britain Stronger in Europe described Raab’s intervention as “desperate stuffâ€\x9d. The spokesman said: “He is trying to pull to wool over people’s eyes. Even the organisation he cites admits this is not a significant issue.â€\x9d',
 'Taylor Swift wins best pop vocal album award at Grammys 2016 for 1989 Taylor Swift’s 1989 has won the 2016 Grammy award for best pop vocal album. 1989 was Swift’s fifth studio album, and one that saw her complete the transition from country star to fully-fledged mainstream pop act. It reached the top of the charts in numerous countries, including the US and UK. Writing in the , Alexis Petridis said: “As a songwriter, Swift has a keen grasp both of her audience and of pop history. She avoids the usual hollow platitudes about self-empowerment and meaningless aspirational guff about the VIP area in the club in favour of Springsteenesque narratives of escape and the kind of doomed romantic fatalism in which 60s girl groups dealt.â€\x9d Swift’s album triumphed in a group that also featured Piece By Piece by Kelly Clarkson, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence + the Machine, Uptown Special by Mark Ronson, and Before This World by James Taylor. Best pop vocal album was one of seven nominations for Swift at this year’s awards, including a song of the year nod for Blank Space, which she co-wrote with Max Martin and Shellback.',
 "Publication of Andrea Leadsom's CV prompts new questions about her career Attempts by Andrea Leadsom to silence critics questioning her City credentials have backfired after fresh holes were discovered in claims about her 25-year career in finance. The energy minister, who has emerged as a leading candidate to succeed David Cameron, published the official version of her CV on Wednesday in a move her spokesperson said would “comprehensively disproveâ€\x9d allegations that she had been less than clear about her career before entering politics. But Leadsom’s CV has raised a number of further questions because it omits some company directorships, alters existing claims and fails to clear up question marks over sections of her City career. The issues include: Some past roles being omitted from the CV, including Leadsom’s directorship of her family’s buy-to-let company Bandal Limited and Seaperfect, a company connected to her brother-in-law. Her job title at Barclays, where she worked in the 1990s, is given as deputy financial institutions director, not — as previously stated — financial institutions director. The CV describing her position at a hedge fund run by her brother-in-law, De Putron Fund Management, as managing director while company filings give her role as marketing director. Stating she was a senior investment officer at fund management firm Invesco Perpetual for 10 years, though she was only authorised as an investment manager for a three-month period. As well as omitting mention of her family buy-to-let business, Leadsom’s CV also glosses over her directorship at Seaperfect, a company that invested heavily in clam and scallop farming in Chile and America during the 90s. However, the company lost millions after the investments failed and her brother in law, Peter de Putron, subsequently took control of the business through an offshore vehicle called Wildernesse Holdings. Leadsom, working under her maiden name of Andrea Salmon, became a director of Seaperfect from February 1998 to May 1999. Amid questions over Leadsom’s City career, a spokesperson for Invesco Perpetual confirmed Leadsom had been given the job title of senior investment officer, but declined to say whether she had responsibility for managing funds. One former colleague, who worked with Leadsom at Invesco Perpetual, said he did not believe she made investment decisions. Robert Stephens told the that she “absolutely, emphaticallyâ€\x9d had no involvement in controlling funds and that her title was not representative of her responsibilities. “What does senior investment officer convey to the uninitiated? If you’ve got a chief investment officer, you would think the senior investment is someone with just slightly less responsibility than the chief investment officer. This is totally untrue; she had no investment management responsibilities at all,â€\x9d he said. Last week Stephens sent an email to Leadsom asking why her biography on Wikipedia identified her as the chief investment officer of Invesco Perpetual. Leadsom replied, denying that she had made the change, but said that she would check it. An MP who had worked alongside Leadsom on the Treasury select committee, but asked not be named, said he was concerned the energy minister’s career in finance was being misunderstood. Given she was authorised by the City regulator to manage investments for only a brief period of time, he said: “I don’t think she would have been running money, making [Invesco investment] decisions.â€\x9d The MP was equally sceptical of claims that Leadsom had played a significant role helping calm the financial markets after rogue trader Nick Leeson brought down Barings bank in 1995. The energy minister has previously claimed that, while working at Barclays, she “helped the then governor of the Bank of England, Eddie George, over the weekend that Barings collapsed as he tried to reassure the markets and prevent a run on the banksâ€\x9d. Though an impressive claim, this is not repeated on her CV. The Treasury select committee MP told the : “I cannot quite see why a 30-year-old would be in a huddle with Eddie George in the middle of the Barings crisis. Yes, she was there. But David Cameron was photographed behind Norman Lamont [during the Black Wednesday financial crisis in 1992]. That doesn’t mean he played a big role in sorting that crisis out.â€\x9d Leadsom has regularly cited her role in the Barings crisis. In May she explained in one newspaper article how such experiences made her confident Brexit would not trigger another financial crisis for the UK. “As someone who spent 25 years working in finance ... I’ve seen at first hand the economic cycles, the disasters and triumphsâ€\x9d. In the article she said she had spent the mid-1990s “running Barclays Investment Banking teamâ€\x9d. A spokesperson for Barclays declined to comment on her role. Andrew Buxton, who was chairman of Barclays in the mid-1990s and had a leading role in leading the City response to the Barings collapse, said : “She wasn’t a senior manager at the time, it was quite early in her career. But she was well-regarded. “I honestly can’t remember exactly what her role was: when I say senior manager, she didn’t run the company, but she was senior middle manager, that sort of thing. This was 20 years ago and you can’t judge someone on where they were 20 years ago.â€\x9d",
 'Manchester United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan takes breath away with sublime moment Life is sustained not just by what it is but by what it might be; if we weren’t continually hoping for better, how could we carry on? And the tease works just as well when watching sport, a generally disappointing activity that costs time, money, energy and patience. We keep coming back, though, mainly because that’s what we do, but also because it gives us a shot at seeing the most incredible earthly event on any given day. Your sunrises, your sunsets and your newborns are all very nice, but at its best, sport is the best, and yesterday that meant your Henrikh Mkhitaryans. A particular joy of football is the infinite number of ways there are to get the spherical thing into the rectangular thing. Even so, most brilliant goals are riffs on eternal themes, but every so often we get a Roberto Carlos against France or a Ronaldinho against Chelsea , recalibrating reality to remind us that we haven’t seen it all. And it reflects not just skill but character. After joining Manchester United in the summer, Mkhitaryan began the season as a substitute, a move which seemed to reflect little more than United’s comparative strength in wide attackers – and away to Hull City, he still catalysed an onslaught that brought an injury-time winner. Next came the Manchester derby, a match which Mkhitaryan started though he’d picked up a knock playing for Armenia while, on the opposite wing, Jesse Lingard, returned after a month out. Remarkably, both were off the pace, subbed and criticised afterwards; curiously, José Mourinho was less loquacious in explaining how either were meant to get the ball given the midfield mismatch that was Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba against Fernandinho, Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva as City won the match 2-1. But the blame was set. Lingard vanished for two weeks and Mkhitaryan for two months, deemed ill-prepared for the harum-scarum of the English game. This is not unusual, there was just little reason to expect it in this instance. Mkhitaryan grew up in Armenia, played for two teams in Donetsk, and then moved to Borussia Dortmund; we can probably assume that he has a solid grasp of cold, rain and grime. Moreover, he arrived at the top of his game and in his physical prime, which made Hull look a more telling cameo than City. While he acclimatised, United floundered, dominating some games, disappearing in others, and struggling to score in nearly all of them. Apparently, a man directly involved in 49 goals the previous season had nothing to offer against Stoke City and Burnley, omitted in favour of Memphis Depay. Or, put another way, Mourinho’s policy of antidisestablishmkhitaryanism didn’t sit right, reminiscent of earlier problems with Arjen Robben, De Bruyne and Eden Hazard. Then, at the start of November, Mkhitaryan appeared off the bench away to Fenerbahce, but despite the uniform awfulness of United’s performance, he was left out of the next two games, by which time he had played just 134 minutes of a possible 1,710. For a man who arrived as the Bundesliga player of the year, the frustration of peak months wasted cannot have been easy to take. Eventually, though, Mourinho was convinced – coincidentally, at a time when he had run out of alternatives and was desperate for a win. So Mkhitaryan started at home to Feyenoord and was superb; it was almost as though he could have made a difference all along, not that Mourinho had calculated precisely the right moment to unleash him. Still, he was left on the bench for United’s home Premier League draw with West Ham, returning to the starting XI for the EFL Cup tie against the same opposition. It took him all of two minutes to backheel Zlatan Ibrahimovic through for the opening goal in a 4-1 victory, and then, after a patchy but largely impressive display against Everton, he saw off Zorya in the Europa League and Tottenham with a pair of dazzling finishes, before getting injured again. Returning against Sunderland, Mkhitaryan was introduced after an hour and almost immediately, broke with the ball in the inside-right position. Allowing it across his body as he moved towards goal, at the very last second and when it no longer looked possible, suddenly it was gliding back the other way to put Ibrahimovic in; this time, he missed. The pass, though, with its delay and disguise, encapsulated Mkhitaryan. So it was that with four minutes to go, Ibrahimovic pulled on to the right wing and Mkhitaryan bustled into the middle. Uncharacteristically, he was ahead of the play as the cross came in – “offsideâ€\x9d, some have said – but before the ball arrived, he somehow decided what to do, adjusted his feet, inclined his body and dived forwards as it passed behind him, flinging a leg over his back to place a finish into the far corner with the outside of his right heel! It is hard enough to describe, never mind execute. In England, the moment of celebration is different to elsewhere, the squeak of “Yes!â€\x9d not as primal, guttural and full as the roar of “Gol!â€\x9d But presented with something it had never seen before, Old Trafford produced something closer to the latter, a collective “Ohhhhh!â€\x9d of belief and disbelief, of ecstasy and community. It was the sound of a better life.',
 'Randy Lerner’s Aston Villa head for relegation woefully unprepared It’s brutal, relegation. If you follow a team the chances are you have suffered it at some point or another and, as Aston Villa’s supporters can probably testify, it does not matter how prepared you think you might be, or how many times it might have happened in the past, it is still a desperately numbing feeling when the guillotine falls and the players are wandering around, like zombies, not knowing where to rest their eyes. “I’ve seen childbirth twice and relegation five times,â€\x9d Pete May, the author of several books on West Ham, once wrote. “Childbirth does look very painful but it lasts only a few hours. The pain of relegation lasts all summer and beyond. Plus childbirth at least results in something positive. With relegation, you’re always worried that it’s going to get worse.â€\x9d It often does, as Leicester City can corroborate bearing in mind the previous ordeals encountered by the champions-in-waiting and what those experiences tell Villa about the potential for more unravelling. Leicester’s last demotion from the Premier League, in 2004, was followed by successive finishes of 15th, 16th and 19th in the Championship and then another deterioration in their fourth season at that level – to 22nd and a place in League One. Nottingham Forest have spent time in the third best division in English football or, put another way, the second worst. Leeds United have been down there and David Bernstein, one of the executives Villa have hired to try to halt the downward spiral, will know the dangers from first-hand experience if we go back to his days as Manchester City chairman and an era of Richard Edghill, Ged Brannan and Lee Bradbury rather than Vincent Kompany, Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Agüero. City went two leagues down before coming back up and when the fingers of relegation closed around their neck for a second time the Manchester Evening News carried a photograph of a young supporter wiping away tears with a flag. Bernstein asked for a copy of that picture and hung it in the boardroom at Maine Road. It was a reminder, he used to tell guests, that the club must never put their fans through the same again. Bernstein also wrote to the club’s season-ticket holders to apologise – which is the least that Villa should be doing – while City, the official club magazine, attempted to lift the mood in an article entitled: “Reasons to be cheerfulâ€\x9d. These included “fun weekends at a variety of coastal resorts like Blackpool and Bournemouthâ€\x9d, the prospect of “red-hot Lancashire derbies against grand old names like Burnley and Preston North Endâ€\x9d and, best of all, the “chance to snuggle up together in the ‘cosy’ stands we’ll be visiting on our away tripsâ€\x9d. Among them, Lincoln City, Macclesfield Town and York City. Villa are not quite that broken but, equally, it is difficult finding any reasons for them to be cheerful when Walsall and Burton Albion could conceivably be on their list of derbies next season and the stench of disillusionment, built up over six years of drift, listless performances and boardroom buffoonery, has become so overpowering it is difficult to imagine that fumigating the place will be a quick fix. The financial impact, even taking into account the parachute money from the Premier League, means losing upwards of £200m merely from television revenue if they cannot find a way back during the next three years. The new television deal comes into force in August and will be worth £8.3bn over that time. Then factor in the lost ticket revenue, sponsorship and other forms of income. However it is dressed up, there has never been a worse time for relegation. All of which leaves Villa in a harrowing position, bearing in mind the size and history of the place and the feeling I still get, 25 years after walking down Witton Lane for the first time, that the imposing red-brick walls, the steps leading to the Holte End, the statues of the lions, the colours and the noise make Villa Park one of football’s special monuments. The club have, if nothing else, recognised that it is not just the playing staff that has to be overhauled and begun the process by bringing in Bernstein as well as a new chairman, Steve Hollis, and creating new positions on the board for Brian Little, a former Villa player and manager, and Adrian Bevington, previously of the Football Association. That, at least, is a start and few will miss the former chief executive, Tom Fox, or the sporting director, Hendrik Almstadt, who has also been ushered off the premises. All the same, there is an awful lot of work to be done when, trying to make sense of the Randy Lerner era, there is a jarring irony that they have just lopped off the word “Preparedâ€\x9d from their expensively redesigned club crest (Villa having spent more on that badge and all the necessary changes than Lerner was apparently prepared to pay for any players in January to get them out of this hole). One long-serving employee was asked recently to undertake a quiz on Villa’s history to convince the people above her that she should keep her job. In total, there could be 100 job losses and it will be intriguing to see whether Paddy Riley, the former video analyst who now goes by the title of director of scouting and recruitment, is spared. Riley’s transfer record hardly eases the suspicion that he has been overpromoted and there is an excruciating story about what happened when the agent of one signing turned up to negotiate the contract. Riley had been put in charge along with the club secretary, Sharon Barnhurst, and the agent was so unimpressed by the absence of more senior staff he is said to have taken one look and walked out in a fit of pique. Riley did, in fairness, persuade him to return. Nigel Pearson is an obvious candidate for the manager’s job but there are no indications that Lerner is any closer to finding a buyer and, in the meantime, the bottom line is that Villa have become a tragicomedy, on and off the pitch. One of the club’s European scouts, with responsibility for Spain and Portugal, turns out to be a journalism student. Another is said to have emigrated to Australia earlier this season, at a time when his role was apparently to cover the Bundesliga. As for the players, what does it say for Gabriel Agbonlahor – born in Birmingham, affiliated to Villa since a young age and someone, you might assume, who would give everything for his club – that he is so bereft of professional decency he has just been placed on a two-week fitness programme because he cannot even keep himself in shape? Agbonlahor, with one goal all season, spent the last international break partying in Dubai. His attitude is symptomatic of the culture of drift and, if Villa have serious aspirations of restoring some dignity, this summer might be a good time to thank him for happier days and cut him loose. It is a tremendous mess and, plainly, it is easier for Lerner to avoid awkward questions about his culpability when the other option is to keep his distance, holed away in the Hamptons, and communicate in occasional statements via the club’s website. “I can’t think of anyone else in Cleveland sports in the last 30 years who rode into town with similar fanfare and delivered so little in comparison,â€\x9d Bill Livingston, the American sportswriter, once wrote of Lerner’s time in charge of the Cleveland Browns, and Villa’s followers will note the similarities. “The biggest constant among those Randy hired was a lack of judgment,â€\x9d Livingston concluded. “He wasn’t a good owner by any means, but he wasn’t a lucky one, either.â€\x9d One day, maybe, the subject of all this criticism will be decent enough to answer the principal charge that he simply went cold on Villa, having been unable to break into the Champions League positions in his early years, and withdrew to a point that it became inevitable stagnation would follow. Not the most important thing right now, perhaps, but Lerner could also explain why Fox’s annual salary was almost five times higher than that of the previous chief executive, Paul Faulkner, up from £265,792 to £1,255,769. Maybe he could let us know whether it was really necessary to have 496 members of staff, the sixth highest in the league, compared with, say, Tottenham Hotspur (380), Newcastle United (288) and Everton (274), and more than the combined workforce of West Ham (250) and Leicester (188). And maybe, like Bernstein all those years ago, he might want to apologise to all those supporters who suspected this mismanagement and apathy would take them only one direction. Kevin doesn’t need friends like these The decision to remove Kevin Friend from refereeing duties for Tottenham Hotspur’s visit to Stoke City on Monday was always bewildering but especially now it transpires that he is apparently a Bristol City supporter. Friend lives in Leicester and, by his own admission, has been to watch Claudio Ranieri’s team this season, but taking him off a game because a few daft people think he will deliberately give decisions against Spurs sets a dangerous precedent, as Arsène Wenger has stated, and it all seems particularly unnecessary when the Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino, has made it clear he had no issue whatsoever with the original choice of officials. Friend’s treatment comes across as a lack of trust from the organisation that employs him – even if, conversely, the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd will argue the decision was taken to protect him - and if it is true that it stemmed from a social‑media campaign from Spurs fans (one that certainly passed me by) should the decision-makers really be pandering to the Twitter orchestra? Sure enough, there are now Everton supporters questioning the appointment of Anthony Taylor for their team’s FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United on the basis that he lives in Altrincham, just a few miles from Old Trafford. Already, it has been noted that Michael Oliver – a Newcastle supporter, apparently – refereed Norwich’s 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace last weekend and turned down a penalty appeal that might have led to the game being drawn and, in turn, ultimately benefited his own club. Nobody had given it a second thought until now but no doubt there will be fans of other clubs scouring referees’ profiles to come up with historic grievances or flimsy arguments why further restrictions should be placed. A different case could be highlighted every week and the referees are probably entitled to wonder why their organisation has given credence to a fuss about nothing. PFA awards fail to tell whole story The Professional Footballers’ Association holds its player of the year awards next weekend and it would be a surprise, looking back at the last eight months, if the prize went to anyone bar one of the three Leicester City players – Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and N’Golo Kanté – on the six‑man shortlist. What, though, if Leicester suddenly implode from this point onwards and Harry Kane’s goals take Tottenham Hotspur to the title? Who would ultimately be the more deserving player? It is certainly strange that the PFA holds this event a month before the season has finished and even more so that the voting slips had an 8 April deadline but actually started coming back at the beginning of March, when some teams still had 10 games to play. In 2016, is it really beyond Gordon Taylor and his colleagues to hold the event at the end of the season and find an online voting system that means the award is for the full campaign?',
 "The impact of Brexit on UK's £200bn public procurement spend Campaigners in favour of leaving the EU have claimed that not having to apply EU procurement rules would enable the UK to save £1.6bn a year in procurement costs. But what are the facts? What impact would a vote to leave the EU have on the UK’s £200bn annual public procurement spend? The EU procurement directive covers all public sector procurement in member states. It defines processes, procedures and standards and is intended to ensure that all EU businesses stand a fair chance of obtaining public sector contracts in any EU country. It has been introduced formally into UK law through parliamentary legislation and through the Scottish assembly, so a Brexit vote on 23 June would only change procurement law if the Westminster parliament or the Scottish assembly chose to do so. All large businesses require a clear set of procurement procedures and processes. These help protect against fraud, satisfy corporate governance requirements, ensure suitable competition to deliver value for money and mean suppliers understand the rules of the game and can be confident that they will be treated fairly. The same applies to governments. Public sector corruption deters private investment, misallocates resources and generates social grievances. Transparency International’s corruption league table demonstrates that countries with the best reputations have robust procurement legislation. Most of the top 20, out of 167 nations, apply the EU procedures and others have equally robust procedures. At the bottom end of the scale are North Korea, Somalia and Afghanistan. Good quality public procurement legislation is complex. Public sector organisations work with businesses that operate globally and procure products and services on a bigger and more complex scale than almost anything the private sector procures. Both the public and suppliers need to know that the UK’s £200bn spend is managed fairly. Outsourcing prisons, for example, is complex and the cost of letting a poor contract can be immense. At the other end of the scale, there is no reason for procurement procedures not to be simple and timescales short, particularly for small businesses. But, as the Commons communities and local government select committee has pointed out, the UK often operates its public procurement in an unnecessarily bureaucratic way, with a lack of consistency in the way regulations are implemented that means tendering costs are typically higher in the UK than in other EU member states. In the event of Brexit, the UK would either have to retain the EU directive or introduce something similar. In practice, if the UK wished to continue to trade with the EU on preferential terms, like the European Free Trade Agreement nations, such as Norway or Switzerland, part of the price would be continuing to adhere to the EU procurement laws. Changing UK legislation would be complex and time consuming due to the number of public sector and industry bodies with which consultation would be required. Moreover, the UK was very influential in the drafting of the latest procurement directive, so it largely meets UK requirements. Replacing it would be a low priority for any government. There are many ways that public procurement can save £1.6bn a year. Abandoning the EU procurement directive is not one of them. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.",
 "The 'good billionaire': Silicon Valley roots for Bloomberg for president Michael Bloomberg may feel that his recent hints at a 2016 run for the White House have barely registered in a presidential year dominated by big characters and unexpected twists. After the initial stir caused by news the former New York mayor was considering entering the 2016 race as a centrist, independent candidate, he has quickly receded to the shadows, barely discussed by either Democratic or Republican candidates. Yet there is one corner of the US still holding out for a Bloomberg candidacy: Silicon Valley. The tech industry sees the billionaire entrepreneur, who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as one of its own. “Bloomberg is good billionaire to Trump’s bad billionaire,â€\x9d former Google executive and current startup founder Mike Dudas said. Or as Twitter’s chief financial officer Anthony Noto recently put it: “Wow!! Please Please @MikeBloombergâ€\x9d. In part, Bloomberg’s popularity in the tech sector stems from the absence of any other candidates that so closely resemble the values that underpin the industry. Libertarian Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who aggressively courted Silicon Valley with mixed results and may have been the most naturally suited to anti-government techies, dropped out of the Republican race after a disappointing showing in Iowa. “The other candidates are just so weak and weird,â€\x9d said bombastic Uber investor Jason Calacanis, who often wades into conservative politics through his various media platforms. “In Silicon Valley, everybody loves somebody who’s an operator,â€\x9d Calacanis added. “Bloomberg’s an operator. You just look on Twitter people are like yes, yes, yes, Bloomberg please, please, please.â€\x9d Donald Trump’s immigration plan doesn’t work for an industry whose biggest political issue has been H-1B visa reform, and his rhetoric has pulled other candies to the right. Texan senator Ted Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio are too socially conservative to be palatable for people who just want the financial side of Republicanism without the aversion to social progress. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, whose gender could be a problem for an industry that famously struggles with female leadership, can seem more attuned to Wall Street than Sand Hill Road. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders may enjoy a constituency among some radicals in Silicon Valley – and the self-avowed socialist is now outpacing Clinton in fundraising among employees at the five largest tech companies. But, given his stringent views on inequality and his repeated denunciation of the “millionaires and billionairesâ€\x9d of the country, it is hard to see Sanders getting that much traction in a place with such a concentration of eye-popping wealth. It is unsurprising, then, that there appears to be such enthusiasm for a Bloomberg presidential run. Erick Schonfeld, the co-founder of TouchCast and former editor in chief of TechCrunch, cites Bloomberg’s work to bring a tech campus to New York as one of the reasons technologists can get behind him. Bloomberg’s fortune was made in tech, selling stock market data analytics through his Bloomberg terminals. “He’s an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur,â€\x9d Shonfeld said. “He invented the SaaS business model. That’s how he made his billions.â€\x9d He added: “Literally I’m here at the Nob Hill Center and there’s hundreds of companies here that are all trying to sell subscriptions and most of them for data services, and he [Bloomberg] invented this.â€\x9d Garrett Johnson, the co-founder of conservative think tank Lincoln Labs and the startup SendHub, said many in the tech community have been shocked by the way candidates approach the internet, especially when it comes to national security issues. “The guy who won the New Hampshire primary for the Republicans has openly threatened to shut down the internet to fight Isis,â€\x9d Johnson said, referring to Trump. “How do you propose to shut down the internet?â€\x9d Johnson questions, though, whether Silicon Valley can actually hold political sway, despite all its talk – and its growing reputation as a source for big money donations to both parties. “It’s easy to tweet something but how many of them are on the ground helping to organize or donating to Bloomberg?â€\x9d Johnson said. “Talk is cheap.â€\x9d He added: “The question is, so what? Who gives a damn about Silicon Valley?â€\x9d",
 'Louis van Gaal blames Manchester United players for Newcastle draw It was a case of one step forward and two steps back for Manchester United and Louis van Gaal as they cast off their recent “boringâ€\x9d image on Tyneside on Tuesday night but, despite some thrilling attacking, dropped to sixth place in the Premier League. “Of course it feels like a defeat … we are very disappointed, we’ve lost very expensive points,â€\x9d he said after his side’s 3-3 draw at Newcastle United where, despite Wayne Rooney scoring twice and creating another goal for Jesse Lingard, the visitors could not hold on to their leads. “We have only ourselves to blame because we could have won this match,â€\x9d said Manchester United’s manager. “We missed big chances to win it. We were the better team. We have scored three goals but only have one point. So now is the defence weak? No. We were unlucky in decisions of the referee and a deflected shot and we did not finish our chances.â€\x9d The Dutchman was unhappy with the award of a penalty to Newcastle, for shirt-pulling by Chris Smalling on Aleksandar Mitrovic, that made it 2-2, but put the blame on his own players. “We have given it away. I have told that to my players. When the referee gives a penalty for nothing – it is a duel I think and you cannot decide who is worse – but we gave it away.â€\x9d While Paul Dummett’s late Newcastle equaliser took a hefty deflection off Smalling, Steve McClaren arguably had considerably greater cause to be aggrieved by the refereeing and strongly disagreed with the early handball penalty awarded against Chancel Mbemba from which Rooney opened the scoring. Van Gaal gave credit to Newcastle’s approach. “Newcastle only wanted to attack,â€\x9d he said. “You see two teams who want to attack. We saw a fantastic game tonight.â€\x9d He added that normally it was different and his side were the victims of opposition spoiling tactics. “Only one team [Manchester United’s opponents] wants to waste time and frustrate opponents,â€\x9d he claimed. Relieved to have ended a run of four defeats, McClaren’s mood was further buoyed by the completion of Jonjo Shelvey’s £12m transfer from Swansea City shortly before kickoff. McClaren said: “I think there’s a lot more to come from him.â€\x9d The midfielder is expected to make his debut at home to West Ham United on Saturday. “I’m delighted to have signed Jonjo Shelvey,â€\x9d he said. “I tried to sign him last summer. He’s English, he’s in the England team and I think there’s a lot more to come from him.â€\x9d He feels much the same about his team as a whole. “Manchester United are a quality team but at the end of the night we’ve shown what we’re all about,â€\x9d said McClaren. “We’ve shown character, attitude. By the end we actually had more possession that Manchester United.â€\x9d',
 'Mail pays out £150,000 to Muslim family over Katie Hopkins column Mail Online has been forced to pay out £150,000 to a British Muslim family over a Katie Hopkins column which falsely accused them of extremism. The column, published in December last year, said that US authorities were right to stop Mohammed Tariq Mahmood, his brother Mohammed Zahid Mahmood and nine children from travelling to Los Angeles for a trip to Disneyland last year. Hopkins also suggested that the two brothers were extremists with links to al-Qaida. In a correction published at midnight on Sunday, Mail Online said: “We and Katie Hopkins apologise to the Mahmood family for the distress and embarrassment caused and have agreed to pay them substantial damages and their legal costs.â€\x9d Hopkins’ article suggested that the reason the family gave for visiting the US was a lie, and that she would have stopped them from boarding the flight from Gatwick. Her next column a week later also falsely suggested that Mohammed Tariq Mahmood’s son Hamza was responsible for a Facebook page that allegedly contained extremist material. The brothers said they were pleased that after “a great deal of dragging of their heelsâ€\x9d the Mail and Hopkins had accepted the allegations were false. “Even to this day, the US authorities have not explained the reason why we were not permitted to travel; we assume it was an error or even a case of mistaken identity,â€\x9d they said in a statement provided by their lawyers, Carter Ruck. “However, matters are not helped when sensationalist and, frankly, Islamophobic articles such as this are published, and which caused us all a great deal of distress and anxiety. We are very pleased that the record has been set straight.â€\x9d Carter Ruck said that while most of the coverage of the Mahmood family’s ordeal had been fair and balanced, “there was absolutely no basis for suggesting that any of the Mahmoods were or are extremist, and the family were simply going on holidayâ€\x9d. Hopkins tweeted the apology herself at around 2am. She was hired by the Mail in September 2015 from the Sun where she had regularly come under fire for offensive columns, including one where she likened asylum seekers to cockroaches. That article, which has since been removed from the Sun website, drew condemnation from the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid bin Ra’ad al-Hussein. The Mail’s apology comes just days after it corrected an online article claiming that the NUS president, Malia Bouattia, had said young Muslims are travelling to join Isis in Syria due to cuts to education. Mail Online did not immediately respond to a request for comment.',
 "The Wave review – impending doom and a big red button can't stop this dull ride The Wave teaches us two things. One: you don’t need to be from Hollywood to make a big, dumb Hollywood action picture. Two: between this and Force Majeure, you should take your vacation anywhere other than in view of Europe’s natural splendor. We meet Kristian (Kristoffer Joner), a handsome Norwegian geologist with mixed feelings about his last day at work. He’s about to take his family away from Geiranger, a gorgeous tourist town built alongside a fjord. (I highly recommend slipping its name into Google image search, it’s absolutely stunning.) His new gig is “in the cityâ€\x9d for an oil company, and even though he tries to sell his wife and two children on their modern home with a door that unlocks with a phone app, he’s gonna miss this little berg, their old house and an office where he doesn’t have to wear a tie. He works, as luck would have it, at the mountain observatory, where his one job is to monitor for rockslides and tsunamis. If something happens, he needs to push a giant red button which alarms the villagers and visitors that they have 10 minutes to get to higher ground. Well, take a wild guess what happens on Kristian’s very last day. There’s a murmur on the dials and everybody but Kristian wants to shrug it off. The boss, echoing the mayor from Jaws, refuses to spook all the tourists. Kristian says his goodbyes, packs up the kids and leaves his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) behind to tie up some loose ends and pull a few final shifts at the hotel where she works. Then he turns back to study those charts some more and stew. The Wave has a solid 30 minutes of nightmarish tension, during which we’re the only ones who know that the world is going to end, and no one will listen. (How do you say “Blobâ€\x9d in Norwegian?) The observatory crew relent and start some poking around at some cables and sensors until finally disaster strikes. In a very clever moment (and one of the few instances of levity in director Roar Uthaug’s film) we watch the guy on late-night monitor duty watch a horror film on his laptop. On the screen, a woman has no idea that peril lurks just behind her. On the reverse shot, our doofus (eating a tuna melt with pickles on it) is unaware that bright orange warning lights flash just over his shoulder. Kristian is up at his house with his young daughter and her stuffed bunny, but his Idun and their teenage son are down at the hotel. The siren finally goes off, at just around the 45-minute mark, and all hell breaks out as all race to safety. Even though The Wave is fiction, there comes a point where it ceases to be nail-biting fun and just an exercise in voyeuristic cruelty. If you want a devastating sequence in which nature comes down to brutally kill groups of people at random in horrifying ways, this is the movie for you. It’s certainly gripping, but eventually one asks: “This is entertainment?â€\x9d Kristian eventually rows down to the hotel, engulfed in flames, looking like Aragorn approaching the Black Gate of Mordor. Will each member of the family be saved? Well, here’s where arthouse films have an edge. In a Hollywood picture there would be no doubt. The Wave, on the other hand, is a thorough soak in torment and doubt. While the story is about as subtle as that big red panic button, The Wave isn’t dull and Roar Uthaug knows how to manipulate an audience. It therefore shouldn’t surprise you to learn that he’s already signed his first Hollywood deal, rebooting the based-on-a-video-game Tomb Raider franchise.",
 'Will Hollywood ever respect east Asian actors? The British actor Burt Kwouk, best known for his role as Cato Fong – the long-suffering servant of Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther – died this week. Duty-bound, Cato’s main task was to keep Clouseau alert, launching surprise martial-arts attacks as his employer entered his apartment. The 85-year-old went on to appear in three James Bond films and in numerous British television shows. In 2011 he received an OBE for services to drama, and will always be remembered for raising the status of east Asian actors on screen. However, as Kwouk himself acknowledged, in many roles he acted out racist stereotypes. Most of Kwouk’s earlier roles would raise eyebrows if they were seen today. Imagine sitting through a feature film where a Chinese man is repeatedly referred to by the main protagonist, Clouseau, as “my little yellow friendâ€\x9d while acting out crazed karate moves. Or watching the numerous evil villains he played throughout the 1960s. “If I don’t do it, someone else will,â€\x9d he said in a 1981 interview. “So why don’t I go in, get some money, and try to elevate it a bit, if I can?â€\x9d Since Kwouk began his career in 1957, the film and television industry has changed dramatically. But what has really changed for Asian actors? These days most of us are aware that not every east Asian person knows how to do a tornado axe-kick, and that not every Asian person has a dastardly cunning plan. But all too often we’re seen playing the foreigner, the comedy character, the sexy yet dangerous female, or the kung fu expert. We’re rarely ever just normal people. The consistent lack of roles for Asian actors leaves talented people with the same dilemma Kwouk faced: give up on your career aspirations, or act out racist stereotypes. Think of the mobster character Leslie Chow in The Hangover. It seems to be accepted that if you couch racism against Asian people in humour, it’s OK. It definitely isn’t. Although we’re now more likely to recognise racism against east Asian people, the problem now is that very little is changing in the film industry. Whitewashing is the term used to describe the act of taking Asian roles and stories and filling them with white actors. We may no longer see anything so blatantly negative as Christopher Lee playing Fu Manchu, or Joseph Wiseman as Dr No, both in the 1960s. But Scarlett Johansson has been cast in the Hollywood remake of the classic Japanese anime, Ghost in the Shell. This choice was widely criticised after Paramount Pictures released the first image of her as cyborg policewoman Major Kusanagi. And last month, Marvel Studios released a trailer for Doctor Strange, in which a Tibetan monk was reimagined as a Celtic mystic played by Tilda Swinton. Both films are expected to make millions of dollars in profit. In Kwouk’s early career, there was a dearth of voices to speak up on behalf of east Asian people, and a lack of commissioners, producers, scriptwriters and casting directors able to handle the problem sensitively. Now, the situation is, relatively, a little better. Kwouk has almost certainly help pave the way for actors such as Gemma Chan; Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in Harry Potter; Benedict Wong, who played Bruce Ng in Ridley Scott’s The Martian; and Naoko Mori, who starred in Everest. East Asians’ visibility on screen is improving, giving space for critics such as comedian Margaret Cho, and American actors Daniel Dae Kim and Constance Wu to speak out. We must applaud Kwouk for acting in roles that he didn’t feel comfortable in, and working in an arena filled almost entirely with white people. In his first film role, in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, most of the Chinese characters were played by a European cast. It must have been tough. Yes, there might have been other actors who would have taken his place, but Kwouk’s resilience helped to make an underrepresented group more visible on screen. What we need to do now is to build on his legacy and speak more openly about the film industry’s failure to represent and respect east Asian people, their history and culture. This year’s #OscarsSoWhite campaign showed the industry has to wake up to diversity. Could next year mark a breakthrough for East Asian actors?',
 'Nigel Farage will not be ambassador to US, say No 10 and Foreign Office Downing Street and the Foreign Office have brushed off a suggestion from the US president-elect, Donald Trump, that Nigel Farage would be a good ambassador to Washington, as MPs said the interim Ukip leader’s inflammatory views made him a poor candidate for a diplomatic post. No 10 declined to criticise Trump’s call for Farage to become the ambassador and stressed that it was “important to reiterate that the UK already has an incredibly strong and enduring relationship with the United Statesâ€\x9d. The prime minister’s spokesman said: “As far as the ambassador goes, there is no vacancy for that position. We have an excellent ambassador to the United States and he will continue his work.â€\x9d Overnight, Trump tweeted that Farage’s appointment would be a popular choice, an unprecedented comment from an incoming US president in suggesting a foreign appointment to another world leader, especially given Farage’s opposition to the government. Sir Kim Darroch, formerly the UK’s national security adviser and permanent representative to the EU, took over the role as US ambassador in January, one of the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. Both Downing Street and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, took pains to praise Darroch’s tenure in Washington in their responses to Trump’s tweet. Speaking in the House of Commons, Johnson said Darroch was a “a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job with the current administration and the administration to be, and there is no vacancyâ€\x9d. Johnson said the UK hoped to be influential as Trump took the reins at the White House. “I do think it is very important that on all sides of this House we should be as positive as we possibly can be about working with the incoming US administration,â€\x9d he said. “It is of massive importance to our country and indeed to the world. And I suggest to the honourable member that he should judge that new administration by their actions in office which, of course, we hope to shape and influence.â€\x9d Fellow Conservative MP Dan Poulter asked Johnson to stress that those with a character such as Farage’s would not make good ambassadors. “Diplomats require diplomacy,â€\x9d he told the Commons. “There should be no place for anyone who expresses inflammatory and what sometimes can be considered to be borderline racist views in representing this country in discussions with the United States.â€\x9d Johnson said he thought Poulter “captures the mood of the Houseâ€\x9d on the issue, adding: “We have already settled that question, there is no vacancy.â€\x9d In Brussels, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, said he believed Darroch would be in place for the foreseeable future. “We are believers in free speech in Britain, but we have got a very good ambassador Kim Darroch who is going to be there for some years,â€\x9d he told the BBC. “People can say what they like. The simple truth is there is no vacancy. The ambassador there is very, very good. And he will be there for years.â€\x9d Sir Christopher Meyer, a former UK ambassador to Washington, tweeted on Tuesday morning that it was not for foreign leaders to suggest candidates for diplomatic posts. Earlier, Farage said he had not been expecting Trump’s tweet, but said it was a signal that Downing Street needed to change its thinking. “I can still scarcely believe that he did that, though speaking to a couple of his longtime friends perhaps I am a little less surprised,â€\x9d he wrote in an piece on Tuesday morning for rightwing US site Breitbart. “They all say the same thing: that Trump is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him.â€\x9d Farage, who recently suggested he could mount an eighth attempt to become an MP after failing seven times, said personal relationships were key to how Trump operated. “Sadly, the cesspit that is career politics understands nothing of this,â€\x9d he said. “In their world, the concept of trust is transitory.â€\x9d The Ukip leader has previously said it was “obviousâ€\x9d that Darroch should resign, calling him part of the “old regimeâ€\x9d. Though Farage admitted he did not necessarily have the personal qualities for a diplomatic position, one ally of Ukip’s interim leader suggested Theresa May could solve a political problem for her party by appointing him, saying it would be an effective way of ending Ukip as a force in British politics. Farage, the first foreign politician to meet Trump after the Republican candidate’s shock victory, is expecting an invitation to Trump’s inauguration in January, sources have told the . Having campaigned together during the election, Trump and Farage met recently at Trump Tower in New York, where the president-elect is said to have encouraged Farage to oppose wind farms, which he felt marred the views from his Scottish golf courses. Andy Wigmore, a communications officer for one of the groups campaigning to leave the EU who was at the meeting alongside Farage, told the Daily Express: “We covered a lot of ground during the hour-long meeting we had. “But one thing Mr Trump kept returning to was the issue of wind farms. He is a complete Anglophile and also absolutely adores Scotland, which he thinks is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. But he is dismayed that his beloved Scotland has become overrun with ugly wind farms, which he believes are a blight on the stunning landscape.â€\x9d',
 'When political leaders are selected via elitism not talent, you get chaos There’s nothing quite like a constitutional crisis to expose what can only be described as the abject crapness of our political class. The parliamentary Labour party has largely decided it has had enough of Jeremy Corbyn and wants a new ruler, but seems categorically unable to suggest anyone. Who would fit the bill? Dan Jarvis, who promises to be “tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequalityâ€\x9d? What does that even mean? Or how about Hilary Benn? He gave one well-delivered speech to parliament about Syria and people seemed to decide that made him the new Winston Churchill, before forgetting about him a week later. There is talent in the Labour party, but barely any in the former disciples of Tony Blair, which is the wing of the party that set the ball rolling for the coup currently under way. Many of those MPs seem to think that what the country wants right now is a political middle manager to soundbite the country out of this quagmire, while also validating some of the racist sentiments of the leave campaign, naturally. Then there’s the Tory party. David Cameron resigned and made himself a lame duck prime minister so he wouldn’t have to take part in Brexit negotiations, or “the hard shitâ€\x9d as he reportedly called it. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is attempting to strike a deal with the EU via a column in the Telegraph, and we’re left deciphering Michael Gove’s feelings from Sarah Vine’s Facebook posts. It’s fair to say that some in the leave campaign now appear not to want to leave after all. But their remorse has led to a giant buck-passing exercise, or as the Economist put it: “The country is sailing into a storm with no one at the wheel.â€\x9d Although actually, since I started writing this, No 10 has announced that Oliver Letwin will be in charge of post-Brexit negotiations. Yes, that’s right – Oliver Letwin, a man whose most famous political act was to get photographed dumping sensitive documents in a bin in a park in central London. Good luck, Britain. This total incompetence, this craven self-interest, this embarrassing fecklessness is what you get when you live in a country where political leaders are mainly selected via elitism rather than talent: 33% of MPs went to private school, and nearly a quarter went to Oxbridge. This doesn’t just end with members of parliament either: 43% of newspaper columnists and 26% of BBC executives were all educated privately. Oxbridge graduates make up 57% of permanent secretaries, 50% of diplomats, 47% of newspaper columnists, 44% of public body chairs and 33% of BBC executives. It’s no surprise that people feel alienated by politics and locked out of democracy, and view the people who represent them as out of touch. Indeed, Brexit should be seen as an expression of that as much as anything else. But there is less discussion about what this elitism means for the quality of people who actually end up leading us and formulating political discourse. And this seismic crisis should change that, because it reveals that a lot of these people are basically defunct – obsolete in this new era of crisis. Think of what has been happening in this country since 2008. In mainstream politics there has been virtually no analysis of what caused the financial crisis, no attempts to address the underlying structural problems in the economy, no retribution for the people that caused it, no serious attempt to stem widening inequality, no support for the people who lost their jobs during the recession, no viable solution to a worsening housing crisis, no hope for a generation of young people entering into an unstable, precarious economy. The political class has done very little of worth since they bailed out the banks in 2008. And before that, it wasn’t exactly a bed of roses: there were still thousands of people feeling abandoned by politics up and down the country, reeling from de-industrialisation; there were the grotesque attempts by New Labour to appeal to middle England by treating the working class as voting fodder; the unwillingness to criticise free market capitalism and plastering over the cracks it caused. This is not about individual politicians. Indeed, there are many who are talented – Ruth Davidson, Nicola Sturgeon, Caroline Lucas to name a few. But the political class as a whole, and how it functions alongside its outer circle of pundits, lobbyists, policymakers and so on, has proven itself to be woefully unqualified to cope with crisis as well as being utterly unable to comprehend the country it is supposed to be governing. The consequences of this are already obvious: an electorate that is so angry and mistrustful of its leaders that it becomes susceptible to the likes of total charlatans such as Nigel Farage. And Farage may be dishonest, but make no mistake – he will capitalise upon this crisis by taking advantage of the ineptitude of the mainstream. He will, amazingly, lead the charge against broken promises. He will attract voters by vocalising their utter dissatisfaction with the mediocrity of their leaders. And then we will all lose. To turn things around, the Westminster bubble will need to display a level of self-reflection that it has hitherto been incapable of. It needs to display humility, and recognise that it has got pretty much every major political event of the past five years completely wrong. It needs to display more than a cursory interest in ordinary people’s lives. And finally, it needs to find some way to guide the country out of this crisis – starting with a profound and sincere acknowledgement that the status quo before it was not good. Things are not good, and they need to be better. Start there.',
 'LBJ review: Woody Harrelson compelling if physically unconvincing in firm biopic It’s inevitable that an election year would have an effect on Hollywood, but 2016 has seen an unusually high number of films centred on, or at least relating to, US political history. There’s been Elvis & Nixon, the two Obama dramas, Southside with You and the Toronto-premiering Barry and even a Purge sequel subtitled Election Year. But even within this subgenre, Lyndon B Johnson has been a surprisingly recurrent character. Bryan Cranston took on the role in HBO’s All the Way, he cropped up in Pablo Larrain’s Oscar-tipped Jackie and he’s now front and centre in Rob Reiner’s earnest but entertaining drama. He’s played by Woody Harrelson, an odd choice for anyone who’s ever seen a picture of Johnson, but with heavy prosthetics, distracting at first and also strangely useless given that he ends up looking more like Nixon. The film focuses on Johnson’s rivalry with John F Kennedy as the pair go up against each other as the democratic candidate and once Johnson loses, we see him deal with life as an over-experienced vice-president and, after tragedy strikes, president. Overwhelmed with responsibility and disrespected by Kennedy’s aides, he finds himself stuck in a difficult situation. From the first notes of worthy presidential music, it’s clear that LBJ is not going to worry itself with reinventing the political biopic. Reiner’s take on the Kennedy years of Johnson’s life is strictly conventional, even down to the oft-used marching drums in the background, but it’s solidly entertaining nonetheless, its adherence to formula never dulling its drama. The dialogue might often resort to painfully clunky exposition but it never resorts to a simplistic portrayal of Johnson and his politics. As an older southern democrat, he’s torn between his heritage and Kennedy’s progressive views and, in particular, his strong belief in the importance of civil rights. He’s painted as a man playing both sides but also learning, his pragmatism and values ultimately ushering him towards equality. It’s refreshing in a rigid, and often cliched, film as this to see such a flawed protagonist. There’s also a pleasing focus on political minutiae, detailed enough but accessibly conveyed and the film weaves in the growing issue of aesthetics (Johnson is deeply aware of his position as workhorse compared to JFK’s showhorse) at a time when media representation was starting to have a profound effect on voters. There’s also a nicely played scene where Johnson discusses the importance of civil rights with a bigioted southern senator (a believably foul Richard Jenkins) as his black maid serves them dinner. Harrelson overcomes the heavy layer of prosthetics to deliver a commanding and layered take on the president. He easily flips from confidence (bragging about the size of his penis to a busy room) to embarrassment (a Dallas crowd eager for JFK has no interest in him) and it’s a pleasure to see him play something other than wisecracking support. Yet Jennifer Jason Leigh has precious little to do in the thankless role of his wife and, at a tight 98 minutes, the film feels somewhat short on their relationship. It’s a well-worn road but Reiner steers with skill, delivering his best film since 1995’s The American President, hinting that he might have more political tales in him yet. It might not go all the way but it’s a biopic that’s just about worth your vote.',
 'Celebrities don emergency blankets at Berlin fundraiser for refugees A film charity event held alongside an installation in Berlin by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has sparked anger. According to Artnet, the Cinema for Peace fundraiser took place at the Berlin Konzerthaus, whose pillars the artist decorated – as part of his installation Safe Passage – with 14,000 lifejackets flown in from Lesbos, Greece, where almost 450,000 refugees arrived in 2015 on their way into the EU. Fundraiser guests, including actor Charlize Theron and Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova, were encouraged to don emergency thermal blankets similar to those given to refugees. In a Facebook post, Tim Renner, Berlin’s culture secretary, was highly critical of the sight of dinner guests at a star-studded gala posing in the blankets at the party. “When Ai Weiwei illustrates the dimensions of terror outside [the gala] with 14,000 life jackets from Lesbos, it is perhaps not subtle but effective and justified; but when the guests of Cinema for Peace are prompted by the organiser to don emergency blankets for a group photo, even if understood as an act of solidarity, it has a clearly obscene element,â€\x9d he said. Ai Weiwei, whose recent work has focused on the migration crisis, was criticised two weeks ago for recreating a photo of the drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi – for the magazine India Today – in which the artist lies face down on a beach. He maintained that his work was intended to “defend the dignityâ€\x9d of the refugees.',
 '‘Now I don’t trust my neighbour, and I have lived here for 30 years’ The tiny library at Bartley Green boasts two commemorative plaques on its walls. One pays tribute to the Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who put up the money for the building; the other remembers Jane Bunford, who at 7ft 9in was the world’s tallest woman at the time of her death in 1922, and led a solitary and sometimes bullied life. At the bus stop close to where the gentle, red-haired giant lived, Gloria Abedune says she has never noticed the memorial before: “It’s funny you don’t see what’s in front of you sometimes.â€\x9d The same thought has occurred in relation to the extraordinary events of the past week. “Everyone said they were not against immigration,â€\x9d Abedune says, “that they were not racist. I am shocked. I am disgusted. I look at everyone: ‘Did you do this?’ I thought this was a strong Labour community, not a Ukip place – people were concerned for each other. Now I don’t trust my neighbour, and I have lived here in this place for 30 years.â€\x9d She isn’t happy with Jeremy Corbyn and thinks he should go: “That man never had his heart in it, did he?â€\x9d But she has no idea about a replacement. “Wouldn’t know any of them if they sat down on the number 18 bus.â€\x9d Bartley Green is a ward of local authority-style terraced houses and flats in the Edgbaston constituency of Birmingham, staunchly Labour, with nine of its 10 MPs from the party. The city bucked the national trend last year with a landslide victory for Labour in local authority elections, moving the council’s leader, John Clancy, to declare: “This is a Labour city and will stay a Labour city.â€\x9d But there are longstanding problems with housing and basic services, and the council, which is cutting 1,000 jobs, has to make £250m savings in its budget over the next four years. It will be a huge challenge for Labour to keep poorer voters on side, illustrated starkly by the polarisation of the referendum. Edgbaston as a whole voted 52.7% for Remain despite the MP, Labour’s Gisela Stuart, being the chair of the Vote Leave campaign. Stuart declared her party’s position to be the “biggest recruiting agent for Ukip I can think ofâ€\x9d. Bartley Green voted 66.5% for Leave. Stuart has attacked Corbyn as being willing to tear the party apart, although has not yet directly called for him to stand down. Jean Wright is 78 and a lifelong Labour voter with some sympathy for Corbyn, although she admits she is not impressed with him as leader. “Very weak. I’m Labour through and through – my husband used to go out and do the leaflets for them, so both lifelong Labour, yes. I don’t know what they’re up to down there. They voted Corbyn in, and what did they do that for if they weren’t going to give him a chance? I think he’s a good enough man – he just doesn’t come over very well, that’s his problem. Now I just don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us, any of it. It’s a mess.â€\x9d She rolls her eyes. “And it’s us have to just get on with it.â€\x9d Edgbaston also includes the University of Birmingham, where students such as Jeevan Jones had been actively campaigning around campus and now fear the fallout for Labour will alienate young people, once so energised by the Corbyn promise. “There is a lot of support for him. What MPs don’t like, many young people do. “There’s a real sense of disbelief at the level of incompetence that’s being shown in Westminster – it’s astounding,â€\x9d he adds. “For a huge amount of people in Birmingham, they had nothing to lose when they voted – that’s where the Labour party should have stepped in and made the case. But we didn’t and we have to accept what people said, and accept no free movement of people is what the issue was. I was for Andy Burnham the last time; this time I don’t know. Corbyn does have to go. I can’t believe he hasn’t.â€\x9d Jack Dromey, another Labour Birmingham MP whose constituency voted against him, and who warned of the unleashing of “a tidal wave of racial abuse and attacksâ€\x9d, was among the first frontbenchers to offer his resignation and call for Corbyn, his friend of 40 years standing, to resign. Writing to Corbyn, he said: “I believe we may now be on the brink of a catastrophic defeat from which Labour may never recover.â€\x9d He concluded: “I would urge you, therefore, as the decent and principled man that you are to put the working people of Britain first. I want history to record that my old friend Jeremy put principle before self.â€\x9d At Bartley Green, Alex and Stephen are heading into One Stop for post-school supplies. “I read the papers about it,â€\x9d says Alex, 15. “Mum wanted to vote Ukip but we told her they were just racists so she votes Labour. I’d vote Labour because I think if the MPs don’t like their leader and people do, then he is doing something right.â€\x9d Stephen, 14, isn’t so sure. He doesn’t know the name of any Labour politicians – although he is standing next to a newsstand where Corbyn’s glares out of the headlines: “I wouldn’t vote for any of them, don’t see what they’re for.â€\x9d No photographs exist of Bartley Green’s almost forgotten former resident Jane Bunford, but in a scandal only uncovered 90 years after her death, it emerged that her coffin was buried empty, and her skeleton kept by the university without even her name being recorded alongside it. As her bus arrives, Gloria Abedune sees the story as having resonance. “That’s the story of working people, is it not? Good people get run over – they are not left with even dignity.â€\x9d She thinks people are too tired of politics to engage with Labour’s squabbling. “If I don’t trust you, and you are my neighbour, then what are our chances?â€\x9d she asks, adding the same went for Labour. “Why should I vote at all?â€\x9d',
 "Is South Carolina the establishment's last stand in the Republican civil war? While Marco Rubio took the stage inside a barn flanked by two South Carolina lawmakers who like him were once seen as the future of the Republican party, two hours south-east in North Charleston Jeb Bush focused on the past, with his brother George W Bush joining him for the first time on the campaign trail. The candidates jockeying to emerge as an alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have struggled to break through in a primary season that has thus far rewarded anger over optimism, and a failure to win over South Carolina’s conservative electorate might cause the race to winnow down to a two-man contest between deeply polarizing figures regarded as unpalatable by the party’s top ranks. In searching for ways to seal the deal with those voters still willing to give them a look, Rubio and Bush arrived in the state attempting to create sharper contrasts to underscore what is at stake, focusing on their opponents’ lack of civility, dirty campaign tactics and, in Trump’s case, perceived lack of religious conviction. “I promise you, if you’re a parent, you are not going to have to put your hands over the ears of your children at any time today,â€\x9d Congressman Trey Gowdy told a couple hundred people who had packed into a barn on a tree farm in Gilbert to see Rubio. The crowd, recognizing immediately the reference to Trump’s recent headline-grabbing use of profanity, hooted in agreement. When Rubio grabbed the mic moments later, he looked anything but diminished despite a disappointing fifth-place showing in New Hampshire. Criss-crossing the state with Gowdy and Senator Tim Scott in tow, Rubio hit the trail encouraged by positive reviews for his most recent debate performance on Saturday – a much-needed return to form after his now-infamous encounter with New Jersey governor Chris Christie in the previous debate. “There’s a reason I get attacked by every other Republican,â€\x9d Rubio had explained to voters at an earlier town hall in Rock Hill. “Because we draw voters from them, because we can speak to every part of our party.â€\x9d The Florida senator emphasized what he said was a 15-year record of applying conservative principles in public service. And, on the other side of town, George W Bush similarly touted his brother Jeb’s conservative bona fides as the candidate continued to attack Trump. George W Bush echoed his brother’s criticism of the Republican frontrunner on Monday, telling the crowd: “I understand Americans are angry and frustrated. But we do not need somebody in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our anger and frustration.â€\x9d The elder Bush brother also rejected the label of “establishmentâ€\x9d that his brother – along with Rubio and Ohio governor John Kasich – has been identified as belonging to. “If being president of the United States makes me part of the establishment,â€\x9d Bush said, “well, I proudly carry that label.â€\x9d Quoting his father, former president George HW Bush, he added: “Labels are for soup cans.â€\x9d Cruz and Trump are riding high after resounding victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, and Trump is leading the polls in South Carolina, with Cruz second. At the other end of the spectrum are Jeb Bush and Kasich, facing an uphill battle in terms of resources and the ability to expand their appeal among the more conservative wing of the party; Kasich’s decision to start the week campaigning in the more moderate terrain of Michigan instead of South Carolina seemed to be an acknowledgement of this. Meanwhile Rubio, seeking to revive the momentum he lost in New Hampshire, continued to claim a spot somewhere in between. Despite his disappointing performance in that primary, the senator insists he is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap within the party and win the general election. Speaking to reporters aboard his campaign bus on Monday, Rubio took aim at both Cruz and Trump as candidates whose support has a ceiling. “Ted is not someone who can bring the party together; he’s not someone who can grow the party,â€\x9d Rubio said, adding of Trump: “He’s obviously got a message that’s resonated with some people ... but ultimately you also have to be able to unite our party. “We have to be able to take our conservative principles – not water them down – but convince more people to vote conservative.â€\x9d He echoed one of his themes from the stump, warning voters what the consequences might be if the party allowed itself to be engulfed by “Republican-on-Republican violenceâ€\x9d rather than keeping its sights focused on retaking the White House after eight years. “We cannot lose this election, and we cannot win if we are divided against each other,â€\x9d Rubio said. “The Democrats would pay us to continue to fight against each other well into October. When I am our nominee, I will bring the party and the conservative movement together.â€\x9d Blair Shropshire, a voter who came to see Rubio in Rock Hill on Monday morning, was mostly convinced. For him, it was down to the Florida senator or Kasich – even if the governor was not competing strongly in the southern states. “He has a very good track record in Ohio, and I like his unifying message,â€\x9d Shropshire said, while adding his appreciation for the fact that neither Kasich nor Rubio appeared to attack their rivals unless prompted. “I think Rubio has the best shot of defeating Hillary [Clinton],â€\x9d he said. “I just hope he can overtake Trump and Cruz.â€\x9d",
 "How do you become music's next big thing? You hope your record label will spend, spend, spend Jack Garratt won the BBC Sound of 2016 poll less than a fortnight ago, but behind the scenes, the lobbying by record labels on behalf of the acts they want to win the 2017 poll is already swinging into action. Since the BBC launched the Sound of … poll in 2003, it has become a flagpole event for launching and breaking new acts, a convenient cavalry charge at a time when the album market started to go into freefall. With the record industry keen to turn any lifeline it is handed into a whip with which to direct the market, it didn’t take long for it to become virtually a monopoly, shaped and directed by the incredible marketing weight and promotional expenditure of a handful of labels. From its earliest days, Sound of … has been criticised as a cordoned-off VIP room for the major labels. Indeed, only one act on an independent label has ever won it – Adele in 2008, when signed to XL Recordings. EMI, when it still existed and before it was carved up between Universal and Warner, managed to win once in 2006 with Corinne Bailey Rae. Warner also managed to win once in 2009 with Little Boots. Sony has never had an act win. Acts signed to Universal and its imprints, however, have won it 11 times in the past 14 years. Universal’s signings have triumphed every single year since 2010. Rather than it being a syndicate for the majors, it’s increasingly looking like a cartel for Universal – the biggest and most profitable record label in the world – and its sub-labels. There is no suggestion that there’s anything corrupt going on; simply that the results of the poll reflect the fact that those with the biggest marketing budgets can make their acts much more visible, and therefore much more likely to win. But the result has been that the BBC’s poll is less a promoter of talent than a promoter of commerce. “It is presented as a certainty,â€\x9d says one independent publicist, speaking anonymously, who long ago stopped putting forward acts for consideration. “I find the whole thing monumentally fucking depressing.â€\x9d Another independent publicist, speaking off the record, remembers feeling that a few leftfield acts were starting to make the longlist at the turn of the decade, which inspired them to consider pushing one of their acts for the Sound of 2011 poll. “As soon as I started to pitch to people, I realised the decisions had already started to be made,â€\x9d they say. Why are publicists so important to the process? Because journalists make up the majority of the 144 voters. Although the panel includes a selection of the BBC’s most respected new music presenters and producers, the majority of the pundits are from newspapers, magazines, blogs and commercial radio and TV. “We hope to represent a huge spectrum of music from across the world, covering a diverse range of musical styles and backgrounds,â€\x9d the BBC’s website says. “When selecting the pundits, the BBC is looking for the most genuine and passionate music fans, whose day-job also involves showcasing the best new music to a wider audience. None of them work full-time for record labels, management or PR, and none of them can make money directly from the success of the artists. None of the pundits are paid for taking part.â€\x9d No one makes money, no one is paid. And the pundits do not, as the BBC takes care to stress, vote from a list of predetermined acts. But most of the voters are besieged by new music all year round: it’s only natural, if unfortunate, that the acts they remember, come voting time, are the ones who have been thrust upon them with the greatest frequency. Simply, these are the names that get remembered. “I would imagine that the vast majority of people who are voting are not the people who will spend ages on Bandcamp buying music and investigating what else is being recommended around those artists,â€\x9d says one writer who still votes each year, even if they know they are throwing a sponge at a tornado. “There were a few years where I thought: ‘Fuck this – I don’t want to do it.’ I hated the way it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.â€\x9d At the turn of this decade, the PR machines began roaring to life around six months before voting took place, to get the preferred names into the right minds. Today, it is a year in advance. Having a publicist devote this much time to pushing forward an anointed act is not cheap. Which prices out the small acts who would gain the most from an award that is meant to reward musical promise rather than – as with the Brits critics’ choice award (also won this year by Garratt) – highlight the act most likely to be successful over the following year. “If someone wanted my undivided time to launch a new act over the course of a year, it would cost about 10 grand,â€\x9d says the head of one small independent PR firm. “If you were talking to one of the big PR firms, they’d probably charge two grand a month. Major labels are the only ones who have the money to bankroll something like that.â€\x9d Add in similar costs for a TV and radio plugger, to get the music aired in public and make voters feel that said act really is the kind of label priority worth voting for, and the same again for an online marketing team to make things appear “viralâ€\x9d and “organicâ€\x9d, and you will be lucky to get much change out of £100,000. Labels say that the cost of developing and launching a new mainstream pop act today can be anywhere between £500,000 and £1m. With winning the tastemaker polls seen as the blue chip moment in a launch campaign, it’s clear why an increasing number of chips from a decreasing number of bettors are being stacked on the side of the BBC’s roulette wheel. It’s not that the BBC decided to create a poll that required this level of expenditure, but that the major labels have, in effect, turned it into one. “With Jack Garratt, there was a lot of excitement around him at the Great Escape festival in Brighton last May,â€\x9d explains a publicist about when it became obvious who was being positioned as the frontrunner for January’s big reveal. “The way they build things is to release a track or a video to create a buzz, and then get the artist to play the showcase festivals. Then, after the Sound … poll, the story is launched into the public consciousness that he is this humble, nice guy who started out busking.â€\x9d For a label to see anything back from the PR cost of pushing an act, the act would need to both win the poll (mainstream media outlets are not concerned with offering much coverage to the runners-up) and then sell an extra 100,000 albums. Given that most new acts today struggle to reach anything approaching those sales figures, the stakes are far too high for most to even dare compete. Bear in mind, too, that for many indie labels, the significantly lower costs of mounting a campaign for even the Mercury prize are still too high. But the more of them that duck out of the race, the more the poll is at risk of becoming little more than a satellite marketing division of Universal. How can this be resolved? Maybe the solution lies in taking a Logan’s Run approach to the voting process, whereby anyone over the age of 30 is automatically retired from the panel, and voting rights are handed back to those most enthusiastic about the music and least concerned with backing a winner. As it stands, the poll is more of a coronation than a competition. Despite being given a week to comment for this piece, the BBC has put no one forward. Perhaps there is a realisation there, too, that Sound of … might just as well be renamed Spend of ….",
 'Trump country: why Democratic strongholds are turning red In the Republican primaries this spring, Donald Trump won sweeping victories in Appalachia. In a region that includes parts of 13 states and has a distinct cultural and demographic identity, the New York billionaire won all but 16 of 420 counties. I was intrigued. I wanted to meet Trump supporters, to explore why they had cast their lot for him, and to find out what he represented to them. And so I travelled though parts of West Virginia, the Ohio Valley, the Pittsburgh area and the coal country of eastern Pennsylvania. Whether Trump wins or loses against Hillary Clinton on 8 November, the so-called “Trump votersâ€\x9d I met, and thousands more like them, will continue to be a significant factor in American politics. John Selzer, Marietta, Ohio John Selzer, 74, is a retired brick mason living in Washington County, in south-eastern Ohio. Thanks to hard work, he said, he was able to build a successful construction company, producing brickwork known for its artful and original design. In summer, he and his wife, Eileen, like to travel in their 1983 Volkswagen Westfalia (“Vanagonâ€\x9d) camper, shown here on the banks of the Ohio river. Selzer said he “lovedâ€\x9d Trump because Trump was doing something he didn’t have to do, and had the money to back it up. “The reason I like him,â€\x9d Selzer said, “is that he is a no-nonsense individual. He’s got his life together. He wants to get the country out of the hole that it’s in.â€\x9d Many people get a “free rideâ€\x9d from government programs, Selzer added, though he had always had to work hard to get anywhere. He always gave his customers a break on the work he did, he said, because he wanted repeat business. Anthony Venditti, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Venditti works as a chemical engineer at a steel plant owned by Allegheny Technologies, producing specialty steel and super-alloys for the aerospace, defense and oil and gas markets. Venditti studied engineering at Johns Hopkins University and returned to Pittsburgh to work in an industry which has long employed members of his family. With the market for speciality steel currently “softâ€\x9d, however, ATI recently laid off 30% of its workforce. “There is illegal dumping going on, with steel from China,â€\x9d Venditti said. “ATI just won a trade case over it. If the government can help on that, we shouldn’t have to do it all by ourselves. We should be stronger – it would make us stronger.â€\x9d He conceded that Trump was not his first choice and said he had been more drawn to Rand Paul, a Libertarian Kentucky senator, and Ted Cruz, a hardline conservative from Texas. But, he said, Trump’s greatest appeal lay in his not being part of the Washington political elite. “Trump is not a career politician,â€\x9d he said. “He is an outsider. He funded his own campaign. I wanted someone from outside Washington to manage the country. He is one of the better business leaders that I could have voted for.â€\x9d Anthony Mickey, Jefferson County, Ohio Anthony Mickey served for three and a half years as a combat engineer in the US army and was then honorably discharged, due to an injury. A self-described conservative activist, he follows the presidential election with great interest. He pointed to a shuttered steel mill just a few hundred yards from his apartment building, and said: “Production of steel here in Mingo Junction was huge. It produced lots of jobs. Now that the steel mill is shut down, people have to travel elsewhere to work. It’s a ghost town.â€\x9d Proudly displaying a Trump sign on his porch, he said the billionaire would create jobs and make life easier. “He can relate to people who struggle,â€\x9d he said. Dr Antonio Ripepi, head of surgery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Ripepi is third-generation Italian American and a lifelong resident of western Pennsylvania. He works as a surgeon in a major Pittsburgh hospital, specializing in minimally invasive surgery, surgical endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. A father of four children aged nine to 13, his political outlook is colored by his family’s immigrant background. “People moved here [from Europe] so that their children could have a better life,â€\x9d he said. “I am tremendously worried about what my children will inherit from this world, from this [Democratic] political party that has been running our country for too long. That’s my fear, and I think it is the fear of a lot of people like me.â€\x9d Ripepi would have preferred John Kasich as the Republican nominee, because he sees the Ohio governor as more fiscally conservative. He will vote for Trump, he said, because of the alternative. “[Hillary] Clinton has always held herself above the law,â€\x9d he said. “The most recent stuff that came out [about her use of a private email server while secretary of state], the FBI said she was wrong but they didn’t indict her. If I did that, I would be in jail. This is not about a woman. This is about a political way of life.â€\x9d He added: “Despite the fact Donald Trump and I are so far apart on our values, I cannot continue to support or vote for the established liberal party.â€\x9d Brenda Miller, pharmacy worker, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania A mother of four, Miller works in a mom-and-pop pharmacy in Lehman Township and knows about economic challenges. In March, her husband was laid off from the coal mines near Hazeltown. He was able to find a new job. Miller described herself as “a born and raised Democratâ€\x9d who in 2008 wrote in Hillary Clinton, because she wanted a woman in the Oval Office. “It was our time,â€\x9d she thought. But she didn’t vote in 2012. “I was disgusted,â€\x9d she said. “I couldn’t believe they wanted Obama for a second time.â€\x9d This year, she said, she was planning to vote for Trump. In the primary, he got 77.4% of the vote in Luzerne County. “We just need a new person,â€\x9d she said. “It has been the Bushes, the Clintons, I think we need a fresh start.â€\x9d Robert Katrainak, meat cutter, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Describing himself as a lifelong Democrat who voted for Barack Obama twice, Katrainak said Trump would get his vote this year. “I think Trump is getting a lot of support because Bill Clinton started Nafta,â€\x9d he said, referring to a controversial trade agreement. “I used to work for a company called Carter Footwear. I was a union steward. They passed Nafta, and three weeks later, there were 249 people without jobs. People that worked for Carter Footwear for 20 to 30 years didn’t have anywhere to go. Katrainiak spent $350 to have an illuminated sign made and installed on his property, by the highway. It reads: “VOTE Donald Trump. BEAT Crooked Hillary.â€\x9d “People love my sign,â€\x9d he said. “People always honk their horns when they pass.â€\x9d Elson See, retired farmer, Hampshire County, West Virginia Known to other patrons at Shirley’s Diner only by his nickname, “Buckâ€\x9d, See is a local celebrity. His long life has been chronicled in a biography, An Uncommon Man, which covers his humble beginnings on a small farm, military service in Germany toward the end of the second world war, and a struggle with a crippling illness. People in West Virginia, he said, tend to vote by party. It has been that way since the 1930s, when most people voted Democratic, but: “People are getting tired of it. They are going for the Republican this year.â€\x9d He blamed Barack Obama for shutting down jobs in the coal industry. “When they shut down the coal fields, they shut down all of eastern West Virginia,â€\x9d he said. “And people are part of that.â€\x9d Sydney Gore, nursing student, Grafton, West Virginia Born and raised in a coal-mining community in Logan County, in the southern part of West Virginia, the 18-year-old came to Morgantown to study nursing at the West Virginia University. During the summer, she worked as a waitress at Jerry’s Restaurant in nearby Grafton. Gore said her father started working in the coal mines at age 18, he is now 45 and there is no longer work for him in the mines. The family had to move from Logan County for him to find other work. After Clinton made a public statement during the primary about “putting coal companies out of businessâ€\x9d, Gore said, voting for the Democrat was out of the question. She plans to vote for Trump.',
 "Fantastic Negrito: the drug-dealing hustler who became Bernie Sanders' favourite bluesman “You wanna hear my robbery tactics?â€\x9d says the rangy 48-year-old sitting opposite me in a Soho ramen house. “I’d make friends with the kid that was not that popular. I’d go to his house. I’d find a house key and secretly make a copy. Then I’d find out the schedule of the family. Then, when they were gone, I’d make my move. I was that kind of robber.â€\x9d Ask Xavier Dphrepaulezz (it’s pronounced “dee-FREP-ah-lezâ€\x9d) about any of his past lives – including his teenage years of petty crime while in foster care – and he has a way of taking you to the heart of the action. His story is, by any criteria, extraordinary, and the enjoyment he derives from sharing it is infectious. The singer, who describes himself as a lifelong hustler, landed in London this morning for the first time in a decade. Last time he was here, long before his current incarnation as Fantastic Negrito, he was briefly the blue-haired frontman of Blood Sugar X, a manic Cali-funk-punk collective “in the tradition of bands like Bad Brains and Fishboneâ€\x9d. Ten years earlier, he was simply Xavier, peddling innocuous MTV funk before a car crash put him in a coma for three weeks and laid his pop star aspirations to waste. Far from distancing himself from all these personas, Dphrepaulezz places his phone on the table and Googles them for you, lest you imagine he has anything to hide. After half a lifetime spent chasing a break, Dphrepaulezz’s luck turned when he stopped trying. To start with, there was the DIY video for his song Lost in a Crowd, which last year saw off more than 7,000 allcomers to win the National Public Radio (NPR) Tiny Desk competition. He was railroaded into submitting the song by the other members of Blackball Universe, the Californian arts cooperative he co-founded to create a structure of mutual support among struggling black artists. Dphrepaulezz’s prize was the chance to follow in the footsteps of Adele and Florence and the Machine – and record a concert for NPR. One person who connected with Dphrepaulezz’s urgent blues epistles was Bernie Sanders. It’s easy to see why a man running for the Democratic presidential nomination on a leftwing ticket might seize on, say, a song called Working Poor. When Sanders heard it, he enlisted Dphrepaulezz to play at events around the primaries in New Hampshire and Nevada. On the day we meet, the singer will be beamed across the US, thanks to a performance in Fox’s music industry drama Empire. That’s Fantastic Negrito you can also hear on Ron Perlman’s Amazon series Hand of God: the show’s theme song is the battle-weary testifying of An Honest Man. Dphrepaulezz seems as much a bemused onlooker as a participant in the events of his life. The first time he heard any of the blues records that inform Fantastic Negrito’s debut album, The Last Days of Oakland, their concerns seemed a world away from his own. Aged eight, Dphrepaulezz was visiting relatives in south Virginia. The music playing in their house bore as little relevance to his life as the classical-pop records favoured by his father – a half-Somalian, half-Caribbean restaurateur born in 1905. Until the age of 12, home for Dphrepaulezz and his 14 siblings was rural Massachusetts. “My dad was a strict Muslim. He had a lot of rules,â€\x9d he recalls. You probably have to be strict, I suggest, if you’re raising 15 kids. “Well,â€\x9d he shoots back, “he wasn’t strict when he was making them.â€\x9d When the family moved to California in 1979, setting up home across the bay from San Francisco in Oakland, they were in effect releasing him into the wild. Gang-controlled drug-dealing had brought the city to the brink of lawlessness. Confronted by “this explosion of countercultureâ€\x9d – hip-hop, thrash metal and punk all meeting in one location – Dphrepaulezz made new friends, left home and didn’t come back. “We were all selling drugs, man. We all carried pistols. There was a crack epidemic. Mostly, I was small-time. I was the kind of kid who would sell fake weed, shit like that. Sometimes I would use tea. What was it that the Beatles would smoke from a pipe in order to try and get high? Typhoid?â€\x9d Typhoo tea? “That’s the shit!â€\x9d Dphrepaulezz’s saving grace was that, even as a teenage drug-dealer, he avoided ingesting anything heavier than weed. This period, spent pinballing between foster families, seems to have hardened his political outlook. “As long as we have have predatory capitalism,â€\x9d he says, “we’ll have guns, because the gun industry loves to make money out of guns. They don’t care if children die. What concerns them is profit.â€\x9d Dphrepaulezz rarely gets emotional when going over these distant memories. But the death of Prince is another matter. “His Dirty Mind album changed everything for me,â€\x9d he says, momentarily faltering. “Someone told me he was self-taught and that opened the door for me. I was 18 and getting into trouble. I was thinking, ‘What can I do that’s safe?’ So I started teaching myself how to play.â€\x9d His method was nothing if not ingenious. He “grew long sideburnsâ€\x9d and pretended to be a student at the University of Berkeley. Taking the 40-minute bus ride north every day, he would head for its music rooms, copying students as they practised their scales. By day, he was not quite a student; by night, he was not quite a gangster. The realisation that he was “small-timeâ€\x9d came when he and his friends bought some firearms from a gang, who returned to their house, held Dphrepaulezz at knifepoint and took the rest of their money. “The next day I got out. I hitchhiked to LA with $100 and a keyboard.â€\x9d There, Dphrepaulezz was surprised to find that a decade of hustling had been the perfect music business apprenticeship. A deal with Prince’s former manager was followed in 1993 by a $1m deal with Interscope, which he almost instantly regretted. Released in 1996, Xavier’s passable debut album The X-Factor pleased neither himself nor his hit-hungry paymasters. Three years of limbo ensued, which were broken one Thanksgiving evening. Dphrepaulezz’s car was hit by a drunk driver who ran a red light. “I fishtailed and rolled over four lanes of traffic.â€\x9d The first thing he remembers after waking up three weeks later was the sensation of having a beard – not that he could lift his arms to feel it. The accident had broken both his arms and his legs, leaving his strumming hand mangled. Far from sending him into freefall, Dphrepaulezz says the crash “releasedâ€\x9d him. Interscope terminated his contract and Dphrepaulezz reverted to the only other thing he knew: the hustle. Noticing that the only nightclubbing opportunities in LA involved “$20 for parking, $20 to get in, and at least $20 when you’re in, I converted the warehouse where I lived in South Central into an illegal nightclub. I knocked down a few walls and built a bar that looked kind of like a pimps-from-outer-space thing. Velvet movie theatre seats. A hot tub on the roof. Nude body painting.â€\x9d When Club Bingo wasn’t paying host to a clientele that included Alicia Silverstone, Mike Tyson and Eric Benét, its creator was working under a bewildering array of alter egos – among them Chocolate Butterfly, Me and This Japanese Guy and the aforementioned Blood Sugar X – and licensing material to film and TV shows. When he and his Japanese partner had a son, he stopped looking for further incarnations, sold all of his equipment except for one guitar, moved back to Oakland and bought himself a smallholding with no greater plan than to supplement his publishing royalties by growing “medical marijuanaâ€\x9d and eating homegrown corn, tomatoes and freshly laid eggs. Five years had elapsed since he last played his guitar. His fingers were still crooked from the accident, but he had just enough mobility to play a G chord for his son in an attempt to stop him from crying. “His entire face changed,â€\x9d recalls the proud father. He learned the Beatles’ Across the Universe and played it to him every night for a year. With that came a slew of new songs, informed this time by the blues records that had bewildered him on that childhood vacation in Virginia. “In the middle of the conflict between me myself and lies / I saw people die for nothing / I sold coke to hungry eyes,â€\x9d went his first song, Night Turned to Day. Together with Malcolm Spellman, his longtime Oakland friend who would go on to write Empire, Dphrepaulezz threw his publishing royalties into the Oakland art gallery, label and creative space that became their Blackball Universe cooperative. Within strolling distance is the Blues Walk of Fame, which commemorates musicians who passed through the city in its pre-gentrification days. “Black roots music is part of our story here,â€\x9d says Dphrepaulezz. “Our art comes from their struggle. You think of that and you stay humble.â€\x9d But to really understand why Dphrepaulezz is now succeeding, you have to see him in action. A few days later, at London’s Rough Trade East, near the end of an electrifying performance, he plays Lost in the Crowd. As his clawed hand plays the last chord, he loosens his neck tie, leans into the mic and revisits its inception. “My collective calls me a narcissist,â€\x9d he tells the crowd. “They were like, ‘Will you stop writing about yourself? Go look at people! Look around! Aren’t people interesting to you?’ So they sent me off to Berkeley, San Francisco, and told me to watch people for a day. Just sit and watch. So that’s what I did. And that’s what this song is.â€\x9d It’s surely no surprise that Dphrepaulezz sees his own values reflected in those of Sanders. It was the collective power of a wider group that launched Fantastic Negrito on to the world, while the “predatory capitalismâ€\x9d against which he rails almost claimed him before he reached adulthood. Back at the ramen house, he tries one more time to make sense of the past few years. “I thought my story was over. But that was when I realised I finally had a story to tell – and it seems to remind people of their own story.â€\x9d • The Last Days of Oakland is out now on Blackball Universe",
 'Despite the Falling Snow review – creaky cold-war thriller in cold-tea sepia A stolidly old-fashioned, rather bafflingly preposterous spy-tale-slash-love-story is what this creaky film offers, directed by Sharim Sharif and adapted by the director from her own 2004 novel. It features laborious acting and directing, and a screenplay whose revelations are uninteresting, even were they not guessable long in advance. It is like Jeffrey Archer with a twist. The time frame flashes back and forth between the early 60s and the early 90s. In cold war America, ambitious young Russian diplomat Sacha (Sam Reid) has arrived with a trade delegation, planning to defect – but will his beautiful young wife Katya (Rebecca Ferguson) be able to escape with him? This story is interspersed with scenes from Glasnost Russia of 1992, in which old Sacha is played by Charles Dance and his young niece Lauren, an artist keen to discover the truth about her family, played again by Ferguson. Whatever potential subtlety and complexity we are promised does not materialise — only hammy airport-bestseller histrionics, and the whole movie sometimes seems submerged in a kind of cold-tea sepia look, appropriate to its historical background.',
 'Boris Johnson is nicer than Trump but just as divisive, says Ken Clarke The campaign to leave the EU has turned into a leadership bid by Boris Johnson, Ken Clarke has said – calling him simply a nicer version of Donald Trump. The former Tory cabinet minister, who has served as chancellor and home secretary, suggested Johnson was exploiting people’s fears about immigration in a similar way to Trump, the controversial US presidential candidate who is expected to become the Republican nominee. “I think Boris and Donald Trump should go away for a bit and enjoy themselves and not get in the way of the serious issues that modern countries in the 21st century face,â€\x9d Clarke said. “He’s a much nicer version of Donald Trump but the campaign’s remarkably similar in my opinion and about as relevant to the real problems the public face. “The personalities get in the way and it’s no good turning the leave campaign into a leadership bid for Boris Johnson and anti-immigrant fears.â€\x9d Clarke’s accusations highlight the increasingly acrimonious divide between senior Conservatives campaigning on different sides of the EU debate. Johnson and Michael Gove, the justice secretary, have been scathing about Downing Street’s record on immigration. They have said that Cameron’s failure to reduce immigration was “corrosiveâ€\x9d of voters’ trust in politicians, while David Cameron and George Osborne have rubbished the leave campaign’s economic claims. There is particular fury among pro-Brexit campaigners that Cameron is fighting so hard to keep the UK in the EU, with backbench Tory MPs Andrew Bridgen and Nadine Dorries calling for him to face a motion of no confidence. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, Clarke dismissed these threats to Cameron’s premiership as a diversion at the same time as claiming that Johnson was using the leave campaign as a vehicle for a leadership challenge. “All this stuff about whether one or two backbenchers have signed a letter calling for David Cameron to resign, I think most of the public would agree is a bit of a diversion,â€\x9d he said. “The public are getting fed up of Tory civil wars when they thought they were being asked about the future of this country for their children and grandchildren. “Why are the leave campaign turning the whole thing into an argument about Turkish criminals about to flood into the country and Boris Johnson’s bid for the leadership?â€\x9d',
 'Five brokers found not guilty of helping Tom Hayes rig Libor rate Five brokers accused of helping rig the Libor interest rate have been found not guilty by a jury at Southwark crown court in London. In a large blow to the Serious Fraud Office, five of the six brokers accused of helping Tom Hayes – who is serving 11 years in prison – to rig Libor have been cleared. The judge has asked the jury to reach a majority verdict on the sixth. The brokers on a trial were Darrell Read, Danny Wilkinson and Colin Goodman, who worked at Icap, Noel Cryan, formerly of Tullett Prebon, and Jim Gilmour and Terry Farr, who worked at RP Martin. The jury reached a not guilty verdict on one count of conspiracy to defraud faced by Read, but is yet to reach a verdict on the second count. The trial of the brokers has lasted 15 weeks, but the jury was out for less than a day before revealing its verdicts. The brokers, whose nicknames included “Lord Liborâ€\x9d and “Big Noseâ€\x9d, were accused of acting as gobetweens by passing around requests from traders and being paid extra commission by Hayes. The jury will return on Thursday.',
 "For the Republican party, it's Trumpocalypse Now There will be those in the Republican and conservative establishment who will try to spin the Super Tuesday results. Some among the GOP chattering classes will tell you that Trump didn’t get the knock-out punch he wanted – that there is still a chance to restore order. Don’t believe it. The numbers make it clear that, for the Republican party, it’s Trumpocalypse Now. While Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas as well as Oklahoma, and Rubio ran him close in Virginia and actually managed to win Minnesota, Trump dominated elsewhere. His success extended from Massachusetts to Georgia to Alabama to Tennessee to Oklahoma. He won in Ted Cruz’s south, and he won in the north-east, where a more establishment-friendly candidate like Marco Rubio was supposed to prevail. Trump is winning with men and women, moderates and conservatives, with the young and the old. Trump is winning despite a weekend of unforced errors – after failing to repudiate former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. Trump is winning even after taking political napalm from Marco Rubio since last week’s debate – with Rubio ridiculing his rival on the trail for days. Trump is winning despite the fact that the Republican speaker of the House and majority whip in the Senate both criticized him this week. He is winning in spite of the fact that almost every big name Republican officer-holder and mega-donor is lined up behind his opponents. The race is not technically over. While Trump will win the lion’s share of delegates tonight, both Cruz and Rubio will pick up delegates and spend the next couple of weeks trying to convince voters and donors that they can stop the frontrunner – that they have a path to the nomination. Whether or not either of these men can really achieve that at this point – and I remain highly skeptical, despite Cruz’s two-state win – the day of reckoning for the Republican party has arrived. Whatever happens, what neither Cruz nor Rubio nor anyone else can do is to stop the forces that Trump’s candidacy has unleashed. It’s no longer possible to say the Republican party is a conservative party. You can’t even say the Republican party’s base is conservative. It appears that a new, populist-nationalist wing has wrested control of the of the GOP away from its familiar constituency. This is no longer the party of William F Buckley and Jack Kemp. It’s now the party of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. Trump’s opponents have argued that he has run a campaign devoid of policy. That is simply not true: he’s taken plenty of policy positions. Unfortunately for traditional Republicans, almost every one of them is complete anathema to conservatives, from trade, to entitlement reform, to healthcare, to the power of the federal government. While Rubio and Cruz fight he battle to keep a hold on the party in the short term, they have already lost the war. The carpet bombing that the stop-Trump forces now believe is necessary to keep him from winning the nomination will only serve to widen and deepen the schism between the conservative and the populist-nationalist wings. The Trump campaign and its stunning success represents a fundamental reordering of forces in the Republican party. If you are traditional, limited government conservative in the GOP, this Super Tuesdsay will truly have made you exclaim “the horror, the horrorâ€\x9d.",
 "Viva Trump: meet Donald Trump's Hispanic supporters ‘Trump is our wakeup call’ Raul Rodriguez, 74, Apple Valley, California I always carry a bullhorn with me to rallies and campaign events. Into it I shout: “America, wake up!â€\x9d Americans have been asleep for way too long. We need to realise that the future of our country is at stake. If we don’t elect Donald Trump, we’ll get another four years of Barack Obama and frankly, I don’t know what would happen to this wonderful country of ours. Obama has already done so much to destroy our way of life and Hillary Clinton is promising to carry on where he left off. Like Obama, she wants to change our fundamental values – the ones people like my father fought to defend. My father was born in Durango, Mexico. When he came to the US he joined the military and served as a medic during the second world war. He was a very proud American – he truly loved this country. I think I got my sense of patriotism from him. Obama and Hillary Clinton want to have open borders. They let illegal immigrants cross our borders and now they want to accept thousands of Syrians. We don’t know who these people are. If they want to come to this country, they have to do it the right way, like my father did it. I’m tired of politicians telling voters what they want to hear and then returning to Washington and doing whatever their party tells them to do. Politicians are supposed to represent the people – not their parties or their donors. Part of the reason I like Donald Trump is because he isn’t an established politician. Sometimes that hurts him and people get offended. But the truth hurts. Even if he doesn’t say it well, he’s not wrong. Trump is our wakeup call. ‘Democrats treat Latinos as if we’re all one big group’ Ximena Barreto, 31, San Diego, California I was in primary school in my native Colombia when my father was murdered. I was six – just one year older than my daughter is now. My father was an officer in the Colombian army at a time when wearing a uniform made you a target for narcoterrorists, Farc fighters and guerrilla groups. What I remember clearly from those early years is the bombing and the terror. I was so afraid, especially after my dad died. At night, I would curl up in my mother’s bed while she held me close. She could not promise me that everything was going to be all right, because it wasn’t true. I don’t want my daughter to grow up like that. But when I turn on my TV, I see terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and in Orlando. There are dangerous people coming across our borders. Trump was right. Some are rapists and criminals, but some are good people, too. But how do we know who is who, when you come here illegally? I moved to the US in 2006 on a work permit. It took nearly five years and thousands of dollars to become a US citizen. I know the process is not perfect, but it’s the law. Why would I want illegals coming in when I had to go through this? It’s not fair that they’re allowed to jump the line and take advantage of so many benefits, ones that I pay for with my tax dollars. People assume that because I’m a woman, I should vote for the woman; or that because I’m Latina, I should vote for the Democrat. The Democrats have been pandering to minorities and women for the last 50 years. They treat Latinos as if we’re all one big group. I’m Colombian – I don’t like Mariachi music. Donald Trump is not just saying what he thinks people want to hear, he’s saying what they’re afraid to say. I believe that he’s the only candidate who can make America strong and safe again. ‘Trump beat the system: what’s more American than that?’ Bertran Usher, 20, Inglewood, California Donald Trump is the candidate America deserves. For decades, Americans have bemoaned politicians and Washington insiders. We despise political speak and crave fresh, new ideas. When you ask for someone with no experience, this is what you get. It’s like saying you don’t want a doctor to operate on you. But Trump is a big FU to America. He beat the system and proved everyone wrong. What’s more American than that? As a political science student who one day hopes to go into politics, I am studying this election closely. Both candidates are deeply unpopular and people of my generation are not happy with their choices. I believe we can learn what not to do from this election. I see how divided the country is, and it’s the clearest sign that politicians will have to learn to work together to make a difference. It’s not always easy, but I’ve seen this work. I was raised in a multicultural household. My mother, a Democrat, is Latino and African American, raised in the inner city of Los Angeles. My father, a Republican, is an immigrant from Belize. My parents and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but our spirited debates have helped add nuance to my politics. I’m in favour of small government, but I support gay rights. I believe welfare is an important service for Americans who need it, but I think our current programme needs to be scaled back. I think we need to have stricter enforcement of people who come to the country illegally, but I don’t think we should deport the DREAMers [children of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally, named after the 2001 Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act]. Trump can be a nut, but I think he’s the best candidate in this election. Though there are issues of his I disagree with, at least he says what’s on his mind, as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who hides what she’s thinking behind her smile. It’s up to my generation to fix the political mess we’re in. I plan to be a part of the solution. ‘Trump’s The Art Of The Deal inspired me to be a businessman’ Omar Navarro, 27, Torrance, California When I was a kid, people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would tell them: I want to be president of the United States. If that doesn’t work out, I want to be a billionaire like Trump. In a way, I supported him long before he announced he was running for president. He was my childhood hero. I read The Art Of The Deal as a student; it inspired me to become a businessman. Now I own a small business and am running for Congress in California’s 43rd district. Trump built an empire and a strong brand that’s recognisable all around the world; he’s a household name and a world-class businessman. Almost anywhere you go, you can see the mark of Donald Trump on a building or property. When I see that, I see the American Dream. Some people ask me how I can support Donald Trump as the son of a Mexican and Cuban immigrants. They are categorising me. In this country we label people: Hispanic, African American, Asian, Caucasian. We separate and divide people into social categories based on race, ethnicity, gender and creed. To me, this is a form of racism. I’m proud of my Hispanic heritage but I’m an American, full stop. Like all immigrants, my parents came to this country for a better opportunity. But they did it legally. They didn’t cut the line. They assimilated to the American way of life, learned English and opened small businesses. Why should we allow people to skirt the law? Imagine making a dinner reservation and arriving at the restaurant to find out that another family has been seated at your table. How is that fair? We have to have laws and as a country we must enforce those laws. A society without laws is just anarchy. If someone invited you to their house and asked you to remove your shoes would you keep them on? If we don’t enforce the rules, why would anyone respect them? I believe Donald Trump will enforce the rules. ‘He has taken a strong stand against abortion’ Jimena Rivera, 20, student at the University of Texas at Brownsville I’m Mexican, so I don’t have a vote, but I support Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who opposes abortion. He may have wavered in the beginning, but since becoming the nominee he has taken a strong stand against abortion. Hillary Clinton is running as the leader of a party that has pushed a very pro-choice platform. Even Democrats like her running mate, Tim Kaine, who is a devout Catholic, compromise their faith to support abortion. I don’t always agree with his positions on immigration. I see the border wall every day. I’m not convinced that it’s effective. The people who want to cross will find a way. I don’t think it’s right that they do, but most of them are looking for a better way of life. A wall won’t stop them. ‘Lower taxes and less regulation will create more jobs’ Marissa Desilets, 22, Palm Springs, California I am a proud Hispanic conservative Republican woman. I became politically engaged as a political science and economics major at university. By my junior year, I was a member of the campus Republicans’ club. As a student of economics, I am very impressed with Trump’s economic agenda. I believe we must cut taxes for everyone and eliminate the death tax. Lowering taxes and reeling back regulations will create more jobs – meaning more tax-paying Americans. This in turn will generate more revenue for the Treasury. I also support Trump because he favours strong leadership and promised to preserve the constitution of the United States. We must have a rule of law in this country. We must close our open borders. Like Trump says: “a nation without borders is not a nation.â€\x9d This doesn’t mean we should not allow any immigrants. We should welcome new immigrants who choose to legally enter our beautiful country. This won’t be the case if Hillary Clinton becomes president. I would expect the poor to become poorer and our country to become divided. I believe that liberals’ reckless domestic spending will bankrupt our future generations. I refuse to support a party that desires to expand the government and take away my civil liberties. ‘He has gone through so many divorces, yet raised such a close-knit family’ Dr Alexander Villicana, 80, Pasadena, California I am an example of the opportunities this country has to offer. My parents came from Mexico at the turn of the 20th century. They were not educated but they worked hard to make a better life for us and it paid off. I went to school and studied cosmetic surgery. Now I work as a plastic surgeon and have been in practice for the last 40 years. I have a beautiful family and my health. I am Hispanic – but I am a citizen of the United States and I feel very patriotic for this country that has given me so much. I’m supporting Trump because I agree with his vision for our economy. He has experience at the negotiating table, so he knows what to do to create jobs and increase workers’ salaries. In Trump’s America people would be rewarded for their hard work rather than penalised with hefty taxes. The security of our nation is a top priority for me. I think it would be impossible to deport 11 million people who are here illegally, but we have to do a better job of understanding who is in our country and who is trying to come into our country. A lot of what Trump says, especially about security and immigration, is twisted by the media. What he said about Mexicans, for example, that wasn’t negative – it was the truth. There are Mexicans bringing over drugs and perpetrating rapes. But what he also said – and the media completely ignored – is that many Mexicans are good people coming over for a better quality of life. He may be blunt and occasionally offensive but I find him likable. I was so impressed by Trump and his family at the Republican National Convention. It’s hard for me to imagine that someone who has gone through so many divorces has managed to raise such a close-knit family. None of his children had to work and yet they spoke with eloquence and integrity about their father. ‘When Trump is harsh about Mexicans, he is right’ Francisco Rivera, 43, Huntington Park, California People ask me how I can support Donald Trump. I say, let me tell you a story. I was in line at the movie theatre recently when I saw a young woman toss her cupcake into a nearby planter as if it were a trash can. I walked over to her and said, “Honey, excuse me, does that look like a garbage can to you?â€\x9d And you know what she told me? “There’s already trash in the planter, so what does it matter?â€\x9d I asked her what part of Mexico she was from. She seemed surprised and asked how I knew she was from Mexico. “Look at what you just did,â€\x9d I told her. “Donald Trump may sound harsh when he speaks about Mexicans, but he is right. It’s people like you that make everyone look bad.â€\x9d I moved from Mexico with my family when I was seven. I still carry a photo of my brother and I near our home, to remind people how beautiful the city once was. Now I spend my time erasing graffiti from the walls and picking up trash. Sixty years ago, we accepted immigrants into our country who valued the laws, rules and regulations that made America the land of opportunity. Back in those days, people worked hard to improve themselves and their communities. I’m tired of living in a lawless country. It’s like we put a security guard at the front door, but the Obama administration unlocked the back door. And I have seen what my own people have done to this country. They want to convert America into the country they left behind. This country has given me so many opportunities I wouldn’t have had if my mom had raised her family in Mexico. I want America to be great again, and that’s why in November I am going to vote for Donald Trump. ‘I voted for Obama twice, but Hillary gets a free pass’ Teresa Mendoza, 44, Mesa, Arizona In my day job I am a real estate agent but every now and then I dabble in standup comedy. Comedy used to be a safe space. You could say whatever you wanted to and it was understood that it was meant to make people laugh. Now everything has to be politically correct. You can’t say “Hand me the black crayonâ€\x9d without someone snapping back at you: “What do you mean by that?â€\x9d Donald Trump offended a lot of people when he gave the speech calling [Mexicans] rapists and criminals but he didn’t offend me. I was a liberal Democrat all my life. Before this I voted for Obama twice. I wanted to be a part of history. If it wasn’t for Obamacare and the ridiculous growth of our federal government, I’d probably still be a Democrat, asleep at the wheel. But I woke up and realised I’m actually much more in line with Republicans on major policy points. I like to joke that I’m an original anchor baby. My parents came from Mexico in the 1970s under the Bracero work programme making me a California-born Chicana. We later became US citizens. But now that I’m a Republican, Hillary Clinton is trying to tell me I’m “alt-rightâ€\x9d. It’s strange isn’t it? All of a sudden I’m a white nationalist. My sons and I go back and forth. They don’t like Trump. But it’s what they’re hearing in school, from their friends and teachers, who are all getting their news from the same biased news outlets. I’m very concerned about the role the media is taking in this election. The networks sensationalise and vilify Trump while they give Hillary Clinton a free pass. It amazes me. I don’t care if Trump likes to eat his fried chicken with a fork and a knife. I do care that Clinton has not been held responsible for the Benghazi attacks.",
 ...]

# Initialize regex tokenizer
# reference https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56821101/can-someone-explain-me-what-is-the-meaning-of-all-the-code-inside-these-parenthe
tokenizer = RegexpTokenizer(r'\w+')

# Vectorize document using TF-IDF
tfidf = TfidfVectorizer(lowercase=True,
                        stop_words='english',
                        ngram_range = (1,1),
                        tokenizer = tokenizer.tokenize)

# Fit and Transform the documents
train_data = tfidf.fit_transform(documents_list)   

/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/sklearn/feature_extraction/text.py:528: UserWarning: The parameter 'token_pattern' will not be used since 'tokenizer' is not None'
  warnings.warn(

# Define the number of topics or components
num_components=10

# Create SVD object
lsa = TruncatedSVD(n_components=num_components, n_iter=100, random_state=42)

# Fit SVD model on data
lsa.fit_transform(train_data)

# Get Singular values and Components 
Sigma = lsa.singular_values_ 
V_transpose = lsa.components_.T

# Print the topics with their terms
terms = tfidf.get_feature_names_out()

for index, component in enumerate(lsa.components_):
    zipped = zip(terms, component)
    top_terms_key=sorted(zipped, key = lambda t: t[1], reverse=True)[:5]
    top_terms_list=list(dict(top_terms_key).keys())
    print("Topic "+str(index)+": ",top_terms_list)

Topic 0:  ['â', 's', 'trump', 'said', 't']
Topic 1:  ['trump', 'clinton', 'trumpâ', 'republican', 'donald']
Topic 2:  ['league', 's', 'min', 'season', 'film']
Topic 3:  ['health', 'nhs', 'mental', 'â', 'care']
Topic 4:  ['bank', 'health', 'nhs', 'banks', 'trump']

Topic 5:  ['health', 'nhs', 'mental', 'care', 'eu']
Topic 6:  ['s', 'min', 'trump', 'film', 'care']
Topic 7:  ['min', 'â', 'corner', 'ball', 'yards']
Topic 8:  ['film', 'min', 'said', 'films', 'movie']
Topic 9:  ['album', 'music', 'song', 'nhs', 'pop']

!pip uninstall Twint -y

Found existing installation: twint 2.1.21
Uninstalling twint-2.1.21:
  Successfully uninstalled twint-2.1.21

# # instal Twint 
!pip3 install --upgrade git+https://github.com/twintproject/twint.git@origin/master#egg=twint
!pip install nest_asyncio

Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://us-python.pkg.dev/colab-wheels/public/simple/
Collecting twint
  Cloning https://github.com/twintproject/twint.git (to revision origin/master) to /tmp/pip-install-n5i3a3qt/twint_f5ea00425d1b490da1c6249a505f48c0
  Running command git clone --filter=blob:none --quiet https://github.com/twintproject/twint.git /tmp/pip-install-n5i3a3qt/twint_f5ea00425d1b490da1c6249a505f48c0

  WARNING: Did not find branch or tag 'origin/master', assuming revision or ref.
  Running command git checkout -q origin/master
  Resolved https://github.com/twintproject/twint.git to commit origin/master

  Preparing metadata (setup.py) ... ?25l?25hdone
Requirement already satisfied: aiohttp in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (3.8.4)
Requirement already satisfied: aiodns in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (3.0.0)
Requirement already satisfied: beautifulsoup4 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (4.11.2)
Requirement already satisfied: cchardet in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (2.1.7)
Requirement already satisfied: dataclasses in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (0.6)
Requirement already satisfied: elasticsearch in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (8.7.0)
Requirement already satisfied: pysocks in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (1.7.1)
Requirement already satisfied: pandas in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (1.5.3)
Requirement already satisfied: aiohttp_socks in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (0.8.0)
Requirement already satisfied: schedule in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (1.2.0)
Requirement already satisfied: geopy in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (2.3.0)
Requirement already satisfied: fake-useragent in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (1.1.3)
Requirement already satisfied: googletransx in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from twint) (2.4.2)
Requirement already satisfied: pycares>=4.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiodns->twint) (4.3.0)
Requirement already satisfied: attrs>=17.3.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (23.1.0)
Requirement already satisfied: charset-normalizer<4.0,>=2.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (2.0.12)
Requirement already satisfied: multidict<7.0,>=4.5 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (6.0.4)
Requirement already satisfied: async-timeout<5.0,>=4.0.0a3 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (4.0.2)
Requirement already satisfied: yarl<2.0,>=1.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (1.9.2)
Requirement already satisfied: frozenlist>=1.1.1 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (1.3.3)
Requirement already satisfied: aiosignal>=1.1.2 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp->twint) (1.3.1)
Requirement already satisfied: python-socks[asyncio]<3.0.0,>=2.0.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from aiohttp_socks->twint) (2.3.0)
Requirement already satisfied: soupsieve>1.2 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from beautifulsoup4->twint) (2.4.1)
Requirement already satisfied: elastic-transport<9,>=8 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from elasticsearch->twint) (8.4.0)
Requirement already satisfied: geographiclib<3,>=1.52 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from geopy->twint) (2.0)
Requirement already satisfied: requests in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from googletransx->twint) (2.27.1)
Requirement already satisfied: python-dateutil>=2.8.1 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from pandas->twint) (2.8.2)
Requirement already satisfied: pytz>=2020.1 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from pandas->twint) (2022.7.1)
Requirement already satisfied: numpy>=1.21.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from pandas->twint) (1.22.4)
Requirement already satisfied: urllib3<2,>=1.26.2 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from elastic-transport<9,>=8->elasticsearch->twint) (1.26.15)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from elastic-transport<9,>=8->elasticsearch->twint) (2022.12.7)
Requirement already satisfied: cffi>=1.5.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from pycares>=4.0.0->aiodns->twint) (1.15.1)
Requirement already satisfied: six>=1.5 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from python-dateutil>=2.8.1->pandas->twint) (1.16.0)
Requirement already satisfied: idna>=2.0 in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from yarl<2.0,>=1.0->aiohttp->twint) (3.4)
Requirement already satisfied: pycparser in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (from cffi>=1.5.0->pycares>=4.0.0->aiodns->twint) (2.21)

Building wheels for collected packages: twint

  Building wheel for twint (setup.py) ... ?25l?25hdone
  Created wheel for twint: filename=twint-2.1.21-py3-none-any.whl size=38850 sha256=8158ecad0665104cf980fa1571430491b2ce8649c9984bbf490ffb725060027b
  Stored in directory: /tmp/pip-ephem-wheel-cache-69eokxr4/wheels/82/53/6a/1748715999869633a137492ae93351d1c6a41e642549f7a822
Successfully built twint

Installing collected packages: twint
  Attempting uninstall: twint
    Found existing installation: twint 2.1.20
    Uninstalling twint-2.1.20:
      Successfully uninstalled twint-2.1.20

Successfully installed twint-2.1.21

Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://us-python.pkg.dev/colab-wheels/public/simple/
Requirement already satisfied: nest_asyncio in /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages (1.5.6)

import twint
import nest_asyncio 

nest_asyncio.apply()
c = twint.Config()
c.Limit = 500
c.Search = "capres 2024" # topic
c.Pandas = True
c.Store_csv = True
twint.run.Search(c)
Tweets_df = twint.storage.panda.Tweets_df

RefreshTokenExceptionTraceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-11-e0eea6627a23> in <cell line: 7>()
      5 c.Pandas = True
      6 c.Store_csv = True
----> 7 twint.run.Search(c)
      8 Tweets_df = twint.storage.panda.Tweets_df

/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/twint/run.py in Search(config, callback)
    408     config.Followers = False
    409     config.Profile = False
--> 410     run(config, callback)
    411     if config.Pandas_au:
    412         storage.panda._autoget("tweet")

/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/twint/run.py in run(config, callback)
    327         raise
    328 
--> 329     get_event_loop().run_until_complete(Twint(config).main(callback))
    330 
    331 

/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/twint/run.py in __init__(self, config)
     34         # USAGE : to get a new guest token simply do `self.token.refresh()`
     35         self.token = token.Token(config)
---> 36         self.token.refresh()
     37         self.conn = db.Conn(config.Database)
     38         self.d = datelock.Set(self.config.Until, self.config.Since)

/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/twint/token.py in refresh(self)
     67         else:
     68             self.config.Guest_token = None
---> 69             raise RefreshTokenException('Could not find the Guest token in HTML')

RefreshTokenException: Could not find the Guest token in HTML